The Nation - News from Sept. 14, 1988

The man thought to be the last link to the theft of the drugs seized in the storied French Connection case pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal drug trafficking charges. Anthony Dominick Passero, 54, admitted he imported and sold narcotics during the late 1960s and early 1970s and with his wife, laundered more than $100,000 in cash through banks in Albuquerque, N.M., and New York City. The French Connection case began in 1958 and ended four years later with the seizure in New York of 120 pounds of heroin processed in Marseilles, France. The case was the basis of “The French Connection” film. But while the moving was being made, most of the seized heroin plus hundreds more pounds of heroin and cocaine was stolen from the Police Department’s property clerk’s office.