When it comes to organized crime, the old gray mob just ain't what it used to be. Of course, there are reasons for that.
Inferior criminal minds, for one. The days of a Luciano-Lansky brain trust appear to be a thing of the past. These days, the wiseguys may dress the part of Hollywood's image of Murder Inc., but they're not known for their high intelligence quotients.
Superior detective work, for another. Between advances in surveillance technology, the use of confidential informants and some outstanding undercover work, several factions of the local mob have been folded five ways and shelved.
Three pending cases shine among many investigations conducted by the FBI, Metropolitan Police Department and other law enforcement agencies. The racketeering case against members and associates of the Los Angeles Mafia, the murder-for-hire investigation inside the seamy Las Vegas outcall escort service industry, and the multimillion-dollar slot machine cheating case involving the notorious Dennis Nikrasch all have two things in common:
John Plunkett and Charles Maurer, sharing the Best of Las Vegas Publisher's Picks for Best Investigator.
Simply stated, Plunkett and Maurer have been in the middle of the three biggest investigations to emerge from the local office of the FBI in many years. With Plunkett supervising the bureau's local Organized Crime squad, and Maurer working undercover in the middle of several La Cosa Nostra factions simultaneously, the choice was obvious.
They have played integral roles in ferreting out some of the last vestiges of what was once a powerful and violent mob presence in Southern Nevada. Along the way, their actions, and those of their fellow agents, have saved more than one life.
Former FBI Special Agent in Charge Bobby Siller, now a member of the state Gaming Control Board, recalls what he considers was a major turning point in the effectiveness of the Las Vegas office.
"From my perspective, that squad turned around when John grabbed it and brought Charlie in," Siller says. "It was John who came to me and reached out to Charlie. When John brought in Charlie, it provided that one-two punch that had been missing."
There was a good reason Plunkett and Maurer were comfortable working together. They had what so many agents lack in the FBI: a longtime track record. In the bureau, it's common for agents to move from city to city every few years. While mandated transfers keep agents from stagnating in one place, it does not promote the sort of working relationships of which superior undercover investigations are made.
That's part of what made Plunkett and Maurer different. They met in Buffalo, N.Y., in the 1970s and worked organized crime and gambling cases in Pittsburgh; West Virginia; Youngstown, Ohio; and Cleveland. Their work in Youngstown led to what then was the biggest cocaine bust in state history. Their undercover efforts in Cleveland led to the indictment of 55 people, including several cops and small-town mayors, as well as some of the biggest names from the city's Mafia clan. Like a couple of veteran ballplayers, they knew each other's moves and worked well together.
Beginning in 1996, they began working together again in Las Vegas. Within a year, the local mob would never be the same.
On the morning of Jan. 7, 1997, the word first began to circulate that Las Vegas mob associate Fat Herbie Blitzstein had been murdered inside his townhouse at 3655 Mount Vernon Ave. But neither the public nor most of the news media knew that Blitzstein's demise would reveal one of the most intense undercover operations in local history.
Fat Herbie's street action had been a small part of a much bigger case, one which Plunkett's squad, and Maurer in an undercover capacity, had been working for months against Las Vegas-based representatives of Mafia families from Buffalo and Los Angeles. In the indictments that followed, the government alleged the men, including reputed "made members" Steve Cino, Bobby Panaro, Carmen Milano, Jimmy Caci, Bobby Milano and Lou Caruso, had participated in criminal activity ranging from extortion to carrying out the murder of Blitzstein. Blitzstein's relationship to Lonnie "Ted" Binion, who on Sept. 17, 1998 was found dead in his Las Vegas home after ingesting lethal amounts of drugs, also intrigued investigators.
But the investigation didn't end there.
While suspects in the Los Angeles mob investigation, known in the bureau as Operation Thin Crust, were still being rounded up, Plunkett and Maurer became aware of an attempt by reputed mob figures to take over the city's immensely lucrative escort service trade. Operators of more than one of the escort services, known to local vice investigators as fronts for prostitution, reported being threatened. The FBI took the threats seriously and quickly moved into position. The result was the arrest of several men on charges that include conspiring to murder their business rivals.
During that time, Plunkett's crew developed information about a slot machine cheating ring which, they were told, had quietly generated millions of dollars in jackpot wins. A surveillance team was set up, and the suspects were rounded up in a matter of a few weeks after winning several million dollars. The ringleader, previously convicted slot cheater Dennis Nikrasch, had agreed to cooperate in part with authorities.
To Siller, the reason the organized crime squad has been so effective is obvious.
"The combination of both John and Charlie truly turned the organized crime initiative around here," Siller says. "They developed sources in difficult situations, made cases and saved lives.
"They took the information from sources we have in (the) escort business and didn't downplay that. They nipped that in the bud right quick within a few hours and in one day they had emergency Title III wiretaps and did all the appropriate things."
Plunkett, 52, became a police officer in suburban Buffalo at age 21. It was there he first met Maurer. After Plunkett became an agent in 1978, he worked again with Maurer on mob-related gambling cases in Pittsburgh and West Virginia against the Sebastian John LaRocca crime family before working a case in Youngstown that resulted in a record cocaine seizure and the arrest of a major Colombian trafficker.
"We've been best friends a long time," says Maurer, who at 48 has spent half his life with the bureau. "We go back a long way, and it certainly helps to be able to depend on people. You know what someone's going to do. One thing about John, he's done it all. He's been an investigator. He's an excellent supervisor as well. That's important, having that experience."
Maurer stresses the importance of the entire squad in the success of complex cases.
"You don't work any of these cases by yourself," he says. "It's a team effort. There's not a person on that squad who hasn't worked all three of these cases."
Plunkett laughs when he recalls the duo's first full-time undercover assignment together. They were placed in Cleveland as owners of Lakeshore Vending, a storefront that specialized in leasing juke boxes and illegal video poker machines to bars and restaurants. For more than two years, Plunkett and Maurer operated a successful vending business by day, and worked the mobbed-up nightspots after dark. The business made money, but the agents were more successful in rounding up the local hoodlum element.
"We had a number of stops and were able to negotiate with organized crime sources," Plunkett says. "We were busting our butts running a legitimate business which enabled us to do the things we expected we'd have to do to get close to the bad guys."
"Let me tell you, the bad guys loved Charlie. They thought he was the biggest Italian they'd ever met."
By the time Lakeshore Vending was shut down, Plunkett and Maurer had done more than put a few dozen suspected criminals in jail. They'd cemented a friendship that continues to pay dividends these days in Las Vegas.
"We were laughing about that investigation the other day," Plunkett says. "We had our pictures taken. It was back in '82. In the picture, I had an Afro and he had dark hair."
Their big hairstyles have changed since then, but Plunkett and Maurer still are making big cases.
