q1903 On October 11, 2004, two backhoes began cutting slowly into a vacant lot off Ruby Street in a sunken neighborhood on the Brooklyn-Queens border known as the Hole, a few minutes from Kennedy Airport. Around them, FBI agents in yellow rubber boots raked through the dirt by hand while cadaver dogs worked the edges. They … Read more
On the morning of April 19, 1951, a woman walking through the tall marsh grass near Avenue Y and East 72nd Street in Bergen Beach, Brooklyn, found a man lying face down in the dirt. She had found a body on almost the same spot two years earlier, so she knew what she was looking … Read more
La caissière a touché mon bras avant que je puisse attraper mon porte-monnaie, et l’expression sur son visage m’a figée sur place. Elle avait peut-être trente ans, des yeux sombres et ce calme rodé de quelqu’un qui en a trop vu passer dans une file de caisse pour se laisser facilement ébranler. Mais elle l’était, … Read more
Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano was born in 1917 on New York City's Lower East Side, one of six sons in a Sicilian family. He migrated early to New Jersey, where he operated for the rest of his life. By the early 1950s, he had been identified as a top labor racketeer and New Jersey hoodlum. … Read more
On the morning of January 19, 1993, federal agents surrounded a brown wooden split-level house at 79 Waterlue Road in Mount Olive, New Jersey. Inside, Anthony Casso was taking a shower. He was 52 years old, and for 32 months he had been a fugitive running the Lucchese crime family through pay phones, messengers, and … Read more
Avevo già capito fosse lui prima ancora che la nebbia si aprisse. La sagoma del pickup che scendeva dal passo era identica a quella che avevo visto parcheggiata nel mio stesso vialetto per mille mattine, e dietro al parabrezza si indovinava la macchia scura di un cappello da cowboy che non avevo mai visto in … Read more
On the morning of April 13, 1986, Frank DeCicco walked out of the Veterans and Friends Social Club in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, carrying a cup of coffee. He was 50 years old, dressed in a custom-tailored suit, and had recently been named underboss of the most powerful crime family in America. He approached his Buick Electra, … Read more
Before dawn on February 7, 2008, federal agents were taking positions for one of the largest Mafia takedowns New York had seen in years. By sunrise, an 80-count indictment was set to be unsealed in Brooklyn. Sixty-two defendants were named. The charges reached the acting boss of the Gambino family. They reached his acting underboss. … Read more
In 1946, Meyer Lansky stepped off a train in Miami carrying the quiet confidence of a man who had survived the deadly corners of New York and Chicago’s criminal underworld. For Lansky, Florida was both a paradise and a blank canvas. The sun, the beaches, and the booming post-war economy offered perfect cover for something … Read more
Het droge geritsel van bankbiljetten verscheurde de doodse stilte van de afgelegen hut. Mijn naam is Myra, zeventien jaar oud, en ik zag met eigen ogen hoe mijn eigen vader mij verkocht. Ik stond als bevroren op de koude houten vloer terwijl een dikke stapel geld van eigenaar wisselde, vlak voor mijn ogen. Mijn vader … Read more