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In this episode, Gary Jenkins, a retired Kansas City police detective, discusses the life of Jimmy “Ice Pick” Inendino, a prominent figure in the Chicago Outfit. Despite never holding a top leadership position, Inendino was a respected member known for his involvement in the criminal underworld. Jenkins delves into Inendino’s potential role as an informant, citing FBI documents that suggest he provided information on truck hijackings and other criminal activities.
Jenkins explores Inendino’s connections to organized crime, detailing his association with the notorious Taylor Street Crew’s Wild Bunch and his role in enforcing the Outfit’s operations. He recounts an incident where Inendino and his associate, Harry Aleman, intimidated a bookmaker into paying tribute to the Outfit, showcasing their ruthless tactics in the criminal underworld.
The podcast examines a specific event where Inendino and Aleman orchestrated the murder of a non-compliant bookmaker named Reitlinger, highlighting the brutality and coercion employed by the Outfit to maintain control over illegal operations. Jenkins narrates the chilling account of the hit, emphasizing the calculated and methodical approach taken by the perpetrators.
Additionally, Jenkins sheds light on Inendino’s involvement in truck hijackings and the Chop Shop Wars, showcasing the violent and competitive nature of organized crime during that era. He speculates on Inendino’s dual role as both a criminal enforcer and a potential informant, offering insights into the complexities of navigating the underworld while potentially cooperating with law enforcement.
The episode concludes with Jenkins reflecting on Inendino’s legacy and the intricacies of mob life in Chicago. Overall, the podcast paints a vivid picture of Jimmy Inendino’s criminal activities, his connections to the Chicago Outfit, and the ruthless tactics employed to maintain power and control in the underworld. Jenkins’ storytelling captures the intrigue and danger of organized crime, showcasing the complex interplay between loyalty, betrayal, and survival in a world where trust is a rare commodity.
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Transcript
[0:00]
Introduction
[0:00]Well, hey guys, welcome back to the studio. Gangland Wire, Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City police intelligence detective here. If you didn’t know, if you’re new to the show, anyhow, we got another show for you. I do. Me, me alone. No experts out there. Just me. I’m the expert on this one. James Jimmy I, or Jimmy I for ice pick, in Dandino. That’s a hard one to say, in Dandino.
[0:25]He’s been long regarded. He was a loyal member of the Chicago Outfit, and he really, in the outfit, in the end, he was one of their top figures. He was never a big-time boss. I think he was the capo down in Cicero, which is, you know, where it all started in Chicago. He died of natural causes last year in 2023. So I was noodling around. I noticed some people did some stuff on him.
[0:53]
Jimmy I: The Informant Revelation
[0:50]I was looking for some of these Chicago guys like that, which I think are really interesting. Interesting I did one on Chucky Nicoletti recently when I was noodling around I found out that it looked like Harry Aleman’s the one that killed Chucky typewriter Nicoletti and you know as far as his nickname Nicoletti I had a guy say that he had some letters tattooed on him that looked like a typewriter is why they called him the typewriter I don’t know anyhow Jimmy I Icepig Jimmy Icepig When he died, a local TV station up there in Chicago released a bulletin that had some FBI files that showed that indicated he had been an informant. They even had an informant number, number 6931C.
[1:35]They had some of those documents I found where that I-team had released it. It’s on YouTube if you want to try to find it, where they had copies of documents where he told them some things, mainly about truck hijacking. And this was back in the late 1960s and you know he started out as a Cicero guy early on in his very earliest years he died at age 80 so he he’s seen the entire span practically practically from Capone or Nitti all the way up to whoever’s you know Jimmy Marcello or whoever John No-Knows DiFranco and and Solly DeLorenis and people like that but he also they said that he had worked in between March and May 65 to 69. And then again, there’s some reports that indicated he had done some informant between 1974 and 1975, May and March of 74 to 75. And there they gave another number of, Since it indicates he started in the 60s, he probably wasn’t whistled in, as Frank Gulotta called it. He was probably what you would call an associate and not a blood oath member. At some point in time, I think when IUPO took over, they started really doing the oath. But they had, you like knew, as Gulotta said, you knew if somebody was what you would call a member, they were whistled in just by their reputation and how they carried themselves and what other people said about them.
[3:02]Now, supposedly he, again, he gave them information about commercial trucking thefts. I got a feeling there’s more to this story.
