Gangland Wire

The Irish Mob, thanks to Dean from Ireland in the next two episodes we will examine the Irish Mob or the Westies. The Hell’s Kitchen area of NYC is from about Central Park on the west side of Midtown Manhattan west of Broadway to the Hudson River from Battery Park street to 59th street. This is sometimes referred to as the 5 Points area of NYC. Many Irish immigrants settled in this area find work...

Joe Agosto In this third and final interview, we learn that the mob did not give nicknames to anyone except the people they believed were helping them in their skimming efforts so it is a bit suspicious when the mobsters called Harry Reid, Clean Face. A good example was a State Gaming Agent named Bybee, when they referred to him he was Bybee. Another example was when Agosto and DeLuna talked about...

Nick Civella In this second part of the Bill Ouseley interview, we learn more about the inner workings of Las Vegas casinos and Las Vegas politicians and why they were suspicious of Clean Face Harry Reid. Don’t forget to listen to Aaron on the Big Dumb Fun Show , live on Monday nights. To go to the store  click here To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary,  click h ere To subscribe on iTunes  click...

Nick Civella In the first of a three part interview with retired F.B.I. agent William Ouseley, we discuss the lessons learned from the Las Vegas wiretaps that exposed the Kansas City, Chicago, Milwaukee and Cleveland mob’s skimming from the Stardust and the Tropicana. In those intercepts, agents learned that a man named Joe Agosto had been able to position himself as the manager of the Les Folies...

In this second part, Mafia blogger and expert David Amorouso from Gangsters Inc. tells us more about the influence of the American mob on illegal European casinos. Most European countries have state regulated casinos, but there was a demand for more gambling that the state run casinos could provide.     Don’t forget to listen to Aaron on the Big Dumb Fun Show, live on Monday nights. To go to the s...

Interview with Mob expert David Amoruso. he maintains and writes for the mob blog site gangster.inc. We discuss the influence of the American La Cosa Nostra mob in Europe. Don’t forget to listen to Aaron on the Big Dumb Fun Show, live on Monday nights. To go to the store  click here To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary,  click h ere To subscribe on iTunes  click here,  give me a review and I wil...

Hole in the Wall Gang after the Bertha’s bust In Part 2, Frank goes into more depth about his work with the Hole in the Wall Gang. Spilotro obtained inside information that the owners of Bertha’s jewelry story in Las Vegas kept as much as a million dollars in jewelry and cash inside the safe. They planned to commit this burglary on the long weekend of the 4th of July, 1981. It was late June or ear...

How Frank Cullotta met Tony Spilotro In this first of a 2 part interview of Frank Cullotta, we talk to a guy who was a career criminal from his teenage years and rose through the ranks of the Chicago Outfit from being an associate who made money as a burglar to becoming a “Mustache” or a “guy” in Tony Spilotro’s crew. If Spilotro was the boss of the Chicago Outfit in Las Vegas, then Frank was his...

Octave “Okkie” Durham, the thief behind one of the biggest art heists in history went on various Dutch talk shows to discuss how he stole two Van Gogh paintings worth millions from the Van Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2002. He claims he sold them to a Camorra drug boss. He also claims to have stayed at the home of then-FC Barcelona striker Patrick Kluivert while on the run from police. Durham i...

In the second and final episode Gary and Aaron reveal the subsequent investigation by the Kansas City Police Department. Officer Joseph Raimo was assassinated at 11:15 PM on March 28, 1911 at 5th and Holmes. The officer was noted for his bravery and diligence in the performance of his duties. He had been especially assigned to the various Italian cases, and his untiring efforts aroused considerabl...

Kansas Police Officer Joe Raimo was born September 23, 1879 in Naples Italy. He came to the United States, in 1892, when he was 13 years old.  The Raimo family lived in Chicago until 1897. Joe and his mother moved to Kansas City, where he married, Genaverffa (Jennie) DiFeo on July 3, 1898. They were married by Father Cesare Spigardi at her parent’s home in the Italian neighborhood at 910 Missouri...

Petrosino Park Joe Petrosino was the first cop to investigate the Mob in the United States. Steven Taltry has written a thrilling account of Petrosino and his investigation into Petrosino and His Italian Squad the Black Hand, an organization that will morph into the American Mafia. His book, The Black Hand , has been optioned to be made into a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio . Joe Petrosino was ab...

In this second episode, Alan tells more about his book To Be a King and the problems of writing inside a prison. We learn a lot about how to rob a drug dealer. You just get a contact inside a strip club to tip you off when a high roller is on the premises. Get your crew together and wait for the dealer to leave. Most often, the dealer will go to an all night diner for breakfast after partying with...

