In all the years that two NYPD detectives allegedly worked as moles and hitmen for the mob, they had only one face-to-face meeting with the high-profile Luchese underboss who had them on his payroll, Gang Land has learned.

The former detectives, Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, and Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso had a safety net they called the “Old Man” – a millionaire drug dealer who served as a trusted go-between and refused to break even after he was hammered with a 27-year sentence for marijuana smuggling, sources said.

About six months ago, however, the safety net collapsed for Messrs. Eppolito and Caracappa, leading to their arrests last week in Las Vegas.

Sources told Gang Land that Burton Kaplan, who is now about 70, has finally admitted his role as an intermediary and agreed to finger the ex-detectives for taking part in eight successful murders plots between 1986 and 1991 and a host of additional crimes.

Kaplan, who imported more than 50 tons of marijuana and lesser amounts of cocaine to New York in the early 1990s, is the linchpin to the racketeering and murder charges lodged against the retired detectives last week.

Convicted at trial for drug smuggling, Kaplan was sentenced in 1998 to 27 years in prison. Recently, however, Kaplan’s name vanished from the Bureau of Prisons’ list of inmates. His most recent attorney of record and federal prison officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.

“He ties it all together,” one law enforcement official said of Kaplan’s role.

“He is a part of the case,” another official confirmed.

Sources said Kaplan’s accounts of the alleged murderous activity by Messrs. Eppolito and Caracappa have essentially corroborated those provided 11 years ago by Casso, an admitted 36-time killer whose limited usefulness as a witness disintegrated when he committed crimes while confined in a special prison unit for cooperating witnesses.

The only time Casso met Messrs. Eppolito and Caracappa, according to Kaplan, was on October 18, 1986, a month after Casso had survived a rubout attempt and had enlisted the detectives to kidnap and deliver to him the only suspect whose identity Casso had learned, James Hydell.

That day, according to Kaplan, the detectives flashed their badges and “arrested” Hydell in Bensonhurst and drove him to a nearby body shop. There, after contacting Kaplan, they tied and gagged Hydell, placed him into the trunk of their car, and drove to a Toys ‘R’ Us parking lot on Flatbush Avenue, where Messrs. Eppolito and Caracappa met Casso for the first and only time.

At the parking lot, according to Kaplan, the detectives turned over Hydell to Casso, who transported his victim to the basement of a mob associate’s house, where Casso tortured him until he identified his accomplices in the attack. Luchese boss Vittorio “Vic” Amuso, who is serving life for 1992 murder convictions, allegedly was part of the plot.

Eventually, Kaplan has told the feds, Casso killed Hydell and ordered two Luchese mobsters to dispose of his body. His remains have never been recovered, but the wiseguys reported that they “put him in a lot in Canarsie,” Kaplan has told the feds.

Before Casso finished him off, two Gambino capos were brought to the lo cation and made to listen to Hydell confess his role in the attack and identify Michael “Mickey Boy” Paradiso as the Gambino soldier who had ordered them to kill Casso.

After they left, Casso allegedly killed Hydell. “I shot him 15 times,” he told the FBI in 1994.

Mr. Eppolito, 56, retired in 1989. He co-wrote a book about his life with Bob Drury, “Mafia Cop,” and relocated to Las Vegas, where he built a luxurious 4,000-square-foot home that features pictures of him with actors with whom he has worked in several mob movies, including “Goodfellas.”

Mr. Caracappa, 63, retired in 1992 and moved to Las Vegas, building a house in a subdivision called Spanish Palms, directly across the street from Mr. Eppolito, his former partner in the Brooklyn Robbery Squad and alleged partner in crime.

They were arrested in Las Vegas last week after a federal grand jury in Brooklyn indicted them for Hydell’s abduction, the 1990 murder of a Gambino soldier they allegedly pulled over and shot to death for a $65,000 payoff, and numerous other crimes as part of a racketeering enterprise that operated from 1983 through this year.

After pleading innocent, they were detained without bail and ordered removed to New York to face trial on the charges, for which they face life in prison.

According to court records, the feds began trying to coerce Kaplan to cooperate in an investigation of the detectives shortly after Casso had told the FBI that Messrs. Eppolito and Caracappa were on his payroll, earning a $4,000 monthly retainer.

In 1996, Kaplan was charged with smuggling thousands of pounds of marijuana from Mexico in 1991-92. During pre-trial proceedings, his lawyers obtained a memo from an assistant U.S. attorney in Brooklyn to the office’s organized crime supervisor, Mark Feldman, indicating that the only way to prosecute the cops was to obtain cooperation from Kaplan.

In the memo, which did not name Messrs. Eppolito or Caracappa or mention their suspected criminal activity, a former prosecutor, James Orenstein, told Mr. Feldman that his investigation had “been stalled for a long time and is likely to remain that way unless Kaplan flips.”

Mr. Feldman, who still heads the office’s organized crime unit for U.S. Attorney Roslyn Mauskopf, declined to comment about that memo or “any potential witnesses” in the current case. The prosecution, he said, was a “true team effort” by his office, NYPD detectives, investigators, and prosecutors for Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes, and agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

This column and other news of organized crime will appear later today on www.ganglandnews.com.