Zef Mustafa

Zef J. Mustafa is a former Albanian-American mobster associated with the Gambino crime family.

Early life Mustafa moved to the United States from Albania with his parents as an infant in 1962 to escape Enver Hoxha's Communist regime. When he was two years old, his mother died. His father died when he was 11. He was then placed in an orphanage, but eventually ran away and dropped out of school in the sixth grade. He was eventually taken in by a local family in the Arthur Avenue area of The Bronx, New York.

In 1986, he was alleged to have beaten a man to death with a Louisville Slugger baseball bat, but was not convicted as the key witness was a woman of ill-repute whose testimony was not convincing in court. His status was still not settled when, in December 2002, he was incarcerated in an immigration detention center. However, a judge eventually ruled in his favor, despite his inability to give any details about his alleged business, which made him over $20 million between 1990 and 2001, and he was released in 2004. The following year, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn indicted him and others for telephone and internet pornography. Mustafa pled guilty to money laundering and was sentenced to up to five years in prison and a $1.7 million fine.

Gambino crime family Mustafa was a regular at the Ravenite Social Club, which was frequented by the Gambino crime family. He was spotted at the club by the FBI 115 times during a three year span in the 1980s.