WEB BUZZ MAFIA

One mobster hated Frank Sinatra so much that he wanted to kill the singer, according to secret tapes put forward as evidence at the trial of an alleged mafia "boss." The trial of Joseph "Uncle Joe" Ligambi, reputed head of the Philadelphia mob, began last Thursday after he was arrested on gambling and extortion charges in 2011. Prosecutors claim that Ligambi provided video poker machines and other illegal gambling devices to bars, restaurants and shops in Philadelphia. The prosecution wants to use tapes recorded by a mobster-turned-FBI informant to paint a picture of the violent past of the mob. However defense attorney Christopher Warren, who is representing Ligambi and another alleged gangster Joseph "Scoops" Licata, described the tapes to jurors as just a "bunch geriatric gangsters talking," according to philly.com. He said that the recordings were not relevant to his clients' trial. The tapes were made by mobster Nicholas ...

MONTREAL - Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto had direct access to City Hall through two engineers who played golf with him at a Caribbean resort, a public inquiry heard Monday. Retired engineer Gilles Surprenant also intensified a political firestorm by claiming a colleague told him the city's executive committee took a 3% cut off of all excavation contracts. Surprenant, a longtime city planner, has already admitted to inflating contracts for a cartel of contractors who paid him $600,000 in bribes from 1990 to 2009. He told the Charbonneau Commission that contractor Tony Conte invited him and fellow engineer Luc Leclerc to the Dominican Republic to play a week of golf in 1996 or 1997. When the bureaucrats asked Conte about the identity of the fourth partner, he refused to say, but the partner's identity became clear prior to the flight. "We got to the airport, we got a surprise, we saw Mr. Rizzuto," Surprenant told the inquiry. "He was alone. All I ca...