Crime Beat

of what is happening,” says Raabe. “So we see Nicky meeting all these people. Business is obviously being discussed. We can’t say for sure what was happening, but we have a good idea.”
    And these meetings came with all the clichés of movies like The Godfather. There was the reverential treatment of Mafia leaders, the ceremonial kissing of cheeks and hands.
    “Sometimes it got to be funny,” Drago says. “We’d see the cars pull up with 10 or 15 guys getting out for a meeting and they’d be circling all over the front yard trying to make sure they kissed or hugged everybody.”
    J UST LIKE THE MOBSTERS , police don’t like offending their own. Law enforcement agencies are territorial, careful not to encroach on others’ turf without invitation. It is the axiom of parochialism that Chief Cochran of Fort Lauderdale speaks of.
    And that axiom flies in the face of MIU’s all-for-one, one-for-all concept of sharing intelligence among law enforcement agencies. After years of working cases, MIU has neither been joined by all the police agencies in Broward County nor has it replaced the organized crime or intelligence units of its member agencies. Instead, it continues to work with them and, as always, remains quietly in the background.
    “It would be my hope that MIU would one day be the organized crime investigative enterprise in this county,” says Cochran. But in the meantime, investigators in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and maybe even people like Nicky Scarfo, probably have a better understanding of what MIU is all about than the Broward citizens who help pay for it.
    “MIU is becoming a highly respected information bank on what these types of OC characters are doing down there,” says Coblantz of the New Jersey police. “Put it this way—on the Scarfo case, MIU has given us leads that we are still tracking down.”
    W HILE NICKY SCARFO was under the eye of MIU in Fort Lauderdale, two high-ranking members of his organization were in Philadelphia talking to the FBI and then to a grand jury. There were also 800 tapes of wiretaps. And from Fort Lauderdale came the MIU dossiers and indications that Scarfo was running the organization from Casablanca South. On Nov. 3, 1986, he was arrested while on a trip to New Jersey. A grand jury had indicted him and 17 associates for conspiracy and racketeering.
    A day later in Florida, the casino issue was defeated at the polls.
    Scarfo was released on bail and returned to Fort Lauderdale once more, but the grand jury wasn’t through. While he lay on the chaise longue behind Casablanca South, Scarfo’s empire was being quietly dismantled. He would face still another indictment.
    On Jan. 7 of this year, Little Nicky’s white Rolls pulled into Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and the gray-haired, well-tanned man was dropped off at a charter airline’s front gate. Scarfo was traveling light—no bodyguard.
    He went into the airport lounge for a drink before boarding. He didn’t know it then, but a couple of hours later he would land in New Jersey and the FBI and police would be waiting. Detective Drago had tipped them earlier that day after stopping Scarfo on his way to dinner. This would be the night that Scarfo would be jailed without bond for his second indictment.
    Over at the bar, two men sat and watched Scarfo until he walked to the boarding gate. They followed and watched while he went down the loading ramp.
    Maybe Nicky had a premonition. Maybe the back of his neck was burning. Whatever it was, something made him turn and look back as he got to the plane’s door. He saw a man standing at the other end of the ramp looking at him. It was a man Nicky had never seen before. Steve Raabe, detective from MIU, stepped out of character for that moment and smiled. Then he waved good-bye to Nicky Scarfo. A send-off from the Open Territory.

CROSSING THE LINE
LAPD FOREIGN PROSECUTION UNIT
South of the border is no longer safe for criminals.
    LOS ANGELES TIMES
    December 13, 1987
    S EVEN YEARS AGO , the body of first-grader Lisa Ann Rosales was found dumped in a ditch near her home in Pacoima. She had been sexually molested and strangled.
    The case was not an easy one for the Los Angeles Police Department—it took a tip five years later for detectives to identify a suspect, and then they discovered that the man had fled to his native Mexico.
    In previous years, the case might have ended there, with police thwarted because the suspect was beyond the