FBI conducts grim search for victims of 'Teflon Don'

A team of FBI agents in New York has begun digging for the remains of a half dozen or more victims of former Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, the so-called “Teflon Don”, who died in prison two years ago.

Acting on a tip from an underworld informant, federal authorities believe the site in a remote section of New York’s Queens borough could be a graveyard for targets of hits ordered by Gotti and other mobsters more than two decades ago.

They include a man whose fatal mistake was killing the 12-year-old son of Gotti, in a traffic accident.

Another victim was a former mob captain nicknamed “Lucky”.

No findings were reported during the first four days of digging this week. The job was expected to continue today and beyond.

The suspected burial ground is just west of John F Kennedy International Airport. Dilapidated homes, abandoned cars and other empty lots, some baited with rat poison, dot the marshy landscape. On a recent day, traffic was almost nonexistent.

The desolation suited the Gambino crime family.

“They picked it because it wasn’t far from their stomping grounds and it was secluded,” said Jerry Capeci, a columnist and expert on the Mafia. “But the key thing was that they thought it would never be looked at.”

While no one was looking, Gotti’s crew allegedly used the lot to make the bodies of traitors and enemies – murdered by both their crime family and others - disappear.

Two of the dead are believed to be former captains of the Bonanno crime family, Dominick “Big Trin” Trinchera and Philip “Philly Lucky” Giaccone.

Trinchera, Giaccone and another Bonanno captain, Alphonse “Sonny Red” Indelicato, were shot to death at a Brooklyn social club in 1981 amid an internal struggle for control of the family.

Joseph Massino, who later became boss, was convicted earlier this year in the killings based on the testimony of informant mobsters.

After the social club slaughter, the Gambinos agreed to help the Bonannos clean up the mess – though not well enough.

The body of Indelicato was discovered three weeks later by children who spotted his arm poking through the soil. Authorities retrieved Indelicato’s body at the time and found no others.

But investigators suspect the burials resumed, and that Ruby Street was also the last stop for a neighbour of Gotti’s who disappeared 24 years ago.

John Favara, 51, accidentally struck and killed Gotti’s 12-year-old son with his car in 1980 while the boy was riding a bicycle near his home.

Around four months later, after receiving death threats, Mr Favara was abducted outside a Long Island diner and vanished. Gotti was in Florida at the time.

Gotti – once the nation’s most feared gangster as head of the Gambinos - denied any involvement.

But he never hid his rage toward Mr Favara.

“I wouldn’t be sorry if the guy turned up dead,” he told the FBI at the time.

Gotti was sentenced to life in prison for racketeering and murder in 1992 and died behind bars in 2002. By then, Mr Favara was a forgotten footnote in Mafia lore.

But a recent case against the Bonannos produced the fresh tip about Mr Favara’s whereabouts – and the digging began.

Each day, two backhoes claw at the earth, while FBI agents wearing yellow rubber boots pick through the soil with rakes, and cadaver-sniffing dogs roam the ground. The discovery of a bone earlier this week caused a brief stir.

A closer examination revealed that it came from a dead dog.