True Organized Crime

After his retirement from the Marine Corps in the early 1930s, General Smedley D. Butler embarked on a national lecture tour, where he gave his speech about how commercial interests benefit from war. The speech was well received and he wrote an expanded version of it, which was published as War Is A Racket. The work was published by Reader's Digest as a condensed book supplement, which added to its popularity.

At six-foot-four-inches and 375 pounds, Jack Garcia looked the part of a mobster, and he played his part so perfectly that his Mafia bosses never suspected he was an undercover agent for the FBI. "Big Jack Falcone," as he was known inside La Cosa Nostra, learned all the inside dirt about the Gambino organized crime syndicate and its illegal activities---from extortion and loan-sharking to assault and murder.

When Goodfellas first hit the theaters in 1990, a classic was born. Few could anticipate the unparalleled influence it would have on pop culture, one that would inspire future filmmakers and redefine the gangster picture as we know it today. From the rush of grotesque violence in the opening scene to the iconic hilarity of Joe Pesci’s endlessly quoted “Funny how?” shtick, it’s little wonder the film is widely regarded as a mainstay in contemporary cinema.

Combining on-the-ground reporting and in-depth discussions with people on the frontlines of Mexico's drug war, To Die in Mexico tells behind-the-scenes stories that address the causes and consequences of Mexico's multibillion dollar drug trafficking business. John Gibler looks beyond the myths that pervade government and media portrayals of the unprecedented wave of violence now pushing Mexico to the breaking point.

Bestselling author Douglas Century reveals the untold story of the epic rise and fall of Boris Nayfeld, also known as Biba, one of the most notorious Russian mob bosses of our era. Boris Nayfeld, a.k.a. “Biba,” is the last living boss of the old-school Russian mob in America, and he’s survived to tell it all. Filled with sex, drugs, and murder, Biba’s story is a mind-boggling journey that took him from petty street crime in the USSR to billion-dollar embezzlement in America.

The Bronx-born son of a Jewish bootlegger, "Joey the Hit Man" was introduced to crime when he was just eleven years old. For the next thirty years he was a numbers king, scalper, loan shark, enforcer, and drug smuggler. He hijacked trucks, fenced stolen goods, and trafficked in pornography. But Joey really made his name as a Mafia assassin, racking up thirty-eight cold-blooded hits-thirty-five for cash, three for revenge.

In this riveting and relentless nonfiction thriller, award-winning investigative reporter William C. Rempel tells the harrowing story of former Cali cartel insider Jorge Salcedo, an ordinary man facing an extraordinary dilemma—a man forced to risk everything to escape the powerful and treacherous Cali crime syndicate.

Federal Agent Robert Mazur spent five years undercover as a money launderer to the international underworld, gaining access to the zenith of a criminal hierarchy safeguarded by a circle of dirty bankers and businessmen who quietly shape power across the globe. These men and women control multibillion-dollar drug-trafficking empires, running their organizations like public companies.

Eddie Trascher was a gentleman gangster, but he never wanted to be part of the mob. For 50 years, from the pre-Castro Havana casinos to Los Angeles, Trascher stole from mob-owned casinos, scammed gangsters, and was one of the top bookies in the country. He capped his career as a confidential informant for Florida law enforcement and was the source for getting inside the Trafficante Mafia family.

Step into the intriguing world of the Lucchese crime family, one of the most formidable and enigmatic factions in the American Mafia. From their humble beginnings in the early 1920s to their rise as one of the "Five Families" that dominated organized crime in New York City, the Lucchese family's captivating story is filled with ambition, power struggles, and ruthless tactics that kept them at the top of the criminal underworld.

This thought-provoking book examines gang history in the region encompassing West Texas, Southern New Mexico, and Northern Chihuahua, Mexico. Known as the El Paso-Juárez borderland region, the area contains more than three million people spanning 130 miles from east to west. Mike Tapia examines this region by exploring a century of historical developments through a criminological lens and by studying the diverse subcultures on both sides of the law.

In Hoffa’s Shadow tells the moving story of how Goldsmith reunited with the stepfather he’d disowned and then set out to unravel one of the 20th century’s most persistent mysteries and Chuckie’s role in it. Along the way, Goldsmith explores Hoffa’s rise and fall and why the golden age of blue-collar America came to an end, while also casting new light on the century-old surveillance state, the architects of Hoffa’s disappearance, and the heartrending complexities of love and loyalty.

When detective Maggie Oliver first discovered that children as young as 10 were being groomed, abused and trafficked for sex by gangs of men in the Rochdale area, she felt like a lonely voice calling for people to act. Banging on closed doors, it seemed that nobody was able or willing to help her save these vulnerable girls, but she couldn't just sit back while countless lives were being destroyed forever in plain sight. Instead, she launched a one-woman campaign to bring down these sickening gangs.

In Bloodlines, Emmy and National Magazine award-winning journalist Melissa del Bosque follows Lawson and Perez's harrowing attempt to dismantle a cartel leader's American racing dynasty built on extortion and blood money. With extensive access to investigative evidence and in-depth interviews with key players, del Bosque turns more than three years of research and her decades of reporting on Mexico and the border into a gripping narrative about greed and corruption.

As a cop, Ron Previte was corrupt. As a mobster, he was brutal. And in his final role, as a confidential informant to the FBI, Previte was deadly. The Last Gangster is his story—the story of the last days of the Philadelphia Mob, and of the clash of generations that brought it down once and for all. Convinced that the honor of the "business" was gone, he became the FBI's secret weapon in an intense and highly personalized war on the Philadelphia mob, operating with the same guile, wit, and stone-cold bravado that had made him a force in the underworld.

On the streets of the tough Dublin inner-city neighbourhood where he grew up, Gerry Hutch was perceived as an ordinary decent criminal, a quintessential Robin Hood figure who fought the law—and won. To the rest of the world he was an elusive criminal godfather called the Monk: an enigmatic criminal mastermind and the hunted leader of one side in the deadliest gangland feud in Irish criminal history.

John "Sonny" Franzese reportedly committed his first murder at the age of fourteen. As a "made man" for the Colombo crime family, he operated out of his Long Island home specializing in racketeering, fraud, and other illicit deeds he would deny to his dying day. His career in organized crime spanned over eight decades - and he was sentenced to fifty years in prison for robbery. This is the true story of an old-school Mafioso as it's never been told. Newsday reporter S. J. Peddie interviewed Franzese in prison and uncovered a lifetime of shocking secrets from the legend himself.

Chantal Frei (pseudonym) who grew up in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, was only six years old when Satanists decided to make her into a Mother of Darkness. At that time, she had already survived massive torture – which was the reason why the cult considered her to be strong, smart, and intelligent enough to be trained by the Illuminati. Today, Chantal Frei is able to speak out about her experiences as a survivor of satanic ritual abuse, spiritual abuse, and mind control in order to help others by providing insight and knowledge.

Three years after undercover agent Robert Mazur infiltrated Pablo Escobar’s Medellín drug cartel, he reemerged, a half-million-dollar bounty still on his head, with a new identity for a risky new sting. He was now Robert Baldasare, money launderer and president of an international trade finance company. Deployed to Panama, Mazur worked, traveled, partied, and washed millions with Central America’s criminal elite. Partnered with a young superstar DEA task force agent, Mazur slipped effortlessly into Colombia’s notorious Cali drug cartel.

Author Orlando (Ori) Spado honestly recants his humble beginnings from the small town of Rome in upstate New York, to becoming known as "The Mob Boss of Hollywood." A candid account documenting his fall from a well-known Hollywood fixer mixing with A list celebrities to serving 62 months in Federal prison, and ultimately making a determined comeback.