Tony Fiore ( left ) and Brian Andrews ( right ) prepare dinner together as friends .
looking for detectives who had knowledge of organized crime figures . I transferred into the Intelligence Unit , and we began those three wire taps . I was assigned to the DeMasi phone . There was a lot of surveillance , and another command post for his house . There was a big bakery at the end of Fiore ’ s street , so we had another command post there . And the third one was on Arthur Romeo ’ s house .
One day in July , we got lucky with Fiore and DeMasi . We knew they were going on a score so we stepped up our surveillance . Fiore had rented a truck from Ryder truck rental . At the time , Fiore ’ s wife worked at Ryder truck rental on Jefferson , and she helped him out with the trucks he rented for hijackings . We followed the truck from Ryder over to the gasoline station on Branch Avenue in Providence . While we sat on the truck , a neighborhood kid started siphoning gas out of the gas tank . We were like , oh , man , this kid ’ s gonna siphon all the gas . Fiore is gonna run out of gas ! So we had a choice to make , but we decided to let the kid siphon the gas , and he didn ’ t take all of it .
Finally , Fiore came down with George Chapdelaine , and they got in the truck . They drove it to a farm in Cranston off Scituate Avenue . The owner of the farm also owned a bakery on Reservoir Avenue in Cranston , a very popular bakery , everybody used to go there . He became part of their crew , because he offered his farm up in the woods . It offered privacy where they could bring these tractor trailers , park them and get other equipment . Then they would offload , and put the stuff in straight body trucks loaded with $ 100,000 worth of cartons of cigarettes and other stuff . When they were done unloading the trailer , they ’ d take the trailer and the tractor and dump it on Route 295 . The farmer was paid $ 1,000 a truck , so anytime they brought a truck up there , he would get $ 1,000 . This was back in 1973 and 1974 .
On a particular night around 10:30 or 11 p . m ., we got the whole area cordoned off with State Police and undercover cops . It was a oneway trip and the same way back . We were hiding in the woods . I was down at the end of the driveway , and we were gonna take the car at gunpoint as soon as it reached the intersection of the driveway . There was a station wagon that belonged to Bobby Papa , who was the owner of the Greenwood Inn in Warwick .
The lights were on , and before the car got to the intersection — I think there were two or three of us — we all jumped out of the woods , and we took the car down at gunpoint . They stopped . Fiore was driving the car . DeMasi was a passenger , and Papa was in the backseat . Once we had the car stopped , we ordered them out and we frisked them . They had no weapons . I had surveilled Fiore for probably three months . The first time
I ever met Tony Fiore was at the end of my service revolver . I arrested him two more times after that .
And now I understand that you guys get together and you have sparked a friendship . Tell me how that happened ? That relationship began in 2014 , after Fiore did a [ seventeen ] -year sentence in federal prison for the armored truck heist . My friend Bill Malinowski was still with The Providence Journal and he was writing a book . This was before he was diagnosed with ALS . I worked with Bill and I was living in Florida . Bill was in Barrington and we would talk two to three times a week , and I would help him with his book . It was going to be about political corruption involving the speaker of the House of Representatives in Rhode Island , and organized crime , because those were two areas that Bill specialized in .
So my role was to help Bill on the organized crime and even the political corruption part . Bill wanted to have some of Tony Fiore ’ s scores in his book . I flew up to Rhode Island for dinner in Barrington . Fiore had just gotten out of prison and we met at dinner with Malinowski . That was the first time I had seen him in thirty-something years . So he pulled up and got out of the truck , and Bill and I were already sitting at a table outside . And he walked up towards me and I walked towards him , and I shook his hand . I said , “ Hey , how are you doing ?” There were no hard feelings . We sat at the table and talked about all the cases I had on him . Bill sat there and took notes of our conversation . Bill was going to include this meeting in the book . That ’ s how I renewed my relationship with Fiore . We struck a friendship that night over dinner . Then the relationship between me and Fiore continued to grow through Crimetown . — J . C .