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- [00:00]
A
Wondry subscribers can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now. Join Wondry in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. In 1992, David Kirchtell packed up his family and moved just north of New York City for an exciting new opportunity.
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B
I was working for Browning Ferris Industries Waste management company. I was transferred to their offices in Valley Cottage, New York.
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A
BFI is a big publicly traded company with operations all over the US but not in the biggest trash market in the country.
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B
New York, I guess you could say, was the last frontier. Because at that time it was perceived that it was always a what I'll call a somewhat controlled marketplace.
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A
Who controlled the marketplace at the time?
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B
The mafia.
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A
For nearly 40 years, New York's private trash industry was the domain of the mob, an estimated one and a half billion dollar a year industry, with more than half of it going directly to organized crime. Trash was gold, and anyone unwilling to play by the Mafia's rules would was handled accordingly. But for reasons that would become clear years later, BFI decided it was the right moment to strike. They knew that if the Mafia's monopoly buckled, BFI would be first in line to reap the rewards. So they sent David Kirchtel and his family to New York.
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B
When we first moved to the Rockland county area, my wife, who's having a simple Mommy and me type get together with the local neighborhood women.
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A
It was a cold day in February. After a nice afternoon with the new neighbors, one of the moms leaves a little early.
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B
Our good friend Susan. When she left the house, she noticed something by the mailbox.
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A
David was working that day out rustling up new business, when he got an urgent message from his wife.
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B
I got a beeper message that I needed to go home. I was in my car by myself. It's the middle of the winter. There's a lot of snow out. When I turn into the street, second house on the right, there's a sheet and the ground was red.
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A
As David pulls into his driveway, he notices a police car.
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B
And it turned out that there was this large German shepherd dog head. It was in a pool of blood and its mouth was taped shut.
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A
With the ladies from lunch nervously peering out of the windows, a police officer crouches down and removes the tape.
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B
And there was a note in the dog's mouth that said, welcome to New.
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A
York from One Dream. I'm Zach Goldaum and this is Lawless Planet. Each week we tell a new story about the true crimes fueling the climate crisis and the people fighting to save the planet or destroy it. The mob controls an industry that's a necessity to Every single one of.
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C
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A
Okay, it is 6am I am six standing on my stoop here in Brooklyn. It is Wednesday, which for me is trash day. I'm outside at the crack of dawn because recently I've been thinking a lot about the trash. New York is reportedly the most wasteful city in the world, but we don't like to think about what happens to all that garbage after we're done with it. Because real talk, it's yucky. Some of it looks to be sort of just spilling into the street. There's about I don't know, maybe 16 bags of trash, and then next to it is what looks like three discarded lamps and maybe a gentleman's valet. I really could not tell you what the hell that is. All of this stuff we throw out, it has to go somewhere. Waste is dumped into rivers and lakes. Landfills leak millions of gallons of poison into our groundwater, methane spews from incinerators, and an island of trash twice the size of Texas floats in the Pacific. What I'm getting at is that we have a trash problem. But a few decades ago, a couple of enterprising wise guys saw that as an opportunity. By the 1990s, it was an open secret that New York's trash industry belonged to the Cosa Nostradamus, the consortium of New York's five Mafia families. The mob's role in waste hauling was so ubiquitous that even fictional mobsters like Tony Soprano worked in the industry.
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D
I'm in a waste management business. Everybody immediately assumes you're mobbed up. It's a stereotype, and it's offensive.
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A
The mob's monopoly on New York would eventually come to an end. Today, the insane story of how that happened. One that raises the question, in the most wasteful city, in the most wasteful country, in the most wasteful moment in human history, are we any better off without the Mafia taking out the trash? Mind if I record the truck a little bit for a podcast?
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B
Podcast?
- [06:42]
A
Yeah. No, you can't. No, get out. A few decades before these guys were cleaning up New York's streets, there was another generation of trash haulers who operated under a different set of rules.
