Thaindian News

By Meena Kar
Jan 21, (THAINDIAN NEWS) The famous ex-leader of New England’s Patriarca crime family has at last been tracked and arrested in Florida. One other probable mob associate has been tracked down in Rhode Island as a part of an FBI search operation on organized crime in the Northeast. The head of a mafia was trapped in Fort Lauderdale after the person was caught collecting protection payments from strip clubs in the fort, as announced by the federal agents on Thursday.

Luigi Manocchio, has remained a well-known name in New England’s Patriarca crime family for over several years. He was arrested in a nationwide search operation on Wednesday which tracked down more than 100 mobsters in the Northeast on charges which ranged from murder to narcotics trafficking. Luigi Manocchio, was known in Mafia circles as Baby Shanks. He was ratted out by a good number of high-profile crime figures who were on trial in Boston and New York. The extent of stretch of Luigi Manocchio’s South Florida operation is not very clear and authorities have not revealed as to which strip clubs were under the control of the Mafia. The 83-year-old Mafia leader, also nicknamed The Professor and The Old Man, appeared briefly yesterday in federal court of Florida, where he was ordered to go back to his native Rhode Island for facing federal extortion charges because he had forced two Providence strip clubs to pay him money for protecting them.

Luigi Manocchio and one of his associate Thomas Iafrate, were both arrested on charges of conspiracy to extort and extortion in US District Court in Providence. They were the only two New England men who were taken under arrest in the sting operation carried out yesterday by the federal officers of the country.