Over the years, Avellino and his relatives established a stranglehold on the waste hauling business on Long Island. To gather evidence against Avellino, federal agents used undercover informant Robert Kubecka, the owner of a Suffolk County, New York garbage hauling business. Since the 1970s, Kubecka had refused to participate the mob control of the waste hauling business and had suffered extensive harassment as a result. In 1982, Kubecka, agreed to wear a surveillance device during meetings with the mobsters. Although Kubecka was unable to get close to Avellino himself, the information Kubecka gathered eventually persuaded a judge to allow a wire tap on Avellino's home phone in Nissequogue, New York. The home phone tap was also disappointing to the agents; however, it did reveal that Avell