FBI Vault, Operation Donnie Brasco, Part 01, viewer pp. 148-154 (June 1981): the GENUS cases
A two-section New York teletype of June 1981: "The GENUS code name encompasses several major cases targeted against various factions of the Bonanno LCN family." It lists the undercover operation, the Catalano investigation and the file opened on the May 1981 murders.
- Date
- 1981-06
- Kind
- case-file
- Source
- FBI Records: The Vault
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-12
- Rights
- A record of the Federal Bureau of Investigation released under FOIA. A work of the United States government, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The page image of viewer page 148 is stored here; the full scans are at the Vault URL.
Viewer pages 148 to 154 of Part 01 of the FBI Vault’s “Operation Donnie Brasco” file. It is a teletype in two sections from New York to the Director, received June 18, 1981 and referring to a New York airtel of May 29, 1981. The page image of section one carries the date 12 June and the file number 183A-2493.
It opens: “The GENUS code name encompasses several major cases targeted against various factions of the Bonanno LCN family, thus attacking this family as a criminal enterprise rather than as a series of disjointed investigations with the objective being to substantially reduce, if not eliminate, this LCN family.” It says GENUS involves “six investigative squads in Manhattan and Brooklyn/Queens.” The cases listed, as far as the redactions allow, are:
- GENUS ECLIPSE STAR (New York 183A-2356), “an approved undercover operation targeted against the American faction of the Bonanno family,” with evidence gathered “since January 21, 1981, via consensual monitoring.”
- GENUS CATTAILS (New York 183-2183), concerning the “regime” of Salvatore Catalano. The position the teletype gives him is redacted and is not filled in here.
- GENUS REDMURS (New York 183-2495), “opened May 14, 1981, as an operational and control file for investigation of murders of Alphonse Indelicato, Dominick Trinchera, and Philip Giaccone.” It says the murders “occurred late evening of May 5, 1981, or early morning, May 6, 1981,” and “to date only the body of Indelicato found.” It calls Napolitano “also a Bonanno capo and a prime suspect in these murders.”
- GENUS BLACK NOVA (New York 183A-2498), GENUS GREENPOINT, the case “previously entitled Italian American Veterans Club, 413 Graham Ave., Brooklyn, NY” (other pages print 415), involving “Bonanno capo Dominick Napolitano” and “Benjamin Ruggerio” (as typed), GENUS HILL STREET and GENUS FRIED BANANAS, a proposed undercover operation.
The final section says consensual monitoring by a redacted person “confirms that Napolitano responsibile [sic] for murder of Indelicato, et al.” That is the FBI’s assessment in June 1981. Napolitano was never tried; he did not appear for trial and was later found murdered, as the Eleventh Circuit records. In 1988 FBI supervisor James Kossler described the same program to a Senate subcommittee (his testimony).
