CONFUSION REIGNED IN DAYS BEFORE DRUG BUST

Gerard Gravano's first hint of disaster came in a call to his cell
phone: Cops were making busts, raiding homes.

As the 24-year-old son of Salvatore Gravano started driving around
Tempe last Feb.24, he didn't realize that police were also on the
line, listening as he frantically tried to reach family members.

According to surveillance records, the detectives heard Gravano
leaving voice messages, then muttering obscenities to himself about
those already under arrest: " . . . My grandmother, my sister. . . .
(Expletive) helicopters."

At 8:30a.m., wiretap records say, the cell phone rang with more bad
news: Phoenix police Officer Joe Lanzo was on the line explaining that
a search warrant had been served at the house of Gerard's mother in
Tempe. Doors were damaged, the detective said, and someone needed to
come over and secure the place.

Gerard hung up but called back a few minutes later. According to
police notes, he wanted to know which family members were in custody.
He asked whether "Jimmy Moran" (Salvatore Gravano's acknowledged
alias) had been arrested. He asked about the family dog.

"Gerard questions why he is called (by police) and states that he
believes if he arrived at the house he would be arrested as his whole
family was," a wiretap summary says. "Det(ective) Lanzo states that
they would have to leave the house open if no one responds to secure
it, and Gerard states to leave it open."

Gerard continued dialing and driving. Only later would he discover the
breadth of raids conducted that day.

Before dawn, about 200 law officers assembled at the Phoenix Police
Academy to plan their assault on what was described as Arizona's
largest Ecstasy syndicate. SWAT teams with battering rams smashed into
businesses and bedrooms across the East Valley.

Salvatore Gravano, former Mafia hit man and informer, was arrested in
sweats, lying on the floor of his hallway. Officers say they found
marijuana in his central Tempe apartment and pistols in his coat pockets.

A few miles away, Gravano's wife, Debra, retreated down a hallway as
police crashed through her door. Gravano's daughter, Karen, and
boyfriend, David Seabrook, were also handcuffed and hauled to jail.
Police say they discovered pills, guns and cash at the $650,000 home,
which covers 4,400 square feet in south Tempe.

All told, 47 suspects have been charged with 201 felonies. Gerard
Gravano was among a handful to avoid the morning busts. Court records
say he stopped at an ex-girlfriend's house and switched cars. But his
freedom would be short-lived.

Ecstasy for sale

As drug investigations go, detectives say this case began
modestly.

In summer 1999, Ecstasy emerged as a stupefying hit at Valley rave
parties where young people mixed the euphoric drug with electric music
and dance. Undercover cops started making buys and busts, looking to
identify the source of Ecstasy. Soon, investigators were targeting a
young man associated with the Devil Dogs youth gang in Gilbert.

In November, a police surveillance team was staked out near Marathon
Development, Gravano's construction company at University Drive and
45th Street, when a young couple walked outside, got into a white 1996
Infinity and drove off.

The man was handsome and muscular. The woman was an attractive blonde.
They stopped at a Tempe apartment complex, exchanged the Infinity for
a black Altima, drove to Neiman Marcus in Scottsdale, stopped at
Chapman BMW, then went shopping at a mall.

As the couple drove off, detectives called in a Scottsdale patrol car
to make a traffic stop. According to case records, Michael John Papa,
24, was cited for driving on a suspended license. Police say they
found $1,100 in cash, a Mexican steroid prescription and a bank
deposit slip with $17,229 written on top. Papa told an officer that he
had just invested $15,000 in Creative Pools. He did not mention that
the investment made him a partner with "Sammy the Bull."

But police knew. In fact, within minutes after Papa was arrested,
detectives drove to another Gravano business, Uncle Sal's Italian
Ristorante in Scottsdale, for a bite to eat.

They had discovered a suspected link between Ecstasy and a former
Mafia underboss, but not a way to break the case. Investigators soon
decided their only hope was electronic surveillance, the same
technique used to convict the Gambino family underboss in New York a
decade earlier.

On Dec.10, detectives noticed a "Help wanted" sign at Marathon
Development in west Phoenix. Detective Lanzo drew up a phony resume
under the pseudonym "Albert DeSalvo" and walked into Gravano's office.
The undercover cop and the former hit man exchanged pleasantries. Then
Lanzo laughed about the fact that the Boston Strangler also was named
Albert DeSalvo.

"I told them that my family is not proud of that," Lanzo wrote in a
surveillance report, "and that we distance ourselves from that side of
the family. I told them that I have been thinking about changing my
name. Both Sammy and the female (secretary) laughed."

Lanzo didn't get a job. But he did get the layout at Gravano's
office.

That same month, police and prosecutors went to Judge Susan Bolton of
Maricopa County Superior Court for permission to bug the place.
Lanzo's sworn affidavit declares that that the drug organization was
so cautious and dangerous that routine enforcement methods wouldn't
work.

