The Mafia and the Cheese Industry, Part One: Grande Cheese
Giovanni Vincenzo DiBella was born June 24, 1890 in Sicily and made his first of many trips to the United States in April 1908. DiBella had four brothers and three sisters, most of whom came to America. They started DiBella Brothers Company in Brooklyn, importing and exporting Italian food products. [Gores 3/12/66]
Filippo Candela entered the United States illegally at Tampa, Florida from Sicily in 1926. [MS 3/16/74]
Grande Cheese was started by Ross Prio in 1941 with a $30,000 capital investment. [MS 3/16/74] Other sources have said it “was born out of a Chicago gang war in 1939.” [White 6/19/83]
Grande Cheese was incorporated in the State of Illinois on March 22, 1941. The officers at the time of incorporation were Fred A. Romano, president and director; Lawrence N. Marino, secretary and director; and Gabriel Spataro, treasurer and director. All three men lived in Chicago. [APC 3/21/65]
John DiBella “came into Grande as a salesman in 1943.” [Wieghart 1/28/63] Thomas Oneglia was shot to death December 6, 1943 while being shaved in a barber’s chair. Neglia was affiliated with Grande and sometimes played golf in Fond du Lac. [Gores 3/12/66]
James DeAngelo’s corpse was found in the luggage compartment of his car on March 11, 1944. [Gores 3/12/66] Sam Gervase was slain in his refrigerator repair shop in 1944 after Grande president Fred Romano was a guest at his home. [Gores 3/12/66]
Grande cheese maker Onofrio Vitale was found stuffed in a sewer in April 1945, not far from the Chicago home of Vince Benevento. Benevento was shot five times in front of his business in September 1946. He was a former partner of Oneglia and DeAngelo. Nick DeJohn was murdered in San Francisco in 1947, his body found stuffed in the trunk of his car. [Gores 3/12/66]
DiBella became a director in 1949. [APC 3/21/65] Also in 1949, Grande moved its offices to 1 South Main Street, Fond du Lac. [Gores 3/12/66]
DiBella was naturalized on November 28, 1951 in Milwaukee. [Gores 3/12/66]
DiBella and Bonanno invested in an Arizona real estate contract on April 1, 1955 — it was a piece of property between 175 and 200 acres consisting of undeveloped land in the Tucson area. [Gores 3/12/66]
DiBella was called before a Los Angeles Grand Jury on Janaury 23, 1959. Bonnano visited Wisconsin in the summer of 1959, both in Milwaukee and Fond du Lac. DiBella was questioned during a Phoenix investigation on January 6, 1960. [Gores 3/12/66]
In 1960, DiBella was president of Grande with Madison resident Al J. Caruso as vice president. DiBella, Caruso and DiBella’s niece Rose DiBella of Brooklyn were the directors. This same year, DiBella also operated Cloverdale Dairy of Fair Water, Gourmay Cheese of Lomira and was connected to the Kohlsville Cheese Company. [Gores 3/12/66]
In January 1963, Wisconsin Governor Reynolds claimed that a “network of organized crime” existed in Fond du Lac, Milwaukee and Kenosha. He listed Thomas Oneglia, James DeAngelo, Onofrio Vitale and Vincent “Don Vincenzo” Benevento as four employees or investors of Grande Cheese that were murdered between 1943 and 1946. [Wieghart 1/28/63]
On February 1, 1963, DiBella walked into the Fond du Lac Safety Building and offered to open his books to clear the fog around Grande. He returned on February 13 with attorney Dominic Frinzi and Al Caruso to show the company’s books to District Attorney Thomas Massey and LeRoy Dalton of the state attorney general’s office. DiBella denied knowing any of the murdered men and refused to talk about his personal relationships. [Gores 3/12/66]
