Federal Bureau of InvestigationAlex Rudaj, outside Jimbo's Bar in Astoria, Queens, on April 15, 2003. Authorities say he runs the Corporation, an Albanian group that they believe is trying to become New York City's sixth mob family.
Posted on 01/03/2006 12:49:06 PM PST by neverdem
There is a small cafe on Morris Park Avenue in the Bronx where Albanian soap operas play on a large-screen television set. It is the Cafe Roma, and an uneasy quiet hangs in the air.
The cigarette smoke is thick, and stacks of playing cards lie unused on the bar. The bartender, a sallow giant with a mustache, plays chess between serving espressos and sugar-sweetened snacks. The bartender will not talk about it, but the authorities say the Cafe Roma was the headquarters of the Corporation, a violent, up-and-coming gang that had a bold objective: to become New York's sixth crime family, one headed not by Italian-Americans but by Albanian immigrants.
Beginning in the 1990's, the Corporation, led by a man named Alex Rudaj, established ties with established organized crime figures including members of the Gambino crime family, the authorities say. Then, through negotiations or in armed showdowns, the Albanians struck out on their own, daring to battle the Luchese and Gambino families for territory in Queens, the Bronx and Westchester County, prosecutors say.
During one of these confrontations, in August 2001 at an Astoria gambling parlor called Soccer Fever, Mr. Rudaj and at least 14 of his men served notice of their intentions to an associate of the Gambino family who ran the club, prosecutors contend in court documents.
Brandishing guns, one of Mr. Rudaj's men overturned gambling tables, another grabbed money, and a third pistol-whipped a patron, the authorities said.
"Gentlemen, the game is over," one of Mr. Rudaj's men told patrons playing barbout, a dice game. These details and more have emerged during the trial of Mr. Rudaj and five other men in Federal District Court in Manhattan. A jury is now deliberating charges against them, including racketeering, attempted murder, extortion, loan-sharking and gambling.
The defense lawyers...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Federal Bureau of InvestigationBetter stomp on this before it gets itself well and truly established.
A shirt for sale in Florence circa 1995:
MAFIA - Italians Do It Better
I'd love to single out Bubba for criticism here, but as I recall, bending over for Albanian criminals was a bipartisan affair. As Bob Dole might have said "Bob Dole was in on it too!"
You know, it's gotten so where I'm only surprised when a major crime figure doesn't look like Ringo Starr.
Smoking in a cafe???
I am shocked, SHOCKED!!!
The Albanians have largely taken over from the Italians in operating Pizzerias in New York. Perfect opportunity for money laundering.
I credit clinton. After Billy Jeff helped his drug dealing friends take over Kosovo, drug exports to Europe more than doubled. Pretty nearly the only business in Albania is crime.
I expect they will want to start moving their hard drugs from Europe into America, and maybe billy jeff is still getting his rakeoff for enabling it.
Let's not forget that clinton has been in the drug trade most of his life.
That seems to be what happened around the corner from me. After it was closed for a while, it re-opened, but no price list has yet to be posted. Business seems slim.
You mean you can actually get good pizza in Riverdale?
Something tells me that these Albanians are going to be taking one way trips to the Jersey Pine Barrens.
Maybe organized crime figures should be issued special licenses to blow each other away as long as they don't injure any "civilians".
With enough ammo and luck they might clean up society's garbage for us.
That place had a good, fresh pie when I moved in here. I haven't tried the new owners.
We should be so lucky, but it will never happen. When there is a black market, there will always be organized crime.
"Albanians?! You mean those people who are all white with pink eyes?!"
All legitimate provinces of the new Greater Albania. I just pray that the territorial claims of the Albanians are not in conflict with those of Aztlan. That could mean TROUBLE for those of us caught in the middle.
Speaking of trouble, I knew something like this would happen if they took Tony Soprano and the Goombahs off TV. Somebody has to make the Albanians an offer they can't refuse. Of course, Albanian being utterly incomprehensible to any other humans on the planet, it will also have to be an offer they understand.
No kidding. Many Albanian Americans I know are very nice people, unless you "wrong them" in some way. A friend of mine who is Albanian percieved he was wronged with another guy I knew and I had to go to very long lengths to stop a shooting over a small beef. It was an ugly affair.
It is a rule for all Albanians to carry guns on them at all times. For the most part they only shoot each other, as time goes on though they are not as picky.
My father, who grew up among them and understood them quite well taught me a lot about their culture. One foot in the west and the other in islam. Their marriages are arranged, their women though they outwardly seem western are property to them much as it is in the rest of islam. They are dangegous people and not to be trifled with. When an outsider gets in to a confrontation with an Albanian he is in effect in a confrontation with the 100,000+ Albanians living in New York.
You have to be from the Balkans to know how to deal with them. The Serbs know them best but so do Croats and Slovenians.
The US will rue the day when Clinton in effect made us their allies by intervening in Kosova.
I'm sure you have been to the Pine Tavern on Bronxdale Ave.? God I dream of that place.
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