Retired Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins interviews former Gambino associate Andrew DiDonato. As he is known on the street, Drew was a premiere car thief for the Nicky Corazzo crew in Brooklyn. He tells the best stories about car chases with cops, stealing a car belonging to Paul Castellano’s son-in-law, and finding a handgun with a book containing handwritten notations about loan shark collections and a lot of cash.

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Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

car, money, friend, nikki, knew, listen, gambino crime family, genovese, bought, life, receipt, robbing, doors, give, hear, stolen, street, crew, told, put

 

00:00

Hey guys, welcome to Studio I got a heck of a story for you today. This is a guy Andrew de Donato grew was a member of or associate of the Nicki Carazzo crew and the Gambino family for a long time. And he has some stories and and I’m gonna taste them early on or is the best story ever heard about a car chase that he had, but we keep listening about 15 minutes in about the time that he and a buddy his stole a car belonging to the son in law Paul Castellano and in that car when it was a nice Mercedes that guy was, I won’t tell you the story. You got to listen to this story. When they got home, they found stuff in that car that Paul Castellano wanted back and his kappo Nicky Corrado was on the phone before he could even really get in and get back in and look at the car. He knew there was some stuff in the car, I knew there was a bag in the car, Nikki Corrazo said, you know, he just you gotta return that you gotta return that. And so, you know, the story of of what he found and his returning the car. And what happened after that is, it’s tell you this is one you guys got to share with your friends. You got to share this to everybody, this guy and he’s a heck of a storyteller too. So, so settle back and listen to this interview with Andrew DiDonado.

 

01:23

Friend of mine, Richie had a Mercedes Benz that, you know, on their cell that he was looking to put together, we found one in color, we took it, he took it out of a shopping center, we brought it to the location we were chopping the car, we couldn’t cut it the way we usually do where we can make a Pepsi came out of it. We had actually drive the shell out at night. And we had to get it out because a friend of mine we will use in his family’s garage at the time at this one location. What happened was, we had to signal setup that we were going to go out about two in the morning, a friend of mine was standing on a corner with a flashlight. I’m inside the garage and I’m crimping the why I’m crimping all the oil lines to the oil lines don’t squirt, and you know leave a trail back to the garage where we chopped the car. And then my friend comes up to me and says bottom line that you didn’t want to hear and your whole wildest dreams because we listened to I need that steering wheel. Like I can’t give it a steering wheel. I said I got to drive this car out. Because listen, it’s a wood wheels and naughty wheel. He goes it’s gonna cost about 500 If I gotta buy in the store. I said all right, right take this the steering wheel off the car and I put a vise grip on now the car’s got no seats in it just a shell engine is no trunk deck. There’s no hook. There’s no doors. There’s no not a friend of mine is standing outside. With a flashlight. He gives me the old gold single that it’s able ...