All Blog Posts Tagged 'Miami' (20)

Organized Crime has existed in Russia (former Soviet Union) for centuries. Under the communist regime corruption was as normal in Russia as snow falling during the winter. One of the big money makers for the Russian criminals was selling Western products on the black market, a market they controlled in the 1970s and 80s.



It was also during this time that there was…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

Jorge Valdés isn’t the best-known name in the drug game, but he has been around the block and back. As a Cuban immigrant, he came to Miami with his family to find a better life. When the cocaine boom hit the United States,…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

Will a banker finally be held responsible for his financial crimes that led to a global recession? Nope. But as part of the War on Drugs, Alvaro Estuardo Cobar Bustamante, the director of a national Guatemalan bank, was…

This is part 2 of Five Minutes to Midnight. Read part 1 here.

By Thom L. Jones for…

By Robert Sberna

The recent death of Frederick “Fritz” Graewe (photo above), a feared mob associate in Cleveland, Ohio, shows that it’s possible to live by the sword but not die by the sword. Graewe, 66, seemingly enjoyed a peaceful suburban lifestyle until passing away of natural causes in February. He had been at home…

By David Amoruso

Imagine getting off work and landing your cocaine-filled plane on a secluded island smack in the middle of a clear blue ocean. Immediately you’re surrounded by gorgeous naked women ready to serve your every whim and handed a cold alcoholic beverage to ease your mind. Welcome to Norman’s Cay, the private…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

Ten members of Miami’s Dub Side Blood Family were found guilty of racketeering, drug trafficking, armed robberies, and violent crimes on September 14. The crew conducted its unlawful business practices for over 17 years as it felt untouchable in the South Gwen Cherry Housing Complex in the…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

A Miami man was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison for his role in a conspiracy to distribute over 45 kilograms of narcotics, including heroin,…

By David Amoruso

Marijuana can now be bought legally in many states in the U.S. but back in the 1980s it was a high-priced and highly illegal commodity. As such it was smuggled into the country by traffickers who…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer Russell Tim Shen and two others pleaded guilty to their roles in a marijuana distribution conspiracy on Monday. 69-year-old Shen and 39-year-old Andre Jorge Hernandez admitted to one count of distribution and possession with intent to distribute…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

A former drug smuggler who stepped into the limelight when he starred in the hugely successful 2006 documentary Cocaine Cowboys, has gotten in trouble with the law yet again. 71-year-old Michael “Mickey” Munday was charged yesterday alongside seven others in a car fraud ring that made $1.6 million between 2008 and…

By David Amoruso

In the past few decades, various prosecutors have announced the end of the American Mafia several times, but each time La Cosa Nostra popped up at exactly those places where it was said to have become extinct. A NY Times piece about the New York harbor showed that despite prosecutions, the area made famous by On the…

By Francis Morland, Jo Boothby

Little has been written about the early history of the modern cannabis trade. Its pioneers are shrouded mystery, yet they laid the foundation for what became the biggest illicit business in the world. Francis Morland was probably the first British-born “drug baron” of the 1960s, an acclaimed sculptor from a…

By David Amoruso

A very bold power play. That’s what happened on the night of Monday, August 15, in the trendy La Leche restaurant in the Mexican beach resort Puerto Vallarta.

Inside, Jesus Alfredo Guzmán…

By David Amoruso (A Gangsters Inc. Exclusive)

Get ready for a blockbuster mob movie! The film rights to T.J. English’s upcoming book The Corporation, about the Cuban mob in America, have been sold to Paramount and Appian Way. Academy Award-winning actor Benicio Del Toro is set to star.

“The story of the Cuban mob in the U.S. really is…

By Gangsters Inc. Editors

Another ghost cast member of the Mob Wives television series goes down. Mob associate Luigi Grasso (photo above, right), also known as Ronnie Petrino, was sentenced yesterday to 20-years-to-life for transporting a cache of weapons and other potential robbery tools in 2012, the …

By Scott Deitche

The mob and drinking have been inextricably linked since the Volstead Act in 1919. Prohibition gave organized crime the revenue stream it needed to gain a foothold in big cities and small towns across America. But even after …

By Seth Ferranti



In the 1970s the heroin market in the United States was dominated by a black distributor named Frank Matthews who operated out of New York. He was the most notable black figure on the east coast at the time and one of the first major independents who challenged the mob for supremacy in the criminal underworld. The Black Caesar, as he was known, was a new kind of super-criminal ruling a nationwide empire of dope. He was…

By David Amoruso



José Miguel Battle Sr. was one of the most powerful crime bosses in the US. Born in Cuba he was a policeman in the pre-Castro era ruled by dictator Fulgencio Batista. Batista had a good relationship with several of America's wealthiest mobsters, among them New York bosses Charles "Lucky" Luciano,…

Special to Gangsters Inc.

By Ron Chepesiuk



With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russian criminal groups became active in many major European countries, extending their reach around the world to cities with growing communities of Russian émigrés. In the U.S. they established bases in at least 17 U.S. cities, most notably New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Denver and Miami.



In the 1970s the Miami Beach…