Sunday, December 10, 1995
By Norman Sinclair and Allan Lengel
Detroit Journal Staff Writers
In its most ambitious assault on local organized crime in decades, the FBI is going after a suspected multimillion-dollar gambling extortion ring they say is directed by Detroit's top Mafia bosses.
In the coming months, investigators expect a federal grand jury in Detroit to issue more than 20 indictments in the three-year probe. With these indictments, federal authorities hope to bring down the top echelon of the Detroit mob.
One key target, law enforcement officials say, is the Tocco organization headed by Jack Tocco of Grosse Pointe Park.
Tocco is a college-educated businessman and former owner of the Hazel Park racetrack who has long been considered by federal officials to be the head of the Detroit mob.
Tocco - who is either 64 or 69 years old, depending on which birth date he uses - has been investigated and under surveillance for years. But Tocco has never been convicted of a crime.
"If it's organized crime-related, he's always the target," said a federal law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Tocco could not be reached and his Grosse Pointe lawyer did not return calls seeking comment. Attorney David DuMouchel, who represents Vito (Billy Jack) Giacalone, another target of the probe, declined to comment.
As part of the ongoing probe, a prospective grand jury witness was jailed last week when he refused to testify after being granted immunity from prosecution.
Earlier this year, dozens of suspected organized crime figures and associates were summoned to the U.S. Attorney's Organized Crime Strike Force in downtown Detroit, where they submitted to photos and voice samples to aid witnesses testifying before the grand jury.
The investigation, conducted by the FBI and the Organized Crime Strike Force, centers in part around some Detroit party store owners who recently entered the numbers racket.
Historically, organized crime has muscled sports bookies and other gambling operators into paying a "tribute" or "street tax" to ensure protection of their illegal enterprises.
The tribute system was relatively dormant in Detroit while other groups ran the numbers games in the 1980s, but it was revived in 1991 with the advent of the party store games.
Store owners were raking in as much as $150,000 weekly, investigators said. The mob apparently began shaking down the store owners for as much as $1,000 to $1,500 weekly.
` Both the traditional numbers operations and the store versions use the daily Michigan lottery three-digit number to pay off bettors, investigators said.
The "street" number is popular because, unlike the official drawing, credit is extended, bets as small as a nickel are accepted and winners pay no taxes.
"There are at least five store owners who were shook down, who admitted grossing over $100,000 a week on numbers, so they didn't mind paying $1,000 to $1,500 a week off the top," a law enforcement official said.
The Mafia, according to those familiar with the probe, also collected from bookies. Their fees were based on a sliding scale, from as low as $100 per week to $10,000 per season for football or basketball, the most popular betting games with bigger bookies.
Bookies also were charged a franchise fee to set up shop.
Some gambling operators were coerced into paying after being intimidated or beaten, law enforcement sources said.
Mobsters, said officials, also falsely promised store owners protection from authorities "downtown," implying they had important law enforcement connections. Keith Corbett, who heads the U.S. Attorney's Strike Force, declined to comment on the case, as did the FBI.
"I would never confirm or deny the existence of an investigation or the identity of a target," Corbett said.
According to a 1993 affidavit filed by the FBI and U.S. Attorney's office in the Macomb County Wolverine Golf Course gambling case, Tocco "has the responsibility of delegating authority to lesser members to give bookmaking or gambling franchises in the area."
In another court document used in the Wolverine and other federal organized crime cases, investigators stated that Tocco was crowned boss of the Detroit La Cosa Nostra on June 17, 1979, during a meeting of the Detroit organized crime hierarchy at the Timberland Game Ranch in Dexter Township.
The feds' probes into organized crime have not always been successful.
The Wolverine case, which targeted the family of Jack Lucido of Grosse Pointe Shores, a Tocco associate, became an embarrassment to federal investigators, who had billed it as a major assault on organized crime.
Fourteen people, including Lucido and his family members, were charged with running a booking and money laundering operation, but only two were convicted.
Another major figure in the current probe is Giacalone, a longtime Detroit mobster currently serving a three-year prison term for income tax evasion.
Federal interest in Giacalone and his family members in shakedown schemes date back to the 1970s.
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