My Crime Fiction: 'Murder By The Park'

 The below short story originally appeared in American Crime Magazine in 2021. 

"Murder By The Park" 

By Paul Davis 

“I’m a criminal,” the man at the bar said to me as a way of introduction. He said this as nonchalantly as if he stating he was a salesman or a lawyer. 

I was at the bar talking to an old friend from the old neighborhood in South Philadelphia when the 30ish, dark-haired, thin and short man approached me and asked if I wrote the crime column for the local newspaper. He said he recognized me from my column photo.   

I said yes. The man introduced himself and said he read my column on a recent murder by a nearby park. 

"The story was really good. Really interesting," the man said. 

I thanked him, he shook my hand, and he rejoined his friends at the other end of the bar. 

The column the man at the bar liked was about the murder of a drug dealer whose body had been discovered in a car parked next to the park at 13^th and Oregon Avenue. 

The story interested me as I grew up at 13^th and Oregon. Murders in that middle-class, predominantly Italian-American neighborhood were rare. And I played sports in that park as a teenager and, frankly, I did somewhat less wholesome things with girls in the park after dark. 

After the man walked away, my friend told me the man was Anthony “Tony Banana” Venditto, a local thug. My friend explained that he was called “Tony Banana,” as all of his friends described him as a banana, a South Philly euphemism for an insane person or a goof. 

I was later informed by a Philadelphia detective I knew that Venditto was the prime suspect in the murder of the drug dealer found next to the park. Small wonder that he found my column about the murder so interesting. 

The detective filled me in on the story of Venditto and the murder by the park.

 

Venditto was proud of being a criminal. His life-long goal was to be a “made man” in the Philadelphia-South Jersey Cosa Nostra crime family. But because he was, as his nickname indicated, a banana, he didn’t stand a chance. 

Venditto had a police record with multiple arrests and two convictions. He was convicted on two separate burglaries, and he was given parole on the first and served two years in Graterford State Prison for the second. He had been briefly married, but his wife divorced him while he was in prison. 

Venditto hung around a mob crew in the neighborhood, and they used him for assorted jobs, such as robbery and extortion. For Venditto, being an associate with the crew was the next best thing to being a made member of the local mob. 

The crew of gamblers, thieves and extortionists spent their usual days at a local bar, gossiping, bragging and scheming. The crew captain, Joseph “Big Joe” Farina, sat at a back table up against a wall and held court all day and some nights, as if he were a king. His crew would report in, hand over money, and linger as Farina, a large, overweight man with sparse gray hair, would sip Sambuca and impart his wisdom and wit to his fellow criminals. 

No one questioned his wisdom, and everyone laughed at his jokes and asides. 

The crew didn’t do much in the way of work. Mostly, they extorted money from other working criminals, such as bookmakers, drug dealers and burglary crews. The crooks paid their “street tax” to the crew as they figured it was the cost of doing business in South Philly. The crooks who didn’t pay had a visit from crew members, who wielded baseball bats or pointed guns. 

Farina waved over Venditto and Salvatore “Sonny” Grillo. Grillo was huge, muscular and tattooed. Standing next to the diminutive Venditto, he appeared even larger. 

“Did you see that drug guy about our money?” Farina asked Grillo. 

The man Farina referred to was John “Opie” Taylor, a South Philly drug dealer who resembled the child actor Ron Howard from the 1960s Andy Griffith TV show. Taylor was told on several occasions that he had to pay a “street tax” to Farina’s crew if he wanted to sell drugs or commit any crime in the neighborhood. 

“I sent him an email.” 

“You did what?” Farina said, slapping the table. 

“I sent him an email, telling him he better get right with us.” 

“Look at you, ya mamaluke. What’s the point of being a big ugly gorilla, when ya gonna send email messages to a guy we want to scare?” 

Grillo stood there, his head held low, and kept quiet. 

“When I was a soldier back in the 1960s we didn't send emails. We looked them in the eye,” Farina told Grillo and Venditto. “We were true gangsters and racketeers then. Now look at what I have to deal with,” Farina said, throwing his hands up in the air in disgust. 

“I’ll handle the guy, Skipper,” Venditto said. 

“Oh yeah? And how will a skinny banana like you do that?” 

“I’ll scare the shit out of him.” 

“All right. But take this mamaluke with you.” 

“Two stunods,” Farina said out loud as Grillo and Venditto left the bar.

 

Venditto and Grillo went to the variety store where Taylor worked. They walked in and told Taylor to come outside with them. Not wanting to cause a scene where he worked, Taylor walked out with the two. 

Venditto pulled a .38 Ruger hammerless revolver out of his jacket pocket and placed it up against Taylor’s side. 

“Where’s your car?” Venditto asked.  

Taylor pointed to the Toyota on the corner. Venditto told Taylor to give the keys to Grillo. 

“Get ina car,” Venditto told the drug dealer. 

Venditto shoved Taylor into the back seat and sat next to him with the gun between them. Grillo drove them to the park at 13^th and Oregon Avenue. Grillo parked the car next to the park on 13^th Street between Oregon Avenue and Johnson Street.  

“You gotta come up with our money,” Venditto told the visibly shaken drug dealer. “We own this city and if you want to make money from drugs, we got to get our tax.” 

“I ain’t making all that much money,” Taylor whined. “Why do you think I’m working in the store?” 

“Bullshit. You got a new car here. So pay up, motherfucker.” 

Taylor grabbed the door handle and attempted to get out and flee. Venditto grabbed his shirt and placed the gun against his chest. He shot Taylor and the drug dealer slid down on the seat. 

