''front man" who has no criminal record and give him "nut money"—anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000—which is put in a bank to establish credit; the firm orders supplies that are quickly paid for in full. Then, as orders are increased, payments start coming through just a bit slower. It is very difficult for a supplier to turn its back on an account whose orders are increasing. When the orders become king-sized, business greed or hunger on the supplier's part tends to overwhelm its caution.
The mob concentrates on businesses with goods that can be turned over rapidly and thus shipped off to another company, often under control of the mob as well. Liquor supplies frequently go in the front door of a mob restaurant and bar and right out the back door. When the nut money is suddenly pulled out of the bank and the business is shut down, all creditors will find is a bankrupt shell of a company and absolutely no assets.
A mob restaurant-bar in Queens, New York, simply vanished with the placing of a sign in its window, reading: "Closed due to oven fire. Will reopen shortly." Of course, it never reopened and creditors found not a thing on the premises; all liquor, food supplies and furnishings were gone. If there had been an oven fire, it was not evident. The oven had been carted off as well.
Not long ago a conglomerate, stuck with a publishing division some $3 million in debt, was approached by a front man representing New Jersey syndicate operators who offered to take over the publishing company for $10,000 and the assumption of the $3 million debt. The parent firm jumped at the offer. It turned out the $10,000 was paid in the form of two rubber checks, but that very first week the mob got hold of a cash flow of $90,000 and made them good.
Then the publishing firm's creditors were contacted and told the past debts would be paid off over a period of 18 months but that they would have to continue to service the company's printing needs and that current bills would be paid as they came in. The creditors agreed and the operators soon ran up another couple of million in added debts.
The old bills were not paid nor were the newer ones. In the meantime funds continued to be siphoned out of the cash-flow pipeline. Expensive typesetting machines and electronic typewriters were ordered and quickly disappeared. In the end everyone dealing with the firm was stuck, except for the operator of a copy-machine firm who personally appeared to reclaim his machines, wheeling them out of the offices while threatening to run over anyone getting in his way. He had, he told an inquirer, been burned too often by scammers before.
The speed with which the mob can move in such a scam is illustrated by an operation by the Genovese family. They took over a large New York meat whole-saler after getting it in the family's debt and then insisting on putting in their own man as president to watchdog their money. Over a 10-day period poultry and meat were bought up at high prices and sold off at lower amounts. Then the Genovese man disappeared, leaving the company once more in the hands of the old management—with the advice that it declare immediate bankruptcy. Everyone got stuck except the mob.
Barbara, Joseph, Sr. (1905–1959): Apalachin Conference host The fact that the Apalachin Conference of 1957 was broken up by a New York State police raid couldn't help but throw Joseph Barbara Sr. into public attention. The owner of the mansion where the gangsters met, Barbara was dubbed "The Underworld's Host" by journalists. In fact, Barbara's home was the site of many underworld conferences, of national and regional scope. According to Joe Bonanno's memoirs, the Barbara mansion had been the site not only of the underworld's 1956 national convention but also of the election of members to the national commission for the next five years.
Despite the fiasco of 1957, the mob generally held conferences in safe areas, which the Barbara estate had otherwise been. Since Barbara was a regular Mafia host it would have been inconceivable that "protection" had not been taken care of; the underworld slates meetings only at areas deemed policeproof. According to Joe Bonanno, in his autobiography A Man of Honor (a work that might be deemed spurious for many of its claims, but credible concerning Apalachin), Barbara's connections with many law enforcement agencies had up until that time assured privacy. But over the year preceding Apalachin, Bonanno said, Barbara had been at odds with some law enforcement people over money matters.
Barbara had come to the United States from Sicily in 1921 when he was 16. He emerged in crime as an enforcer in Buffalo, New York, Mafia circles and was arrested several times in connection with a number of murders in Pennsylvania, then within the influence of the aggressive Buffalo family. One Barbara victim was believed to have been racketeer Sam Wichner, who came to Barbara's home in 1933 apparently to discuss business matters with Barbara, Santo Volpe and Angelo Valente, Wichner's silent partners in bootlegging operations. According to the police, Barbara personally strangled Wichner to death. However, as in all the other murder investigations, nothing that would stand up in court could be produced and Barbara remained free from prosecution. Throughout a criminal career that spanned more than three and a half decades Barbara
