Italian-Americans' Love/Hate Affair with the Mafia Mystique

Years ago, writing about the legacy of Mario Puzo, I said, "If there is a God and he is indeed Catholic, then Puzo is burning in hell." Before The Godfather was published in 1969, historians of organized crime in the 20th century told us that some major stars of the modern mob had names like Arnold Rothstein, Owney Madden, and Logan and Fred Billingsley.

After The Godfather, the only major crime figures who got any attention were the ones whose names ended in vowels.

Thanks to this myth-mongering hack, Frank Sinatra will forever be remembered as the man who, through his fictional counterpart, Johnny Fontaine, crooned "I Have But One Heart" at his godfather's daughter's wedding. It is now taken for fact that Sinatra owed his comeback and hence his success not to his talent but to the Mafia; apparently they held guns to the heads of people, forcing them to buy all those Sinatra albums.

The provocative and lively An Offer We Can't Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America by George De Stefano, a journalist and cultural critic whose work can be most often read in The Nation, has convinced me that I've been too tough on Puzo. The Godfather, the book and the movie, did, after all, succeed in reviving interest in Italian-American culture at a time when it appeared to be fading into the suburban landscape. I can only speak for members of my father's family, who rather enjoyed the attention and even reveled in the idea that they might actually be a bit feared because of their name.

For De Stefano, as for many of our generation, Francis Ford Coppola's film was an epiphany. The gay baby boomer son of a Neapolitan auto mechanic and a Sicilian housewife, De Stefano, by the time he was in college, had drifted far from his parents' world: "The Stones' Sticky Fingers was on my stereo and a Black Panther poster adorned my dorm room wall. My identity was radical hippie freak. ... My ethnic background was just that, background."

An Offer We Can't Refuse invites Italian-Americans of all backgrounds to the family table to discuss the issues of how mob-related movies and television shows have affected the notion of what their heritage still means in the 21st century.

It's a big table. At the head is Richard Gambino, whose 1974 book Blood of My Blood - The Dilemma of Italian-Americans was the first serious work of nonfiction written on the subject; sitting in the middle are Gay Talese, Nicholas Gage, and nearly every other prominent, second-generation Italian-American journalist; and fighting for attention down at the end of the table are third-generation would-be personas importante such as Maria Laurino, Maria Russo, Bill Tonelli and, in the interests of full disclosure, me (I am quoted twice by De Stefano). As you can imagine, it's one heck of a noisy table.

The principal topic of discussion is not so much the Mafia, whose power most experts seem to feel is dwindling, as the Mafia's mystique. But as journalist Anthony Mancini puts it, "It's just too good a myth to abandon."

The best movies and shows about mobsters and their families - Coppola's The Godfather DVD Collection movies, Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets (Special Edition), The Sopranos, the late, lamented cult TV series Wiseguy - were never really about the mob anyway; they were always about the vicissitudes of Italian-American family life and the perils of maintaining tradition in the face of assimilation, a metaphor for the American immigrant experience.

As a Russian neighbor of mine put it, "I never really thought The Godfather was about crime. I thought it was about the part where Don Corleone tells Michael he wanted something better for him than he had had."

These shows provide an answer to why the people who gave the world Dante, da Vinci, Boccaccio, Verdi and Rossini have produced so few literary artists in this country. Their grandparents might have come here without being able to write in their own language, much less English, but Coppola, Scorsese, Brian De Palma, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Quentin Tarantino and several others have used their experiences to give the world the poetry that their ancestors couldn't. Don Corleone gave Michael something better after all. But, says De Stefano, "Consider another possibility. Italian Americans owe their high visibility in American popular culture in large measure to the very gangster image so many deplore. If the mafioso as cultural archetype were to become extinct, might Italian Americans themselves drop off the radar screen?"

In other words, if the Mafia myth peters out, does that mean the end of the Italian-American as a protagonist in our popular culture?

It's a dicey question, but after careful consideration De Stefano answers with a resounding "no." The Mafia myth, he steadfastly maintains, cannot be the last word: "Ethnicity remains a riveting, complicated drama of American life, and popular art that illuminates its workings still is needed ... Italian America still has many more stories to tell."

