Christmas party with the Mafia in attendance

August 3, 2010

A Brooklyn Christmas party had a distinctly less than festive twist when dozens of heavily armed federal drug agents started a raid on the venue.

Following a false tip-off from Mafia mobster Michael (Mickey) Souza, who said that the party was doubling as an induction ceremony for a wannabe member of the Bonanno crime family, the police raided last year's party at the Banner Social Club.

The police herded scores of mostly elderly partygoers out of the club and into the cold for more than two two hours while they and the club were searched, ostensibly for drugs, weapons and other contraband that were nowhere to be found.

According to a source, what the police were really looking for were pictures of saints, a gun, a knife, and some Bonanno family heavyweights in the middle of a Mafia initiation rite.

After ruining the Christmas party at the club, the police officers, which included some senior FBI agents, took names and examined the mobile phones of all of the dispirited revellers. Then they bid most of them a good night, and, according to one source, added a sarcastic "Have a nice evening."