A matter of honor
Subtitle: one cop's lifelong pursuit of John Gotti and the Mob
By: Remo Franceschini.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 1993
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 288
Subjects: Franceschini, Remo.; Gotti, John.; Police -- New York (State) -- New York -- Biography.; Mafia -- New York (State) -- New York -- Case studies.
Description: For thirty-five years, Remo Franceschini chased criminals - especially Mob criminals - in New York City. An Italian-American like many of the organized crime figures he pursued, Remo was driven by his own code. Cracking down on the Mob wasn't just a job for Remo, it was a matter of honor. Remo Franceschini was a hero cop. Early in his career, he and his partner chased a couple of armed robbery suspects into a subway station where the gunmen suddenly began shooting. In.

The point-blank gun battle, one criminal was killed. Remo and his partner survived the deadly shoot-out and were awarded the Police Combat Cross. Remo began doing intelligence work for the police department, especially wiretapping and physical surveillance. While J. Edgar Hoover's FBI was denying there was such a thing as organized crime, Remo became an expert on it. Listening to mobsters browbeat their soldiers and kowtow to their capos, Remo laid out the Mob's secret.

Structure. Soon he was on the trail of Bumpy Johnson, one of New York's most notorious organized crime figures, the "Black Godfather" whose extensive connections made him pivotal. When a new district attorney took over in New York City's Queens County, Remo became commander of the D.A.'s squad of detectives. He immediately began cracking down on the Mob, keeping their faces in front of him on his famous Wall of Crime. Remo criticized the lax security at JFK airport that.

Was producing a gold mine in stolen goods for the Mob; not long afterward the famous Lufthansa heist took place there. His daring raid on a Mott Street gambling den netted more than thirty Mob figures and kept the heat on the mobsters. And he began watching a young Queens wiseguy named John Gotti. Remo saw John Gotti's rise through the ranks of the Gambino crime family, and he kept the pressure on Gotti and his men for years. He turned Gotti's chauffeur into a key.

Informant on the Gambino gang, and then watched as his informant was revealed - at a prosecutor's insistence and over Remo's objections - in one of Gotti's trials. Not long afterward, the informant, Willie Boy Johnson, was found dead, just as Remo had feared would happen. In one especially riveting episode, Remo describes how he personally broke into and bugged Gotti's headquarters even as some of Gotti's men stood directly outside. When some of his detectives worried.

About his safety, Remo asked them, "What are we, mailmen?" Pulling no punches, Remo tells what he thinks will happen to organized crime without John Gotti. He tells how and why Colombian and Chinese drug gangs have been expanding their influence, becoming even more violent than the Italian-American Mob. And he explains why he believes that the police have lost control of the streets (due partly to a loss of respect for the police and partly to changes in the law and in.

Judicial interpretations of the law). Above all, Remo wants to deromanticize John Gotti and organized crime. The Mob that Remo fought isn't the Mob of Hollywood movies. It's full of real-life violent and often murderous criminals whose illegal activities jeopardize everyone. "These guys aren't heroes," Remo says. "They're killers." It was a matter of honor for him to put them away.