True Organized Crime

John Gotti was without a doubt the flashiest and most feared Mafioso in American history. He became the boss of the Gambino Crime Family in spectacular fashion—with the brazen and very public murder of Paul Castellano in front of Sparks Steakhouse in midtown Manhattan in 1985. Not one to stay below law enforcement’s radar, Gotti instead became the first celebrity crime boss. His penchant for eye-catching apparel earned him the nickname “The Dapper Don;” his ability to beat criminal charges led to another: “The Teflon Don.”

This is the story of the most successful cocaine dealers in the world: Pablo Escobar Gaviria, Jorge Luis Ochoa Vasquez, Carlos Lehder Rivas, and Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha. In the 1980s, they controlled more than 50 percent of the cocaine flowing into the United States. The cocaine trade is capitalism on overdrive - supply meeting demand on exponential levels. Here you'll find the story of how the modern cocaine business started and how it turned a ragtag group of hippies and sociopaths into regal kings.

In 1945, US intelligence officers in Manila discovered that the Japanese had hidden large quantities of gold bullion and other looted treasure in the Philippines. President Truman decided to recover the gold but to keep its riches secret. These, combined with Japanese treasure recovered during the US occupation, and with recovered Nazi loot, would create a worldwide American political action fund to fight communism.

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.

In his own words, real life American Gangster Frank Lucas recounts his life as the former heroin dealer and organized crime boss who ran Harlem during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Determined to break the Italian mafia’s monopoly over drug smuggling in New York, Frank cut out middlemen and began smuggling heroin into the United States directly from his source in Vietnam using the coffins of dead American soldiers.

In 1880, an organized mob of the Donnellys' enemies murders four family members and burns their house to the ground. Another sibling is shot to death in a house a short distance away. William Donnelly and a teenage boy are the only witnesses to the murders. The surviving family members seek justice through the local courts but quickly learn that their enemies control the jury and the press. Two sensational trials follow that make national and international headlines as the Donnellys continue to pursue justice for their murdered parents, siblings, and cousin.

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.

In "The Five Families of New York," Mafia Library presents a gripping account of the ascension and decline of New York's foremost crime syndicates, from the legendary Lucky Luciano to the notorious Paul Castellano and John Gotti, and beyond. Through vivid storytelling, the book chronicles the relentless assault waged against these five families over two decades, a campaign that stands as the most successful law enforcement effort of the last century.

In 1929, in the blue-collar city of Portsmouth, Ohio, a company built a swimming pool the size of a football field; named Dreamland, it became the vital centre of the community. Now, addiction has devastated Portsmouth, as it has hundreds of small rural towns and suburbs across America—addiction like no other the country has ever faced. How that happened is the riveting story of Dreamland.

Deutschlands erfolggekrönter True Crime-Bestsellerautor Adrian Langenscheid entfesselt, im fünften Band seiner True Crime-Buchreihe erneut herzklopfendes Suchtlesen. Es ist ein atemberaubendes, zutiefst erschütterndes Portrait menschlicher Abgründe, das gerade wegen der kühlen, sachlich-neutralen Schilderung gewaltige Emotionen weckt. Frei von jeglicher Sensationsgier werden in achtzehn True Crime-Kurzgeschichten einige der spektakulärsten französischen Kriminalfälle der letzten Jahrzehnte nacherzählt.

In the early 1990s, Demetrius "Big Meech" Flenory and his brother, Terry "Southwest T", rose up from the slums of Detroit to build one of the largest cocaine empires in American history: the Black Mafia Family. They socialized with music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, did business with New York's king of bling Jacob "The Jeweler" Arabo, and built allegiances with rap superstars Young Jeezy and Fabolous. Yet even as BMF was attracting celebrity attention, its crew members struck fear in a city.

"We are the people our parents warned us about" is the motto of the Bandidos, one of the world's most feared outlaw motorcycle gangs. For ten years, Steve Utah was a Bandidos insider. He arranged the security of their clubhouses. He 'cooked' ecstasy and ice for them. He was at meetings where interstate and overseas drug and weapons smuggling was planned. He saw stolen military weapons being sold. He witnessed vicious beatings, helped dump corpses.It all became too much and, in an attempt to regain control of his life, Utah resorted to the unthinkable....

Blow is the unlikely story of George Jung's roller-coaster ride from middle-class high school football hero to the heart of Pablo Escobar's Medellín cartel - the largest importer of the United States cocaine supply in the 1980s. Jung's early business of flying marijuana into the United States from the mountains of Mexico took a dramatic turn when he met Carlos Lehder, a young Colombian car thief with connections to the then newly-born cocaine operation in his native land. Together they created a new model for selling cocaine.

A sworn member of the Colombo crime family in New York City, Michael Franzese was considered the biggest moneymaker in the mob since Al Capone. At age 35, he was number 18 on Fortune Magazine's list of the 50 most wealthy and powerful Mafia bosses in America. But then he did the unthinkable. He quit the mob. Franzese met Camille Garcia, who turned his world upside down with her innocent beauty. He fell in love with her, married her, and began a new life that didn't include the Mafia.

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.

Everyone deserves the best defense. Known for his sharp mind, sharp suits, and bold courtroom strategies, Bronx-native Barry Slotnick is known as the best criminal lawyer in the US. He calls himself “Liberty’s Last Champion”. Slotnick mediates Bette Midler’s bathhouse contract and represents John Gotti, “The Dapper Don”. He defends “Subway Shooter” Bernie Goetz and negotiates future First Lady Melania Trump’s pre-nup. His unparalleled legal brilliance defines a profession, a city - and an era.

It’s 2008, and it’s been a while since Jake Adelstein was the only gaijin crime reporter for the Yomiuri Shimbun. The global economy is in shambles, Jake is off the police beat but still chain-smoking clove cigarettes, and Tadamasa Goto, the most powerful boss in the Japanese organized crime world, has been banished from the yakuza, giving Adelstein one less enemy to worry about—for the time being. But as he puts his life back together, he discovers that he may be no match for his greatest enemy—himself.

Until now, we believed that everything had been said about the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar, the most infamous drug kingpin of all time. But these versions have always been told from the outside, never from the intimacy of his own home. More than two decades after the full-fledged manhunt finally caught up with the king of cocaine, Juan Pablo Escobar travels to the past to reveal an unabridged version of his father.

Cosa Nostra is the compelling story of the Sicilian mafia, the world's most famous, most secretive and most misunderstood criminal fraternity. The mafia has been given many names since it was founded 140 years ago: the Sect, the Brotherhood, the Honoured Society and now Cosa Nostra. Yet as times have changed, the mafia's subtle and bloody methods have remained the same. Now, for the first time, Cosa Nostra reconstructs the complete history of the Sicilian mafia from its origins to the present day.

Born in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Joseph Bonanno found his future amid the whiskey-running, riotous streets of Prohibition America in 1924, when he illegally entered the United States to pursue his dreams. By the age of only 26, Bonanno became a don. He eventually took over the New York underworld, igniting the "Castellammarese War", one of the bloodiest Family battles ever to hit New York City.