FBI agents knew from their work in "Operation Thin Crust" that the competitive outcall service industry in Las Vegas was vulnerable to the criminal element.
At the Sea Breeze social club, a storefront set up by the FBI in the undercover investigation, organized crime figures tied to the Los Angeles and Buffalo mob families often talked about wanting a piece of the lucrative industry.
In early 1998 FBI agents learned from a reliable confidential informant that New York's Bonanno crime family also was eyeing the industry, long plagued by allegations of prostitution.
Anthony Nastasi, who ran an outcall service in New York, reported that he was arrested on pandering charges while attempting to set up shop in Las Vegas and that a local competitor claiming to have ties to the Bonanno family had offered to get his case fixed.
That intrigued FBI agents Charles Maurer and Jerry Hanford, who had completed their investigative work in Thin Crust.
"So we asked (Nastasi) if we could put an undercover agent with him and find out more about the escort service industry," Maurer said. "We had so much of a history here with everybody wanting to kill everybody else. It seemed like something we should get involved in."
Agent Dan Desimone went to work for Nastasi, posing as the manager of his business.
By summer 1998, the local outcall service owner, Christian DeCarlo, put Nastasi in touch with Mario Stefano, a 64-year-old reputed Bonanno associate who offered to take care of his troubles in return for cash and a piece of Nastasi's business.
DeCarlo later told Desimone that he had been working with Stefano to take over Las Vegas' outcall service industry. DeCarlo believed that his bigger competitors, Vince Bartello, Richard Sorrano and Harry Jacobs, were stealing business from him.
At the end of September, agents learned that Stefano was sending three underworld associates to Las Vegas to help DeCarlo deal with his rivals.
"The plan was to grab them," Maurer said. "And if they didn't agree to give DeCarlo their businesses, they were going to kill one of them as an example, or they would kill all three if they had to."
One of Stefano's associates, Kenneth Byrnes, flew in from New Jersey. The other two, Vincent Congiusti and Anton Nelson, arrived from Tampa, Fla. The 49-year-old Congiusti, known as "Vinnie Aspirins," had a reputation for torturing people, even once reportedly using a cordless drill to put holes in a man's head.
In looking back, it was obvious that DeCarlo's scheme had gotten out of control, said Hanford, who now supervises the FBI's Organized Crime Squad in Las Vegas.
"DeCarlo got the ball rolling, but Mario Stefano had bigger ideas," Hanford said. "It was like this guy is my chance to move in and take over the business in Las Vegas."
Agents, meanwhile, through physical and electronic surveillance, watched Congiusti and Nelson's every move from the minute they touched down at McCarran International Airport on Oct. 7.
"We put microphones in their hotel rooms, and it was clear from what we were hearing that they were about to hurt somebody," Maurer said.
Agents observed the two men going to a hardware store to buy duct tape and carburetor fluid to make a firebomb and then to a spy shop to pick up surveillance equipment.
Congiusti and Nelson also had drawn up maps pointing out the office locations of the three outcall service operators they targeted, Hanford said.
"We were kind of sitting on the hot seat at this point because we knew they were planning to do something," Hanford said. "They had plane tickets to leave on Oct. 9, and they were talking about how they had to do something before they left."
Congiusti and Nelson spent much of Oct. 8 looking for a computer expert who was supposed to be diverting the telephone calls from DeCarlo's office to his competitors, Maurer said.
"They were going to threaten him into telling them if he was doing it," Maurer said. "But they couldn't find him, so they decided they would pay a visit to Bartello, Sorrano and Jacobs."
The next morning agents observed Congiusti, Nelson and Byrnes driving past Bartello's 5030 S. Paradise Road office, Maurer said.
Later the three suspects wound up at DeCarlo's East Tropicana office with an unidentified fourth man. Nervous agents, not sure if the suspects had grabbed one of the outcall operators, stationed themselves a block away.
Byrnes, Hanford said, had telephoned their informant, Nastasi, with news that Congiusti was about to hurt the man, and Nastasi alerted agents.
"We knew they had somebody in the office, but we didn't know who it was," Hanford said. "Then Byrnes told (Nastasi) that Vinnie Aspirins had the drill out. So we moved in to make arrests."
With guns drawn agents surprised the suspects and subdued them without incident inside DeCarlo's office.
"They were on the floor and handcuffed before they had time to blink twice," Hanford said.
After the arrests agents learned that the man brought to the office was not one of the outcall operators, but rather a public relations man who had crossed DeCarlo. He was unharmed.
A search of the office found weapons, a silencer, bullet proof vests, duct tape, carburetor fluid and the drill.
Maurer, who now runs the FBI's Surveillance Squad, and Hanford said they weren't pleased with having to make arrests so quickly. They said they were hoping to catch the conspirators further along in the act of trying to kill the three outcall operators.
But the agents weren't complaining about the abrupt end to the investigation.
"As it turned out, it worked out fine," Hanford said. "We were able to save some lives."
Some of the escort service operators were angry that the FBI failed to tell them about the threats.
But Maurer and Hanford said they believed agents had the situation under control and that Bartello, Sorrano and Jacobs never were in any real danger.
Eventually Stefano, DeCarlo, Byrnes, Congiusti and Nelson pleaded guilty to extortion charges and were given lengthy prison sentences. Congiusti, who wore thick glasses and was legally blind, died in prison.
At the time of his arrest, Hanford said, DeCarlo acknowledged that the scheme had been botched.
"He said, 'You know they were supposed to send me two hitmen. Instead, I got a blind guy,' " Hanford recalled.
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