Thanks to Allen Barra

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Top 10 Strictest & Most Lenient States on Speeding and Reckless Driving

Speed kills. We have all been told that since driver’s education class, and yet American drivers routinely exceed the speed limit. To find out which states take the hardest line on dangerous driving behavior, the leading personal finance website WalletHub conducted an in-depth analysis of 2015's Strictest and Most Lenient States on Speeding and Reckless Driving.

They analyzed penalties for speeding and reckless driving in each of the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia across 12 key metrics. Their data set ranges from what speeds are automatically considered reckless driving to how many speeding tickets it takes to earn an automatic license suspension.

Strictest States on Speeding and Reckless Driving  

• 1 Colorado
• T-2 Arizona
• T-2 Delaware
• T-2 Illinois
• 5 New Mexico
• 6 Virginia
• T-7 Iowa
• T-7 Massachusetts
• 9 Alabama
• 10 District Of Columbia

Most Lenient States on Speeding and Reckless Driving

• T-40 Kentucky
• T-40 Montana
• T-40 Nebraska
• T-40 New Jersey
• T-40 Ohio
• T-40 South Carolina
• 46 New Hampshire
• T-47 Mississippi
• T-47 Pennsylvania
• T-47 South Dakota
• T-47 Utah
• 51 Texas

The average maximum cost of a ticket for reckless driving is $742, with the lowest being $100 (in Kentucky, Mississippi and New Mexico) and the highest at approximately $5,000 (Washington).

Twenty-nine percent of states use speed cameras to automatically catch and fine violators.

None of the states has a mandatory jail time for speeding. However, reckless drivers should expect, on average, to spend at least one day in jail for their first offense and four days for their second offense.

For the full report and to see where your state ranks, please visit: http://wallethub.com/edu/strictest-and-most-lenient-states-on-speeding/14211/

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Former New Jersey Resident, Nader Saadeh, Charged with Conspiracy and Attempt to Provide Material Support to #ISIL

A former resident of Bergen County, New Jersey, was arrested for allegedly conspiring and attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a designated foreign terrorist organization.

The announcement was made by Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman of the District of New Jersey and Special Agent in Charge Richard M. Frankel of the FBI’s Newark, New Jersey, Division.

Nader Saadeh, 20, a former resident of Rutherford, New Jersey, is charged by complaint with conspiring with other individuals in New Jersey and New York to provide material support to ISIL and with attempting to provide material support to ISIL.  He is scheduled to appear at 1:30 p.m. EDT before U.S. Magistrate Judge Cathy L. Waldor of the District of New Jersey.  

According to documents filed in this case:

The FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) have been investigating a group of individuals from New York and New Jersey who have allegedly conspired to provide material support to ISIL.  Nader Saadeh lived in Rutherford until leaving the country on May 5, 2015, allegedly to join ISIL.  Nader Saadeh’s brother, Alaa Saadeh, was a resident of West New York, New Jersey, until he was arrested on June 29, 2015, and charged with conspiring to provide material support to ISIL, aiding and abetting an attempt to provide material support to ISIL and witness tampering.  Samuel Rahamin Topaz was a resident of Fort Lee, New Jersey, until he was arrested on June 17, 2015, and charged with conspiring to provide material support to ISIL.  Conspirator 1 (CC-1) was a Queens, New York, resident until he was arrested in New York on June 13, 2015, on terrorism charges.

Between 2012 and 2013, Nader Saadeh sent CC-1 electronic messages expressing his hatred for the United States and desire to form a small army that would include their friends.  On July 1, 2014, the day ISIL’s leader declared an Islamic caliphate in Syria and Iraq, Nader Saadeh posted images of ISIL’s flag and the flag of the Islamic caliphate on his Facebook page.

According to an informant who was close to him for years, by April 2015, Nader Saadeh had become a radicalized supporter of ISIL who was preparing to travel overseas with other individuals.  In addition, Nader Saadeh said that ISIL’s execution of a captured Jordanian Air Force pilot by burning him alive and the murders of several staff members of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris earlier this year were justified.

During the investigation, the FBI obtained computer files showing that Nader Saadeh viewed ISIL propaganda videos and researched the availability of flights to Turkey, which borders Syria, where ISIL claims to control territory.  The FBI also obtained electronic messages sent to Nader Saadeh on April 21, 2015, by family members living overseas, including his mother, who pleaded for him not to join ISIL.

On May 5, 2015, Nader Saadeh traveled overseas via John F. Kennedy International Airport, allegedly in order to join ISIL.  On his way to the airport, while accompanied by Alaa Saadeh and CC-1, he said that he, Alaa Saadeh, CC-1 and Topaz had plans to reunite overseas within a few weeks.

On the day of his arrest, Topaz told the FBI that he agreed with Nader Saadeh, CC-1 and Alaa Saadeh to travel to join ISIL.  In addition, Alaa Saadeh told the FBI in a post-arrest interview that he, Nader Saadeh and Topaz all watched ISIL propaganda videos together and discussed going overseas to join ISIL.  Alaa Saadeh also stated that the night before Nader Saadeh left for Jordan, CC-1 provided Nader Saadeh with the name and number of an ISIL contact near the Turkey/Syria border who would facilitate his travel to ISIL-controlled territory.

Each count in the complaint carries a maximum of potential penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

The case is being investigated by the FBI and JTTF.  The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys L. Judson Welle, Dennis C. Carletta and Francisco J. Navarro of the District of New Jersey, with the assistance of Trial Attorney Robert Sander of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section.

The charge and allegations contained in the complaint are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

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Return of The Untouchables

Chicago, 1930, time of the prohibition. And it is the great time for the organized crime, the so called Mafia. One of the big bosses is Al Capone. He is the best know but at least, he was only one in a dirty game of sex, crime and corruption. People are willing to pay any price to drink alcohol, and sometimes it is their life they have to pay with. Special agent Eliot Ness and his team are trying to defeat the alcohol Mafia, but in this job, you don't have any friends.

That is the plot summary for the classic TV hit, "Untouchables: The Complete Series". The show, which starred Robert Stack, out on DVD.

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Bringing Down the Mob: The War Against the American Mafia

Thomas Reppetto is a former Chicago commander of detectives and has been president of New York City's Citizens Crime Commission for more than 20 years. Few people know as much about the American Mafia as Reppetto.

"Bringing Down the Mob: The War Against the American Mafia" is the sequel to his critically acclaimed "American Mafia," and once again he provides a rare inside look into one of this country's most notorious organizations. Drawing from a lifetime of experience as a member of the Chicago Police Department, Reppetto recounts the stories of the Mafia's 20th-century leadership, detailing how men such as Sam Giancana and John Gotti became household names.

According to Reppetto, during the 1980s, government crusaders and scores of ordinary cops and U.S. marshals began to gain the upper hand. As anti-racketeering laws took hold, the battles between the feds and the Mafia moved from the streets to the nation's courtrooms, where celebrity criminals such as Gotti began to receive stiff sentences.

In vivid, fast-paced prose, Reppetto writes that organized crime is far from dead. In fact, he claims that, given the right formula of both connections and shrewd business decisions, a new generation of multinational criminals could assume the role of the old Mafia and redefine itself. Unless stopped, this new criminal group could erase all of the gains made by the government during the past two decades. It's a grim prospect.

Thanks to Larry Cox

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Motor City Mafia: A Century of Organized Crime in Detroit

If you wanted to grab a book for an in-depth look at mob activity in Michigan, you might not find much. Most Mafia books focus on activity in New York City or Chicago, or solely on the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa. But there’s some material. West Bloomfield native Scott Burnstein, 29, has published his first book, “Motor City Mafia: A Century of Organized Crime in Detroit (Images of America).”

“When I wrote this book, I was thinking, ‘What would I want to read?’” Burnstein said last week, amid a busy schedule chock-full of book signings at Borders stores in Troy, Rochester Hills, Grosse Pointe, Utica, Detroit, Flint and East Lansing.