A tightened noose

A few targets of the investigation carried guns. Many talked in code
and used radio phones that scrambled conversations. In some cases,
they set up countersurveillance systems, assigning colleagues to watch
for police tails.

But the Ecstasy dealers could not have guessed at the enormous law
enforcement apparatus leveled against them.

Before anyone was indicted, police spent months listening to phone
calls. Detectives snapped pictures in nightclubs, set up a hidden
camera outside Marathon Development and planted two bugs in the
office. They used infrared video with a zoom lens to film night
meetings and an airplane to follow suspects. They installed 11
wiretaps, listened to drug negotiations and watched as money and pills
changed hands.

There was no hurry. One wiretap led to another. Early last January,
they began tightening the noose.

Small-time players were the first to get hit. Undercover cops would
witness a drug buy, call in a patrol car for a traffic stop, then
search the vehicle. The payoff was sheer Ecstasy - "green Nikes,"
"blue Ferraris," "pink Smurfs" - street names describing the pills'
colors and insignias.

On Jan.5, 2000, according to surveillance records, detectives watched
a middleman go to Papa's apartment, get a package, then meet two other
suspects outside a Burger King. A Mesa patrol car pulled over the
drug-buy suspects. The officer found a gun in their car, along with an
assortment of suspected Ecstasy, steroids and vitamin
supplements.

The ruse became routine. Each traffic stop identified more players and
spawned suspicion within the drug organization. Some early targets
were jailed immediately; many were cited and released.

By late January, Andre "Dre" Wegner, suspected by police of being a
California supplier, was worried about all the heat in Arizona.
According to wiretap summaries, he and Papa fretted about fingerprints
and snitches:

"Michael again tells Dre, 'Be careful,' and mentions that 'It's their
word against yours, and if you have money for an attorney you should
be fine.'

"Dre said, 'Right.' "

"Michael stated that it should not even come down to that. Michael
stated that 'People are (expletive) up because they don't want to take
the rap for it.' . . . Michael mentioned that he is from New York and
it is different out there.

"Dre mentions that he is from the old school. . . . 'If you're going
to play, you got to pay if you get in trouble, you know. You don't
tell on your friends.' "

Neither noted that Papa's supposed mentor, Salvatore Gravano, had
become an infamous Mafia turncoat by violating that rule.

In late January, police made yet another "traffic stop." This time the
target was Michael "Pookie" Dahling, arrested on a warrant and jailed
after an eight-ball (one-eighth ounce) of cocaine was found in his
car.

In calls to the Gravano family, Dahling expressed bewilderment: Was
the arrest a fluke? Were the cops watching him?

During one conversation with Gerard Gravano, police summaries say
Dahling complained that the arresting officer immediately "started
ripping everything apart" in his car and that "something was weird
about that."

Salvatore Gravano also wondered how Dahling wound up in police
custody. Detectives monitored one call where he finally announced to
his daughter, Karen, "They got scratch. . . . (Dahling) is not going
to talk."

A few days later, according to police reports, Cadence "Shay" Wix was
stopped by officers after she met with Gerard Gravano. Detectives
found a Pepto-Bismol bottle in her car containing 19 suspected Ecstasy
pills. Surveillance summaries say Wix told police, "The people she was
connected with were dangerous and she feared for her life. She said
she would rather have a felony conviction than 'rat' out her suppliers."

After Wix was released, police records say, she called Gerard with a
warning: "Do not talk on your cell phone about anything. . . . I
pretty much got into some (trouble)."

Running scared

By then, everyone in the Gravano-Papa circle seemed
nervous.

Police eavesdroppers noted that Salvatore Gravano was lecturing those
around him about "the importance of everyone sticking together . . .
loyalty."

Then, on Feb.11, Gravano apparently discovered electronic surveillance
at Marathon Development. "There's a bug in my office," he blurted,
according to police records. "I'm sure."

There was silence. Then someone said, "Damn, man."

The final surveillance entry filed by a detective, says: "Can hear an
electric drill. Sammy still in the room. . . . He is yelling, 'Goddamn
it. Goddamn it, people.' Sammy singing."

By then, Gerard Gravano had a serious case of the jitters. Police
monitors noted that, during a Feb.14, 2000, phone conversation, he
told a friend that he was being followed: "Everybody around me is
getting pinched. . . . Lot of (expletive) rats around here."

Ten days later, police detectives moved in. Surveillance notes say
Gerard called lawyer Brian Russo for help, followed directions to a
Scottsdale law office and entered the building, still on the cell
phone. An undercover team arrived moments later. Police reports say
Detective Lanzo spotted Russo sitting alone in the parking lot and
were told that Gerard had gone to police headquarters to surrender.

Lanzo waited. Russo approached the detective again, according to
surveillance records, and announced that his client was still inside
the law office, smoking a cigarette.

Gerard Gravano apparently finished his cigarette, then stepped outside
into handcuffs and the bright Arizona sunshine.