The gun blast inside the car deafened the two mobsters. Grillo held his ears in pain. A minute later he said, “What the fuck, Tony?”

“He had it coming. He was disrespectful.” 

Grillo wiped down the steering wheel and door handles with a hankie and the two criminals left the car next to the park with Taylor’s dead body inside. Venditto took off his blood-stained jacket and rolled it up in a ball. They walked the three blocks to the bar.

 

Venditto approached Farina’s table in the back of the bar. 

“I handled the drug guy, boss.” 

“Good. Did you get our money?” 

“No, he didn’t have no money. But I whacked him.” 

“You did what?” 

“He was disrespectful to us, so I shot him.” 

“Is he dead?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Then how the fuck are we supposed to get our money from him, ya fucking banana?” 

Venditto shrugged sheepishly and looked away.

 

A man walking his dog noticed the slumped corpse in the backseat of the parked car and called the police. A 3^rd District patrol officer responded. He looked into the backseat. With blood all over the seat and the floor of the car, he knew the man was dead. 

The officer called his sergeant. The sergeant rolled up and got out of the patrol car. He looked into the back seat and opened the car door. The awful smell of the corpse drove him to step backwards, and he shut the door quickly.

The sergeant called his lieutenant as three more patrol cars pulled up and parked. The lieutenant called South Detectives. 

Two detectives rolled up and stepped out of the car. They peered into the car but didn’t touch anything. One of the detectives interviewed the dog walker as the other detective called Homicide at Police headquarters. 

A crowd of onlookers stood on the sidewalk and gawked and spoke among themselves. 

The uniformed officers tried to stop the onlookers from getting too close to the car and the two detectives walked among the gathered people, asking if they heard or saw anything. 

A half hour later, Detectives Angelo Marino and Charles Magee rolled up and took charge of the investigation. 

The two were veteran homicide detectives and worked as partners for the past five years. Both detectives were in their mid-40s. Marino was a South Philly Italian American. He was a six-footer and well-built former soldier who served in the U.S. Army in Iraq. 

Magee, a Black cop from North Philly, had a squat and solid figure and was of average height. Like Marino, he was a veteran, having served as a Marine in Afghanistan. Both detectives had seen scores of dead bodies and much blood, both overseas and in Philadelphia.

The two detectives watched as the forensics team rolled up, unloaded their gear, and began to examine the crime scene. 

“I live about six blocks from here,” Marino said to Magee. “We don’t see many murders in this neighborhood.” 

“Mob hit?” Magee asked Marino.

“Could be.”

When the forensics team finished, Marino and Magee looked for a wallet on the corpse. The found a wallet in his back pocket and they looked at the name on the driver’s license. Neither detective knew John Taylor. 

Marino and Magee added the Taylor murder to their already overloaded case load. 

 

The forensics report came in and established that fingerprints lifted from the car matched the fingerprints of both Grillo and Venditto, despite Grillo’s wiping down the wheel and door handles with a hankie. 

Marino and Magee ventured out and arrested Grillo and Venditto. 

In police custody, Venditto sat still and said nothing to the detectives. With a smirk on his face, he refused to answer their questions. He also refused to respond to the detectives’ claims they had him dead to rights with fingerprints and witnesses from the variety store who can testify that Grillo and Venditto walked Taylor out of the store and placed him in his car. 

Venditto, acting like a tough guy, sat back and smiled. 

"I want a lawyer," Venditto told the detectives. 

The detectives then laid out their case to Grillo in another room. Grillo sobbed and beat the table with his huge hands.

“I don’t wanna go to prison,” Grillo said. “I can’t do hard time.”  

“Tell us what went down,” Magee said. “And maybe we can help you.” 

So Grillo gave up Venditto.   

Venditto pled guilty on advice of counsel. He was sentenced and shipped off to prison.

Venditto, the man who introduced himself to me as a criminal, said he liked my column on the murder by the park.  

I don’t know what he thought about my follow-up column, which covered his arrest and imprisonment.

© 2021 Paul Davis 

Protecting Quantum Science And Technology: Foreign Adversaries Are Increasingly Targeting A Wide Range Of U.S. Quantum Companies, Universities, And Government Labs

The FBI released the below information on the threat to American Quantum Science and Technology yesterday:

World Quantum Day, April 14, was initially conceived to ignite interest and generate enthusiasm for quantum mechanics. It has since morphed into so much more. Quantum information science is an emerging field with the potential to create revolutionary advances in science and engineering and drive innovation across the U.S. economy.

When new technologies are the product of American ideas and research, it's the FBI's and our security partner agencies' job to protect them. Today, adversarial nation-states are aggressively attempting to obtain a strategic advantage over the U.S. by stealing U.S. technologies and research know-how to help bolster their respective government's policies that violate international norms—including respect for rule of law, fair trade, and full scientific research collaborative reciprocity—while damaging U.S. economic competitiveness and harming U.S. national and economic security.

The National Counterintelligence Task Force's (NCITF) Quantum Information Science Counterintelligence Protection Team (QISCPT) unites the FBI with our intelligence and security partners to protect quantum information science and technology developed in the U.S. and like-minded nations.

Members of the quantum ecosystem, composed of industry, academia, national labs, investors and end users, best understand the future implications of their research and development efforts.

