Chicago: ...suspected extortion and gambling activities of the Mob

Chicago Crime Commission Calls FBI Raid on Calabrese Home Major Blow to Organized Crime

CHICAGO, March 28 /PRNewswire/ -- The relentless pursuit of organized crime by the Chicago office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has delivered a major blow against the Crime Syndicate and its band of mobsters and killers.

On March 24, 2010 FBI agents acting on a federal search warrant raided the former home in Oak Brook of mob hit man Frank J. Calabrese, Sr., and recovered $728,000 in cash, mostly in $500 and $1,000 bills and approximately 1,000 pieces of jewelry many in retail store display boxes and others with store price tags attached.

The FBI agents discovered seven firearms wrapped in clothing and towels and a dozen microcassettes containing recordings. Other items recovered were handwritten notes and ledgers that detailed suspected extortion and gambling activities of the Mob.

These seizures will dramatically add fuel to the federal attack on this band of predatory hoodlums who use criminal activities and violence to secure their ill-gotten goods.

The money, jewels, recordings, guns and written documents were found in a compartment behind a picture frame containing family photographs that covered a secret panel screwed onto the wood paneling.

Chicago Crime Commission files show that in January 2009 Federal District Court Judge James Zagel sentenced Calabrese to life imprisonment ordered him to pay $27 million dollars in forfeiture and restitution. The jury in the "Family Secrets" trial found Calabrese guilty of thirteen crime syndicate murders.

Commission files reveal that Calabrese has been involved in criminal activities in Chicago since he was a teenager. Calabrese, a former mob loan shark who demanded interest as high as 520% a year from his helpless credit victims, was convicted in 1954 in federal court for possession of stolen cars in interstate commerce. He has arrests for robbery, stolen autos and illegal use of firearms. His loan sharking ring operated from 1970 to 1990s. In his rise from petty hoodlum and mob errand boy to the top level of the Crime Syndicate, Calabrese headed the 26th Street Crew of Mob members who oversaw gambling and loan sharking in the Chicago area.

The organized crime squads in the Chicago FBI office have focused on the Crime Syndicate for more than a quarter of a century. Their numerous investigations have resulted in the convictions of dozens of members of the Mob's hierarchy and their hit men and street crews. The result of their dedicated work speaks for itself in terms of the dramatic decline in power of the once haughty and ugly band of mobsters and killers that operated the Crime Syndicate in Chicago.