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E
My name is Anthony Vitale, but just call me a fat old garbage man or whatever.
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A
Nah, I'll stick with Anthony.
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E
I was born and raised in Elmont, New York, one of nine children, very close family.
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A
Anthony Vitale is a big guy with a full head of jet black hair and a strong chin. He comes from a family of garbage people, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. As in, they've been in the garbage game since the beginning. Back when they lived in Barrie, a port city in southern Italy, they were ice peddlers.
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E
They delivered ice for ice boxes. So what comes along? The refrigerator basically puts them all out of business. But they own the cart, they own the horse. So they went into the garbage business.
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A
When Anthony's family immigrated to the States, they switched to something garbage adjacent. Anthony's dad started a recycling company, mostly dealing with paper. And Anthony grew up around the business.
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E
My father had a plant on Van Brunt Street, Brooklyn. A truck would back up, dump the load of paper on the floor, and then his cousin was in a little bobcat and would move these mounds of paper around into bailing machines. But I got to tell you, when that load got dumped on the floor, I used to just, like, dive into it. And I can't explain to you, it was the cleanest. Unbelievable. The smell of. Of it was just all clean paper.
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A
But the innocence of Anthony's youth, spent Scrooge McDucking into a pristine pile of scrap paper, was about to give way to some very dirty business. Sorry, but the metaphors practically write themselves. In 1956, New York closed a loophole that allowed private businesses on residential streets to use the city's public waste pickup. So while residential properties were serviced by the Department of Sanitation, every business in New York suddenly needed a private company to haul their trash. Enter the Mafia. An enforcer for the Gambino family, who was barely 5ft tall, named Jimmy Squillante, teamed up with the local teamsters union run by a guy named Bernie Adelstein. Adelstein had only one leg and was just 5 foot 2. And for a time, these two short kings ran New York. Squillante was eventually indicted on extortion charges. But before he could stand trial, he disappeared. According to one rumor, he was handcuffed to the steering wheel of a rusty Chevy that was then fed into a hydraulic bailing press. Garbage in, garbage out. Over the next few decades, the mob's grip on the industry only tightened. They inflated prices, skimmed profits, set contract terms, controlled strikes and threatened customers who tried to switch haulers. Sometimes literally killing the competition. And everyone from wise guys to legit Carters were doing very well.
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E
We were making very good money. Very good money. I would go to Atlantic city and blow 10, 15,000 playing blackjack. We didn't think it was illegal until they told us it was illegal. If your customer thought you were a gangster, good, so be it. I didn't correct them.
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A
The line between legitimate business and organized crime was blurry, but essentially legit. Companies like Anthony's picked up the trash while the mob controlled the system. And they did so through something called associations.
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E
The Wastepaper association was on Lafayette street and we met on Wednesdays. We would go have lunch. Guys would come and just sit around a table eating sandwiches. We would play cards till the next morning.
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A
One of the guys in his card game was Joe Joey Cigars Francolino, who ran the Waste association for the Gambino family. He reported to John Gotti, the flashy Teflon don himself. So named because the charges never stuck.
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B
People love him. They stop me on every street corner.
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A
To wish them luck.
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B
You wouldn't believe it.
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A
Is he a mafia boss?
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B
Absolutely not. And the jury has said no three times.
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A
Does he run an organized crime syndicate? Absolutely not. The other major players in the industry were the Genovese family led by Vincent the Chin Gigante. He spent years wandering Greenwich Village muttering to himself in a bathrobe. An elaborate ruse concocted so he could plead insanity if he ever faced trial. Vinny the Chin Gigante. He's said to be one of the most powerful men mobsters in America. His lawyers say he's insane. Gotti and Gigante were far removed from day to day operations. In reality, the actual industry was a network of family run businesses like Anthony's. But the association was the conduit. Anthony Vitale insists the association was somewhere between a social club and a legit trade group. But in the eyes of law enforcement, the they were a cartel. They fixed prices and enforced property rights. A system where each trash carding company had exclusive rights to specific commercial customers.
