Mob Is Making South Florida Its Winter Home

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. - Business or pleasure?

For mobsters, South Florida offers a little of both: Fertile turf not controlled by any one crime family, and a pleasurable climate during the frigid winter months in Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago and New York City.

A steady string of criminal indictments prove the point.

In the last three years, South Florida indictments have targeted four of New York City's five crime families. The reputed head of the New England Mafia was arrested in West Palm Beach in August. And this month, three snowbirds, along with a fourth man vacationing in Deerfield Beach, were rustled from their South Florida homes and charged with running the Detroit mob.

"We don't want to give the impression they just merely come here to sun themselves in the winter," said Paul Miller, spokesman for the FBI.

"There are a number that do, but they also are conducting meetings. They're socializing down here. They're discussing criminal matters that are taking place in Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit."

And many times, the feds say, they are committing crimes.

"South Florida has always been an open city, which means that earning opportunities are present for everybody," said William Keefer, managing assistant U.S. attorney in Fort Lauderdale. "No particular family controls any particular industry."

The latest case comes from Detroit, where an indictment accuses 17 people of running a Motor City mob that ruled with a heavy hand for 30 years, roughing up people for money, and setting up gambling shops and loansharking operations.

The three South Florida snowbirds charged are: Jack William Tocco, the alleged crime family boss, of Boca Raton; his brother, Anthony Joseph Tocco, an alleged crime family captain, also of Boca Raton; and Anthony Joseph Zerilli, another alleged captain, of Hillsboro Beach. A fourth man, Paul Joseph Tocco, was visiting relatives and faces two extortion charges.

The feds say they kept low profiles in South Florida, tooling around in Cadillacs, tending to the lawn, enjoying the sunshine.

"They want to blend in. They were just neighbors. And they were not attracting much attention," said the FBI's Miller.

That was also the case for Francis "Cadillac Frank" Salemme, reputed head of the New England Mafia, arrested in his West Palm Beach home in August after almost two years on the lam. Like the Detroit figures, Salemme offered no resistance.

He had been hiding to the point of skipping his own son's funeral last year. In New England, he faces indictments for racketeering, extortion and money laundering.

A handful of South Florida indictments deal with crimes closer to home:

-- February 1993: USA v. Chilli et al., a 12-count indictment implicating the Bonanno crime family of New York.

The South Florida case alleged Gerald F. Chilli, a Hollywood beach resident with a record of attempted manslaughter, was a Bonanno captain who supervised a crew involved in gambling, loan sharking, bribery, marijuana and credit card fraud.

When federal agents came to arrest him, Chilli, who claimed to be a part-time fish salesman, turned to a co-defendant and said, "Nobody talks." Chilli got nine years for racketeering.

-- March 1993: An indictment citing the 75-100 member Colombo crime family, whose ranks have been silenced by a bloody internal war.

Anthony Induisi, a Little League coach in Davie, Fla., was accused of directing 10 supposed Colombo associates in Dade boiler rooms. The defendants ostensibly sold vacation packages, time shares, consumer clubs and overseas employment. Instead, they defrauded unsuspecting purchasers and put the cash to gambling.

Induisi got five years, three months. Four others got prison. Induisi's attorney contests the mob ties and describes his client as beloved by the community.

-- Still pending: The racketeering trial against Broward County nude club king Michael J. Peter and alleged Las Vegas mobster Natale Richichi. They are fighting the charges.

The indictment does not allege Peter is a member of organized crime, but that his Thee Dollhouse III in Pompano Beach was bankrolled in part by mobsters with ties to the Gambino crime family, supposedly run by John Gotti from his prison cell.