Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves

Local mafia gun molls are aghast that one of their own is dating a Roma crime figure.

While most of the Mafioso convicted with Joey Merlino last summer left behind wives and children, at least one gangster left behind a wife and at least two mistress.

This particular mobster purchased a hair salon for one girlfriend before he was convicted last summer and sent off to the slammer. Mob sources tell City Paper that the gangster -- whom we'll call Mobster X -- had a child with yet another mistress before his arrest and that his wife recently found out about her husband's other family.

"His wife finally figured it out. When he called collect from prison, she screamed so loud I think he lost an eardrum," a female source close to the local Cosa Nostra told City Paper earlier this week. "Now she won't accept his calls at all."

The female source claims that Mobster X's second mistress, the one with the beauty parlor, started dating as soon as X went on trial. And the worst part is whom she started dating.

"She was seen on the beach in Margate making out with the King of the Gypsies down there," said the source, referring to the king of one of the regional Gypsy clans. "It was so gross because the Gypsy is a lot older and has, like, three wives and a dozen kids. Sure he drives a beautiful Mercedes and has lots of money in his pocket, but his wives and kids all live together in some dump of a welfare motel. They're so low-class."

The underworld gossip circle, which includes mob wives, mistresses and friends of people in the Philadelphia Mafia, considers it a scandal that one of their own would date a Gypsy, even one who is boss of his own crime clan.

"Of course, there's a connection between the Mafia and the local Gypsies," the source told City Paper in an interview at Cosí in Old City. "Gypsies are a lot like Italians. They're all about loyalty, and blood comes first. And, like us, they don't trust outsiders. So when the mob and the Gypsies can make money together, they do. It's always been that way. But we don't date Gypsies."

Not all Gypsy clans are into organized crime, but there are several extended Gypsy families that have a presence in the Delaware Valley and have been involved in everything from home-repair and car-insurance scams to retail-theft rings and confidence schemes.

Every clan has a Gypsy King and sometimes a Gypsy Queen who rule. Families often live together, first and second cousins who refer to each other as "brother" and "sister."

Clans refer to members of other clans as "cousins" even when they are not related because they consider themselves all members of the Gypsy Nation. Today, a million Gypsies live in the United States. Historians believe Gypsies are the descendants of migrants from India who came to Europe around 1300.

Gypsies were held as slaves in Romania until the 1860s, and the Nazis killed half a million Gypsies in WWII concentration camps.

Most American Gypsies come from one of two groups -- Russian and Serbian or Hungarian and Slovakian. In the American South, the clans of Gypsies are descended from English and Irish Gypsy tribes and call themselves "the travelers." For generations, many of these clans have engaged in organized crime. They gather together twice a year for funerals, weddings and other family business, including paying a share of their criminal proceeds to their king for his continued blessing, backing and, when necessary, his muscle.

Gypsies have their own language, customs and rituals that some outsiders consider superstitious.

A gypsy court, called a "kris," is made up of five men from a clan and settles disputes among them.

Sometimes called Roma, Gypsies consider all non-Gypsies as "gaje," or outsiders.

At least one Gypsy clan in Philadelphia and South Jersey has had numerous dealings with the Philadelphia Mafia over the last 20 years. So much so, in fact, that the members of the Philadelphia Mafia vacationing in Margate often socialize with members of the Gypsy crime clan every summer.

Said the source who is close to the Philly mob, "Every summer we run into them on the beach in Margate or in the casinos. Sometimes they buy us drinks, and the men go off together to talk business. We know them and they know us, and that's how things get done. But I've never heard of any of our girls going out with a Gypsy, until last year."

The Mafia Princess-King of the Gypsies relationship is troublesome to females in the Cosa Nostra's social world. "If her boyfriend wasn't in jail," said the source, "he'd kill her for being seen with the Gypsy King. And then he'd kill that Gypsy right there on the beach in Margate."

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February 23, 2006
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