Peter DiFronzo was a reputed leader of the Chicago Outfit before his death, reportedly from COVID-19, at 87 in 2020.
But, in 1991, as FBI agents were conducting surveillance on him outside his Elmwood Park home, they observed that he was also a guy who did the same sorts of mundane tasks that a lot of people do — like shoveling snow and walking a dog.
In handwritten notes that were part of DiFronzo’s recently released FBI file, agents reported seeing DiFronzo outdoors on a brisk March day wearing a “dark blue jacket + light blue pants.”
“Walk dog,” they wrote, “and cleans up.”
He then left home in a red Dodge and stopped by a Dunkin' Donuts, according to his file.
The FBI releases its files, at least parts of them, on request after someone has died.
Elsewhere in the 220 pages of documents — now part of the Sun-Times “The FBI Files” online database, which includes material on nearly 200 deceased people, from political figures, clergy and business leaders to union bosses, hoodlums and serial killers — is a “reward notice” for what appears to be DiFronzo’s missing dog.
It's included in an FBI report dated days after he was seen walking a dog near his west suburban home, where he lived before moving to the Barrington area.
“Lost Dog: 6 lb. Poodle,” the poster says.
“White + Beige . . . Answers to ‘Pee-Wee’ . . . Dog is injured but NOT dangerous.”
A phone number is included along with a promise of a $100 reward.
The files don't say anything else about the dog.
DiFronzo, who did time in Leavenworth in the 1960s for a warehouse heist, has been described by law enforcement sources as the chief lieutenant to his brother John "No Nose" DiFronzo and, for a time, the leader of the Outfit’s Elmwood Park street crew.
DiFronzo’s FBI records, some heavily redacted, also mention the restaurant circuit he regularly drove to eat and meet people, with agents secretly watching.
There are numerous mentions of him going to Tom’s Steak House in Melrose Park, which dates to the 1950s. He also visited the Armand’s restaurant that had been on Grand Avenue in Elmwood Park and the old Gene’s Deli that was on Harlem Avenue in the same suburb, as well as Luke’s Italian Beef in the Loop and diners in Franklin Park and Hillside, the records show.
“Two unknown males exit Gene’s Deli and enter [REDACTED] bearing 1991 Illinois license [REDACTED],” one FBI entry says. “#1 male was 5’8”, 190, dresses in a jogging suit, mid-30s, mustache.”
A regular stop for DiFronzo, according to the FBI surveillance reports, was a D&P Construction, Inc. yard in Melrose Park, a waste-hauling business that on paper was run for decades by DiFronzo’s wife but that the FBI once contended was secretly “controlled” by DiFronzo and his late brother, who before his 2018 death at 89 was considered the top boss of the Chicago mob. The company in recent years has been a subcontractor "performing refuse-removal work" at O'Hare Airport, according to a city official.
Authorities believe the ranks of the Chicago mob have vastly declined as a result of older mobsters dying and federal prosecutions. In recent weeks, Joe "The Builder" Andriacchi, one of the last reputed mob leaders of his era, died. He got a brief mention in DiFronzo’s FBI file.
In 1998, a Teamsters watchdog tried to expel DiFronzo from the labor union “for being a member of organized crime and knowingly associating with other organized crime members including, but not limited to, Joseph Andriacchi,” according to union records that show DiFronzo resigned from the labor group but didn’t admit any wrongdoing.
His FBI records also show various places where he made stops, including Berwyn city hall and other suburban government offices and the not-for-profit National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame when it was in Arlington Heights. A representative of that organization, now based in Chicago, says DiFronzo “did happen to raise some funds for us to get our own building.”