"Quantum information science and technology has the potential for enormous positive humanitarian impact, but its implications for our economic and national security are consequential as well," said FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link: 

Protecting Quantum Science and Technology — FBI

Victor Manuel Rocha, Former U.S. Ambassador And National Security Council Official, Admits To Secretly Acting As Agent Of The Cuban Government And Receives 15-Year Sentence

The U.S. Justice Department released the below information:

Victor Manuel Rocha, 73, of Miami, a former U.S. Department of State employee who served on the National Security Council from 1994 to 1995 and as U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002, pleaded guilty today to secretly acting for decades as an agent of the government of the Republic of Cuba. Immediately thereafter, a federal judge sentenced Rocha to the statutory maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.

“Today’s plea and sentencing brings to an end more than four decades of betrayal and deceit by the defendant,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “Rocha admitted to acting as an agent of the Cuban government at the same time he held numerous positions of trust in the U.S. government, a staggering betrayal of the American people and an acknowledgement that every oath he took to the United States was a lie."

“Victor Manuel Rocha secretly acted for decades as an agent of a hostile foreign power. He thought the story of his covert mission for Cuba would never be told because he had the intelligence, knowledge, and discipline to never to be detected. Rocha underestimated those same skills in the prosecutors and law enforcement agents who worked tirelessly to bring him to justice for betraying his oath to this country,” said U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida. “I am mindful that Rocha’s decades-long criminal activity on behalf of the Cuban Government is especially painful for many in South Florida. Rocha’s willingness to cooperate, as required by his plea agreement, is important, but does not change the seriousness of his misconduct or his clandestine breach of the trust placed in him. Rocha’s 15-year prison sentence, the maximum punishment for his crimes of conviction, sends a powerful message to those who are acting or seek to act unlawfully in the United States for a foreign government: we will seek you out anywhere, at any time, and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.”

U.S. District Court Judge Beth Bloom accepted Rocha’s guilty plea to counts 1 and 2 of the indictment, which charged him with conspiring to act as an agent of a foreign government and conspiring to defraud the United States and acting as an agent of a foreign government without notice as required by law.

The court then sentenced Rocha to the statutory maximum penalty on his counts of conviction: 15 years in prison, a $500,000 fine, three years of supervised release and a special assessment. The court also imposed significant restrictions on Rocha.

Under the terms of the parties’ plea agreement, Rocha must cooperate with the United States, including assisting with any damage assessment related to his work on behalf of the Republic of Cuba. Rocha must relinquish all future retirement benefits, including pension payments, owed to him by the United States based upon his former State Department employment. Rocha must also assign to the United States any profits that he may be entitled to receive in connection with any publication relating to his criminal conduct or his U.S. Government service.

“Despite swearing an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, Rocha betrayed the U.S. by secretly working as a Cuban agent for decades,” said Executive Assistant Director Larissa L. Knapp of the FBI’s National Security Branch. “After years of lying and endangering national security and U.S. citizens, he finally accepted responsibility for his actions and received the maximum prison sentence. This should serve as a notice to our adversaries that the FBI will work tirelessly to stop foreign intelligence services and any who work with them against the interests of the United States and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.”

“Victor Manuel Rocha was sentenced to 15 years in prison today for deceiving our nation,” said Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey B. Veltri of the FBI Miami Field Office. “He blatantly violated the oath of office he willingly took as an employee of the State Department and disregarded the loyalty to the United States that is inherent with that oath. As this case demonstrates, the counterintelligence threat facing our nation is real, pervasive, and has the potential to cause great harm to our national security. I want to commend the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida for their close partnership on this highly sensitive matter. I also want to thank our Washington Field Office and our Counterintelligence Division, as well as the Department of Justice’s National Security Division and the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service for their valuable contributions to this case.”

“The investigation of this crime demonstrates the sustained threat from hostile intelligence services,” said Assistant Director for Domestic Operations Andrew Wroblewski of the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS). “Today’s guilty plea and sentencing are another example of our commitment to successfully work together with our federal law enforcement partners in the pursuit of those who compromise the security of the United States.”

In pleading guilty, Rocha admitted that, beginning in 1973, and continuing to the time of his arrest, he secretly supported the Republic of Cuba and its clandestine intelligence-gathering mission against the United States by serving as a covert agent of Cuba’s General Directorate of Intelligence.

By his own admission, to further that role, Rocha obtained employment at the U.S. Department of State, where he worked between 1981 and 2002, in positions that provided him access to nonpublic information, including classified information, and the ability to affect U.S. foreign policy. Aside from serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia and on the White House National Security Council, Rocha’s career included a stint as Deputy Principal Secretary of the State Department’s U.S. Interests Section in Havana, Cuba from 1995-97. After his State Department employment ended, Rocha engaged in other acts intended to support Cuba’s intelligence services.

Rocha kept his status as a Cuban agent secret to protect himself and others and to allow himself the opportunity to engage in additional clandestine activity. Rocha provided false and misleading information to the United States to maintain his secret mission and traveled outside the United States to meet with Cuban intelligence operatives.

In a series of meetings during 2022 and 2023, with an undercover FBI agent posing as a covert Cuban General Directorate of Intelligence representative, Rocha made repeated statements admitting his “decades” of work for Cuba, spanning “40 years.” When the undercover told Rocha he was “a covert representative here in Miami” whose mission was “to contact you, introduce myself as your new contact, and establish a new communication plan,” Rocha answered “Yes,” and proceeded to engage in lengthy conversations during which he described and celebrated his activity as a Cuban intelligence agent. Throughout the meetings, Rocha behaved as a Cuban agent, consistently referring to the United States as “the enemy,” and using the term “we” to describe himself and Cuba. Rocha additionally praised Fidel Castro as the “Comandante,” and referred to his contacts in Cuban intelligence as his “Compañeros” (comrades) and to the Cuban intelligence services as the “Dirección.” Rocha described his work as a Cuban agent as “enormous … More than a grand slam,” and asserted that what he did “strengthened the Revolution … immensely.”

