Grey: 921 books

My e-book on Lucky Luciano looks at his criminal career which began in New York City when he was 9. His first significant setback was Thomas Dewey's prosecution for compulsive prostitution. This sent Luciano to prison for a term of thirty years, or at least it was thought so at the time. Lucky's...

Salvatore D'Aquila immigrated to New York from Italy in the first years of the 20th century. When he first arrived in America he learned the ropes of organized crime from Giuseppe "Joe" Morello. D'Aquila took control of Morello's rackets when Joe was imprisoned in Atlanta Federal Penitentiary...

The securities business on Wall Street was considered relatively safe to invest in until the late 1950s. It was in 1959 that New York State Attorney General Louis Lefkowitz began investigating mob controlled investment firms. Among these was Philip Newman Associates which maintained offices on Madison...

Pasquale "Pascal" Natarelli was a career criminal who began his life in crime with school and night club break ins in the 1930s. Later in his career he was an enforcer and caporegime for the Magaddino crime family of western New York. The Magaddino syndicate stretched into southern Ontario...

Vasco De Nunez Balboa is credited with discovering the Pacific Ocean but he might have accomplished even more had not jealousy and treachery intervened. Balboa secretly hid himself in a cask on his voyage to Santa Maria del Darien in what is today the country of Panama. The captain of the ship, Enciso,...

Bartender Jack Hannon's August 1949 murder in Rockaway Beach was a violent event that remained unsolved at the end of the year. Law enforcement believed that Hannon's assassin used a German luger P-38. Multiple witnesses looked on as the barkeep was shot three times in the head. Hannon died in the...

The Lanzetti Mob controlled crime in South Philadelphia for nearly two decades. The brothers were often referred to as punks by police in Philly. The Lanzettis demonstrated a remarkable ability to avoid jail despite their many crimes. Not until 1936 did one of them, Ignatius, receive a stiff sentence...

Salvatore Avellino was a caporegime involved in Lucchese enforcement of the garbage/carting industry. My e-book considers Avellino from age sixteen when he was charged with brandishing a zip gun at a Lake Ronkonkoma resort. The year was 1952. The Luccheses were heavily involved in controlling the...

Capucine was a successful French model who came to the United States in 1959 to act in motion pictures. The protégé of Charles Feldman she went on to act in The Lion (1962), The 7th Dawn (1964), The Pink Panther (1963) and A Walk On The Wild Side (1962). An exotic beauty of uncertain beginnings...

In the early 1960s the Provenzano brothers held complete control of Teamsters Local 560 in Hoboken, New Jersey. Several dissident Teamsters were murdered at the time. Provenzano was tried and convicted of one of the killings in 1976. The Provenzanos, Anthony "Tony Pro", Nunzio "Nunzi...

Joseph Zito Sr. was a Mafioso who was mostly involved in upstate New York gambling ventures. A criminal turned FBI government informant, Zito sometimes wore an electronic device to assist federal agents. In 1973 he introduced an FBI agent to a New York City mobster. This was an era that witnessed...

Gennaro "Gerry Lang" Langella was a Colombo family Mafia underboss and boss. He came to the forefront after beginning his career as a mobster in Brooklyn. He served successively as a bodyguard and underboss for Colombo family chief Carmine "the Snake" Persico. Persico's imprisonment for ten years...

Joseph and Anthony Stassi were part of Nick Delmore's gambling syndicate in Union County, New Jersey in the 1950s. In the late 1960s they were participants in the infamous French Connection smuggling operation. Active in the Gambino crime family Joseph and Anthony were sentenced to 25 years in federal prison in the mid 1970s.

Carmine Tramunti took over the Lucchese crime family following the death of the organization's boss, Thomas Lucchese, in 1967. Tramunti and Anthony "Tony Ducks" Corrallo were rivals to ascend to the top spot of the New York City syndicate. Tramunti later made a name for himself with investments...