Organized Crime History

Shanghai, 1930s; it was a haven for outlaws from all over the world: a place where pasts could be forgotten, fascism and communism outrun, names invented, and fortunes made - and lost. “Lucky” Jack Riley was the most notorious of those outlaws. An ex-US Navy boxing champion, he escaped from prison and rose to become the Slots King of Shanghai. “Dapper” Joe Farren - a Jewish boy who fled Vienna’s ghetto - ruled the nightclubs. This is the story of their rise to power, their downfall, and the trail of destruction left in their wake.

From its beginnings in the 1890s, Miami Beach has been a place made by visionaries and hustlers. During Prohibition, Al Capone had to muscle into its bootlegging and gambling businesses. After December 1941, when the Beach was the training ground for half a million army recruits, even the war couldn't stop the party. After a short postwar boom, the city's luck gave out. But in 1981, 125,000 Cubans arrived by the boatload.

From the cunning, calculating, government-trained warriors to the psychopathic, homegrown freelancers, you can find them all in Assassinations: The Plots, Politics, and Powers Behind History-Changing Murders. Exposed are the hidden agendas as well as the open warfare. The cynical preparations and devastating aftermaths are laid bare. You will quickly find yourself immersed in a world that is filled with killings made to seem like suicides, murders that were designed to look like heart attacks or overdoses, and accidents that, in reality, were carefully orchestrated deaths.

Organized crime - the Italian American kind - has long been a source of popular entertainment and legend. Now Thomas Reppetto provides a balanced history of the Mafia's rise - from the 1880s to the post-World War II era - that is as exciting as it is authoritative. Structuring his narrative around a series of case histories featuring such infamous characters as Lucky Luciano and Al Capone, Reppetto draws on a lifetime of field experience and access to unseen documents to show us a locally grown Mafia.

From the beginnings of big-city police work to the rise of the Mafia, Rogues' Gallery is a colorful and captivating history of crime and punishment in the bustling streets of Old New York.

San Francisco, Chinatown, September 4, 1977, 2:00 a.m. Despite it being the middle of the night, Chinatown was still a hive of activity. Fresh produce glistening with dew was being delivered by vegetable vendors at grocery stores. Chinese barbeque chefs at neighborhood restaurants were preparing juicy roast duck and sticky sweet red barbeque pork for both the late-night crowd and tomorrow’s lunch rush.

Delve into the hidden underbelly of crime as we unveil the secrets of the Los Angeles Mafia Crime Family. From its elusive origins to its far-reaching influence, prepare to uncover the tangled web of power, intrigue, and betrayal that defined this criminal empire.

Beginning in the summer of 1903, an insidious crime wave filled New York City, and then the entire country, with fear. The children of Italian immigrants were kidnapped, and dozens of innocent victims were gunned down. Bombs tore apart tenement buildings. Judges, senators, Rockefellers, and society matrons were threatened with gruesome deaths. The perpetrators seemed both omnipresent and invisible. Their only calling card: the symbol of a black hand.

In Forbidden Brazil, we follow Michelle’s journey as she develops a profound understanding of humanity, while living in the sociopolitical impact of cyclical poverty. Without any previous knowledge about her estranged father’s native country, we watch her navigate and understand a foreign world where choice is driven by access to opportunity.

Hello, Shadowlands takes a deep plunge into crime rings both large and small. It also examines how China’s rise and America’s decline are creating new opportunities for transnational syndicates to thrive. Focusing on human stories on both sides of this crime wave, the acclaimed Bangkok-based broadcaster and journalist Patrick Winn intimately profiles the men and women of the region who are forced to make agonizing choices in the absence of law.

Pittsburgh’s mafia may not have been as infamous as New York’s Five Families or Chicago’s Outfit, but for nearly a century, the LaRocca Mafia Crime Family ruled Pittsburgh’s underworld with an iron fist. This is the untold story of power, betrayal, and survival, from the blood-soaked streets of Wylie Avenue to the backroom deals that shaped the Steel City’s economy. This book uncovers the full story of Pittsburgh’s organized crime history, from the first dons to the final days of the once-mighty LaRocca family.

The Mafia at War reconstructs the relationships between the Mafia and Allied intelligence organizations.

Discover how Jewish gangsters clashed with Nazis on the streets of New York; how Mafiosi nearly issued contracts to kill top Nazis, including Hitler; how Mafia-backed bandits conducted a guerrilla war for Sicilian independence; and how Eisenhower was happy to arm the Mafia during the Allied invasion of Sicily.

During the peak of the Somali piracy crisis, three ships - from Malaysia, Thailand and Taiwan - were hijacked and then abandoned to their fate by their employers, who lacked the money to pay ransoms. All would still be there, were it not for Colonel John Steed, a retired British military attaché, who launched his own private mission to free them. Author Colin Freeman, who has himself spent time held hostage by Somali pirates, takes listeners on an inside track into the world of hostage negotiation and one man’s heroic rescue mission.

The cult classic that traced how a religion that once embodied the 1960s hopes for peace, love and understanding metamorphozed into a worldwide organized crime ring. This new edition is being published in conjunction with a new documentary based on the book and contains a new foreword by the authors as well as Krishna images never published before.

From the Bowery Boys and the Five Points Gang through the rise of the Jewish "Kosher Nostra" and the ascendance of the Italian Mafia, mobsters have played a major role in the city's history, lurking just around the corner or inside that nondescript building. Bill "the Butcher" Poole, Paul Kelly, Monk Eastman, "Lucky" Luciano, Carlo Gambino, Meyer Lansky, Mickey Spillane, John Gotti - each held sway over New York neighborhoods that nurtured them and gave them power.

Author Jason Ryan takes us back to the heady days before drug smuggling was synonymous with deadly gunplay. During this golden age of marijuana trafficking, the country's most prominent kingpins were a group of wayward and fun-loving Southern gentlemen who forsook college educations to sail drug-laden luxury sailboats across the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the Caribbean. Les Riley, Barry Foy, and their comrades eschewed violence as much as they loved pleasure, and it was greed, lust, and disaster at sea that ultimately caught up with them, along with the law.

The Mafia in the United States might be a shadow of its former self, but in the New York/New Jersey metro area, there are still wise guys and wannabes working scams, extorting businesses, running gambling, selling drugs, and branching out into white collar crimes. And they are continuing a tradition that's over 100 years old. Some of the most powerful mobsters on a national level were from New Jersey, and they spread their tentacles down to Florida, across the Atlantic, and out to California.

In a small village in New York, mob bosses from all over the country - Vito Genovese, Carlo Gambino, Joe Bonanno, Joe Profaci, Cuba boss Santo Trafficante, Jr., and Paul Castellano - were nabbed by Sergeant Edgar D. Croswell as they gathered to sort out a bloody war of succession. For years FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had adamantly denied the existence of the Mafia, but Robert Kennedy immediately recognized the shattering importance of the Apalachin summit....

A guided tour of Boston's underworld, revealing the places where deals were made, people were killed, and bodies were buried.

Be the FBI Agent in training under J. Edgar Hoover and run the gauntlet of Machinegun Kelly, Baby Face Nelson, and the Barker Karpis Gang. Step back into downtown Chicago of the 1930s and retrace the steps of some of America's most notorious mobsters. True Stories from the Files of the FBI was written by W. Cleon Skousen under the direct supervision of Mr. Hoover himself. These first-hand accounts of actual "do or die" situations were used for decades to train thousands of FBI agents.