Anthony "Tony" Mirra (18 July 1927-18 February 1982) was an Italian-American mobster and a caporegime in the Bonanno crime family. In 1982, he was murdered in retaliation for introducing the undercover FBI special agent Joseph D. Pistone into the family.
Biography[]
Anthony Mirra was born in Manhattan, New York City, New York in 1927, the nephew of Bonanno crime family caporegime Alfred Embarrato and the cousin of soldier Joseph D'Amico, capo Richard Cantarella, capo Frank Cantarella, and capo Paul Cantarella. He was good friends with Benjamin Ruggiero during his childhood, and he went on to become a Mafia racketeer, becoming involved in extortion, gambling, and drug trafficking. In 1959, he assassinated Genovese crime family capo Anthony Carfano, but he later became a recluse who was prone to outbursts of anger against civilians. During the 1970s, he introduced undercover FBI special agent Joseph D. Pistone (going by the mob alias "Donnie Brasco") into the Bonanno family, and, in 1977, he fled New York after being indicted for drug trafficking. He was imprisoned for eight and a half years, and, on his release, he was unable to have Brasco return to his crew, as Brasco had been taken under Ruggiero's wing. He took over the family's pornography empire and worked under the capo Cesare Bonventre, muscling in on Little Italy restaurants and bars. In 1981, when Pistone was revealed as an undercover agent, Mirra went into hiding, aware that he was on the family's firing line. On 18 February 1982, he was lured into a parking garage in Lower Manhattan and was shot by his uncle Alfred Embarrato and his cousins Richard Cantarella and Joseph D'Amico, with D'Amico shooting him several times in the back of the head before he could finish unlocking his car.