- [12:29]
E
Each association, they had a board, and part of that board was to hear and settle disputes. They called them a beef. They would go in the back room and sit down and they would come up with a resolution. I was on the board and, you know, the trick was to make sure that both sides came out with a little bit of a smile. One guy was happy to receive the money, another guy was happy to receive the work.
- [12:59]
A
If you weren't part of the association, you were known as an outlaw. And if you ended up in a dispute, there were no backroom negotiations with a guy like Anthony Vitale. Those beefs were settled a different way. And that's exactly what happened to one so called outlaw. Sal Benedetto. Sal was the owner of Chambers Paper Fibers Corporation, a company his grandfather started in 1896. He was short, round and quick on his feet, which is why he was sometimes called Sally Skates.
- [13:36]
E
He was a harmless big teddy bear of a guy.
- [13:40]
A
Sal's company handled recycling, and recently business was booming. That's because in the late 80s and early 90s, after years of lobbying by environmental groups, New York and the federal government passed laws mandating recycling. It was a bonanza for paper companies like Sal's. But it didn't take long for the vultures to start circling. Lately, Sal had noticed he was being followed. His drivers kept getting beat up. Their truck tires shot out. Then one night, things escalated. It's May 4, 1992, in Dumbo, Brooklyn. It's an industrial neighborhood, but artists and yuppies are starting to pour in, transforming abandoned factories into luxury condos. Still, a little bit of that old New York grit remains, especially at 139 Plymouth street where a six story red brick building collects something. The city never seems to run out trash that night. A 1981 Oldsmobile lingers for a moment in front of the garbage transfer station before it speeds off down a cobblestone street. On the driver's side, the east river appears between each passing building. High in the rear view is the Manhattan Bridge, and parked underneath is a brand new green Packer truck with a logo on the side. It reads Chambers Paper. As the Oldsmobile disappears into the night, the garbage truck explodes. When Sal discovers the smoldering ruins of his brand new garbage truck, he has a good idea of who's responsible. The same competitor who's been harassing him and his drivers, Phil Baretti. Phil Baretti was the owner of Baretti Carding Company, one of the largest haulers in New York City, worth a reported $40 million. He was in his mid-50s, with slicked back hair and a well groomed gray mustache.
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E
He thought he was a Don Juan, I guess. Six foot. He had always had money, but I always thought of him as a bit of a pompous asshole.
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A
Baretti was also allegedly an associate of both the Genovese and Gambino crime families. He'd recently started a recycling business of his own and and was stealing Sal Benedetto's clients. But Sal wasn't about to just lose his century old family business, so he retaliated and went after Baretti's customers, too.
- [16:26]
E
Sal Benedetto was not part of the association that we were a part of. Baretti goes berserko because God forbid he loses an account. And all kinds of craziness ensued from it.
- [16:42]
A
Even after the bombing, Sal doesn't seem to get the message. In fact, he doubles down, consistently bidding lower than the competition. It seems insane, but he starts undercutting even more members of the association. He's taking building after building, account after account. But he's not doing it alone. Sal's aggressive campaign of bid warfare seems to be spearheaded by a newcomer at Chambers Paper, Sal's cousin Dan Benedetto.
- [17:13]
E
I met Dan when he started coming around the associations.
- [17:19]
A
The dynamic duo, Sal and cousin Dan are playing a dangerous game. But members of the association decide instead of blowing up more garbage trucks to get their clients back, they can just tax the Benedetto family. So each dispute with Sal and cousin Dan plays out the same way. There's the threats, the shakedown, the negotiation, and finally, the payoff.
- [17:42]
E
It was almost to the point that they knew, I'm going to take this building from so and so. So and so is going to knock on my door and say, you just took my building. You owe me whatever I was charging times 40. And Benedetto says, sure, I'll pay.