The graduate of Roeper School, Indiana University and John Marshall Law School in Chicago dove into the research, spending hours engrossed in the pages of historical archives at Wayne State University and local newspapers. He tracked down retired FBI agents who worked the cases, interviewing them and gathering never-before-seen photographs that are among the 200 in the book.

Of all Burnstein’s research, the most interesting to him, like the general public, is the information he gleaned regarding Jimmy Hoffa. “I was able to talk to federal law enforcement who were on the case when it happened,” he said, adding that he was in the midst of his research last summer when the FBI spent weeks digging at a farm in Milford on a tip that the mobster’s body was buried there.

“Motor City Mafia” reveals new information and pictures related to the Jimmy Hoffa disappearance and murder; includes crime scene photos taken from various local murders; and captures never-before-seen mug shots of many notorious Detroit-area criminals of the past and present. It also unveils FBI surveillance photographs of numerous local wise guys, mobsters and crime syndicate leaders; and even contains photographs and stories involving alleged affairs between the Mafia and Detroit sports legends Isiah Thomas, Alex Karras, Tommy Hearns and Denny McClain. But it’s not just the sensationalist stories that interest Burnstein.

“People are interested in gangsters because of the blood and guts, but the part that interests me is the nuts and bolts [of the organization], how the power flows vertically and horizontally up the ladder, and the politics about how something like this is run,” he said. “These guys are really the crème de la crème of gangsters in the city of Detroit. They’re college educated, all incessantly trying to avoid the spotlight, where in other cities they like being portrayed as wise guys. These guys are business-like, with a corporate-like structure in terms of the underworld savvy. There’s not a lot of people who can top these guys.”

The response to “Motor City Mafia” has so far been positive, he said, although with relatives of those mentioned in the book living nearby, he might get a little bit of flak. “I want to make it clear that I’m not passing judgment; I’m not trying to get people in trouble with law enforcement, nor am I trying to pump these guys up,” Burnstein explained. “This city has a rich tradition of underworld activity, and people are fascinated by that. It’s such a unique part of our society, but until now, there’s been nothing to read about it. This is for history’s sake.”

Thanks to Jennie Miller

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The Chicago Outfit - Images of America

No business, legitimate or otherwise, has had a more raucous influence on the history of a city than that of the Outfit in Chicago. From the roots of organized crime in the late 19th century to the present day, The Chicago Outfit (IL) (Images of America) examines the evolution of the city's underworld, focusing on their business activities and leadership along with the violence and political protection they employed to become the most successful of the Cosa Nostra crime families. Through a vivid and visually stunning collection of images, many of which are published here for the first time, author John Binder tells the story of the people and places of the world of organized crime from a fresh and informed point of view.

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Bugsy - The Original Gangster

I was catching up on some old issues of the Wall Street Journal that I had not read yet, when I saw a full page ad for what they called The Original Gangster, Bugsy. For the 15th anniversary, Tri-Star released an all-new unrated, extended cut, completely remastered and loaded with new special features. If that sounds like an ad, it is because I pulled it right from the paper. I had forgotten that Bugsy won a Golden Globe for Best Drama and had been nominated of Best Picture at the Oscar's along with 9 other nominations. Hence, I have an updated preview on the DVD.

This is the 1991 movie in which notorious ladies man Warren Beatty finally met his match in his feisty co-star Annette Bening. The pair sparred on set and off -- and have been happily married ever since.

Beatty needed a strong foil for his ferocious performance as Benjamin 'Bugsy' Siegel, the real-life, brutal New York gangster who aimed for the big time after moving to Los Angeles in the 1930s.

After pursuing and conquering sexy Hollywood starlet Virginia Hill (Bening), a one-time prostitute who had also worked for the Chicago mob, Siegel dreamed of making millions from gambling in a then-small desert town called Las Vegas. He built the original Flamingo Hotel, but enraged his eastern crime bosses when the project ran millions over budget. He was killed by mob hitmen in 1947, just a few years before Vegas started generating billions.

Beatty and Bening make a terrific pair, but Bugsy also features a notable performance from Ben Kingsley as Siegel's childhood friend and later crime associate Meyer Lansky.

A powerful and evocative film, Bugsy gets the two-disc treatment here to include some great documentaries and extra features.

