August 31: The Vegas Call Girl Racket
- Discover the bizarre details of the double and triple dealing going on behind closed doors
- Hear wiretaps of alleged mobsters discussing the sting and hit
- Watch an exclusive interview with phone hacker Charles Coveney who died shortly after the filming
- Learn the inside story from the original FBI agent in charge of the case in an interview with Meek
Glen Meek is an award-winning TV investigative reporter, former federal investigator and co-producer with Stan Armstrong of the documentary, Wrong Numbers.
For an overview of what happened, read below. To find out the extraordinary twists of this tale, come to our Wiseguy Speaker Series event.
New York Mob crime family moves into the call girl racket. Starting in the late 1990s, a New York organized crime family begins an attempt to take over the call girl/escort service racket in Las Vegas. Immediately the Mob-controlled escort service starts losing calls. Suspicion quickly points to a computer hacker infiltrating their phone lines.
Small-time computer hacker starts his own racket. The Mob suspects Charles Coveney, a middle-aged, freelance wire-tap and phone systems expert who is connected with Binion’s Horseshoe casino, of using the computer to steal calls and divert them to other escort services. Some speculation even refers to Coveney as “Robin Hood” because it was thought he was stealing the calls from the Mob and diverting them to mom-and-pop operations.
The Mob brings in a hitman. The New York Mafia decides enough is enough and brings in hitman, Vinnie “Aspirins” Conguisti. Conguisti is known as “Aspirins” because he allegedly “takes care of anyone who gives the Mob a headache.”
Meanwhile, even the FBI is involved. The FBI has wiretaps planted as well as an undercover agent and an informer inside the escort service racket, feeding information to the feds about the escorts and the huge sums of cash they generate.
What breaks everything open. When the FBI hears the Mob tell Conguisti to take care of the problem, they step in and make arrests. In the end, everyone takes the plea deal, leaving the case unsolved with no absolute proof existing that the phone hacking ever happened.