Queens Pizzeria Owners Charged in Cocaine Smuggling Operation

[Judi Lynn]

Source: New York Times

Queens Pizzeria Owners Charged in Cocaine Smuggling Operation
By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
MAY 7, 2015

A restaurant in Corona, Queens, was the center of an international drug-trafficking ring that smuggled cocaine in the linings of cardboard boxes containing produce, federal authorities said on Thursday.

The husband-and-wife team running the restaurant, Gregorio and Eleonora Gigliotti, hid shipments of cocaine in refrigerated cargo containers marked “fresh cassava,” the authorities said, and then distributed it in New York and in Italy to members of ’Ndrangheta, Italy’s most powerful organized crime group.

The Gigliottis were charged along with their son Angelo and another relative in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, while 13 people were arrested on Thursday in Italy, accused of being involved in the cocaine operation.

Video footage released by the Italian police showed Italian officers and agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation searching homes and cars and arresting one of the suspects in the southern region of Calabria in pre-dawn raids.





Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/08/nyregion/queens-pizzeria-owners-are-charged-in-cocaine-smuggling-operation.html?_r=0

[shenmue]

1. Pisses me off

I'm part Italian and from Queens. Makes me mad when my people let us down like that.

[LeftyMom]

2. Years ago a different organization did almost the same thing, only they hid it in tomato cans.

Seems like a pizza shop would be a good cover: you get to send deliveries out hither and yon, it's not suspicious that you're open late or people stop in and leave after a moment. You're expected to handle a fair amount of cash.

[displacedtexan]

3. I saw this on "Castle" not too long ago.

It was about rival pizza biz owners in NYC. One of the businesses was including cocaine or some other white powder drug with orders using the current password, which was always a film noir character name.

[katsy]

5. Yep

They found a dead guy in the pizza oven.

Saw it yesterday 🍕

[murielm99]

4. This was happening in Illinois, too,

quite a few years back. They were using pizza ovens to smuggle drugs.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. Cocaine doesn't really go with pizza.

Now pot, that would make sense.

[left-of-center2012]

7. An old movie?

Wasn't there an old movie with something like this?

[damyank913]

8. I'll take a pepperoni pie with an extra box...

...pizza and coke......perfect.