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Geraldo Rivera uncovered ‘The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults’ on live television 40 years ago

Geraldo Rivera poses on the stairs heading down to the Lexington Hotel’s basement, where Al Capone supposedly kept a hidden vault. Forty years ago, millions of Americans tuned in to watch Rivera’s two-hour live television special revealing the contents of the “vault.” Steve Kagan / Getty Images
April 24, 2026

On April 21, 1986, television reporter Geraldo Rivera completed his final on-air shot in a live broadcast from the Chicago hotel where Prohibition-era Mob boss Al Capone supposedly had an underground vault. With 30 million viewers watching, the vault contained not much more than a couple of decades-old bottles and a cloud of dust. Afterward, sensing that critics would pounce, Rivera went on a bender, convinced his career was over. “He said he got tequila drunk across the street,” William Elliott Hazelgrove told The Mob Museum. Hazelgrove is the author of the newly released book, Capone’s Vault: The Real Story of the Biggest ...

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Spado’s ‘Accidental Gangster’ story headed to silver screen

After a childhood in upstate New York, Ori Spado embarked on a criminal career that took him from Manhattan to…

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The Las Vegas misadventures of Russian Louie

By the time he was 11 years old, he was arrested for burglary in San Francisco. By the time he…

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Ned Day Jeff German

Fearless Las Vegas journalists Jeff German, Ned Day left lasting legacies

Las Vegas reporters Jeff German and Ned Day had more in common than a dogged approach to digging out major…

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Frank Costello and Vito Genovese

Frank Costello, Vito Genovese feud is focus of upcoming Mob movie

Mob movie veterans Robert De Niro and Nicholas Pileggi are teaming up again, this time for a drama about two…

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The law finally catches up with Tom and Gramby Hanley after murder of Culinary boss

Read the series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 Last of four parts. Authorities located Tom and Gramby…

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Hanley enjoyed winning streak in criminal courts

Read the series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 Third of four parts. Just before his planned murder…

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Labor corruption was centerpiece of Tom Hanley’s criminal aims

Read the series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 Second of four parts. In 1955, the national AFL…

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