The FBI Miami Field Office investigated the case, with valuable contributions by the FBI Washington Field Office and the U.S. Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS).

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jonathan D. Stratton and John C. Shipley for the Southern District of Florida and Trial Attorneys Heather M. Schmidt and Christine A. Bonomo of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section prosecuted the case. 

You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine piece on Rocha and how the FBI caught the Cuban spies via the below link: 

Paul Davis On Crime: My Counterterrorism Magazine Piece On How The FBI Caught The Traitorous Cuban Spies 

FBI Philadelphia Recognizes National Child Abuse Prevention Month 2024

The FBI in Philadelphia released the below information:

PHILADELPHIA—Thousands of children become victims of crimes – whether it’s through kidnappings, violent attacks, sexual abuse, or online predators. FBI Philadelphia joins our community in recognizing April as National Child Abuse Prevention Month.

The FBI’s Violent Crimes Against Children (VCAC) program was developed to decrease the vulnerability of children to sexual exploitation; to develop a nationwide investigative response to crimes against children; and to enhance the capabilities of state and local law enforcement investigators through programs, investigative assistance, and task force operations. FBI Philadelphia has a dedicated team of special agents, analysts, task force officers, and victim specialists working to combat crimes against children every day throughout our territory.

“Crimes against children are among the most heinous offenses we investigate” said Wayne A. Jacobs, special agent in charge of FBI Philadelphia. “The FBI and our law enforcement partners remain steadfast in our commitment to identify, investigate, and prosecute those who seek to victimize the most vulnerable among us.”

This National Child Abuse Prevention Month, FBI Philadelphia wants to bring attention to the crime of financially motivated sextortion. The FBI has seen a significant increase in financially motivated sextortion schemes targeting children via the Internet. From October 2021 to March 2023, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations received over 13,000 reports of online financial sextortion of minors. The sextortion involved at least 12,600 victims—primarily boys—and led to at least 20 suicides.

In the six-month period from October 2022 to March 2023, the FBI observed at least a 20% increase in reporting of financially motivated sextortion incidents involving minor victims compared to the same time period the previous year. Victims are typically males between the ages of 14 to 17, but any child can become a victim.

It’s important for victims to understand they are not alone. Children that feel threatened need to ask a trusted adult for help. Most children are afraid to tell their parents, teachers, or other trusted adults about their online activities, especially if the activities are inappropriate. It is also important for children to know they are not to blame.

If you believe you or a child you know is a victim of financial sextortion, you should:

• NOT produce additional images
• Immediately report the activity to law enforcement:
• Contact your local police department or call 1-800-CALL-FBI or visit tips.fbi.gov to report it, or find your local FBI field office at https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices
• Contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST or online at www.cybertipline.org;
• Save all material and correspondence for law enforcement review;
• Tell law enforcement everything about the online encounters—it may be embarrassing, but it is necessary to find the offender.

Parents and guardians should talk to children about online predators, sextortion, and the motivations of those who entice children. The following measures may help educate and prevent children from becoming victims of financial sextortion:

• Make children aware that anything done online may be available to others;
• Make sure children’s apps and social networking sites’ privacy settings are set to the strictest level possible;
• Tell children to report anyone who asks them to engage in sexually explicit activity online to a parent, caregiver, or law enforcement;
• Parents and guardians should review and approve apps downloaded to smart phones and mobile devices and monitor or limit activity on those devices;
• Ensure an adult is present and engaged when children communicate via webcam, or have the ability to review the children’s activity;
• Discuss Internet safety with children before they engage in any online activity and maintain those discussions throughout their teenage years;
• Use software monitoring apps to alert parents of harmful activity on their children’s mobile devices.

For more information about the FBI’s Violent Crimes Against Children program, please visit https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/violent-crime/cac. 

The DEA On the Enduring and Emerging Threat of Drugs

Broad & Liberty ran my piece today on the DEA and the enduring and emerging threat of drug.

You can read the piece via the below link or the below text:

Paul Davis: The DEA on the enduring and emerging threat of drugs (broadandliberty.com)

While discussing the drug epidemic in Philadelphia and across the nation, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) special agent spoke to me of the damage illegal drugs do to drug users, as well as to their families.

“I remind others all the time that the hapless drug users we see stumbling along Kensington and Allegheny and elsewhere in the city are people,” the retired DEA agent said. 

“The drug user you see was probably a good person before the drugs took their body and soul. The drug users have families who are devastated by their drug addiction and horrible existence on the street.”

The retired DEA agent blames Mexican drug cartels and the street gangs who profit from the misery they inflict on drug addicts, families, neighborhoods and local businesses. He also pointed a finger at Communist China, who provides the chemicals to cartels for the making of the deadly drug fentanyl.

The former drug agent suggested that I read the DEA’s January 2024 “State and Territory Report On Enduring and Emerging Threat.” 

The report is a stark notice to how drugs are harming Philadelphia and the nation.    

“Fentanyl remains the primary driver behind the ongoing epidemic of overdose deaths in the United States,” the report stated. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports 72,027 drug poisoning deaths from fentanyl in 2022. Moreover, the same provisional data shows synthetic opioids were involved in approximately 68 percent of drug poisoning deaths.” 