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A
Sal and cousin Dan agreed to reimburse rival companies as much as 40 times the monthly revenues they were making before Chambers stole their business. Paid in incremental installments with envelopes of cash. It's what you might call extortion. By March of 1993, Chambers papers had so many of these side deals with members of the association that they're actually invited to join. But once they're inside, the already troublesome Benedettos are about to cause even more problems. Around the same time that the Benedettos started undercutting the mob, the corporate giant BFI had been trying to enter New York City. They're the company that David Kirstel was working for when he'd received that special housewarming gift in his driveway. BFI's aggressive push into the market had devolved into a full blown garbage war. One time, in front of Delmonico's gourmet food market on 41st and Lex, a truck from BFI got into a showdown with another from a company with the association. Leaning out of their trucks, the local haulers shouted things like, you think you guys control this city? This is our town. It would be kind of hilarious if a German shepherd hadn't recently become a casualty of the conflict. Then to make matters worse, the Benedettos dug themselves into an even deeper hole. They cut a deal with BFI to start processing waste picked up by the company's trucks. It's good for Chambers business. It's good for Browning Ferris. It's very bad for the cartel. When word spreads, Cousin Dan is summoned to a meeting. It's midday on October 20, 1993, about a year and a half since the truck bombing at Chambers and five months since the Benedettos were welcomed inside the highly secret association. Cousin Dan enters Ponte's Steakhouse, a famous restaurant owned by another trash kingpin, Angelo Ponti.
- [20:02]
E
It was the old New York red leather baguettes with dark wood paneling on the walls. Chicken schaparael linguine, white clam sauce. Angry lobster was their signature dish. A guy with a guitar that went around singing whatever you asked him to sing.
- [20:23]
A
In walks Sal's cousin, Dan Benedetto. Waiting for him is Anthony Vitale and a cohort from the association. They're there to grill him about working with bfi. There's a real concern that if the majors like BFI are able to get a foothold in the New York market, the mom and pop shops that belong to the association would be cooked. As Cousin Dan sits down, Anthony gives him an extra friendly shoulder rub. Like, really friendly. And Cousin Dan thinks he knows why. He's feeling for a wire.
- [20:59]
E
It was kidding around, but obviously I should have known what I was looking for.
- [21:05]
A
Dan Benedetto wasn't wearing a wire that night, but he often did. That's because Dan Benedetto isn't his real name. In fact, he's not even Sal's cousin. Dan Benedetto is actually Detective Rick Cowan, an undercover cop with the nypd. Let's rewind back to the moment when Sal Benedetto's truck was firebombed in front of his Brooklyn recycling company, Chambers Paper.
- [21:46]
D
There's a detective in charge of the team into the garbage industry. We heard of all these stories, but nobody would dare talk to a cop.
- [21:54]
A
That's Detective Rick Cowan, but you might know him better as Cousin Dan Benedetto. This is from a talk he gave years later on C Span about his time investigating the mob. He's got broad shoulders and a salt and pepper goatee. He's wearing a newsboy cap like he's in Peaky Blinders, and he's got on dark sunglasses inside. Honestly, it's easy to see how he blended in with the real wise guys. Detective Cowan was working in the Organized Crime Intelligence division of the nypd, and when he first got wind of the bombing, he's kind of unfazed. He's been handling mob cases for long enough to know that this would probably be another dead end. But he has a job to do. So he calls Sal Benedetto, and to.
- [22:38]
D
My surprise, he said, yeah, come on down.
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A
Detective Cowan heads inside the old brick building that houses Chambers Paper. He sits down and in walks the boss, Sal Benedetto.
- [22:51]
D
As big as he was, he was a fast moving character. Sal Benedetto. I was careful with this guy because I really wasn't sure if he was part of the fold or not.
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A
To Detective Cowan's surprise, Sal is straight with him. He explains that Phil Baretti had taken one of his accounts. He's the so called Don Juan of garbage with a neatly trimmed gray mustache. So Sal swooped in and took an account from Baretti. It's shrewd business and totally legal, but to the mob, it's an affront. And the truck bombing? That was a not so subtle message to back off.