Thanks to Andy Cooper

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Frank Calabrese Jr. Wrote Tell-all Chicago Mobster Book

"I had a choice of two titles, right? Rat, or cold-blooded murderer. And I chose rat," said Frank Calabrese Jr., former heir to the Chicago Outfit's Chinatown Crew and the author of a tell-all mob book. "Neither is a title good to have. But I had to make a decision."

Calabrese Jr. was dressed in dark clothes, sitting at a table with his back against a restaurant wall. He is not in the federal witness protection program, and he talked about that choice in a flat, quiet voice.

It was a voice that weighs things out, an unemotional voice, and if a meat scale could talk, it would have a voice just like that. Calabrese Jr. says he's changed his life, and made amends, but I could picture him years ago, using that voice on some bust-out gambler who owed his father Outfit juice, the son collecting, asking, "You're late this week. Where's my $5,000?" as he neutrally sized up the meat in front of him.

"I don't feel like a rat," he told me. "And afterward, I didn't go run and hide. But I'm not going to stand on the corner and flex my muscles.

"My father had these multiple personalities. There was the good dad and the evil dad. One minute, you're dealing with the caring, loving father who hugs and kisses you, and looks out for you. Then it changes. You see it in his eyes. I think he lost his soul," said Frank Jr. "I would have followed this guy anywhere. I didn't buy into the Outfit. I bought into my father. All I cared about was my father being proud of me. And he didn't watch out for me or my brothers."

Thus Frank Jr.'s book, "Operation Family Secrets: How a Mobster's Son and the FBI Brought Down Chicago's Murderous Crime Family". I get the feeling it is a must-read among Outfit types and their political puppets. And it is a story of fathers and sons.

Frank Jr. kicked off the famous Operation Family Secrets investigation of the Chicago Outfit. While in federal prison in 1998, he wrote a letter to the FBI volunteering to help them against a fellow inmate: his own father, Chinatown Crew boss Frank Calabrese Sr.

He wore a wire and recorded his father, and that led to the cooperation of hit-man uncle Nick Calabrese. By the time the Family Secrets trial was done, more than a dozen Outfit hits were solved, and his father, other hit men and bosses like Joseph "The Clown" Lombardo and Jimmy Marcello were given what amount to life sentences.

I remember Frank Sr. as stumpy old man in court, the one credited with strangling his victims before stabbing them in the head with a knife, a brutal loan shark and the hammer for the real boss of Bridgeport and Chinatown, the late Angelo "The Hook" LaPietra.

"Here's what he taught his son," said Frank Jr. "To manipulate. To find a guy with a business, with money, and he'd say, 'Make him feel close to you. Make him feel secure. And then somebody's going to come and scare the guy and he'll run to me. And then we'll get a piece of his business. And once we get a piece, there will be a little more, and a little more. If it's a bad week, I don't care, where's my money? And we'll slowly drain the business.'

"What happens is that you start getting numb to having feelings. And it becomes normal to threaten. These are the things my father taught me."

Calabrese's publicity tour this week began with Monday's story about Borders canceling his book-signing events after receiving anonymous threats. He's scheduled to be at the Union League Club for lunch Friday, discussing the case with former federal prosecutor T. Markus Funk, a member of the prosecution team whose own life was allegedly threatened by Calabrese Sr.

In the book there is talk of murders and beatings, extortion and treachery. But that is standard fare. What makes this book different is the dysfunctional family. The sons are in mortal fear of the patriarch. That's what will sell it as a movie.

Frank Sr. isn't receiving many visitors these days in federal prison. So I called Calabrese Sr.'s lawyer, criminal attorney Joseph "The Shark" Lopez, who isn't impressed by the son.

"I think there are some people who would blame the father for the sins of the son," Lopez said. "Some might say the father was out of order by talking to the kid. But the father was angry. He beat up his son because the son admitted to using and selling drugs. And the son stole a lot of money from his father."

In the book, the son admits to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in gambling proceeds from hiding places. During the trial, the father claimed the son stole millions more, a charge the son denies.