The report noted that the incidents of fentanyl misuse and drug poisonings, and law enforcement seizures of fentanyl, have increased steadily since at least 2013 and reached record levels in 2022. 

“DEA, along with state, local, and federal law enforcement partners, continues to seize record quantities of fentanyl each year. The Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) continue to produce fentanyl in both powder form and pressed into fake pills.” 

According to the report. fentanyl is increasingly being mixed with other illicit drugs, such as methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine and methamphetamine. Deaths from psychostimulants (primarily methamphetamine) have steadily increased for the past twelve years, and have sharply increased in the past five, which is likely due to widespread availability of highly pure and potent methamphetamine from Mexico. 

“In 2022, the CDC reported 33,190 people died due to poisoning involving psychostimulants with abuse potential, an increase of 32 percent from 2021. Xylazine, a potent animal tranquilizer, has worsened the fentanyl threat by posing yet another health challenge. 

“Xylazine is not an opioid, so naloxone/Narcan does not reverse its effects. Xylazine is not a controlled substance under the U.S. Controlled Substances Act (CSA). Xylazine is primarily added to fentanyl and other opioids to enhance the effects. Xylazine, also known as “tranq”, is an analgesic and muscle relaxant for veterinary use. Xylazine has harmful physical effects in the respiratory and circulatory systems, as well as muscle and soft tissue injuries that can turn necrotic or result in amputations. Xylazine has been encountered in combination with fentanyl but has also been detected in mixtures containing cocaine and heroin.” 

The report states that deaths from psychostimulants (primarily methamphetamine) have steadily increased for the past twelve years, and have sharply increased in the past five, which is likely due to widespread availability of highly pure and potent methamphetamine from Mexico. 

“The DEA has seized xylazine and fentanyl mixtures in 48 of 50 States, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. Nitazenes (2-benzylbenzimidazoles) are an emerging synthetic opioid group that can be more potent than fentanyl and poses an additional opioid threat to the United States,” the report informs us. “Similar to previously identified synthetic opioids, nitazenes have appeared on the illicit market with minor chemical modifications while retaining their pharmacological profile. Etonitazene, isotonitazene, clonitazene, and several additional nitazene analogues are Schedule I substances under the U.S. CSA. Nitazenes are increasingly being identified in combination with fentanyl, heroin, and cocaine in lab submissions.”

The retired drug agent said the report is sobering. He suggests that what is needed to combat the drug epidemic is a full-frontal attack on the drug suppliers in Mexico and on the street drug gangs in America.

“The open Southern border also needs to be closed. The cartels are assisting illegal immigrants cross the border and in addition to charging a harsh fee for doing so, they are using some of them as “mules.” The mules are carrying the deadly drugs across the border, and they end up in Philadelphia and other cities,” the former DEA agent said. “The cartels are also smuggling in large quantities of drugs via other methods. The Southern border needs to be closed.”

I agree. 

City, state and federal law enforcement need to increase their efforts in shutting down the drug dealing street gangs. And prosecutors and judges ought to slam the drug dealers hard. The DEA and other federal law enforcement agencies ought to be empowered to increase their war on the cartels in Mexico and America. 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suggested using American special operation forces to hit the cartels in Mexico during his presidential campaign, and former President Donald Trump has also pondered the use of U.S. special operators in Mexico.      

A Tom Clancy-like scenario of special operators hitting the cartels on their own ground would disrupt the cartels and will make them fear America. 

In my view, the cartels are as serious a threat to America as Islamic radical terrorists. They should be dealt with in the same way we countered the terrorists worldwide.           

Closing the border will stop the easy flow of drugs into America. The cartels are clever, incentivized by money, so they will inevitably find other ways to smuggle in drugs, but closing the border will decrease the amount of deadly drugs now entering the country.  

Having performed security work for the U.S. Navy and the Defense Department for more than 37 years, I know that proper security needs several rings. In addition to a solid border wall, we need additional security measures, such as concertina wire, (like Texas is laying out), electronic sensors, and an increase in Border Patrol special agents and service dogs who defend the border. 

Paul Davis, a Philadelphia writer and frequent contributor to Broad + Liberty, also contributes to Counterterrorism magazine and writes the “On Crime” column for the Washington Times. He can be reached at pauldavisoncrime.com. 

When A 24-Year-Old Ian Fleming Went To Moscow To Cover a “Show” Trial: “Russia is ruled by an army of executioners with the Lubyanka as the headquarters of death.”

Lithub.com offers a chapter from Nicholas Shakespeare’s Ian Fleming: The Complete Man, the latest biography of the late, great thriller writer and the creator of James Bond. 

The chapter deals with the 24-year-old Ian Fleming, then a Reuters reporter who covered the Soviet spy trials in Moscow.     

In the late 1960s, the screenwriter Jack Whittingham, who had collaborated on the writing of Thunderball, started to write a screenplay based on the life of Ian Fleming. Whittingham’s daughter Sylvan says: “He had Fleming as a Reuters correspondent travelling on that train across Russia. Fleming was sitting in a compartment, and this alter ego like a ghost came out of him, and this whole adventure took place. That was how Dad played it—that Fleming had this other life that was Bond.” 

The project was aborted, yet it reveals something of Whittingham’s perception of Bond that he saw his origins in Ian’s first important foreign assignment. During his fortnight in Moscow, Ian confronted a system that crystalized in his twenty-four-year-old mind the kind of enemy Bond would take on in the 1950s and 60s. 

Ian had been forewarned from reading Leo Perutz that “Russia is ruled by an army of executioners” with the Lubyanka as “the headquarters of death.” He understood the truth behind these remarks as he sat for six days in the packed Moscow courtroom and observed from a few feet away “the implacable working of the soulless machinery of Soviet Justice.” 

In July 1956, after delivering From Russia, with Love, Ian told his editor how it was based on what he had witnessed personally, “a picture of rather drab grimness, which is what Russia is like,” and a portrait of state intimidation on a scale that he could never have imagined in Carmelite Street. 

During his time in Moscow, Ian formed a hostile picture of the Soviet state that, twenty years later in the context of the Cold War, the rest of the world was ready to gobble up. A system built on fear, routine arrests, the terrorizing of innocent men and women in a show trial dominated by a pitiless Stalinist prosecutor, who, in his appetite to break and dehumanize the accused, compared them to “stinking carrion” and “mad dogs.” 

You can read the rest of the chapter via the below link:

When a 24-Year-Old Ian Fleming Went to Moscow to Cover a “Show” Trial ‹ Literary Hub (lithub.com)

A Look Back At The Infamous Boston Criminal Whitey Bulger: My Crime Beat Column On 'Whitey: The Life Of America's Most Notorious Mob Boss'

Back in 2013 I reviewed a good book on the notorious Boston criminal Whitey Bulger for the Washington Times, and I later interviewed one of the authors in my Crime Beat column. 

You can read the Crime Beat column and link to the Washington Times review below:

As I wrote in my Washington Times review of Whitey: The Life of America's Most Notorious Mob Boss (Crown), there have been many books written about James “Whitey’ Bulger, the Boston Irish mob boss currently on trial in Boston for 19 murders and other crimes, and up to now Black Mass by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill was the best of the bunch.

But with Whitey, Lehr and O’Neill have surpassed themselves.

Dick Lehr (seen in the below photo) is a professor of journalism at Boston University and a former Boston Globe reporter. He is the co-author of Black Mass and The Underboss, along with Gerald O’Neill.

I contacted Dick Lehr and my interview with him is below: 

DAVIS:  I worked for a Defense Department command in Philadelphia and for a time Boston was our regional headquarters. During those years I was a frequent visitor to Boston and I grew fond of the city.           

LEHR:  There is a small-big city feel, or a big-small city feel. 

DAVIS:  I liked the bars as well. 

LEHR: Then we have something else in common.

DAVIS:  I enjoyed your previous books, such as Black Mass and I enjoyed Whitey. Whitey Bulger is an interesting guy, although he is a God-awful criminal. I’ve covered organized crime for a good number of years now and I most recently interviewed Philip Leonetti, the former underboss of the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra organized crime family in Philadelphia and South Jersey. He said that he killed “bad guys.” They were trying to kill him, so he killed them. He said he never killed innocent people. Whitey Bulger, on the other hand, not only killed rival criminals, he reportedly strangled and murdered two innocent women. 

LEHR: His first known murder was a mistake. He intended to kill a competing gang member but he ended up killing the guy’s brother. He just shrugged it off.  

DAVIS: That’s a bad start. So it seems Bulger is in a class by himself, would you agree? 

LEHR: Yes, I think it shows the extreme depravity and viciousness that you referred to when you said he was God-awful. In the last month or so, through his attorney, he is putting out a new line - it sounds like Leonetti – that the people he killed deserved to be killed and he never killed those girls. It’s just Whitey being Whitey.        

DAVIS:  That’s been a mob thing for years, saying we only kill each other.       

LEHR: Whitey is trying to take back those murders, saying that I didn’t kill those girls. I wouldn’t do that. He is trying to get himself back to being what is more gangster-respectable. His problem is that the evidence seems overwhelming against him in connection to those two murders and already federal court judges have ruled that he killed them.      

DAVIS:  His partner-in-crime, Steven “the Riflemam” Flemmi, testified that Bulger killed the girls, right?

LEHR:  Yes, and Kevin Weeks. 

DAVIS:  Philip Leonetti recently wrote a piece in the Huffington Post. He wrote that when he was the Philadelphia underboss and Nicodemo Scarfo, his uncle and the Philadelphia boss, was in prison, he met with the New England Cosa Nostra guys and they were complaining about Bulger. Leonetti said they were described him disdainfully as a drug dealer and not a mob guy or true gangster. Do you think that is an accurate view of him by the Boston mob? 

LEHR: I think that is a true view of how someone in their shoes would look at someone like Whitey Bulger. He was a drug dealer in the 80’s and he made a ton of money off of cocaine. I think they underestimated him if they considered him just a nasty little drug dealer. They are underestimating or under-evaluating his position and his standing in the underworld. He was “it” in the 1980’s. So whether you are from New England or Leonetti from Philadelphia, that is a snapshot that does not capture the scope of this man’s power at the time, partly rooted from the power of the FBI watching his back. 

DAVIS: Bulger is unique in the annuals of crime in that sense as well.

LEHR: Totally, totally. 

DAVIS:  Being an informant to gain police protection is not uncommon in crime and organized crime, but in that Bulger was able to manipulate the FBI agents and have them protect him so well over the years is unique, I think, in crime history. 

LEHR: I think so. We say in the book that is why history will view him as one of the more significant crime figures in America. You can’t mention him without saying in the same breath, corrupt FBI. 

DAVIS: How big was his crime empire? In terms of dollars and business, was he a rival and competitor to Cosa Nostra?     

