Geraldo Rivera uncovered ‘The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults’ on live television 40 years ago
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 ...
Learn More
One hundred years ago: Murder of ‘Big Jim’ Colosimo spawned one of the most powerful crime syndicates in American history – the Chicago Outfit
Three weeks after his marriage to the beautiful singer Dale Winter, James Colosimo remained giddy, and nervous. Known as “Big…
Learn More
Citing coronavirus risks, Italy releases four imprisoned Mob bosses
During the coronavirus pandemic, the world’s prisons are among the hotspots for the disease. Inmates living in close proximity create…
Learn More
Mexican cartels deliver care packages to citizens amid pandemic
From mobster Al Capone’s Chicago soup kitchen that served three meals a day during the Great Depression to Colombian cocaine…
Learn More
Who bombed Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal’s car?
Flames two or three inches high emerged from the defroster vent as he sat in his car with takeout food…
Learn More
The Camorra and the garbage racket in the ‘Land of Fires’
This is a condensed version of a longer case study, “Organized Crime and Environmental Issues in Naples, Italy,” that will…
Learn More
DEA attacks top Mexican drug cartel with 600 arrests across U.S.
The operation was named “Project Python,” presumably reflecting an effort by federal law enforcement to squeeze the life out of…
Learn More
From shoe-leather reporter to Mob movie screenwriter, Nick Pileggi remembers it well
Author and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi is enjoying a couple of major career milestones this year. Two groundbreaking Mob movies he…
Learn More