Frank Sacora, 75, a short-term mafia chieftain for the Los Santos crime family stepped down from the title due to his fight with cancer. In his place, Anthony Navarra, nephew of renown Los Santos mafioso Carmine Navarra, succeeded Sacora as the leader of the Los Santos crime family.
Navarra, formerly a Los Santos crime family captain, supported Sacora as leader of the family after former boss Victor Fara was collectively muscled into retirement by his captains. Within a few months after taking leadership, Sacora retired from the position after a critical lung cancer diagnosis. Sacora supported Anthony to become his successor, who reluctantly accepted, and had reservations due to the limelight nature of the role. The transition wasn't without conflict. Frank Lupone, a confidant of Fara's consigliere Robert Locatelli, was killed during an attempted hit on Navarra in Eastmoor, Los Santos.
Since Navarra's accession to Los Santos crime family leadership, Carmine Navarra has played a larger role administering the family, Anthony's brother Dominick has supervised the family during his federal detention, and the Navarras have continued to consolidate power by eliminating those close to former captain Henry Pasquetti. In addition to the internal violence, the family has warred with the remnants of the Valenti crime family, and executed the Russian gangster Leonid Tsaryov who spearheaded a criminal organization on Atlantic Avenue.
Navarra recently made headlines after he was implicated in a federal corruption probe with former San Andreas State Treasurer Jep Appelo. The case remarkably fell apart after federal prosecutors were unable to follow administrative procedure.
Today, Sacora swears himself to be a straight-laced treasurer for the Association of Sanitation and Construction Workers (ASCW) since his 2018 release after a 180-month sentence for racketeering. The group was convicted for their involvement in the embezzlement of the ILWU's state pension program. The 2003 arrests included Derrick Grayson, 62, a former consultant to the San Andreas ILWU Pension Fund, who was implicated in the transferring of funds in the form of loans to organized crime figures. In addition, the gang was implicated in a $2 million Medicaid scam that involved fraudulent physical therapy (PT) claims and illegal billing at clinics in Vinewood, Market and Palomino Creek.
“They controlled patients through kickbacks and subjugated them to medically unnecessary services covered by federally subsidized Medicaid programs in San Andreas,” said a DOJ spokesperson. According to public documents, Sacora is a sizeable donor to the San Andreas Republican Party, writing a $10,000 check to former Secretary of State Megan Granville's re-election committee.
Since Sacora’s retirement from the criminal underworld, his fight with cancer has largely been a success, and he now lives in a pastel-pink painted apartment complex of elderly retirees located off the Las Venturas Strip.
“These kind of guys can never stay retired for long,” said Anthony Mercado, writer of the book Mafiosos in the 21st Century.
It is unknown how much power Sacora wields in the underworld since his retirement, but his protégé Philip Ianniello has rebounded as the face of the crime family’s Las Venturas branch. Members of the Los Santos crime family are known to congregate at the V Rock Hotel and the Visage casinos in Las Venturas.
Francis Sacora and Philip Ianniello, V Rock Hotel (Jan. 2020):
P. IANNIELLO: He shoulda called, I was worried.
F. SACORA: I'm fucking old, Phil. Times like this, I think of your uncle.
P. IANNIELLO: Come on huh? Why bring that miserable cock-sucker up?
F. SACORA: Only other guy I had I that shared that experience. Had a couple of boys, well they weren't exactly boys, heh.... From Chicago, old timers. They tried getting me involved in some kinda racket, pulling me outta retirement... Tell ya.
P. IANNIELLO: Listen Frank, you got out just in time. LS is in chaos right now. Everything has gone to shit. You have those wind breaking motherless fucks breaking up joints day and night. Didn't think I signed up for this, but oh well. Gotta do what you gotta do. Anyway, how are the kids? They come up here often?
F. SACORA: Johnny? Cathy won't speak to the kid since he got mixed up with that Puerto Rican. It's all fucked up, even Sophie. Mark went missing, I didn't ask any questions, she did though.
“No doubt Sacora is somehow involved with Ianniello. These two guys are two peas in a pod, and Sacora has always served as an advisor for multiple bosses on the West Coast,” Mercado concluded.
Philip Ianniello, Carmine Navarra and Anthony Navarra, undisclosed location (Jan, 2020):
P. IANNIELLO: You don't gotta worry about the old fuck, he can barely walk. I know where this conversation is going but I'm telling ya, he's harmless.
C. NAVARRA: I wasn't worried, I wasn't worried. I got some news for you though, you're stepping up to play a more suitable role for your nature.
A. NAVARRA: Consider it a welcome home gift, yeah? I'm sending a few guys your way. Chrissy P, James Lapera, and the uhhh other kid, John Cesani.
In the months following Sacora's release, the Chicago faction is now a junior partner of the Los Santos crime family. The mob veteran has several links to businesses based in Commerce, and his Chicagoan associates regularly frequent mob hangouts run by the Detroit-backed Los Santos Crime family. Their influence in the wider criminal sphere is unknown.