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D
Ten minutes into the interview, his shop foreman came barging in and said, sal, I'm sorry to interrupt, but the guys that blew up the truck just drove by.
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A
Detective Cowan bolts out of the room with Sal and the foreman following close behind. He's planning to jot down the license plate, but he doesn't have to.
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D
Unbeknownst to us, the guys were. The two thugs were coming in and we had a very violent confrontation where I thought any second they were gonna a shot was gonna be fired.
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A
Detective Cowan frantically tries to defuse the situation. Then suddenly the thugs look at Detective Cowan and ask Sal, who's this guy? Sal quickly jumps in.
- [24:01]
D
He said, that's cousin Dan. He works here.
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A
That's cousin Dan, he works here. It's no wonder friends call Sal Benedetto Sally Skates. He was quick on his feet. And in that moment, Cousin Dan Benedetto was born. The goons tell Sal to stay away from One wall, as in One Wall street, the lucrative commercial commercial account that Phil Beretti lost to Chambers paper. Detective Cowan follows the men out of the building and observes them as they get into their car. A 1981 Oldsmobile, the same car that fled down Dumbo's cobblestone streets the night of the bombing. As the car drove off, Cowan knew he was on the precipice of something huge. Posing as Sal's fake cousin Dan Benedetto, he had gotten a glimpse of how the mob did business. Suddenly, he had a good cover story. If he could keep it up and convince the associations that he was really Cousin Dan, maybe finally he could take down the whole racket. Getting Sal Benedetto to participate in the investigation turned out to be the easy part. The hard part was transforming Detective Rick Cowan into Sal's long lost cousin, Dan Benedetto. The NYPD provided him with a fake id, a dummy apartment in Staten island not far from his own, and a Jeep like the ones the other trash guys were driving at the time.
- [25:31]
D
And as the undercover role began to take a life of its own, the Dan Benedetto role really expanded, and the Rick Cowan life really shrank next to nothing.
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A
But as Detective Rick Cowan explains, leading a double life in Staten island, which was Mafia central, isn't easy.
- [25:49]
D
There was a guy that lived a few doors away in our condominium who was called Jimmy Garbage, and he knew me as Rick, and I was always worried I would run into him and he would say he would know me as Rick in the condo in Staten island and not Dan Benedetto. So it was always a difficult tightrope to walk.
- [26:04]
A
Detective Cowan learns the entire Benedetto family tree, and Sal teaches him everything about trash and recycling, the different paper grades, the latest technology, everything. Detective Rick Cowan learns this process intimately, showing up at Chambers paper like a regular employee. And once he was in, it was time for phase two. Chumming the waters to collect evidence on Phil Baretti and his ilk. Then, not long after the chance encounter at Chambers Paper Cowan catches a lucky break. On May 15, just 10 days after the first encounter with the goons at Chambers, one of Detective Cowan's colleagues comes to him with a tape recording. On a totally unrelated wiretap, they've captured none other than Phil Beretti. What Boretti says next sends chills down Detective Rick Cowan's spine. He. He's casually musing about killing Sal Benedetto. So when Phil Baretti calls Sal to a meeting at a restaurant in Brooklyn. He's understandably petrified, but it's also an opportunity. Johndo on the water is a white tablecloth Italian joint in Brooklyn with an unobstructed view of the Manhattan skyline and the Williamsburg Bridge. You can hear subway trains rattling overhead and water from the east river lapping against the shore. Detective Cowan, AKA Dan Benedetto, pulls into the parking lot with Sal in the passenger seat. Sal is uncomfortable, not only because he's about to meet face to face with a man who wants him dead, but physically too, because strapped below his big belly is an undercover tape recorder order. Sal steps out and meets Filberti in the parking lot. The two get into it almost immediately, shouting at each other, accusing one another of stealing accounts. With Detective Rick Cowan watching from the car, one of the same goons that had showed up at Chambers paper pops out and attacks Sal, punching him in the stomach and choking him. With Sal gasping for air, Filberti tells him, you'll have a lot more problems down the road if you don't return my customer. Then Beretti and the goons take off. Sal stumbles back to the car. He's sweating, shaken. But they got it all on tape. Sal and Detective Cowan could have stopped there. After all, Sal had just been beaten up pretty badly. But instead of walking away, they do the opposite. They set their sights on the larger association for the next two years. Detective Cowan, undercover as Dan Benedetto, wears a wire and collects intel from inside, trying to work his way up the organization. Remember all those disputes where Sal and cousin Dan undercut the mob and are forced to reimburse their rivals? That was a deliberate strategy. The Benedettos undercut Ponti Steakhouse owner Angelo Ponti. Sal makes a deal with bfi. They antagonize the cartel and get the ensuing threats on tape. And you won't believe whose business they end up stealing next.
- [29:29]
E
He took a building from my father's company. There was a whole sit down and whatever to try to get it back.
- [29:37]
A
That's Anthony Vitale again, out at a.
- [29:40]
E
Restaurant in Long Island. Right about that time, he was like deer in the headlights that he saw me. But he said, tell your dad I'm not looking to hurt anybody. You know I'm not gonna hurt them. Almost apologetic at the point. And I wasn't gonna be a shoulder to cry on or anything. I just said, okay.
- [30:00]
A
They leave it at that. But Anthony's brother isn't so cordial.
- [30:05]
E
And at the end of the day, my stupid brother, he had to go have a meeting with Dan Benedetto and used the phrase two could play at that game.
- [30:18]
A
To quote him, it's a thinly veiled threat to an undercover cop. But they don't know that at the time. Even so, Anthony is beginning to think there's something strange about this cousin Dan fellow. And his suspicions are confirmed. On the afternoon of August 26, 1994.
- [30:39]
E
The association had an annual golf outing every year. It was held at North Hills Country Club. Sal Benedetto had a cousin, Joe Benedetto.
- [30:48]
A
This cousin, by the way, was real. After they finish up on the course, Anthony heads inside the club to play a game of gin rummy with Joe Benedetto. And he starts busting his balls about his cousin Dan.
- [31:01]
E
So when playing cards with Joe, in a kidding around way, I says, I think Frankie had told me that he heard that Dan Benedetto went to FBI school. I says, joe, was your cousin Dan going to to be an FBI agent? And Joe unexpectedly went to his son Joseph. Joseph, I don't have a cousin Dan Benedetto, do I? And that's when I found out that he wasn't who he said he was.
- [31:39]
D
One night I was closing up the transfer station. I was alone. I got a call. It was from Joe Francalino.
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A
Detective Rick Cowan is talking about Joe. Joey Cigars Frankolino, a soldier for the Gambino family, and one of the guys Anthony Vitale played cards with at the association.
- [31:56]
D
The Gambino club usually met on Tuesday afternoons. He said, well, Dan, when am I going to see you? I said, well, I'll see you tomorrow at the club. He said, no, I'd like to see it tonight. So I knew that these guys had gotten to him.
- [32:08]
A
Suddenly, Detective Cowan was in serious danger. His boss tries to call off the investigation, but Cowan says, no, he's come this far, he can't give up now. So on the night of September 12, 1994, he suits up as Dan Benedetto to have dinner with Joey Cigars at yet another Italian restaurant.
- [32:28]
D
As I was walking up the street to this restaurant, Pierino's on Reed Street, I couldn't even feel my knees. I felt like I was hovering. Instead of walking, I was just visualizing the worst.
- [32:39]
A
He walks in. No one's at the bar. He looks at the dining room. No one's there either. Then he sees the stairs leading to the basement.
- [32:50]
D
So I kind of felt like Luca Brasi and the Godfather going to meet the Tatagalli's when they get that famous Sicilian necktie. That's how I kind of felt.