LEHR: Well, certainly in the Boston branch, which reported to Providence, yes, I think so. This was unique too, in the sense that it was a cult of personality – Whitey’s. We describe it in the book as a closely-held corporation, where he surrounded himself with an immediate circle of unbelievably ruthless killers - Martorano, Weeks, and Flemmi – who were loyal and trusting. Just like his own physique, he kept it lean. He didn’t bother with some kind of extended organization. 

DAVIS: Yes, it was small in numbers compared to other organized crime outfits. 

LEHR:  Yes, and yet he controlled plenty because he was feared and powerful and vicious. There were all these sort of affiliates. All of these drug dealers in “Southie” were under his thumb. He had a drug operation, but they rarely saw him. There was all this insulation in between. So he ran an organization and then beyond the organization he accomplished and had the knack to intimidate major New England drug traffickers. They paid him a tax in order for them to do business. There are estimates of $10 million to $50 million, but who knows? 

DAVIS:  And where is that money today?

LEHR: Exactly. That is the big final question. But he would get a half of million dollar cut out of some major pot load moving through Boston heading up New England. So that speaks to his presence in a big way, even though he had no extensive organization and no lines of succession like the mafia. It was a cult of personality.      

DAVIS: All based on his reputation that he can and will kill you, and kill you viciously. Those stories of him torturing people before he killed them.     

LEHR: Yeah, and this all reinforced the myth of Whitey being the ultimate “stand-up guy,” which was his reputation.  

DAVIS: The Robin Hood of Boston.

LEHR: He despised and hated informers. Psychologically, he was projecting. He was known for that viciousness and torturing. When he was killing an informant, a rat, he brought a special viciousness to bear. That helped feed the notion that Whitey absolutely can’t stand a rat. It was such an anathema to him, such a horror – in part because he hates himself.      

DAVIS: Where did the phrase “Whitey is a good bad guy” come from? 

LEHR: The first time I heard that was from the mouth of FBI agent John Connelly back in 80’s. Isn’t that funny?  We heard that before we knew what we know today. Connelly was simply an FBI agent who was describing this kind of Robin Hood mythic Whitey Bulger crime boss.  

DAVIS:  Connelly was saying this to reporters like you? 

LEHR: Yes. Looking back in hindsight, John Connelly was one of Whitey’s best marketers and PR agents. He was spinning the myth of Robin Hood. Sure he’s a bad guy, but he’s does nice things for people. And we show in the biography, it is an extension of what Whitey has always tried to project all of his life. When he went away to prison he was trying to say I don’t belong here. It jumps off the page, some of these assessments from Alcatraz. How Whitey was complaining about the vulgarity of his cell mates. Give me a break!      

DAVIS: I read Black Mass when it came out years ago and I thought it was outstanding. It was a comprehensive look at Whitey Bulger’s criminal career and his FBI connection. So why did you and your co-author decide to write a biography of Whitey Bulger? And how does the biography differ from Black Mass?

LEHR: That’s a good question. And the answer is the bulk and the focus of Black Mass is the Whitey Bulger/FBI years, basically two decades from 1975 to 1995. It has been called the “Unholy Alliance,” and the “the Devil’s Deal.” So when Whitey was captured, we realized that this guy actually now warrants a biography. Part of it was realizing that in 1975 when he cut his deal with the Boston FBI, he was already 48. He lived half a life that we barely scratched in Black Mass and no one else has. There was this whole life that had not been explored and the sense that we talked about – he’s unique now. He has a place as a significant crime figure in American history. We wanted to put the Black Mass years in a larger context of his life story, of a biography, in which we try to not just tell this dramatic and horrific story, but get more into the why and how in the making of this monster. I think the challenge of any biographer, regarding any subject, is to go behind the “he did this and he did that” and try to reveal some insight and meaning.              

DAVIS: I thought Whitey was outstanding. The prison years and the LSD tests were particularly interesting. How were you able to get Bulger’s prison records?   

LEHR: That was a huge breakthrough. In the original outline, we had one chapter for his nine years in prison. Two months later we got hold of his prison file because it has become a public record and one chapter became four, four and a half. It is fascinating.   

DAVIS: I knew he was connected to his Boston politician brother, but from your book I learned that the U.S. Speaker of the House was writing letters for Bulger as well.    

LEHR: Around here we knew that the family had a connection to House Speaker John McCormack, but that’s all we knew. But from the prison file, and also the McCormack papers at Boston University where I teach, we suddenly have all this meat and muscle to put on that skeletal fact. Whitey had a benefit in prison that no other inmate did, which is access to power like that.     

DAVIS: You’ve been covering Whitey Bulger since you were a Boston Globe reporter. How long has it been? 

LEHR: Go back to the late 80’s, that’s when we started and broke the story about some kind of special thing going on between Whitey and John Connelly and the Boston FBI. 

DAVIS: That was your first story? 

LEHR: That was it. It was historic in the sense that it was the beginning of the end. It is another reminder how journalism can play a role in history.  

DAVIS: Have you met Whitey Bulger?

LEHR: No. I was in court when he came back to Boston and I’ve written him at least five times since he’s been back about the biography. Boy, did I want a meeting for the biography but he refused. He wants everything on his terms. He writes letters to a friend of his, a guy we mention in the book named Richard Sunday and then Sunday gives the letters to the Globe. It’s news in the sense that it is Whitey’s letters, but it is the world according to Whitey. It’s like he has open mike time. It’s not a question of anyone challenging him in any way. That’s where he puts out things like I don’t kill girls and things like that.            

DAVIS: Do you think he is going to write a book or have someone ghost a book for him? 

