Oh, organized crime and your clever ways to collect cash. Today brings word of another way those enterprising criminals have been raking in the dough for the decades: coffee. According to a recently flipped informant the Colombo family has been fleecing contract-mandated "coffee boys" at construction sites since the 80s, pulling in $250 per week per site. Insert obligatory Juan Valdez joke here.
Like all the "best" schemes this one was (and, we presume, still is) really simple. Union contracts mandate that construction sites have "coffee boys" whose sole job is to make sure that workers get their cuppa. The boys take the orders and cash and then buy the joe (or water or juice) at a discount and pocket the change for themselves. Or they did until the mob started leaning on them in the 80s, at which point they started paying up weekly $250 fees (it helped that the mob would make sure they got their jobs). That's $13k per site each year!
You'll be shocked to learn that this information came to light as the FBI looks into the Colombo family's control of Local 6A, where the coffee cash was being collected. In the meantime, frequent complainer and currently incarcerated alleged Colombo crime boss Thomas "Tommy Shots" Gioeli just got a free iPod.
