Rosario Bufalino

Rosario Bufalino, known to Frank Sheeran as Russ, is presented as a publicity-shy Mafia boss whose influence reached far beyond his Pennsylvania base. He became Sheeran’s godfather, friend, and benefactor, and was also a close ally of Jimmy Hoffa. That network of loyalty and authority gives Bufalino a double significance in the book: he is both the man who helped draw Sheeran into a wider criminal world and one of the figures suspected of helping orchestrate Hoffa’s disappearance.

Identity and Reach

Sheeran describes Bufalino as the boss of a crime family based in upstate Pennsylvania, with influence extending into New York, New Jersey, and Florida. Although he was outside New York City’s inner circle of five families, Sheeran says that leaders from those families came to him for advice and entrusted him with important assignments. Bufalino’s reputation was therefore not built on public fame. The public might not have known his name, Sheeran recalls, but criminal families and federal authorities knew his standing.

The narrator links that authority to an earlier crisis in New York. After Albert Anastasia was shot in a barber’s chair, Bufalino was made acting head of Anastasia’s family while its leadership was put in order. The episode is offered as a measure of the confidence other crime figures placed in him: his position outside the New York families did not prevent him from being entrusted with responsibility within one of them.

Bufalino also had interests in jewelry fencing and burglary. Sheeran says he was a silent partner in several jewelry stores on Jeweler’s Row in New York City. The gold ring Bufalino gave Sheeran—a specially made piece with a three-dollar gold coin surrounded by diamonds—connected personal generosity to that world. Bufalino said the ring had been made for only three people: himself, his underboss, and Sheeran.

Friendship with Sheeran

The relationship is rendered through practical familiarity as much as through declarations of loyalty. Bufalino called Sheeran from upstate and asked him to drive him around on business, with stops across New York and Pennsylvania and in New Jersey and New York City. Sheeran says he enjoyed his company and never asked him for money. He also understood that being seen with Bufalino did him good, though at first he did not grasp how much.

Their friendship extended into domestic routines. Bufalino and his wife Carrie sometimes joined Sheeran and his wife Mary for Wednesday dinners at Villa d’Roma. Sheeran describes Wednesday as the night men went out with their wives rather than with mistresses. He and Bufalino shared wine and food: Sheeran brought prosciutto bread and sausages, while Bufalino gave him gallons of homemade red wine. Bufalino asked after Sheeran’s children, knew his wife, and gave him a gold ring that Sheeran still wore in the assisted-living home. The jewelry, wine, meals, and family inquiries make their bond tangible, while also showing how private friendship and criminal association occupied the same space.

Apalachin and a Wider Network

In November 1957, Sheeran drove Bufalino to Apalachin, a small town in upstate New York. Bufalino told him that he had another ride arranged onward to Erie and Buffalo, and Sheeran dropped him at a house without seeing anything unusual. The next day, police raided the meeting there. About fifty mobsters from around the country were arrested, including Bufalino; the event brought national publicity to an organization whose existence had previously been publicly denied by J. Edgar Hoover. Sheeran later understood that the drives and waits outside houses, bars, and restaurants had been part of Bufalino’s face-to-face business network.

The arrest brought a long personal consequence for Bufalino as well. Because he had arrived in America from Sicily when he was forty days old, authorities pursued deportation proceedings that, according to Sheeran, remained over him for fifteen years. When Bufalino lost his final appeal, packed his bags, and had tickets, Sheeran recommended a lawyer. Sheeran says the lawyer dealt with the Italian government and secured its refusal to take Bufalino, leaving the United States to keep him. Bufalino was grateful for Sheeran’s intervention, reversing the direction of their usual help: the driver and associate had become useful to the boss in a matter of personal survival.

Bufalino’s network also reached Florida. Sheeran says he often drove with him to meetings at Joe Sonken’s Gold Coast Lounge in Hollywood, where people from around the country gathered. Bufalino met there with Santo Trafficante and Carlos Marcello, and Sheeran encountered Trafficante’s lawyer, Frank Ragano, who was later lent to Hoffa to assist with his trials. The meetings show Bufalino as a connector across regional criminal networks, as well as a link between those networks and Hoffa’s legal and labor troubles.

Hoffa and the Disappearance

Bufalino’s closeness to Hoffa is signaled by a small but consequential object: after Hoffa disappeared, the FBI found a yellow pad beside his telephone at a summer cottage by a lake, with the words “Russ & Frank” written in pencil. Hoffa’s family feared that only someone trusted enough to approach him could have harmed a cautious man alert to his enemies. The book identifies “Russ & Frank”—Bufalino and Sheeran—as leading suspects. It also notes that earlier books and serious studies alleged that Sheeran was present when Hoffa was killed and that Bufalino sanctioned and planned the killing; these are presented as allegations, not as an independently established resolution of the case.

Sheeran’s account supplies a tense detail about a change of plans. At Brutico’s, Bufalino spoke softly and told him, “We got a little change in plans. We’re not leaving tomorrow. We stay put ’til Wednesday morning.” Sheeran understood that he was not wanted in Detroit on Wednesday afternoon and that Hoffa was to be alone. Bufalino later told him, “Your friend was too late. There’s no need for you and me to meet him on Saturday by the lake.” The exchange places Bufalino inside the sequence of arrangements surrounding Hoffa, though the words alone do not specify every action or establish the full plan.

Five days after Hoffa disappeared, the FBI noted a meeting at Vesuvio Restaurant in New York City attended by Bufalino, Sheeran, Anthony Salerno, Tony Provenzano, and Salvatore Briguglio. In Sheeran’s explanation, the gathering was a report to Salerno on how the disappearance had been carried out, with attention to whether anything remained to be done. He says the operation required Detroit’s sanction because it was Detroit’s territory, and that Chicago’s proximity and ties also mattered. Sheeran adds that homicide detectives were nearby and that Charlie Allen drove him to the restaurant and waited elsewhere. This is Sheeran’s account of the meeting, not a finding that settles the case.

The FBI’s HOFFEX file documents the investigation’s focus on a small group. Its third page listed seven men, including Bufalino and Sheeran; adding Tony Giacalone and Chuckie O’Brien brought the number of suspects to nine. The file grew to seventy volumes and more than 16,000 pages. Bufalino’s place among those named reflects the convergence of his documented connections, the reported arrangements, and the suspicion that surrounded Hoffa’s disappearance. The book leaves the central question unresolved: Bufalino’s power and proximity are plain, but the ultimate account of his part in Hoffa’s fate remains bound to disputed testimony and an unsolved disappearance.