Cesare Bonventre
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Cesare "The Tall Guy" Bonventre (January 1, 1951/1956-April 16, 1984) was a New York mobster and member of the Bonanno crime family.
A Sicilian mafiosi brought to the United States by Carmine Galante, Bonventre rose to become an underboss of the "Zips" soon after his arrival. Bonventre became a close associate of Galante and was his bodyguard on the day Galante and two other Bonanno members were murdered in 1979. Although both he and cousin Baldo Amato survived the massacre, Bonventre was arrested by federal agents a week later and eventually released.
Becoming a member of the Brooklyn "crew" under Bonanno capo Salvatore Catalano, he was involved in the importation and drug trafficking of heroin from Sicily into New York pizza parlors, known as the "Pizza Connection". One month prior to the arrests of Catalano, Giuseppe Ganci and others when the "Pizza Connection" scandal broke out in 1984, Bonventre's body was found hacked in two pieces and locked in two separate 55-gallon glue drums stored in a New Jersey warehouse. Although the body of Bonventre had been found though a government informant shortly before it was to have been shipped to the Midwest, it would be three months before federal authorities could make a positive identification.
Although no arrests were made, a government informant claimed one of the men involved in Bonventre's death was mobster Cosmo Aiello whose body was found five weeks after the discovery of Bonventre.
[edit] References
- Sifakis, Carl. The Mafia Encyclopedia. New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8160-5694-3