[3:13]
John Binder’s Insight
[3:10]If he really gave them any decent information or not. John Binder, who’s a real knowledgeable expert and source, I think he’s got a pretty well-known book called the Capone Beer Wars. They interviewed him, the TV people interviewed him, and he said, I doubt that the outfit knew that he was informant. You know, there is proof, he says. Claims, you know, because there are these FBI documents, but, you know, I’m not sure. They did assign him a number. I don’t know. You know, here, here’s what, here would be what I might say. He, he, one of several things, one, he, he probably did talk to an FBI agent who then went back and said, Hey, I turned Jimmy I and they gave him a number. He might’ve been given up some information on some rivals. He might have been giving up some drug information, something that wasn’t going to hurt anybody, that meant anything to anybody, because these guys do that kind of stuff. Hell, those drug people do that all the time to take out the competition, so he might have been taking out some competition.
[4:16]Sometimes I’ve heard of these guys, I think, I’ll go back to Luciano, I know when he set up Vito Genovese on a narcotics charge, supposedly,
[4:28]
Speculations on Informant Activities
[4:26]to get him out of the way for a while. So, you know, they’re not above that. It beats killing them and just get somebody to lie on them and get them set up. So, you know, it might have been something like that. You know, an FBI agent might fudge a little bit wanting to be a big man and have, you know, an informant, you know, deep throat informant in the outfit. It might fudge this a little bit. You know, you never know. No, it’s not a straight-out, long-term snitching operation, I’m sure. So let’s go back and take a look at Jimmy I or Jimmy Indondino. You know, he will become a blood oath member of the family, according to John Binder. And I know he did, you know, just the fact that he’ll end up being the capo of Cicero area himself. And he reported to Solly D. at De Laurentiis, who is, you know, when he died, was the current boss of the outfit.
[5:20]You know, here’s an interesting thing is Solly D. left a comment on his memorial book. At least it looks like it was him that says, thank you so much for what you did for the boys. I’m having three trees planted in memory of you. So I don’t know, man. He made his name. Let’s go back. How did he make his name? He made his name in the 70s, particularly. He was a founding member or one of the early guys in the Taylor Street Crew’s Wild Bunch, which got me pretty famous. Very notorious enforcement team for the outfit and home invasion squads, a home invasion team and hit squad. This was under Joe Ferriola, who was a Cicero guy and was a capo of Cicero at the time. And these guys hung around the Survivors Social Club on Taylor Street. They kind of call them the Taylor Street Crew also. They had Jimmy Indendino, Harry the Hook Aleman, notorious, notorious hit man.
[6:21]Butch Petrocelli, Jerry the Hand Scalise. They call him the Hand, I guess, because one hand was gone. He’s the guy that with his rap partner, his fall partner, Art Rachel, who’s also called The Brain, robbed the jewelry store and got the real famous, the Marlboro Diamond and hit it. And they even got arrested when they first got back to the United States, but they had already mailed that diamond off somewhere else and nobody ever found it. And Jerry Scarpelli, Jerry Scarpelli will actually start to inform and then they’ll find him hung in the Cook County Jail. And I suppose that I think it was ruled a suicide, but they say Frank, the German, Frank, the German Schwihs was was in the jail at that same time. So I don’t know. Joe Ferriola was a bad, bad man. A long time. He would go clear back under Capone and Ricardo and those people.
[7:19]
Rise to Power: Capo of Cicero
[7:19]Jimmy Inendino will follow him. I think I said this before that he will eventually take over the rackets and Cicero himself.
[7:27]Now, Joe Ferriola used the, the wild bunch to, take out competition to extort money from people and to do murders. Joe Ferriola decided he was going to line up all the bookies, just like Capone did the speaks or the speakeasies in Chicago. They were going to have to pay him a tribute. And he was, you know, at the time I read this one thing I thought was interesting. I don’t, I’ve never heard this term. And it was a pretty knowledgeable guy that said it. He was known as the Chinaman for the Wild Bunch. If you needed something done by the Wild Bunch, you went to see Joe Ferriola.
[8:16]You know, Jimmy Indendino, he was the only one of that Wild Bunch that ends up dying a natural death late in life. Although, I guess Jerry Scalise, if he’s still alive, died a natural death, but he pretty much was in the penitentiary up to close to the end of his life. Now, you know, Jimmy, I, maybe Ice Pick, he was known to be able to strong arm deadbeat loan sharks. You know, he’d been a truck hijacker. He’d been a truck hijacker. He’d been a truck hijacker who was involved in the Chop Shop Wars. A lot of guys got killed in the Chop Shop Wars. And he was just all around Chicago heavy. heavy, but his expertise was strong arm and deadbeat loan shark victims or bookies who were behind on their tribute or owed money to somebody. So now check out of this wiretap I found online of him, Jimmy I, in action.
