Rich Cowan, a 19 year veteran of the NYPD spent three years working undercover with the Gambino family investigating the carting industry. It all fell into place one day when Cowan set out to interview Sal Beneditto, the President of the Chambers Paper Fibers Company regarding the firebombing of one of his new packer trucks.
The garbage industry had been mobbed-up for generations, but when the recycling laws came into effect in 1991 turf wars broke out all over the City. Until then there had been guys who made a living hauling trash, while other guys specialized in recycling paper. Before this law had come into effect, the Mob had very little interest in the recycling industry. Then when every business in New York was forced to “source-separate” the paper, glass, and plastic from the putrescible (wet) waste the Mafia controlling the commercial garbage pickups realized it would be quite lucrative for them to now include paper and cardboard in their business.
Sal Beneditto boasted of owning a clean company, a company that his grandfather had started in 1896. Sal’s company had strictly dealt in recycling paper, but he had recently gotten into the garbage business because Mob carters had begun to take paper accounts away from his business. So, Sal began to pick up accounts from the Barretti Carting Company, the city’s second largest hauler. Sal had violated property rights. This was not a safe thing to do, and he knew it. In 1989 two carters had been killed execution style when they had moved into Mob territory.
Sal agreed to assist OCID (Organized Crime Investigation Division) infiltrate the carting industry, and that’s how Rick Cowan became known as Danny Beneditto, a cousin of Sal’s. At the time Cowan had no idea the opportunity that would come of this situation. Cowan would within a short time infiltrate a business that had become known as the biggest cash cow going, the Mob had turned garbage into gold. In 1995 it was estimated that the Mafia earned $1.5–billion-a-year from garbage.
After a seven year investigation the NYPD had proof of collusion among mob families to extort billions from the New York business establishment. The trial lasted eight months and Rick Cowan’s testimony made up 98% of the testimony. A telephone call in New York State can be recorded without a court order if one of the two parties consents to the taping. Rick was the consenting party to the conversations that became evidence against the garbage cartel families. Since it was Rich who had done most, if not all, of the taping, it was his job during the trial to authenticate the evidence.
At the end of the trial, 73 defendants were found guilty or pleaded guilty. It was estimated that the amount the Mob had been overcharging customers amounted to $600 million a year.
Everyone had been paying the Mob to pick up their garbage, even the FBI.
