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 ...
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The inspiring rise and tragic fall of the ‘Italian Sherlock Holmes’
On the evening of March 12, 1909, New York Police Department detective Joseph Petrosino left his hotel on the east…
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Dealing death in drag
It was February 6, 1939. A loud bang at three a.m. disrupted the winter silence and slumber for residents of…
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Chinese manufacturers, Mexican cartels are primary sources of deadly opioids
Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids smuggled from China and Mexico, heroin from Mexican drug cartels and the misuse of prescription…
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Drug kingpins in media spotlight
Jailed after a manhunt, the drug kingpin known globally as El Chapo expressed genuine surprise several years ago when interrogators…
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Top 5 undercover agents who infiltrated the Mob
In law enforcement, working as an undercover officer carries the high risk of discovery by criminal suspects, leading to violence,…
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El Chapo’s ‘criminal enterprise’ means life in prison
After hearing that a jury convicted him on all counts in his federal criminal trial on February 12, Mexican drug…
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Al Capone and the romantic holiday that triggered his demise
Ninety years ago this week, one of the most horrifying acts of violence in organized crime history occurred inside a…
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