To enforce the high prices of the cartel system, protect their positions of influence and enrich themselves, mob members and their associates have engaged in murder, environmental crimes, bribery of public officials and truck sabotage. Based on allegations in indictments, affidavits and other filings in federal court in Manhattan and Brooklyn, here are some of the key players:

James Failla has controlled much of New York hauling while working at the Manhattan haulers group, Associations of Trade Waste Removers of Greater New York, and via his control until recently of Teamsters Local 813, which represents workers in the hauling business.

Known as "Jimmy Brown," he was at Sparks Steak House in Manhattan on Dec. 16, 1985, waiting to have dinner with Paul Castellano, boss of the Gambino crime family. Mr. Castellano was gunned down as he arrived, by order of John Gotti, who took over the family but allegedly kept Mr. Failla, now 74 years old, as a family captain.

Mr. Failla was indicted last April on charges that he and Mr. Gotti arranged the 1989 murder of Thomas Spinelli, a mobster who was about to testify before a federal grand jury, and on racketeering charges involving his control of hauling activities. He pleaded not guilty; trial is in April.

Martin McLaughlin, a lobbyist for the haulers' umbrella group, Council of Trade Waste Associations Inc., says Mr. Failla's role with the Manhattan group is diminished and perhaps over. "He's very sick and hasn't been around for three or four months. Maybe he won't be back."

Salvatore Avellino provided perhaps the most extensive look at mob control of hauling by doing business while driving around Long Island in his Jaguar, in which the government had placed listening devices. A captain in the Lucchese family, another of the five organized-crime families in New York, Mr. Avellino owned a hauling company and oversaw the industry through the Private Sanitation Industry Association of Nassau/Suffolk Inc.

He collected so much cash from haulers in return for policing the cartel that he complained to an associate in 1983: "I can't even . . . carry that." According to federal prosecutors, half the money went to his Lucchese boss -- Antonio "Tony Ducks" Corallo, at the time -- and half to Mr. Failla because Local 813 operated on Long Island, too.

On tape, Mr. Avellino discussed the finer points of punishing a hauler who doesn't abide by the cartel's rules. "We . . . put, ah, nuts and bolts into the engines." Mr. Corallo told him to be more subtle: "You put metal shavings in the oil."

Mr. Avellino also discussed legal maneuvers to conceal the ownership of his hauling company. The talk became too much for Lucchese underboss Salvatore Santoro, who declared: "F---- legitimate businesses. They're a pain in the f---- a----"

Robert Kubecka was a Long Island hauler who wouldn't cooperate with the cartel's price fixing, competing for customers instead. It was Mr. Avellino's job to bring him into line, but law-enforcement scrutiny was tying his hands. He felt he was letting the haulers down. "I know in my heart I'm not servicing these people," he told Mr. Santoro. "Gotta go there and take the f---- money . . . you know what an embarrassment that is."

The government brought a civil racketeering case against Mr. Avellino and others in June 1989, and Mr. Kubecka was expected to testify. That August, Mr. Kubecka and his brother-in-law, Donald Barstow, were shot to death. Mr. Avellino, who allegedly approached another Mafia member as early as late 1988 to arrange the killing, was indicted last April on murder charges. He pleaded not guilty. A federal judge barred him from the trash industry last December. He was denied bail in the murder case. Trial is set for February.

Louis J. and Robert A. Mongelli, haulers north of the city and associates of Genovese family members, heard about the bug in Mr. Avellino's car. Robert insisted on talking in a noisy garage to avoid being taped. "That's how they got all those guys . . . bugs right in the dashboard . . . ."

By the time Robert said that, in October 1988, the government had bug-wearing informants in the Mongelli brothers' midst. The Mongellis sought to divvy up hauling territories, Louis noting in one instance that "then they can all raise their price 30% across the board."

They laundered millions of dollars to avoid taxes. They pleaded guilty to that as well as to racketeering and tax evasion. They abandoned a dump that became a $14 million cleanup site, "leaving Robert's mother-in-law as the sole stockholder, director and officer," according to prosecutors' sentencing memorandum. And they offered hundreds of thousands of dollars -- plus "free use of Louis's condominium in Palm Beach, Fla., a 92-foot yacht, and a `broad,'" -- in bribes to a state official for help with dump permits.

Anthony Vulpis and Angelo Paccione, big haulers in Brooklyn and Queens, both had mob ties, according to documents filed in federal court in Manhattan. In 1988, they got permits to run a "clean fill" on Staten Island, but turned it into a full-scale dump-taking trash, medical waste and asbestos. The cleanup bill would hit $15 million.

They also ran a medical-waste business that advertised aggressively: "Is Your Medical Waste Being Washed Up On A Beach? You Could Be Prosecuted! Let Us Handle Your Waste Problems." But their permits were bogus and the operation slipshod. A truck full of medical waste, including blood vials and human organs, sat on the street leaking for two weeks. The government took their hauling companies to satisfy a $22 million judgment related to the dump cleanup and other violations.

Credit: Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal