In the late 1970s, Bonanno crime family captain Alphonse “Sonny Red” Indelicato led a crew of made men whose identities have been pieced together through research and court records. Indelicato, famously depicted in the film *Donnie Brasco*, was one of three Bonanno captains murdered in May 1981 in what became known as the three captains … Read more
On Valentine’s Day 1933, twelve of Dutch Schultz’s most trusted killers entered a Harlem basement expecting to execute one unarmed man. Only one of them walked out, and the message he carried back to the Bronx changed the balance of power in New York’s underworld. At the time, Harlem was struggling under the Great Depression. … Read more
Wayne Newton, known for decades as Mr. Las Vegas, built a career that made him one of the most successful entertainers in American history. He performed more than 30,000 shows, earned over $500 million during his lifetime, and owned a 40-acre ranch, a private jet, and a collection of vintage aircraft. Then, in 1992, the … Read more
My name is Chad Mallalerie. I’m fifty-two years old, and for twenty-nine years I drove a fire truck for the Teroot Fire Department. I retired last spring with a bad knee, a good pension, and a habit I’ve never been able to shake. I write everything down. Incident reports, timestamps, who said what and when. … Read more
Giuseppe Morello, known to rivals and police as “Peter Morello” and to the underworld as “The Old Fox,” was a founding figure in New York organized crime. He established the 107th Street mob in the 1890s, which later became the Morello crime family, and in time the Genovese crime family, the oldest of New York’s … Read more
The 1997 film Donnie Brasco ends with Al Pacino’s character, Lefty, receiving a phone call in his modest apartment, removing his jewelry, kissing his wife goodbye, and walking toward a waiting car before the screen cuts to black. The scene implies that Lefty, a loyal mob soldier who mentored an undercover FBI agent, was executed … Read more
Lucky Luciano did not become the most powerful man in American organized crime by out-shooting his rivals. His rise was built on a brutal, precisely executed double-cross that dismantled the old world of the Mafia and replaced it with a corporate structure that would define organized crime for generations. Before Luciano’s vision took hold, the … Read more
When Óscar died, María believed she had lost the man with whom she had shared an almost perfect life. But during the reading of his will in a Madrid notary’s office, a single detail shattered that belief. The document named a property in Madrid and a woman she had never heard of—Clara López—as co-owner of … Read more
On November 14, 1957, a routine check by a New York State Police sergeant on a quiet country road in Apalachin spiraled into the most catastrophic self-inflicted disaster in American Mafia history. What began as an observant cop’s suspicion about too many expensive cars outside a rural estate quickly exposed a secret national crime summit, … Read more
It had rained during the night, and by the morning of May 24, 1938, the sidewalks between Lennox Avenue and 7th Street still held water in the low places. Men who worked at the produce markets had been out before 5 a. m. , and the stoop where a small crowd gathered had long been … Read more