[9:20]
Strong-Arming and Debt Collection
[9:16]Hello, Mike? Yeah. Is that motherf*cker there? Yeah. Let me talk to him. Chuck, I’m going to tell you something. Here, Jim. You have that f*cking 200 in my hands. tomorrow. If you ain’t got the 200 in my f*cking hands tomorrow, you understand me? You better stay there because I’ll tell you, you’ve reached the end of the line with me, my friend. You have no more time, and no more bullsh*t, and no more alpha. By tomorrow night, 6 o’clock, you have that 200 in this joint. Believe me, kid. And every Friday from here on in, you have what you’re supposed to have in this joint. If we don’t see you tomorrow by 6 o’clock, you don’t owe nobody nothing. You understand? You have it here by 6 o’clock tomorrow night. Believe me when I tell you, and I promise you this. Believe me, I promise you. I’ll break every f*cking bone in your body before I go to jail. Every f*cking bone in your body. I swear to my kids.
[10:23]You understand? All right, Chuck. Okay. Bye-bye. Bye. I couldn’t figure out who Chuck was. I don’t know if anybody knows who Chuck could have been. I couldn’t figure that out, but Chuck was in big trouble. And I don’t know whatever happened to him. Either he got the money or he left town or maybe he ended up dead. I would imagine we’d probably know a lot more about it if he ended up dead. You’ll notice that Jimmy I did not threaten murder. He only threatened to break all the bones in his body. And, you know, a dead man can’t pay a debt. You know, what are you going to do? You know, like hurt him a little bit and then more likely keep him working. And you maybe have to keep messing with him, keep messing with him. But eventually you’re going to keep getting some money out of him.
[11:06]Now, here’s a story, a good example, and Jimmy, I was involved with this, a good example of the wild bunch at work, and particularly Harry Aleman. They don’t always take everybody on everything. So there was a guy, a Chicago cop or ex-cop by this time named Frank Rizza. Frank Rizza had gotten caught trying to buy some cocaine in Mexico, and he probably bashed it. Somehow he got out of it. He was down in Mexico. He got out, but the Mexican authorities called the Chicago PD, and he got fired. So it already kind of launched into a small bookmaking business, so now he just moves on into the bookmaking business bigger time. In 1975, Harry Aleman, sent by Joe Ferriola to line him up as one of their bookmakers, and took fellow Taylor Street crew member Jimmy I, or Jimmy Indenino, along. Rizza will later testify to this. That’s how we know this.
[12:10]He said he met him at a restaurant, and Inendino and Harry Aleman sat across the table from him in a booth, and he said they just stared at him with these cold black lifeless dead eyes just stared at him looked him up and down and just stared at him and tried to intimidate him then they started you know checking him out making sure he wasn’t wired up because after all the guy had been a cop he would know about that and Rizza will report that Ellermann began this conversation was we’re organized Chicago all the bookmakers just like the speakeasies were organized by capone that’s exactly what Ferriola wants to do and you know you’re going to be our guy you’re going to be one of our guys and you’re going to start paying us a piece of your action risen knew better than the arguers matter of fact he kind of joined in with him and he started bird dogging for other bookies that they didn’t know about had tried he did try to worm his way out of this because he had some other outfit connections but let me tell you how these guys work here’s how they work he knew Angelo LaPietra.
[13:26]Who had the Chinatown crew, Angelo LaPietra. He went to him, and Angelo says, well, you know, those are bad guys. He said, maybe I can help you with it. He said, give me, you know, like $5,000, several thousand dollars. Give me this money.
[13:42]He takes, dutifully, puts it in a brown paper bag and takes it to Angelo, the Hook, LaPietra, and he’s supposed to deliver it to Harry Aleman and negotiate some kind of a deal. Well, the deal he negotiated was that Aleman was going to be partners in Rizza’s bookmaking scheme. And that’s how he ends up really throwing in with Aleman and his schemes and his crew in a way. He doesn’t become a member of the Hit Squad or a member of the Wild Bunch,
[14:17]
Frank Rizza’s Deal with the Outfit
[14:12]but he starts doing stuff with and for Harry Aleman and Jimmy I. He had to pay the outfit he had to pay a tribute to the outfit of 50 of his winnings but in return now this is interesting in return the outfit or Aleman will make sure that all his losses are covered so if he has a losing week then you know he he doesn’t cost him anything if he wins if he went you know if he he comes out a thousand bucks ahead in a week he’s got to pay them 500 hundred kind of interesting little thing but you know to get all your losses covered if you have one really bad week you can wipe out a bookie so you know that’s certain insurance that you’re buying in that Aleman also wanted Rizza to pay him personally a thousand dollars a month in a street what he called a street tax so that’s his mob guys you know Angelo la Pietra took him for a bunch of money then you know he ended up making the deal that he could have just made without La Pietra.
[15:11]Anyhow, that’s Frank Rizza was not the sharpest tool in the toolbox, I would say.
[15:16]So he starts bird-dogging. As I said before, he starts bird-dogging for other bookies that aren’t part of Harry Aleman’s network or Joe Ferriola’s network by extension. Met with him. They met almost every day. And he told him about a guy, Rizza told him about a guy, a peckerwood named Anthony Reitlinger, who was a really big-time bookie and probably running as much as $100,000 a month total. That would not be winning, but as much as $100,000 a month of bets that he was
[15:51]
The Outfit’s Pursuit of Control
[15:48]taking and paying or winning. And, of course, the outfit, they want a piece of that. They want that action. RZA goes to him. Elliman says, go to him, tell him the deal. Rizza reports back and says, well, Retlinger said, you know, If you, I ain’t never paying any street tax. I’m doing all this work. I’m taking all the risk. I’m not paying.
[16:13]Rizza testified that Harry Aleman said, I’ll kill that MF. Rizza said he went back because he knew Reitlinger and begged him to change his mind. But the more he begged him, the more Reitlinger dug in his heels. He just would not pay, Rizza testified. He just was not interested and would not pay.
[16:34]Rizza also testifies that Elliman told him, he says, he’s a dead man. Reitlinger, if he ain’t coming in, he’s a dead man. Just forget about it. He’s a dead man.
[16:45]
Halloween Hit: Anthony Reitlinger’s Fate
[16:45]RZA, you know, what’s he going to do? He just goes on. And some of these daily meetings with Aleman was really upfront with Rizza because he testifies that over the next few weeks, pretty soon Rattler says, I mean, Aleman says, you know, I’m going to kill him on Halloween because I can wear a mask and it won’t attack, attack, do that over again i can wear a mask he told him he said i can wear a mask and it won’t attract much attention on Halloween it’s kind of like today these guys are still wearing these damn hoodies with a with a covid mask on them i mean that’s that’s still quite common i know you’ve seen that if you live in a big city you see you see that downtown especially all the time these young guys, a few weeks later it’s Halloween right after Halloween Rizza is at home watching tv and he sees that Reitlinger’s been killed, shot down on the street.
[17:39]Then he claims that Harry Aleman calls him later on and says, we killed that son of a bitch. I told you we’d kill that guy. I don’t know. I don’t believe that. I just can’t believe he would do that. That’s like too much. But Riza is obviously trying to get in good with some cops here, some FBI agents. Now, here’s what happened. The night he died, he went to Mama Luna’s on the northwest side. I think you guys, if you know, you’re from Chicago and the central, more central part of the city, you know the outfit. You know Mama Luna’s is a pretty famous restaurant. 5109 West Fullerton Avenue.
[18:15]He had gone to the police about Aleman, but, you know, what are they going to do? They’re not going to send anybody to go sit with him all the time. He told his daughter once, if anything happened to him, she should go to her grandmother immediately. And he left her at home that night he just it was kind of weird the people later in the restaurant said that he came inside and he kind of looked around he looked back out the front window make sure wasn’t anybody right behind him apparently like he was looking for somebody and and finally you know just sat down and in a booth and by the window and started looking at the menu and.
[18:52]A little bit later, during his dinner, a red Mercury Montego pulled up, parked on the curb right in front.
[19:01]Two men with e-masks came out slowly and deliberately. Now, this is kind of strange, but this is Harry Aleman. This was his M.O. Pull up close by in a car and get out and deliberately, slowly walk to the guy. And he walked in the restaurant and Reitlinger apparently had his nose buried in the menu or something because he didn’t see it until they were inside. And once they got inside, they quickly got to the booth. One guy shoved him back down as he tried to jump up. The other guy pointed a .30 caliber carbine. Now, this would be probably a World War II surplus back in the 60s, probably gone by a later part of the 70s. We used to be able to find these things, these 30 caliber carbines that had been in the world war ii m1 carbines all over the place and it’s not too long a gun it’s you know multiple rounds and semi-automatic and and really it’s like the ar-15 of its time it’ll knock you down and it’ll kill you fired four times into his chest and that’s it four of those in your chest and you’re a dead man and customers are diving for cover and gunpowders fill in the air blood squirting all over the place you know it was It was quite a scene.