John DiBella, 74, died on Tuesday, September 1, 1964 at St. Agnes Hospital in Fond du Lac of a heart attack. He was honored with a three day wake and funeral, drawing guests and wreaths from around the country and Italy. Notably, Milwaukee attorney Dominic Frinzi and his wife Jane placed a wreath. Frinzi was running for governor at the time. Police Chief Harold J. Rautenberg was aware of DiBella’s mob ties, but said, “He lived a quiet life here. He got on well and was well liked by everyone. If he was mixed up in anything, it didn’t happen around here.” [Wieghart 9/5/64]
The funeral drew an estimated 200 people, included numerous law enforcement agents from Wisconsin, Chicago, Cleveland and the West Coast. Joseph Bonanno was not present. [APC 9/6/64]
DiBella’s body was sent to Montelepre, Sicily for burial. [APC 3/21/65]
On February 27, 1965, an agent from the Treasury Department came to the offices of the Appleton Post-Crescent and obtained copies of articles written about DiBella. Around this time, the newspaper also said the state’s attorney general had records showing that DiBella had frequently visited Joe Bonanno in Tucson and had allowed Bonanno to use DiBella’s name on hotel registrations. [APC 3/21/65]
Filippo Candela became the president of Grande Cheese in 1968. [MS 3/16/74]
Grande Cheese president Filippo “Vince” Candela, 82, was indicted on Friday, March 15, 1974 and charged with three counts of tax evasion. [MS 3/16/74]
The news of “Joe Bonanno’s Trash” broke in July 1979, when the world learned that authorities had been collecting notes the mob boss discarded at his Arizona home. Some notes revealed his “financial interests in Italian cheese enterprises in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Colorado, California, and Arizona.” Also found were notations of letters to and phone calls from “Pepe Fredo” (Saputo Cheese vice president Joseph Borsellino) and “Lino” (Emmanuel Saputo). The notes had detailed lists of time that the Canadian men were to call Bonanno from pay phones to other pay phones in order to avoid wiretaps. Other notes told these two men to “bring liquido cash” to meetings with Bonanno. [LMT 7/31/79]
Published reports on December 12, 2007 said Lino Saputo, chair of Saputo Inc., was part of an investigation by Italian police into an alleged Mafia money-laundering scheme. Mariano Turrisi, the president and founder of Made in Italy Inc., was arrested by police on October 22 in connection with a plan to launder $600 million for Vito Rizzuto, 61, the alleged head of the Montreal Mafia. In a wiretapped conversation, Turrisi discusses “the king of cheese” with another suspect who was arrested by Italian authorities. “I invite [the Canadian authorities] to come and see me so that, once and for all, I can clear away the cloud hanging over me,” Saputo said. “And personally, I never had anything do with Vito Rizzuto, neither commercially nor socially… We’ve met in a couple of restaurants, at a couple of receptions and I have very rarely met him in a social situation.” Coincidentally, Turrisi registered a company in Florida called Saputo Enterprises. “We have nothing to do with this company,” Saputo said. [Rakobowchuk 12/13/07]
Sources
“Agents Eye Guests at Funeral”, Appleton Post-Crescent, September 6, 1964.
Gores, Stan. “DiBella Lived at Hotel, Headed Grande Cheese Firm”, Fond du Lac Reporter, March 12, 1966.
“Mounties probe Mafia’s Canadian connection”, Lewiston Morning Tribune July 31, 1979.
Rakobowchuk, Peter. “Saputo denies alleged link to Mafia”, The Canadian Press December 13, 2007.
“State, U.S. Authorities Intensify Investigation of DiBella Fortune”, Appleton Post-Crescent, March 21, 1965.
“Tax Charge Cites Head of Grande”, Milwaukee Sentinel March 16, 1974.
White, Bob. “How Mafia ties derailed cheese plant bonds”, Modesto Bee June 19, 1983.
Wieghart, James G. “DiBella’s Wake Awes Fond du Lac”, Milwaukee Sentinel September 5, 1964.
Wieghart, James G. “Fond du Lac Probe Set”, Milwaukee Sentinel January 28, 1963.