Louis Facciolo

Louis Facciolo ("Louie") (born c. 1941 Canarsie, Brooklyn-August 1990 Flatlands, Brooklyn ) was a Gambino crime family mob associate who served under capo Leonard DiMaria and brother of Lucchese crime family mobster Bruno Facciolo.

Biography

Facciolo owned part of the Portofino Soccer Club, a social club on Flatlands Avenue in Canarsie, Brooklyn. The guys who ran it, Salvatore Visconti and Steven, were successful dealers of stolen goods. The club was named after Portofino, a small Italian fishing village, comune and tourist resort in the province of Genoa on the Italian Riviera where Salvatore and Albert's immigrant parents originated from. Previously he had managed and owned a restaurant named The Spice of Life located at 32 Cedar Street in Hanover, New Jersey which is still in operation as of 2007. It is unknown who is currently the owner and manager of the establishment at this time since Louis's death. Salvatore and Steven had opened the club after getting permission from Louie Facciolo, a Gambino crime family to accept $250-a-week in protection money to allow them to operate the social club on Bruno's turf.Louie enjoyed to act the role of a made man even though he wasn't and fraternized with Salvatore and Steve. Louis Facciolo and Salvatore Visconti had been close friends for decades. For three decades, they and their brothers, the late Alfred Visconti and Bruno Facciolo, had been associated with the Lucchese crime family. In the early 1990s Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso and Louis Daidone of the Lucchese crime family thought that Bruno Facciolo and Alfred Visconti were government informants. Louis's brother Bruno was found shot to death in August of 1990. His corpse was left in the trunk of his car with a canary stuffed in his mouth because Casso suspected him of being a government informer.

Generosity to friends

His close life-long friend Alfred Visconti was gunned down at his Bensonhurst, Brooklyn apartment building in March 1991. At the time Alfred's brother, Lucchese crime family mobster Salvatore Visconti was not financially secure. So Louie gave more than $10,000 to Salvatore for Alfred's funeral and his wake which was held at Guarino's Funeral Home.

alvatore becomes an informant

Salvatore Visconti enticed his friend Louis and 46 other alleged thieves and gangsters including Angelo McConnach into a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sting operation in which $6 million in stolen goods was recovered. In 1993 Bruno's friend Salvatore who had been an informer for some time, agreed to become a cooperating witness and set up an FBI agent who would play a big time fence to the Gambino crime family's Canarsie, Brooklyn-based crew. He approached Louie Facciolo and said he was now flush and wanted to pay him back for Alfred's funeral. Louie brought his Gambino capo Leonard DiMaria also into the sting.

References

* “Brotherly Betrayal”, Gang Land The Online Column February 3, 1997 by Jerry Capeci
* "Daidone's Bird is Cooked", Gang Land The Online Column January 29, 2004 by Jerry Capeci