[20:16]And then the second guy had a shotgun, and he held it up to his head and fired twice. I mean, they wanted to make sure Reitlander was dead. They needed to make an example out of him, too. They knew everybody would be talking about this hit.
[20:32]Witnesses will say these two guys slowly and deliberately turned around and walked out, get in their Montego, and slowly drive away. They didn’t like jump in and peel out and go flying away like somebody was hot on their tail. There’s a cool, cool heads there. And that’s Harry Aleman and Jimmy Indendino.
[20:51]
Violent Past: Involvement in Chop Shop Wars
[20:52]Bad dude. Bad dude. He was also, you know, I said he was a hijacker of trucks, I think. He was a killer during the Chop Shop Wars when their outfit was trying to take over all the Chop Shops and the whole stolen car racket. And may have been one of the killers of Jimmy the Bomba Couture who was killed over in the patch. You know back to that informant thing that’s you know he’s gonna go in and out he’s gonna end up being the capo down in cicero gets involved in the deal where they’re paying off policemen they’re bribing policemen they’re bribing city officials in cicero they’re extorting money they’re they’re getting money embezzled the city treasury in cicero ends up getting like a 20-year sentence off of that deal. So he wasn’t too much of an informant, was he, that he takes a hit on that.
[21:42]You know, I don’t know. I think that it’s kind of like cartel guys. If he did any informant, it was to get rid of competition or drug people and get rid of competition and, you know, pump the cops up so the cops won’t look at their operation. They’ll be looking at other operations.
[22:06]
Controversy: Informant Allegations
[21:59]If a guy gives you information, you don’t really, like, exert a lot of energy working on him. They keep you busy on somebody else. So that’s kind of a short, down-and-dirty story of Jimmy I., Jimmy Idendino, the last of the Wild Bunch, the one who died out of prison of natural causes and was still in the outfit when he died.
[22:25]Weird story that came out about him being an informant. I don’t know. I guess. And I don’t know how they got that reports. You know, they figured out that he was that number because all they had was a number, and then they claimed he was that number. So, you know, I don’t know. More will be revealed if somebody ever cares enough to go into it.
[22:44]
Conclusion and Future Topics
[22:42]I don’t. He’s dead and gone. Well, go back to New York, maybe next week. I don’t know. Anyhow, thanks a lot, guys. Don’t forget, I got my book back over there. And my book, go on to get the Kindle version. It’s cheaper than the hardcover. And you can actually listen to a lot of the wiretaps that we recorded here in Kansas City between here and Las Vegas about the skimming from Las Vegas casinos. It’s a real story behind the movie Casino. Of course, I got my story Gangland Wire about mob wars in Kansas City and Brothers Against Brothers, the Savella-Spiral War.
[23:22]They’re like $1.99 rentals on Amazon. I’ve got the last documentary I did. I couldn’t get it up on Amazon. They changed the rules where I had to have it in a major film festival, and that’s like you could spend a thousand bucks and still not getting a film festival and they charge you like two or $300 each time you apply. So I just decided, you know, it’s not worth it. I don’t know. I just pooped down on these documentaries by then.
[23:49]But I got that out there, and, you know, I got all kinds of stuff. I got stuff for sale, and I appreciate y’all tuning in. I really appreciate all the comments you make on the YouTube channel. You know, the YouTube channel has got, I don’t know, I mean, it’s got now 16,000, maybe almost 16,000 subscribers, and a lot of good conversations and a lot of information on that. And the YouTube, the podcast group, Gangland Wire, if you can’t figure out how to get into the group, because I made it a private group, had too many, too much scammers on there. So I made it private. Get a hold of me and I’ll make sure you get an invite if you’re on Facebook. And don’t forget, I like to ride motorcycles. So watch out for motorcycles when you’re out there on the streets. And if you have a problem with PTSD, go to the VA website and get that hotline number. Got a problem with drugs or alcohol, which goes along with PTSD, whether you’ve been in the service or not, you can get a hold of Angelo Ruggiano, Fat Andy’s son, and he’s a drug and alcohol counselor down in Florida. He’s got a hotline number on his website, YouTube page one.
[24:58]Did you see the Mafia Spies yet? I know it’s on Paramount Plus. It’ll be out by the time this out. I interviewed that guy, and I’ll have that interview out probably by maybe just a week or So before I put this one out, Chicago one day and Chicago the next day. But be curious about that, whether it’s any good or not. It sounds interesting. It’s going to be all about how Giancana and Johnny Roselli tried to kill Castro for the Secret Service or for the CIA and that whole scheme there. And then really get into JFK a little bit, but not a lot. So thanks a lot, guys.
