‘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…
New York
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…
‘Mob Cops’ saga still reverberates 10 years after their life sentences
A former New York garment dealer, Burton Kaplan, sat down with DEA agents in 2004 to tell them an incredible…
Ninety years ago, Thomas ‘Fatty’ Walsh died as he lived — by the gun
The setting was a suite on the 14th floor of the lavish Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida. Thomas Walsh,…
Ninety years later, Arnold Rothstein murder still a mystery
Ninety years ago this week, with the dying breath of New York’s most provocative Mob entrepreneur, one of America’s great…
When the Mafia ruled Times Square
The latest television series featuring Mob figures continues this fall with the second season of HBO’s The Deuce, focusing on…
Joe Gallo’s ‘Crazy’ celebrity status
Though Joseph Gallo was only in his early 40s when he was gunned down, his status in American popular culture…
Eighty years ago, Ciro ‘The Artichoke King’ Terranova ‘died of a broken heart’
Eighty years ago last month, one of Mob history’s oddball characters crossed into the great gangland netherworld. Ciro “The Artichoke…
Don’t dare call him ‘Three Finger Brown’
The 1960s marked the end of an era for some of America’s underworld leaders. The forward-thinking, Prohibition-era architects of New…
The hit that could have sunk Las Vegas
On May 2, 1957, Frank Costello thought he had problems, but he had no idea. He was appealing a five-year…