All Blog Posts Tagged 'Gambling' (168)

By David Amoruso

Eight members and associates of the Zheng Organization were charged with crimes including racketeering, narcotics trafficking, extortion offenses, illegal gambling, and soliciting assaults on Tuesday. Qian “Cash” Zheng, the gang’s leader, faces a maximum sentence of 164 years in prison if convicted.

Zheng’s organization…

By Robert Sberna (He followed Vincent Asaro's trial for Gangsters Inc. This piece was written on 11-12-15. You can find his…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

The “Negro Policy Racket” in the 1940s-1960s in Rockford was not unlike the one in Chicago, only on a smaller scale. The policy racket gave some hope to poor blacks at the time that they would “hit it big” if they bet as little as a penny on this gambling operation. But odds were always in favor of the “house.”

There…

By Robert Sberna (He will follow Vincent Asaro's trial for Gangsters Inc. This piece was written on 10-27-15. You can find his…

By Robert Sberna (He will follow Vincent Asaro's trial for Gangsters Inc. This piece was written on 10-24-15. You can find his…

By Robert Sberna (He will follow Vincent Asaro's trial for Gangsters Inc. This piece was written on 10-22-15. You can find his…

By David Amoruso

During the Roaring Twenties Atlantic City was the centre of gambling, boozing, and licentious behaviour in America. Whatever you wanted, you could get it at the boardwalk. Of course, you all know that now thanks to HBO’s Emmy…

By Thom L. Jones

I have struck a city-a real city-and they call it Chicago... I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages.

- Rudyard Kipling

In Chicago in the 1920s and 1930s there was enough crime to go around. Plenty to satisfy everyone.

As one journalist put it, "In all the…

By David Amoruso

Genovese captain Daniel Pagano (above) was hit with racketeering charges in early August of 2014. Authorities alleged he participated in a racketeering conspiracy in which he committed extortion, loansharking, and operated an illegal gambling business. It was the latest bust in a long mob career for the 61-year-old Pagano. In 2015, he…

By David Amoruso

Ever since they came on the scene in the 1950s, Ronnie and Reggie Kray, known as the Kray twins, have dominated the London crime scene and the public’s fascination as well. And they continue to do so. This year, actor Tom Hardy will play both brothers in the epic gangster flick Legend.

Based on John Pearson's book…

By David Amoruso

“What the fuck is there? Everybody runs to the law. Everybody’s a fucking rat. Everybody, they’re fucking horrible.” – Bonanno gangster Jack Bonventre

Bonanno mobster Jack Bonventre knows all about “the life” and its many hardships. Bonventre was convicted of a federal charge of illegal gambling in 2007, for which he…

By David Amoruso

Colombo crime family captain Pasquale Amato died Friday, March 13, at age 80. He was serving a life sentence at a federal prison in Florida when he passed away. Though Amato was by no means an innocent man, there are some who say he did not commit the murder that sent him away to prison for the rest of his life.

Pasquale Amato…

By David Amoruso

No matter how hard Tong Sang Lai (photo above) ran, his past eventually caught up with him. As a leader of the Shui Fong Triad in Macau he fled to North America after a violent war over the island’s gambling riches drew too much heat. Yesterday, the Federal Court of Appeal in Canada upheld a ruling that he was a Triad boss and therefore…

By David Amoruso

When it comes to the mob in America everybody knows about the five families in New York or Al Capone in Chicago. But what about a smaller city? Like Tampa, Florida. A city that has a long and colorful history of violence filled with gangsters from Italy, Spain, Cuba, and the U.S. itself. A brand-new magazine and tour shine a…

By David Amoruso

Eleven members and associates of the Genovese crime family were charged with racketeering charges for allegedly reaping millions of dollars in criminal profits in New Jersey through loansharking, unlicensed check cashing, gambling and money laundering, including laundering of proceeds from narcotics trafficking. Using…

By David Amoruso

James Gandolfini made an everlasting impression on millions of people around the globe with his iconic role as mob boss Anthony Soprano in television series The Sopranos. His unexpected death on June 19,2013, came too soon. But through his roles on television and in movies Gandolfini lives on. His last movie, The Drop,…

By David Amoruso

UPDATE: Paul Phua denies being 14K Triad boss, also denies other allegations

50-year-old Wei Seng Phua was known as a high roller around the world. The Malaysian played poker at the…

By David Amoruso

What were two mobsters doing inside a van outfitted with gun ports and with a .22-caliber sniper rifle and silencer inside? That’s the question authorities in New Orleans have as they continue to investigate how come two members of a thought to be extinct and relatively docile Mafia family were apparently getting ready to dish out…

By Thom L. Jones

It’s a definite no-no. If you are part of the Mafia, you do not go after, and certainly do not kill, police officers. In America at least. In Sicily. That’s a different story altogether.

So how and why the events of the night of Tuesday, January 21st, 1987, unfolded on a street in the borough of Queens, New York is almost as big a mystery now…

Puparo has done it again! You guys and gals like the Boardwalk Empire era? Well, here are some of the facts and insider details on that period, its gangs, mobs, and players and shakers. With a focus on Chicago because, well, if any city roared during the 1920s it was the Windy City.

So read and enjoy all the crime and corruption Chicago has had to…