"The son has always wanted to be in the movies," said Lopez. "Now he's written this book, he's done the publicity stunt about the threats although he's not in danger from anyone, and now his book will probably become a movie."

I can see it as a movie that begins in sentimental fashion, a father and his sons spending quality time together. But they're not tossing a ball and having some boring game of catch. Instead, they spend time together, collecting.

Collecting politicians, collecting gambling debts, collecting victims.

Thanks to John Kass

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To Kill A President: Finally---An Ex-FBI Agent Rips Aside the Veil of Secrecy that Killed JFK

To Kill A President: Finally---An Ex-FBI Agent rips aside the veil of secrecy that killed JFK. The book by M. Wesley Swearingen uncovers new information about the murder of President John F. Kennedy and identifies groups who conspired to kill him, offering evidence and arguments documenting a conspiracy.

According to Swearingen, Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone in assassinating Kennedy as was claimed by the FBI and the Warren Commission. Instead, he argues that rogue CIA agents acting in concert with the mafia, certain Cuban exiles and FBI informants killed Kennedy. Swearingen contends that the conspiracy was covered up by the FBI, an effort that continues to this day through the bureau's unwillingness to disclose key details about the events surrounding Kennedy's death. Since Swearingen's book was released a second FBI agent has come forward now claiming Oswald did not kill Kennedy.

A 25-year veteran of FBI field work, Swearingen was told in 1962 by a Cuban exile that the CIA and the mafia were planning to kill JFK, but the FBI did nothing to stop them. He argues that the statements and actions of FBI and CIA personnel prove a cover-up, one that he knows included CIA-trained Cuban exiles and American mobsters.

"Names are named, associations are made, reasonable conjectures are served and Swearingen comes across as the real deal," explains a Kirkus Discoveries review. "He virtually dares readers to prove him wrong."

M. Wesley Swearingen is a former FBI agent and the author of FBI Secrets: An Agents Expose. A U.S. Navy veteran of World War II, Swearingen later graduated from Ohio State University and joined the FBI while it was directed by J. Edgar Hoover. Following his retirement from the FBI in 1977, Swearingen was involved in several successful lawsuits against the FBI related to wrongful imprisonment and civil rights violations. A California licensed private investigator, Swearingen has appeared in several documentary films about the FBI. He earned the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice (CACJ) President's Award in 1997.

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Mafias on the Move: How Organized Crime Conquers New Territories

It took the two assassins just six minutes to enter one of the finest hotels in Moscow, move past armed guards, shoot their victim in the head with silencer-equipped pistols, and make their escape. The boss of the Russian mafia's outpost in Rome was called immediately. "What, did they kill him?" he asked. "I am not surprised; he has stolen money from half of Russia."

So begins Frederico Varese's "Mafias on the Move: How Organized Crime Conquers New Territories." The murdered man was a Russian who had immigrated to Italy and who was conducting what appeared to be a legitimate business—but he was actually a member of the Solntsevskaya Brotherhood, Russia's most notorious mafia.

The assassination alerted authorities that the Solntsevskaya was setting up an Italian outpost, an alarming development considering the brutality of the Russian mafia. But could an organized crime group, like a transnational business, simply open a foreign branch? This high-stakes question prompted Mr. Varese to write his book about how mafias transplant themselves to new territories.

Mr. Varese's quest leads him from Prohibition-era Manhattan to mid-century Italy to modern-day China. His presentation is academic and heavy on numbers, but it tells a compelling story that is as much about politics as crime.

Mr. Varese's definition of a mafia challenges conventional wisdom: "providers of extralegal governance . . . groups that aspire to govern others by offering criminal protection to both the underworld and the 'upper world.'"

To transplant, a mafia must "operate . . . over a sustained period outside its region of origin or routine operation." A transplantation has not necessarily occurred even if a mafia engages in transnational dealings like drug smuggling, human trafficking or money laundering.

Given these definitions, it's hardly surprising that mafias have a better chance of transplanting when economic liberalization outpaces political reform. A Hungarian authority explains that where a legal and judicial system are lacking, "it is not surprising that businessmen, some law-abiding and others not, try to defend themselves and find other non-legal or semi-legal ways to defend their interests, without legal support from the state. The defects of state law enforcement have opened the field to organized crime, and their 'violence' organizations have simply taken control of this area."

