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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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‘White Boy Rick’ seeks new life after more than 30 years behind bars

The gates couldn’t swing open soon enough. Former Detroit teenage drug boss and illegal underage FBI mole Richard “White Boy…

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Zeroing in on Jimmy Hoffa’s unmarked grave

Editor’s note: On July 8, The Mob Museum published an essay by investigative journalist Dan E. Moldea — author of…

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Fake products are huge business for European organized crime

For organized crime groups, the business of counterfeiting and pirating legitimate products is booming. Europol, Europe’s top law enforcement agency,…

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Finding Jimmy Hoffa

Editor’s note: After investigating the Jimmy Hoffa murder case since Hoffa’s disappearance forty-five years ago this month, investigative journalist Dan…

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Multiple podcast series put ‘Sopranos’ stars back in limelight

Sitting around in pajama pants, Robert Iler and Jamie-Lynn Sigler, friends who starred together on The Sopranos, decided to start…

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Mob Museum debuts ‘Rise of the Cartels’ exhibition

Pablo Escobar, the ruthless Colombian drug kingpin and world’s first billionaire criminal, pioneered mass-market drug trafficking, fueled by bribery and…

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Cocaine trafficking breeds violence in ZeroZeroZero

About 10 cartel assassins armed with AK-47s and grenade launchers stormed the deputy police chief’s house at 5 a.m., snuffed…

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