BROOKLYN, NY — Andrew Campos, 51, of Scarsdale, NY, and a captain in the Gambino organized crime family of La Cosa Nostra, was sentenced Thursday by United States District Judge Ann M. Donnelly to 37 months’ imprisonment for racketeering conspiracy. The Court also ordered Campos to pay $1 million in restitution and a $15,000 fine. Campos pleaded guilty to the charge in January 2021, admitting his participation in various predicate acts of wire fraud and money laundering.
Campos co-conspirator Benito DiZenzo who pleaded guilty to Federal Wire Fraud in January 2021, is scheduled to be sentenced on March 3 in the United States District Court Eastern District.
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Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Michael J. Driscoll, Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI); Thomas Fattorusso, Special Agent-in-Charge, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI); and Keechant Sewell, Commissioner, New York City Police Department (NYPD), announced the sentence.
“As a captain in the Gambino crime family, Campos has engaged in multiple fraud and money laundering schemes and maintained the corrosive influence of organized crime in the construction industry,” stated United States Attorney Peace. “This Office, together with its law enforcement partners, will continue to pursue all investigative avenues to deter, interrupt and hold accountable members of organized crime who seek to line their pockets at the expense of businesses and taxpayers.” Mr. Peace expressed his appreciation to the Queens County District Attorney’s Office, the United States Probation Departments for the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York, the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor and the United States Department of Labor for their assistance during the investigation.
“Andrew Campos led a scheme that lined his pockets and cheated taxpayers. He failed to pay more than $1 million in payroll taxes and laundered money to build his personal residence,” stated IRS-CI Special Agent-in-Charge Fattorusso. “Criminals, take note. Trying to cheat the system is not the way to do business.”
Campos and his co-conspirators carried out multiple fraudulent schemes to earn millions of dollars in criminal proceeds, in part through their operation of a carpentry company, CWC Contracting Corp. (“CWC”). Campos helped orchestrate a massive scheme to defraud the IRS by failing to pay approximately $1.3 million in payroll taxes owed to the federal government by paying CWC employees millions of dollars in cash without making the required payroll tax withholdings and payments. Campos and others also laundered money through a scheme by which checks were made out to others and cashed, purportedly for work performed in connection with CWC construction projects, but where, in fact, no services were performed, and the proceeds were used to construct Campos’s residence. Campos and his co-conspirators also fraudulently procured cards from the United States Department of Labor indicating completion of certain Occupational Safety and Health Administration training courses when, in fact, the courses were never completed. Further, as found by the Court at sentencing, between approximately June 2018 and June 2019, CWC paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and kickbacks to employees of a real estate development company. CWC paid the bribes in the form of hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of free labor and materials used for renovations on a co-defendant’s residence.
The government’s case is being handled by the Office’s Organized Crime & Gangs Section. Assistant United States Attorney Kayla C. Bensing is in charge of the prosecution, assisted by Eastern District of New York Special Agent Erik Nesbitt. Assistant United States Attorney Claire S. Kedeshian of the Office’s Asset Recovery Section is handling forfeiture matters.