Original Gangsters Podcast · Original Gangsters, a True Crime Talk Podcast

Former Boston Mob Soldier Vincent "Gigi" Marino Talks Patriarca Mob War, Being Screwed by Justice System

·1 hr 2 min·4 clips

Marino says Buckley gave money to Sonny Mercurio while trying to prosecute Marino for the Salemi hit.

1. Original Gangsters Podcast focuses on Vincent "Gigi" Marino and the Patriarca mob war in Boston. 2. Scott Bernstein hosts Marino, and Marino says he was locked up for 28 years since 1996. 3. The episode asks how the Boston war unfolded and how Marino says federal corruption shaped it. 4. Bernstein says the summer of 1989 war involved Cadillac Frank Salemi, J.R. Russo, Vinnie Ferrara, and North and East Boston factions. 5. Marino says FBI and Department of Justice lawyers "instigated and fomented violence in Boston" through made guys as confidential informants. 6. He names COINTELPRO and the Top Echelon Informant Program as the government structures he thinks mattered. 7. Marino says J. Edgar Hoover’s program used high-ranking criminal informants and not ordinary cooperators. 8. He describes growing up in Revere, being born in Boston, and living in the North End. 9. Marino says he played football, indoor track, ski club, student council, and was king of the prom. 10. He says he attended one year at Bunker Hill Community College and studied criminal justice. 11. Marino says his grandfather Vincent "Gigi" Santapio was a middleweight boxer and bookmaker who made about nine million dollars a year 60 years ago. 12. He says J.R. Russo was "all-around" respectful, classy, and "super super super" intelligent. 13. Marino says FBI agents John Conley, Michael Buckley, and Robert Cowan came to his house on Fennel Street in Revere and told him Frank Salemi was trying to kill him. 14. He says the same pattern showed up when Conley warned Anthony Cardinale at Joe Tucci’s restaurant about Vinnie Ferrara. 15. Marino says Salemi’s biggest mistake was not being patient after leaving prison and trying to make power moves too fast. 16. He says Angel "Sunny" Mercurio, Whitey Bulger, and Stevie Flemmi were all part of the pressure around the coming violence. 17. The interview moves in a direct, argumentative style, with Bernstein pressing chronology and Marino answering from memory and public record. 18. Marino repeatedly cites FBI 302 reports, trial testimony, and court outcomes while Bernstein cross-checks details against books and documents. 19. Listeners interested in Boston mob history, FBI informants, and East Boston crime figures will get the most from this. 20. Listeners looking for light banter or a short celebrity interview may skip it.

As heard by us

A mob-war sit-down that turns prison memory and legal anger into a sharp reckoning.

Vincent "Gigi" Marino looks back on the Patriarca crime-family war from his own side of it, then spends much of the hour on the legal battle that followed.

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Why you'd press play

You want a former crime-family patriarch talking straight about power, prison, and the war that followed.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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