New York Daily News

7 years for pizza shop coke queen

- Andrew Keshner

A QUEENS woman got a sevenyear prison sentence Thursday for helping run an internatio­nal cocaine traffickin­g operation out of the family’s pizzeria.

While the family’s patriarch might have been the ringleader, Brooklyn Federal Judge Raymond Dearie said Eleonora Gigliotti (photo), 56, was fully involved in a crime that was also a “family tragedy, to be sure.”

Gigliotti, her husband, Gregorio, and their son, Angelo, were charged in 2015, after authoritie­s nabbed shipments of cassava with cocaine stashed inside.

Prosecutor­s said the operation had links in Italy and Costa Rica, importing at least 120 kilos of cocaine since 2012. When law enforcemen­t raided the Gigliottis’ Corona restaurant, Cucino a Modo Mio, they found a stockpile of weapons, a drug deal ledger and more than $100,000 in cash, authoritie­s said.

When the trio were first detained, prosecutor­s said the Gigliotti family had “close business ties” to the ’Ndrangheta, the notorious Calabria, Italy-based crime organizati­on, and pointed to Italian authoritie­s who said Gregorio was hashing out a drug sale with members of the organizati­on.

Law enforcemen­t officials also said Gregorio, 60, and Angelo, 36, were tied to the Genovese crime family.

Jurors convicted Gregorio and Angelo this past July. Gregorio received an 18-year term last month, while Angelo is awaiting sentence.

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