Joseph Todaro, Sr. - The Todaro Era

The Todaro Era

By the end of 1985, Joseph "Lead Pipe" Todaro Sr. was in firm control of Buffalo crime family, leading roughly 50–75 crime family and a number of associates. Joe Todaro Sr. quickly attempted to unite the weakened Buffalo crime family by making new members, promoting his loyal supporters, re-opening longtime associations with crews in Ontario, Rochester, Youngstown, Ohio and Eastern, Pennsylvania, along with expanding the crime family's rackets and territory. Joe Todaro Sr. strengthened the Buffalo crime family's Canadian ties to longtime crime family crew, the Papalia crime family in Hamilton, Ontario, as well as associations with the Rizzuto crime family of Montreal, Quebec. The Buffalo crime family maintained its control over the traditional rackets in Western New York such as gambling, loansharking, union and labor racketeering, making Buffalo a hub for bookmaking operations for the crime family due to its influence upstate, New York, Eastern Pennsylvania, North Eastern Ohio and Southern Ontario. The Buffalo crime family expanded its rackets and territory into Las Vegas, Nevada and Southern, Florida, as Joe Todaro Sr. sent capo Sonny Nicoletti Sr. and soldier Bobby Panaro to Las Vegas to oversee gambling and loansharking operations there while he established a base of operations in Fort Lauderdale after becoming Boss. Joe Todaro Sr. came under F.B.I. surveillance as he met with Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania crime family Bosses Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo and Edward "Eddie the Conductor" Sciandra in Florida in the late 1980s, as his respect and influence grew, becoming a universal advisor of sorts in La Cosa Nostra after the 1987 "Commission Case" imprisoned all of the Commission members.

The Buffalo crime family led the way in telemarketing during the 1990s. In 1987, capo Leonard Falzone was promoted to Consigliere, as longtime Buffalo crime family member Joseph Pieri Sr. retired from active participation in crime family affairs, Falzone went on to help advise the Todaros in the day to day running of the crime family as Falzone oversaw the loansharking operations, later being convicted of running a large loansharking operation with the help of top Buffalo Key Bank executives in 1996. Joseph "Big Joe" Todaro Jr. was a former LIUNA local 210 business manager and helped maintain the crime family's labor and union operations in the Buffalo area through the influence he carried in local 210. Traditionally the Buffalo crime family held influence in many of the Western New York labor unions, such as local 91 in Niagara Falls, local 435 in Rochester and local 214 in Oswego. The dominant grip the Buffalo crime family held over Western New York's union and labor affairs began to end in 1995 when the Justice Department launched a 200-page RICO complaint and suit against LIUNA executives with alleged crime family ties; eight Buffalo crime family members were removed from the executive board of local 210 in 1996, including crime family Underboss Joseph Todaro Jr. and Consigliere Leonard Falzone. The Buffalo crime family traditionally had long-standing ties to the Bonanno crime family and its Montreal faction (Cotroni/Rizzuto crime families) during the Magaddino era and allegedly throughout the 1980s and 1990s, but the crime family no longer dictates time to local and international narcotics trafficking as Black and Hispanic crime groups have moved into the predominantly Black East side and Hispanic West side and taken over narcotics distribution in those areas.