Salvatore Ruggiero

Salvatore Frank Ruggiero Sr. pronounced (roo-JEH-roh) (July 20, 1945 – May 1982), also known as "Sal the Sphinx", "Sal Quack Quack" and "Sally", was a Gambino crime family mob associate and drug trafficker who was the younger brother of Angelo Ruggiero and ringleader of "The Pleasant Avenue Connection" which was a precursor to the Pizza Connection Trial drug smuggling operation. He became a fugitive in the late 1970s. He was a passenger on an aircraft that crashed on May 6, 1982; his body was recovered on May 14.

Salvatore Frank Ruggiero was born in East New York, Brooklyn, to a first generation Italian immigrant John Ruggiero Jr. from Torre de Ruggiero in Catanzaro, Calabria, Italy and an Italian-American woman named Mary Dellacroce who lived in Howard Beach, Queens. Mary was the biological sister of Gambino crime family underboss Aniello Dellacroce. It is unknown if his father John Jr. was a member of organized crime and served under Albert Anastasia or Carlo Gambino. Salvatore became involved in criminal activity at a young age and joined the powerful Fulton-Rockaway Boys gang member like his older brother Angelo Ruggiero and John Gotti. He was a sphinx compared to his brother Angelo. It is suggested by John Volkman and Ernest Cummings that Salvatore remained quiet and subdued because he had no hope of ever getting a word in with his brother Angelo around. He preferred to invest his energies in a mad quest for speed. Despite two serious injuries suffered in accidents on stolen motorcycles, Salvatore loved anything that he could propel at great velocity. Said to be a maniac behind the wheel of an automobile, he taught himself to drive at the age of thirteen, and like to roar around deserted areas of Brooklyn in stolen cars.

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