Attardi was frightened but he also was in love. And so he began asking how the agents could protect him if he did agree to work with them. He flatly refused to do any buying of narcotics himself.
At last it was agreed that Attardi would introduce an undercover agent to some of his friends who were in the peddling business. Then it would be up to the agent to handle the deals, Attardi’s role being to vouch for the agent as “one of the boys.”
Undercover Agent Joe Tremoglie, a big, curly-haired man, was chosen to work with Attardi. Tremoglie’s parents had come to the United States from Sicily and Joe spoke fluent Italian. He knew the underworld, its mannerisms, superstitions, and nuances. He had about him a conspiratorial air that seemed to appeal to criminals and to disarm them.
Attardi’s first assignment was to introduce Tremoglie to a cafe cook on Newberry Street who was pushing narcotics on the side. The agent made a small purchase and then let himself be seen in the right places with Attardi—who began to introduce him as a distant cousin.
As the weeks passed, Tremoglie met narcotics pushers and wholesalers. He played poker with them. Slowly he moved up the ladder until one day he was introduced to Benny Bellanca, who took an immediate liking to him after Tremoglie had given the right answers to all the questions. He liked him so well, in fact, that they discussed the possibility of Tremoglie going to Europe as a courier to bring back a load of heroin.
He met Pietro Beddia, too, and an intensive surveillance by Narcotics agents disclosed a link between Bellanco and Beddia.
At the end of ten months of work by Tremoglie, the trap was set. Arrangements were made for Tremoglie to make a series of purchases during one afternoon and night on a timetable that was worked out to the minute. For twelve hours, Tremoglie raced from one meeting place to another, making the prearranged purchases of narcotics. And at 3 o’clock in the morning twenty of the leading narcotics dealers in the New York area—including Bellanca and Beddia—had been rounded up.
Alphonse Attardi wasn’t around for the trials. He took his $5,000 reward money plus expenses—plus his bride—and faded from the scene. All he would tell agents was that he planned to buy a little place in the country and settle down to make an honest living.
The underworld finally figured out that it was Attardi who had sprung the trap on them, and defense counsel for the accused men demanded that he be produced by the government for questioning. But Narcotics agents could honestly say they knew nothing of Attardi’s whereabouts. They didn’t want to know.
Informers have given valuable aid to the Customs Service in its drive against smuggling, and there are many Alphonse Attardis—each with his own motive—who work with the agents.