In other words, mafias thrive when there is a demand for their services. They adjudicate disputes between employers and employees, enforce agreements and punish those who do not honor their commitments. All this helps the market, whether legal or illegal, run smoothly. But demand is only half of the equation. There must also be a supply of violent people adept in offering and enforcing protection. It's no coincidence that recruits often come from organizations like the KGB, where violence is culturally ingrained.

The study is at its most relevant examining the triads in Macau, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and their failure to transplant into the mainland. Given the shortcomings of the Chinese legal system, why haven't they permeated the People's Republic? The answer is simple: Corrupt government officials are performing mafia-like services so competently that the real mafias can't compete. Bribe-taking Communist Party cadres act as a "protective umbrella" for all kinds of businesses.

"Since any economic activity in China is subject to intrusive inspections and requires several permits, and independent courts are not effective in protecting the victims of officials' harassment, even entrepreneurs producing legal commodities, such as light bulbs, can benefit from entering into such arrangements," Mr. Varese writes. "The umbrella system ensures continued control over the economy by officials, albeit one that distorts incentives and produces significant waste."

That's not to say Chinese officials are shy about skimming from illegal activity too. Prostitution, illegal in China, is a prime example. Prostitutes are caught, judged and punished by the police under administrative law—they can be sentenced to severe fines or imprisoned without ever facing a judge. Practically, this means police protecting brothels can coerce prostitutes and brothel owners.

When any one group holds the power to establish law, judge offenders and punish them, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to uproot. It matters little whether this group is a mafia or a corrupt ruling party. Even giving citizens the vote is not sufficient to shift the balance of terror, Mr. Varese says—mafias have traded in votes, too, and politicians can gain by using thugs against their opponents.

The real key is protecting the rights and property of citizens. Where states fail in this responsibility, criminals always move in to fill the void.

Thanks to Jillian Kay Melchior

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The FBI's Behavioral Interview Program - Attempting to Understand Violent Offenders

The inmate’s wrist and leg shackles were removed and he was led into a small conference room to meet two special agents from the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU). The agents were there to conduct an interview into every aspect of the inmate’s life—from his earliest childhood experiences to the abduction, sexual assault, and murder of a preteen girl that sent him to prison for life without the possibility of parole.

Such interviews are part of an ongoing BAU program to understand the minds of violent offenders. The offender interview program is in keeping with BAU’s overall mission to provide behavioral-based support to federal, state, local, and international law enforcement agencies investigating time-sensitive crimes such as kidnappings and other violent offenses.

“We are never going to get the full and complete truth from offenders,” said one of the agents who conducted the interview. “But we gather all the information, the truth and the lies, and we learn from both.”

The insights from these consensual interviews are used for research and training, and they also have the potential to help investigators in the field. “The next time BAU responds to a child kidnapping case and a young person’s life is at stake,” the agent explained, “we can say, ‘we sat across from a guy who did something similar, and here’s what he told us.’ ”

Behavioral analysts have been popularized in television and movies as expert “profilers,” capable of comprehending and even anticipating the thoughts and actions of the worst criminal minds. In real life, the expertise acquired by BAU personnel takes years of training and investigative experience. Offender interviews are an invaluable part of that process.

“These are not investigative interviews to collect evidence or to determine guilt or innocence,” said one of the agents. “We already know the ‘how’ of the crime. Now we want to know ‘why.’ ”

Sitting in the small conference room across from the 31-year-old offender, the agents explained the ground rules. “There will be no tricks and no games,” they said. “We are going to talk about your life, including the murder. We want to know how you think about things and how you see things.”

There is nothing confrontational about the videotaped interview, which lasted for six hours. The offender—who consented to the meeting as part of a plea agreement to avoid the death penalty—talked openly, but perhaps not always truthfully.

“What they choose to share and disclose and what they choose not to disclose can be very revealing,” one of the agents said. “Sometimes it is difficult for them to face what they have done and to speak about it out loud.”

