In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, Mafia boss John Gotti and his swaggering Gambino gang made headlines for their mob activity, but wiseguys on the streets knew that the real gangsters to watch out for were in the Luchese family. 

Today, the family’s jailed-for-life boss, Vittorio (Vic) Amuso, 67, (right) and four men who served as his acting boss over the years are linked in a federal grand jury probe into multiple murders and a myriad of additional family rackets, Gang Land has learned. 

Sources say the investigation is expected to end in racketeering, extortion, gambling and other charges against at least one of Amuso’s two most recent acting bosses and several other mobsters in his bruised and battered borghata.

More than two dozen Lucheses currently reside in federal prisons around the country, and many more were killed a decade ago on orders from Amuso and former underboss Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso, also serving life in prison.

Sources say the family’s current acting boss, Louis (Louie Crossbay) Daidone, 56, 

and his predecessor Steven Crea, 55, (right) are the major targets of the grand jury investigation by the office of Manhattan U.S. Attorney James Comey.

In an effort to nail Daidone and Crea, sources said, the feds have plucked incriminating information about them from the family’s most recent turncoat acting boss, Joseph (Little Joe) Defede, whose cooperation with the feds was first disclosed by Gang Land in March.

Shortly after wiseguys learned about Defede’s defection, FBI agents visited Daidone and Crea and warned them against retaliating against Defede’s son, a Queens restaurateur.

Sources say both have told associates they expect to be indicted. Crea, who had planned to cop a plea to state labor racketeering charges, has opted to wait until he learns what the feds have in store for him.

Defede, 68, (left) called the FBI when Amuso began to wonder whether his old Queens neighbor and handball partner had skimmed some of the family’s spoils from the Garment Center

and other rackets for himself from 1993 to 1998, the years he served as acting boss. When Amuso learned the family was earning more with Crea and Daidone, (right) he began to question it.

“Little Joe was never a tough guy, and when he thought he might get whacked, he turned,” said one source.

In addition to Little Joe, the feds have also picked the brain of an old reliable Luchese turncoat, onetime acting boss Alphonse (Little Al) D’Arco, for additional information about Daidone and Crea, sources said.

D’Arco, 70, the first Amuso acting boss to defect, has implicated Daidone in the planning and execution of several mob hits for Amuso in 1989, 1990 and 1991, according to court records.

Daidone, convicted of being part of a 1988 armored car robbery that netted $1.2 million, was released from federal prison in 1996. He could not be reached for comment. Assistant U.S. attorney Joseph Bianco, chief of Comey’s Organized Crime unit, and Crea’s lawyer Gerald Lefcourt, declined to comment.

Editor's note: Today, and every Thursday, Gang Land appears in The New York Sun, a new daily newspaper on sale at most major New York area newsstands.

The idea that Gravano – who faces up to 20 years for drug dealing at his sentencing next week – would testify as his defense witness makes even less sense than the possibility that Andrew would ever consider calling him, or that a jury of rational human beings would believe him.

Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti

Hot off the presses! It's here, the book it took yours truly and Gene Mustain 17 years to do! Although we didn't know it at the time, we began working on Mob Star: The Story of John Gotti in 1985, when we began covering the Gotti story as news reporters.

The first edition came out in 1988, and we finished this new edition three days before Gotti died in June. Alpha Books has distributed it to the nation's bookstores.

With a 40,000-word update, the new edition contains the entire Gotti saga – from his treacherous rise to his defiant downfall and right on up to his time in prison and his death from throat cancer.

The 378 page, full-size book uses eight additional chapters, a prologue and an epilogue to complete the story we began telling (better than any other reporters, we might add!) when we covered the Gotti-orchestrated, midtown Manhattan assassination of former Gambino boss Paul Castellano.

For the last and best words on Gotti, this is the book to have. It is specially priced at Amazon.com at $11.87, more than five bucks off the suggested retail price.

Not Really For Idiots

Whether you're a Gang Land regular or an occasional visitor, you'll enjoy  "The Complete Idiot's Guide to The Mafia," a book I wrote for Alpha Books that was published in December. It's filled with real stuff about real wiseguys and insight about the ways that mobsters make their money. It's 343 pages of true stories of life and death, honor and betrayal. Get it at your local book store, or at Gang Land's favorite, Amazon.com, where the powers that be have knocked the price down to $13.27, so low I am concerned that the Godfather of online booksellers has forgotten about my end.