Q&A: Brian Andrews

Former Rhode Island State Police Detective Brian Andrews (right) with Lieutenant Richard Esposito (left), who was in charge of the State Police’s Crime Scene Unit. Photography courtesy of Brian Andrews.

Former Rhode Island State Police detective Brian Andrews and master thief Tony Fiore’s history involves stakeouts, wiretapping, armored truck heists, arrests and more, but the connection later led to camaraderie after Fiore served time in prison. Their story was highlighted in the 2017 Crimetown episode “Chapter 8: Cat and Mouse,” and “Bonus Episode: Cat and Mouse Part II.” We checked in with Andrews for some untold tales about the foes turned friends.

Brian, can you catch us up on “Cat and Mouse?”

“Cat and Mouse” deals with Fiore and me from 1975-78 around the time of the Bonded Vault heist. The second episode of “Cat and Mouse” is called “Bonus,” which covers 1991 and the armored truck robbery at Emerald Square Mall.

First off, how did you catch on to what was going on with Tony Fiore?

Right around 1973-74, I was transferred from the uniformed State Police Detective Division. The State Police Intelligence Unit had been working on some organized crime figures, which involved Tony Fiore, Ralph DeMasi, Gerard Ouimette and others, who were actively involved in burglaries at precious metals facilities with millions of dollars in gold and precious metals. They were also hijacking trailer trucks all over New England, most of them locally. It was concentrated in the Pawtucket/East Providence area, because that’s where all of the major trucking terminals were. So the State Police decided they were going to do a wiretap. Before 1973, there was no wiretapping. It was illegal. In 1968, the federal government passed the Omnibus Crime Control Bill, and once that was passed, it authorized wiretapping to the federal government and all of the states. So for the State Police in 1973, they decided that they would wiretap three telephones. One of them was Fiore’s, one was Ralph DeMasi’s and the third one was Arthur Romeo. 

In order to man those wiretaps, they needed more manpower than the Intelligence Unit had. They were looking for detectives who had knowledge of organized crime figures. I transferred into the Intelligence Unit, and we began those three wire taps. I was assigned to the DeMasi phone. There was a lot of surveillance, and another command post for his house. There was a big bakery at the end of Fiore’s street, so we had another command post there. And the third one was on Arthur Romeo’s house. 

One day in July, we got lucky with Fiore and DeMasi. We knew they were going on a score so we stepped up our surveillance. Fiore had rented a truck from Ryder truck rental. At the time, Fiore’s wife worked at Ryder truck rental on Jefferson, and she helped him out with the trucks he rented for hijackings. We followed the truck from Ryder over to the gasoline station on Branch Avenue in Providence. While we sat on the truck, a neighborhood kid started siphoning gas out of the gas tank. We were like, oh, man, this kid’s gonna siphon all the gas. Fiore is gonna run out of gas! So we had a choice to make, but we decided to let the kid siphon the gas, and he didn’t take all of it. 

Tony Fiore (left) and Brian Andrews (right) prepare dinner together as friends. Photography courtesy of Brian Andrews.

Finally, Fiore came down with George Chapdelaine, and they got in the truck. They drove it to a farm in Cranston off Scituate Avenue. The owner of the farm also owned a bakery on Reservoir Avenue in Cranston, a very popular bakery, everybody used to go there. He became part of their crew, because he offered his farm up in the woods. It offered privacy where they could bring these tractor trailers, park them and get other equipment. Then they would offload, and put the stuff in straight body trucks loaded with $100,000 worth of cartons of cigarettes and other stuff. When they were done unloading the trailer, they’d take the trailer and the tractor and dump it on Route 295. The farmer was paid $1,000 a truck, so anytime they brought a truck up there, he would get $1,000. This was back in 1973 and 1974. 

On a particular night around 10:30 or 11 p.m., we got the whole area cordoned off with State Police and undercover cops. It was a one-way trip and the same way back. We were hiding in the woods. I was down at the end of the driveway, and we were gonna take the car at gunpoint as soon as it reached the intersection of the driveway. There was a station wagon that belonged to Bobby Papa, who was the owner of the Greenwood Inn in Warwick.

The lights were on, and before the car got to the intersection — I think there were two or three of us — we all jumped out of the woods, and we took the car down at gunpoint. They stopped. Fiore was driving the car. DeMasi was a passenger, and Papa was in the backseat. Once we had the car stopped, we ordered them out and we frisked them. They had no weapons. I had surveilled Fiore for probably three months. The first time I ever met Tony Fiore was at the end of my service revolver. I arrested him two more times after that. 

And now I understand that you guys get together and you have sparked a friendship. Tell me how that happened?

That relationship began in 2014, after Fiore did a [seventeen]-year sentence in federal prison for the armored truck heist. My friend Bill Malinowski was still with The Providence Journal and he was writing a book. This was before he was diagnosed with ALS. I worked with Bill and I was living in Florida. Bill was in Barrington and we would talk two to three times a week, and I would help him with his book. It was going to be about political corruption involving the speaker of the House of Representatives in Rhode Island, and organized crime, because those were two areas that Bill specialized in.

So my role was to help Bill on the organized crime and even the political corruption part. Bill wanted to have some of Tony Fiore’s scores in his book. I flew up to Rhode Island for dinner in Barrington. Fiore had just gotten out of prison and we met at dinner with Malinowski. That was the first time I had seen him in thirty-something years. So he pulled up and got out of the truck, and Bill and I were already sitting at a table outside. And he walked up towards me and I walked towards him, and I shook his hand. I said, “Hey, how are you doing?” There were no hard feelings. We sat at the table and talked about all the cases I had on him. Bill sat there and took notes of our conversation. Bill was going to include this meeting in the book. That’s how I renewed my relationship with Fiore. We struck a friendship that night over dinner. Then the relationship between me and Fiore continued to grow through Crimetown.