Bonanno boss Joseph Massino (right) has figured out how to evade the FBI bugs, wiretaps and video cameras that have brought down many of his own men and the leaders of New York's other families.

He takes trusted key aides like consigliere Anthony (TG) Graziano – indicted for racketeering and murder two weeks ago – to Mexico, Italy, and other places where FBI agents are unlikely to be watching or listening.

That's what he did last year when then-consigliere Anthony Spero was pre-occupied with racketeering and murder charges and Massino wanted to "install Graziano as consigliere," according to an FBI informer.

Massino and Graziano flew to Mexico and were captured by a security video on their return to Newark International Airport Feb. 15, 2001, according to Brooklyn federal prosecutors Jim Walden and Greg Andres.

In court papers, prosecutors charge that Massino and Graziano were also up to no good a few months later, in May 2001, when they traveled to Italy, and

a few weeks ago, when they returned to Mexico.

And last December, the same month FBI agents stopped Graziano (left) and relieved him of $6200 as part of their investigation, agents spotted the pair in Staten Island conducting a "walk talk," another attempt to avoid electronic surveillance.

Massino, who has closed most Bonanno social clubs and runs the family like a secret society since he got out of federal prison 10 years ago, is surveillance paranoid and always looking over his shoulder.

Shortly after his release – he did six years for labor racketeering – FBI agents targeted Massino, but nailing the secretive Mafia chieftain has been much tougher than it was for them to zap his friend and Howard Beach, Queens neighbor, the former swashbuckling Gambino boss, John Gotti.

"He's no dummy," FBI supervisor William Doran told me at the time, showing a grudging respect for Massino's leadership abilities. "The family has backbone and good discipline and has been pretty stable and static for some time, even before Massino got out of prison," said Doran.

"While in prison, his relationship with (underboss Salvatore) Vitale and Spero was strong, and there was no real division or any attempt to overthrow him as boss. His long friendship with Gotti was a solidifying force for him while he was in prison, but at the same time, he learned a hell of a lot from Gotti's troubles," said Doran.

Doran retired years ago, but Massino, 59, often cited in testimony and court papers as the Bonanno boss, is still going strong, the only New York Mafia boss who is.

The prosecutors don't say Massino and Graziano, 61, committed any crimes while together in Mexico, Italy, or Staten Island, just that they were ducking

He's charged with murder conspiracy, drug dealing, loansharking and extortion in a racketeering indictment along with former son-in-law Hector Pagan, four other associates and seven mobsters who are accused of various crimes from murder to bookmaking.

In 1994, a year after he finished a two year stint for tax fraud, Graziano blew his stack when a couple of young Colombo family wannabes shot up a Staten Island topless joint he ran, wounding a night club patron, according to court papers seeking to permanently detain Graziano, who has been held without bail since his Mar. 19 arrest. A hearing is set for next week. 

Graziano was so upset by an Oct. 5, 1994 shooting at Hipps, prosecutors said, he ordered "his Brooklyn-based crew to find and kill" the pair, John Pappa and Calvin Hennigar, who were flying high on coke and shooting up Staten Island then. Both were convicted of drug dealing and murder – Pappa, four killings and Hennigar one – in 1999 and are away for life.

But for three months in 1994, Graziano – also a heavy cocaine user, sources say – had his crew gunning for them, calling them off only after a Colombo wiseguy bested Graziano in a  sitdown over the affair, the prosecutors said.

A day after he was indicted in Brooklyn, Graziano, another ex-son-in-law, John (Porky) Zancocchio, (right) and 15 other wiseguys and associates were hit with racketeering, loansharking and stock fraud charges in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Zancocchio, 44, began serving a 70 month sentence for loansharking and tax fraud this week. Former son-in-law Hector Pagan, 36, is due for release from federal prison next year on drug charges that also landed Graziano's daughter Jennifer in federal prison. His daughter Lana will be sentenced for tax fraud later this month. 

Robert Lino, the key mobster in the monster 120-defendant Mob on Wall Street case, was charged in the Graziano indictment with the 1990 murder of a wannabe wiseguy who was told he was going to become a "made man."

Lino, 35, was a member of the hit team that killed Louis Tuzzio and left his body in a car about a mile away from the Gravesend, Brooklyn social club where Lino and an associate met him, according to court records.

As he got "dressed up" for an induction ceremony, Tuzzio (right) feared he was going to get whacked for several transgressions, but went anyway, his brother Nicholas testified at Spero's murder trial.

"He said, 'I'm going to get my button, and then I'm going to get this,'" said Nicholas, forming a gun with his index finger and thumb and putting it to his head.

Following his brother's death, Nicholas testified, Lino, now serving five years for his stock fraud conviction, apologized for his role in Louis' killing, saying: "It was nothing personal."

Lino's lawyer, Joseph Benfante, said he hasn't spoken to his client, who is en-route from an Oklahoma prison, but was "confident he will be acquitted in the case."

Always a hot head, Joseph Calco, a prolific Bonanno family killer whose  testimony helped sink Spero, has been losing his cool in his special federal prison unit for cooperating witnesses, Gang Land has learned.

Calco, who is scheduled for another appearance at Graziano and Lino's trial, pummeled a fellow inmate a few months ago, sources said.

A ninth grade dropout, Calco, 33, claimed he had been assaulted and was only defending himself but was found guilty by prison officials after a disciplinary hearing and spent a month in segregated confinement, sources said.

Not Really For Idiots
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