- [32:57]
A
He walks down and from around the corner, Joey Cigars appears.
- [33:02]
D
Scared the hell out of me. I mean, my stomach was flip flopping.
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A
The two sit down. They talk business for a moment. Then Joey starts to grill Dan Benedetto. And this time, Detective Rick Cowan was wearing a wire.
- [33:18]
B
You're actually Benedetto?
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A
Yes. Your last name is Benedetto? Benedetto. I mean, I am one of the Benedettos. You are Benedetto Benedetto? Yeah. Give me your license. He inspects his driver's license. They question him closely about his family and the garbage business.
- [33:37]
D
It led to a three and a half hour interrogation. I mean, a very good interrogation that a detective would do.
- [33:45]
A
Detective Cowan is petrified. He and Sal are on borrowed time. Cousin Dan Benedetto stops hanging around the association as much. In fact, he disappears for what he says is emergency back surgery. But he stays in touch by phone. What he's actually doing is giving grand jury testimony, which goes on from months. When he's finished, they have what they need for the final stage of what is officially called Operation Wasteland. It's June 22, 1995, just over three years since Detective Rick Cowan went undercover as cousin dan Benedetto. Nearly 500 New York detectives, beat cops and federal agents, are preparing for a massive sting operation. Just before dawn, they bust into carting companies up and down the Eastern seaboard.
- [34:53]
E
I was having lunch with Joe Ponti, Angelo's brother, and they informed Joe that his brother Angelo was being arrested. When they went into 511 Canal Street. The elevator operator or somebody alerted him and he went and hid upstairs. The association was on the fourth floor. He went up to the sixth floor so the cops didn't get him. And I basically negotiated his surrender at I think like 6 o' clock at night. And after I told him and one of the cops turns to me and goes, oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you, your brother was arrested.
- [35:36]
B
Garbage is big business here in New York and in a lot of places around the country. The private carting industry has been controlled by the mob for decades. Today, prosecutors in New York began a cleanup, arresting alleged mobsters on charges that they used violence and economic pressure to kill the competition.
- [35:56]
A
John Vitale, Anthony's brother, is arrested along with 16 other individuals, including Angelo Ponti, Joey Cigar's Frankolino, and the Don Juan of garbage himself, Phil Beretti, who had to pay millions in fines and was sentenced to over a decade in prison. Anthony is never indicted, but as a board member of the Greater New York Wastepaper Association. His license is revoked and he's effectively banned from the industry. His brother eventually pleads guilty to a state antitrust violation for his participation in an anti competitive criminal cartel. He gets five years probation and is also banned from the garbage business. The family loses their license and are forced to sell the company their father had built from scratch. Sal Benedetto, on the other hand, is hailed as a hero. He refuses witness protection, but gets police protection for the rest of his life. And in the end, he goes right back to doing the only thing he knows how to collect the trash. As for Detective Rick Cowan, he went on to co write a book called the Fall of the Last Mafia empire. And after 25 years on the force, he retired in 2008. We wanted to talk to Cowan, but he declined our interview request. Operation Wasteland is celebrated as a major success. After years of one off arrests, the Mafia's trash monopoly was over. But sometimes it's better the devil you know than the devil you don't. In the end, the real winners of Operation Wasteland were not regular New Yorkers, but the corporations. In a press conference after the takedown, New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau revealed something astonishing. BFI not only cooperated with the investigation, but the DA's office also had placed a mole inside the company. Remember that deal between the Benedettos and bfi? The one that first triggered Anthony Vitale's suspicions about Cousin Dan? That was orchestrated by Morgenthau's office. It's incredible. A major American corporation had a front row seat to a criminal investigation that directly affected their bottom line. And the results were indisputable. After the fall of the Mafia's trash racket, prices for consumers