LEHR: He was writing one while he was in Santa Monica, which I think he had stopped. I hope that it gets released because it will be fascinating to read, although not so much for its truth. I think he got almost a hundred pages out, but the government has it. He needs to find someone who will close their eyes and hold their nose.          

DAVIS: And cash the check. Are you covering the trial? 

LEHR: I’ll be there and we’ll probably write a new chapter about the trial for the paperback.  

DAVIS: Do you plan on writing another Bulger book? 

LEHR: I don’t think so. But I think one can get a book out of a trial that goes three months.  

DAVIS: The trial is already making headlines. 

LEHR: Oh, sure. It is a big story. I’ll be there and maybe do some commentary and maybe some op-ed stuff. I’ve already written one op-ed piece.    

DAVIS: I read that director Barry Levinson is going to film Black Mass. Are you involved in the film production?     

LEHR: Yes, in a consulting way. We have heard quite regularly from Barry and his people. They finished the script and they are polishing it now. They are asking all kinds of interesting questions.

DAVIS: I heard there is also another Whitey Bulger film in the works with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon.  

LEHR: We hear that it is a back burner project now.   

DAVIS: You write in Whitey that Bulger is an avid reader. Do you think he read Black Mass and Whitey?   

LEHR: We’ve been told that he had just about all of the books written about him when they raided his apartment they discovered nearly all of the books written about him in his library.

DAVIS: That's not real smart. I guess he figured that no one would raid his apartment. I read somewhere that you consider Whitey to be the third part of a trilogy with Black Mass and The Underboss, your book on the Boston Cosa Nostra. I read The Underboss a couple of weeks ago and I was curious to find that John Connelly was featured in the book in a much better light than he was in Black Mass and Whitey. Did you meet him when you were researching The Underboss?

LEHR: Yes, that was when we met all of these guys. We wrote the FBI's bugging operation of the Boston mob underboss in a series in the Globe and then expanded it into the first book. That was a "high five" moment for the FBI. The framework of The Underboss is a dramatic reconstruction of the bugging operation.  

DAVIS: At that time you had no idea that the Boston FBI was shielding Bulger.

LEHR: No. The Boston FBI cooperated for that project so they would look good. Journalistically, we interviewed the entire organized crime squad extensively, taping interviews in order to get all the details to do the drama. So we met all of these guys and fast forward a year and a half and we are going down the Whitey/FBI road. We knew all of these players and it’s no secret now, one in particular, became our source. The history-making stuff might not have happened had we not done that first story. There were unforeseen collateral benefits.  

DAVIS: Was Connelly a source?            

LEHR: He was a source for a lot of reporters for what was going on in law enforcement and the Boston underworld. In Black Mass we identify the two FBI sources that confirmed our story so we could publish that special relationship fact. One was John Morris and one was a retired supervisor named Robert Patrick, who also has a book out. We could not have written that breakthrough story in 1988 without confirmation inside the FBI. Our editors wouldn’t have let us. 

DAVIS: What do you think of John Connelly? 

LEHR: He still has quite a following of “free John Connelly” type of supporters. These are people who have their head in the sand. They are in denial. In my view, he desires to be in prison. He is just corrupt as they come. 

DAVIS: Well, it is not just a case of taking money, he was also convicted of setting up murders, am I right? 

LEHR: Yes. He’s taken money and he’s got blood on his hands. That’s what the Miami jury verdict was all about. He was, as the government proved in that Miami case, a member of the Bulger gang. But that said, it is doing an injustice to Connelly and to the story to say only Connelly and John Morris were the problem. We’re talking about a lawlessness that permeated at least the Boston office of the FBI for years. Too many other agents and supervisors, maybe all the way to Washington, have skated on this scandal. 

DAVIS: I know a good number of detectives and federal agents and all of them have informants and all them protect their informants as best as they can. Most criminals become informant to receive that protection, I’ve been told. What was different with Connelly and Bulger?

LEHR: I think that the detectives and agents you know would look at this relationship and they would see that the power dynamic was all off. They would never let their informants call the shots. At that is what’s become clear in the history of the Connelly/Whitey thing – Whitey was in charge. 

DAVIS: I also enjoyed reading about the history of Boston you included in Whitey. It was interesting how you included the Bulger family within that history. 

LEHR: The idea was to give the readers some context.

DAVIS: Was Whitey Bulger a unique Boston story? Do you think he could have achieved the same success in Philadelphia or New York?

LEHR: I don’t know. There was, to use a cliché, a perfect storm of events in Boston in the mid-70’s. You may have had in New York or Chicago a crime boss who has an agent from the neighborhood. I think it is possible. But it did require an unusual and unique set of factors that blended together. 

DAVIS: New York had the Westies. I can picture Bulger as a member of the Westies.

LEHR: New York is big and has five mafia crime families. There is something focused about Boston, where you have one mafia family and one unique and powerful Irish crime guy. 

DAVIS: How do you think the Bulger trial will end?

LEHR: I don’t think he’ll ever see the light of day. He’s stuck behind bars for however much time he has remaining. I can’t imagine a jury, despite the best and very creative efforts of a very able defense attorney, coming up with any other verdict other than guilty. 

DAVIS: Thank you for talking to us and good luck with Whitey and the upcoming film. 

Note: Bulger was murdered in prison in 2018.

You can read my Washington Times review of Whitey (Crown) via the below link:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/13/whitey-bulgers-horrific-crime-span/?page=all#pagebreak

And you can read my interview with Philip Leonetti via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/01/crime-beat-column-mafia-prince-q-with.html

The above photos were provided by Dick Lehr and Crown Publishing.