COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME
JULY 24, 1996
TESTIMONY OF RON FINO
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate
the honor of appearing before you and the members of the Subcommittee on Crime.
In order that the context and perspective of my comments are understood,
perhaps I should briefly outline my background.
Entering the FBI in 1971,
I was soon assigned to the investigation of organized crime matters in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For the next six years, my investigative efforts focused
upon the Frank Balistrieri La Cosa Nostra (LCN) crime family in Milwaukee.-an
extremely cohesive and violent band of thugs who controlled through murder,
extortion and bombings a variety of industries in Milwaukee, including the
vegetable produce trade, as well as several local labor unions.
A few courageous
business-owners attempted to thwart the Balistrieri family's influence over
their legitimate affairs, but were coldly shot down in broad daylight or blown
into smithereens when entering their automobiles and igniting a cowardly-placed
explosive device. Informants closely connected to the Balistricri family
fearfully informed the FBI that the Balistrieri family would stop at nothing in
their efforts to control legitimate businesses and labor union activity in
Milwaukee, and despite the Bureau's intense efforts to penetrate the
Balistrieri family's operations, we were largely unsuccessful in cracking the
thick shell protecting this very insular family until the 1980s. But I'm
getting ahead of myself.
In the mid-1970s, I coordinated
for the FBI from Milwaukee all investigations nation-wide into "Gangland
Slayings", a brutal but uniquely-effective Mob oversight tool wherein LCN
members or associates that transgressed underworld policy (or incurred the
wrath of Mob bosses) found themselves gunned down or beaten to death by their
former colleagues.' As a consequence of our work in this horrific arena, the
FBI identified scores of deceased victims of Mob brutality, but unfortunately,
we were seldom able to bring the cases to court due to an absence of
cooperating (or living) witnesses, even though in almost every case we knew
from informants who ordered the killings, as well as the identities of the mob
members who actually carried out the crime. -Most of those heinous crimes to
this day have never been adjudicated, and the murderers remain on the streets
even as we meet here today, simply awaiting their next order to kill. And the
fact that we know who the shooters are and can do nothing about it, manifestly
intensifies our frustration and anxiety when considering who their next victim
might be..
In 1977, I was transferred
to Las Vegas FBI where I served both as a case agent on LCN investigations and
also was designated as Organized Crime Coordinator.
For the next several years,
I witnessed first-hand the power of the Mob as that abhorrent subculture
dictated the acquisition and financing of casino properties through the control
of labor unions at their highest management levels. My extensive investigative
experience in Las Vegas further convinced me that corruption of labor unions by
Mob interests from Chicago, New York, Cleveland, Kansas City, Los Angeles, San
Diego, Detroit and Milwaukee allowed the LCN to control almost every aspect of
certain casino operations in Las Vegas.
Not only was massive
skimming of casino profits at some properties directed and controlled by Mob
functionaries, but show reservation booths, gift shops, rental car agencies and
tour groups all "kicked back" to the LCN to allow their otherwise legitimate
activities within the confines of certain casino properties to take place
uninterrupted by extortionate demands.
Run out of money
gambling? No problem ... for a
while, anyway. The mob-controlled loanshark would gladly loan you funds at
exorbitant rates--and break your knee-caps if you didn't pay it back. Often a
large debtor to the Mob will (to this day) lose his house pursuant to a quit
claim deed filed by a lawyer who has sold his soul to the LCN. The attorney
then sells the house, collects his fee and the Mob rakes in the profits.
Threats of work stoppages
by certain local labor unions influenced by the Mob also have kept
hotel/casinos in line, assuming Mob coffers of an ever-steady source of
illegitimate income. People refusing cooperation with the mob in Nevada mostly
end up face-down in a shallow desert grave and are yet today classified as
"missing persons" their bones long since scattered by coyotes.
Although Las Vegas is
vastly cleaned up today as a result of outstanding law enforcement activity led
by the FBI, we all should know that the glittering desert city that we visit
today as an entertainment destination was in its vicious genesis created by
greedy La Cosa Nostra members to serve their own unquenchable avarice, and it
is an unarguable fact that American labor unions served both as the investment
capital and operational vehicle supporting and sustaining that creation.
Later transferring to New
Orleans FBI in the early 1980's, I served as the supervisor for the BRILAB
investigation targeting the illegal control of labor unions by the Carlos
Marcello LCN family. Carlos Marcello himself was convicted and jailed in this
signal case, and I then transferred to Kansas City where I assumed the
direction of the investigation into the control and manipulation of the
Teamster's Central States Pension Fund by several Midwestern crime families.
This highly successful FBI
labor racketeering investigation (termed "Strawman-Argent") and
subsequent RICO prosecution by the Organized Crime Strike Force of the Justice
Department, demonstrably proved the absolute command by the LCN of the
Teamster's Union at its highest levels and further resulted in the conviction
and lengthy incarceration of the top Mob leadership of the Chicago, Kansas
City, Cleveland crime families, as well as lengthy jail time for my old
nemesis, Frank Balistrieri, Milwaukee's LCN boss.
Never in an FBI case up to
that point had so many LCN bosses from so many different families been
convicted, and it is my understanding that the recent film, 'Casino' is roughly
based on this momentous investigation.
Promoted to FBI
Headquarters, I soon assumed the role as Acting Unit Chief of the Labor
Racketeering Unit, and in that supervisory role I recommended, drafted and
implemented FBI policy aimed at targeting LCN control of the "big
four" labor unions: the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; the
Laborer's International Union of North America, the Hotel Employee's and
Restaurant Employee's International Union, and the International Longshoreman's
Association.
Overwhelming evidence that
I reviewed from a variety of sources--wiretap evidence, surveillance reports
and informant data--convinced me and other FBI managers that each of these four
international unions was substantially controlled by organized crime interests.
I subsequently wrote a report for the Director of the FBI outlining the Labor
Racketeering Unit's position that the FBI should allocate major special agent
and budgetary resources to the eradication of LCN influence over the affairs of
labor unions and their locals.
Director William Webster
overwhelmingly agreed with this recommendation (as did the President's
Commission on Organized Crime), and I was pleased to see that substantive labor
racketeering investigations were ongoing nationwide upon my departure from the
FBI in December, 1996.
My contacts and friends in
the FBI and the Office of Labor Racketeering (Department of Labor) have
informed me recently that organized crime still remains a major corruptive
influence in this country's labor unions, and my own investigations conducted
for the U.S. Congress over the past eight years in related fields of inquiry
have also confirmed this abiding reality.
By no means is La Cosa
Nostra a dead or dying phenomena, and we must recognize that as long as there
is one LCN member left alive or out of jail, then labor unions are necessarily
threatened. It is a fact that labor unions have always represented the
"gravy train" for the Mob, and that lamentable certainty will not
change unless we reject and prosecute institutionalized corruption in the
American labor movement.
Thank you for this
opportunity to share my experiences with you.