fell 30% in a year. Which was great, but it was all part of a strategy. By the end of the 90s, there were 70% fewer carding companies in New York. One monopoly simply replaced another. And by the early 2000s, that consolidation helped drive prices back up by 40%. Some might call that predatory pricing, but that's just a fancy way of saying mob shit. This isn't a simple story of the good guys replacing the bad guys. Before their grand entrance into the New York market, BFI was known for price fixing, pollution, and illegal disposal of toxic waste. A 1992 Village Voice expose had called them one of the nation's worst corporate criminals. Welcome to New York. Arguably, the most significant changes brought by the major corporations were what happened to the trash itself, and in turn, the environment. First, landfills exploded in size for Majors like bfi. It was cheaper to dump tons of trash in one giant methane spewing site as opposed to managing a bunch of smaller ones. But that meant more pollution concentrated in one place, usually near poor communities. Second, these same corporations convinced poor countries, mostly in Asia and the Global south, to take our trash and pay us for it. Why? Because we sold it as recyclables, even though a lot of it can't actually be reused. To be fair, the corporations didn't invent this kind of garbage colonialism. And they certainly didn't invent landfills. But these are trends that were supercharged by corporate consolidation when waste became a global commodity. But that's not what keeps Anthony Vitale up at night. Do you ever worry about climate change?
- [40:16]
E
No. It's all bullshit. Come on. Do you?
- [40:21]
A
I do.
- [40:23]
E
We recycled paper 100 years ago. Not because we were tree huggers, because it made economical sense. I don't think my grandfather thought about the earth when he was breaking his gullons in this industry. But I wasn't so much an environmentalist as I was a capitalist. I guess.
- [40:46]
A
What does worry Anthony Vitale is what was lost in this whole saga. What he can never get back.
- [40:53]
E
When all these guys went to jail, even though my father didn't go to jail, he. He took it pretty hard. You know, they were his. His best friends. So when all these public companies entered into New York, he basically lost his livelihood. He feared for my brother, you know, so it was a big blow to him. And then, you know where once every Wednesday, he went to New York to play cards and have lunch and laugh. The day ended for him.
- [41:29]
A
I'm not saying things were better when organized crime ran the industry, but from what I can tell, they weren't worse. Apart from the murders. The murders are hard to defend. Oh, and the dog thing, that was also bad. But I think what I'm getting at is that we have this impression of the mob as these wise guys in trench coats whacking their enemies in back alleys. And it is sometimes that, but it's also just guys in the neighborhood doing a job a lot of us would prefer not to think about and doing it for generations. Guys who loved the work and who loved each other. Like Brad, Phil, Baretti.
- [42:08]
E
I'd kill that little pimp.
- [42:11]
A
Okay, maybe I got a little carried away with the brotherly love stuff. On the next episode of Lawless Planet. When one of the world's most important nature preserves is overrun by poachers, militias, and oil barons, it's up to a small group of park rangers to stop them. As I was driving through a forested.
- [42:35]
B
Park of the road, I saw in.
- [42:38]
A
The distance a man with a rifle. As I got closer, he raised his rifle and he opened fire on the vehicle. For today's episode, we relied heavily on Detective Rick Cowan's book the Takedown, written with Douglas Century. Also special thanks to Chris Grosso for the story tip. Lawless Planet is written, produced and hosted by by me, Zach Goldbaum. Our Senior producer and Senior Story Editor is Derek John. Senior producers for wondery are Peter A.R. cooney and Andy Herman. Our senior Managing Producer is Nick Ryan. Our Managing Producer is Sarah Kenny Corrigan. Our Associate producer is Lexi Piri. Sound design by Kyle Randall Music by Kenny Kusiak. Our music supervisor is Scott Velasquez for Frison Sync Fact checking by Erica Janik. Our legal counsel is Deb Droze. Executive producers are Marshall Louie, Erin o', Flaherty, n' J' Jeri Eaton and Jenny Lauer. Beckman for wondering. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.
- [43:41]
D
Wondry.
- [43:48]
A
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondry.com survey.