Gunnar Alan Lindbloom visits Gangland Wire in this first of a two part series on his life in the Detroit underworld. Gunnar was the 1/2 Sicilian which kept him out the the Brogata or La Cosa Nostra or as the they call it in Detroit, the Syndicate or Combination. Gunnar was born into the extended family of Detroit Mob boss Jack Tocco. He was recently released from a 13 year stretch in the Michigan...

This second episode recounts in great detail the interactions between jurors in the famous trial of Al Capone for income tax evasion. CAPONE JURORS NATE C. BROWN, 64, retired, Protestant, SL Charles. BURR DUGAN, 54, farmer Catholic McClare. T. HEINRICHS, 52, engineer. Protestant, Thornton. GEORGE H. LARSEN, 41, breadmaker, Protestant, Thornton A. G.,  65, country store owner, Protestant. Prairie V...

Al Capone Juror I found a detailed newspaper  account written by a juror shortly after the October 5, 1931 trail of Al Capone for income tax evasion at the federal courthouse in downtown Chicago. For several weeks before the scheduled start of the Capone trial, informant Eddie O’Hare notified the prosecutor and the lead Treasury Agent investigator, Frank Wilson, that Capone’s organization had a co...

“Mad Sam” was truly a crazy sadist.  He liked to muse about feeding his victims to victims to the pigs. He drove to pig farms just to watch them for hours. A government witness, Charles Crimaldi, claimed DeStefano made his wife Anita take his gun and put the end of the barrel in her mouth, then demanded that she pull the trigger. When she pulled the trigger and the gun didn’t go off, DeStefano beg...

Sam “Mad Sam” DeStefano will become the Chicago Outfit’s most notorious loan shark and sociopathic killer. No less an authority than FBI agent and mob fighter, William F. Roemer, Jr., considered DeStefano to be the worst torture-murderer in the history of the United States. Samuel DeStefano, Jr. was born on September 13, 1909 in Streator, Illinois. Samuel DeStefano, Sr. was a laborer and later had...

L-R Aaron, Gary and Troy In this fourth and final episode of our interview with Troy Cole, we learn about Berdella’s frantic efforts to avoid the death penalty. First, he tries to plead guilty to one count of murder. The father of one victim attacks Berdella at a hearing. The prosecutor quickly moved and avoid Berdella from controlling any of the court procedures. He makes a last ditch attempt to...

In Part 3, Troy Cole relates how his detectives encountered problems trying to identify the young men in the photos found in the home of Bob Berdella. Most of these men had lived lives estranged from long time friends and even family. By the end of the first week into this investigation, a whole special squad was formed with detectives from Homicide, Sex Crimes and Vice. They set up a command post...

In episode 2, Troy Cole tells about the search of this chamber of horrors. The house was in complete disarray, kind of like a teenage kid’s room. When Bob got done with something, he just threw it down. Except for the torture logs which were found on the second floor. An interview of Christopher Bryson revealed he had been kept captive and injected with several unknown substances that created burn...

L-R Aaron, Gary and Troy This is the first of a 4-part series of interviews with retired Kansas City Police Department Sergeant Troy Cole. On April 2, 1988, Homicide Sergeant Troy Cole was preparing to leave work and looking forward to watching his Oklahoma Sooners play Arizona in the NCAA tournament that night. He received a call from the police dispatcher that a naked man wearing a dog collar an...

Korner Sandwich in 2016 In this last episode of 2016, Retired Chicago P.D. Detective Jim Padar tells how he learned the real story behind why Chicago Outfit associates Samuel Marcello and Joseph Grisafe were killed. He also reveals how they learned about the subjects who placed the bodies in the drum and what happened to those men. Read this story and many other great cop stories from the mouths o...

In our last episode we told a story about how just before Thanksgiving day in 1973, Chicago Outfit associates Samuel Marcello and Joseph Grisafe  parked in front of a fire hydrant at Taylor & Western on the west side of Chicago. They would enter the Korner Sandwich Shop just down the block and never be seen again, until the next summer. A month later in January , Sam Rantis, the sandwich shop...

In the Cleveland mob war the Danny Greene gang (Danny was backed by mob associate and teamster John Nardi who had been mad because he thought he should be boss over Licavoli) the city experienced almost 40 car bombings. Nardi was killed on May 17, 1977 by a car bomb in the parking lot of the Teamster Hall in Cleveland. After eight failed attempts to kill Greene, the Cleveland mob boss, Jack Licavo...