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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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Organized crime roundup: U.S. seeks $12.6 billion in El Chapo drug proceeds, Peter Gotti seeks ‘compassionate’ release, eight convicted in ‘modern slavery’ racket in Britain and more

Only days before a U.S. judge is expected to impose a long prison sentence on him for leading a major…

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‘The Cigar’ burns out in Brooklyn

When Bonanno crime family don Carmine “The Cigar” Galante declared himself the so-called “capo di tutti i capis,” or “boss…

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Sixty years ago, Nevada entered the modern era of gambling regulation

Marshall Caifano, the Chicago Outfit’s overseer of casinos in Las Vegas, went by more than a dozen fake names before…

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Las Vegas Mob stories attract Hollywood interest

Of the many Mob movies and television shows now in the works, several are focused on underworld figures who had…

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The gay rights movement and the Mob

Nearly 50 years ago, on June 28, 1969, LGBT people – led by drag queens – rebelled against a raid…

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Organized crime roundup: Sex trafficking in Venezuela, ‘waste crimes’ in England, political corruption in Central America and more

In the South American nation of Venezuela, in both good times and bad, the trafficking of misled teenage girls into…

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Hot Springs is soaked in Mob lore

Long before Las Vegas became the underworld’s casino playground, Hot Springs, Arkansas, was home away from home for the most…

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