Featured Blog Posts (156)

By David Amoruso

Joseph Massino, the first New York mob boss to become a cooperating witness, feels he has earned a release from prison. This week, the New York Daily News reported that the FBI agrees and asked the judge to reduce the former Bonanno big wig’s life sentence as a reward for his unprecedented cooperation. “As the first official boss of the American Mafia to…

By David Amoruso

It’s a Mafia mystery! Italian authorities are scratching their heads at the disappearance of ‘Ndrangheta boss-turned informant Antonino Lo Giudice. Lo Giudice was supposed to testify in court, but instead left a message on Thursday recanting all his testimony and then disappeared from witness protection.

According to news group ADN…

Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger will finally stand trial this week. After going on the lam in 1994 he managed to escape the hands of justice for sixteen years until his arrest in 2011. Now, two years later, he will face a slew of RICO charges and former members of his crew who will testify against him. Boston crime reporter Dick Lehr wrote a new book about Bulger…

This is an excerpt from Ron Chepesiuk’s new biography on legendary gangster Frank Matthews. The book, titled Black Caesar: The Rise and Disappearance of America’s Biggest Kingpin, will uncover the true story of this international man of mystery who ran the American streets.

By Ron Chepesiuk

Who was Frank…

Long before Al Capone strolled into town, Chicago was teeming with gangsters and mobsters. In this piece, Puparo details the city’s criminal history starting in the early 1900s and working his way up to Al Capone and his cronies. Digging in his archives, Puparo wiped the dust off of old names, familiar places, and violent gangland executions. Any feedback and comments are…

By David Amoruso

Are Italian authorities too harsh on imprisoned Cosa Nostra boss Bernardo Provenzano? His lawyer and family say yes. In video clips aired by Michele Santoro’s Servizio pubblico, or public affairs program, on television network LA7, viewers see an old and vulnerable Provenzano, who is unable even to use the prison…

By George Hassett

As the Italian Mafia rose in power across the country, a less organized but just as powerful underworld of Irish corruption was beginning to take shape. At the top of this hierarchy of politics and payoffs was an unlikely figure – a man celebrated as the patriarch of America’s greatest political dynasty. Joe Kennedy may have led his…

By David Amoruso

Aurelio Cano Flores started out as a cop, turned into a drug lord, and now sits in an American prison where he will spend over three decades behind bars.

Yesterday, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced that Flores, a 40-year-old Mexican national and high ranking member of the Gulf Cartel, was sentenced to 35…

By Angelo Carmelo Gallitto

No one is untouchable. Of course, others are easier to touch than others. In Italy this is being proven each and every day as Mafiosi and corrupt politicians escape justice by abusing one of the many loopholes the law offers them.

One of the men who managed to escape justice, according to many judges, pentiti,…

Crime Beat: Issues, Controversies and Personalities from the darkside on Artist First World Radio Network is pleased to announce its forthcoming schedule for May 9, 2013, through July 11, 2013. Topics covered include the Whitey Bulger trial, Vinnie Gorgeous, FBI profiling, Hells Angels and the Oklahoma City Bombing, among others.

• May 9: Anthony Bruno…

By David Amoruso

After more than thirty years, Gambino capo Bartolomeo “Pepe” Vernace finally faced the music this past week as he was found guilty of a 1981 murder and various racketeering charges. His victim was an innocent bar owner who had nothing to do with the mob. Vernace on the other hand began rising rapidly through the underworld as he managed to…

By Christian Cipollini

This is the true story of Detroit’s most dangerous underworld enforcer.

In February 1975, while travelling a narrow stretch of road in a picturesque suburb of Detroit, Chester Wheeler Campbell’s big black sedan nearly collided- head on -with an approaching patrol car on its way to a call. That close encounter would eventually…

By Thom L. Jones

I imagine a scene, long ago, in the town of Corleone, in the heartland of Western Sicily.

I see Doctor Michele Navarra (right). A classic valetudinarian; a sensitive and haunted expression playing across his features. The face of a man who had sold his soul to the Mafia and the devil for an excellent price, as English author Norman Lewis…

By David Amoruso

With the United States heading into forced spending cuts, Americans might think their grass isn’t as green as it used to be. Maybe, it’s greener on the other side of the fence? Mexicans beg to differ. While U.S. customers enjoy cocaine, heroin, meth, and weed from their Southern neighbors, the citizens of Mexico are living in a country that is going through somewhat…

By Peter Lance (author of the book Deal with the Devil: The FBI's Secret Thirty-Year Relationship with a Mafia Killer available at Amazon.com)

Gregory Scarpa Sr. was a trifecta of contradiction. A peacock dresser, he carried a wad…

That’s how good of a television series The Wire was. After reading news reports about the deaths of two men who were an integral part of the HBO show, all one could think was: “No, not again!” I may be exaggerating, but The Wire was so good, so alive, that its characters felt like real people. So when the actual people involved with making the series pass away. It hits…

This is an excerpt from Seth Ferranti’s new book, Gorilla Convict: The Selected Prison Writings of Seth Ferranti. The book is published by Strategic Media Books. To buy the book or for more information go to strategicmediabooks.com or…

“I'm in the waste management business. Everybody immediately assumes you're mobbed up. It's a stereotype. And it's offensive. (…) There is no Mafia.” - Tony Soprano

By David Amoruso

Thirty-two members and associates of the Genovese, Gambino, and Lucchese crime families were hit with various racketeering charges yesterday, all…

Mussomeli, Sicily, once home of the legendary godfather Giuseppe Genco Russo

By Carl Russo

After the spectacular capture of Corleone capomafia Bernardo Provenzano by police in 2006, Sicily braced for a blowback. If history is an indicator, observers warned, a Mafia war will break out. And it will take the form of either an…

By David Amoruso

Chicago mobster Frank Calabrese Sr. died Christmas day at the age of 75. He was serving a life sentence at Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina after having been convicted of several murders at the Family Secrets trial in Chicago.

Calabrese Sr. will not be remembered as a kind person. During his trial there was…