“From a behavioral standpoint,” the other agent said later, “we got a lot out of the interview.” Videotaped segments will be used by BAU staff when they train researchers, social workers, medical staff, and law enforcement personnel around the country about offenders who commit violent crimes against children.

“When you can illustrate a point by showing a video clip of the offender in his own words,” the agent said, “it is a very compelling teaching tool.”

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Mafia Sheep Code Cracked, Leads to 11 Arrests

Italian police on Monday arrested 11 suspects linked to the fugitive head of the Sicilian Mafia, including a former boss who ran a secret message system for the mobster using a sheep-based code.

Matteo Messina Denaro, 53, who has been on the run since 1993, used a farm in Mazara del Vallo to communicate with his henchmen via the aged-old method of "pizzini", bits of paper containing messages often written in cipher, police said.

Among those arrested was former boss Vito Gondola, 77, whose job it was to call the clan members to alert them to each new message, which was placed under a rock in a field at the farm and often destroyed on the spot after reading.

"I've put the ricotta cheese aside for you, will you come by later?" he would say on the telephone -- a phrase investigators said had nothing to do with dairy products.

"The sheep need shearing... the shears need sharpening" and "the hay is ready", were among other code phrases used to alert the gang to a new message, written on tightly folded bits of paper wrapped in Sellotape and then hidden in the dirt.

The police investigation, which followed the passing of messages between 2011 and 2014, used hidden cameras and microphones around the farm near Trapani in western Sicily to follow the movements of the clan -- and discover Denaro's fading glory.

Gondola is caught in one conversation telling another mobster that Denaro -- once a trigger man who reportedly boasted he could "fill a cemetery" with his victims -- was losing control over the latest generation of criminals, who "disappear without saying anything".

Three of those arrested were over 70 years old.

The only known photos of Denaro date back to the early 1990s. He is believed to be the successor of the godfathers Toto Riina and Bernardo Provenzano, who are both serving life sentences, but less is known about him. At the height of his power he had a reputation as a flashy, ruthless womaniser who ruled over at least 900 men with an iron fist.

The 11 suspects arrested "were the men who were closest to Denaro right now," said police official Renato Cortese, adding that it was "too early to say" whether the sting would help investigators close in on the fugitive.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi thanked the investigators in a message on his Facebook page, saying "onwards all, to finally capture the super-fugitive boss," insisting "Italy is united against organised crime" despite a recent slew of corruption scandals in the country.

"The state wins, the Mafia loses," Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said on Twitter.

Gondola, who despite his age rose every morning at 4 am to tend to his flock, is believed to have once been a right-hand man to Riina. In the 1970s he belonged to a gang used by the Mafia to carry out kidnappings, according to Italian media reports.

The Sicilian Mafia, known as "Cosa Nostra" or "Our Thing", was the country's most powerful organised crime syndicate in the 1980s and 1990s, but has seen its power diminish following years of investigations and mass arrests.

It also faces fierce underworld competition from the increasingly powerful Naples-based Camorra and Calabria's 'Ndrangheta.

Thanks to Ella Ide.

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Memphis Cop Killer ID'd, Subject of Intense Manhunt

Tennessee police officials on Sunday identified a suspect in the fatal shooting of a Memphis police officer, and an intense search for the man is underway.

Tremaine Wilbourn, 29, faces a first-degree murder charge in the death of Officer Sean Bolton, 33, on Saturday night, Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong said at a news conference.

Armstrong said Wilbourn was a passenger in a 2002 Mercedes Benz that was parked illegally in a southeast Memphis neighborhood on Saturday night. Armstrong said Bolton saw the car and shined his squad car's spotlight on the vehicle.

Bolton then got out of his car and walked toward the Mercedes, Armstrong said. Wilbourn got out of the Mercedes, confronted Bolton, and they got into a physical struggle, Armstrong said.

Wilbourn then took out a gun and fired it, striking Bolton multiple times, Armstrong said. The officer died at a hospital.

Wilbourn and the driver then ran away, Armstrong said. The driver later turned himself in to police, and police described him as a person of interest in the case before he was released without being charged.

Armstrong said Bolton interrupted a drug deal in progress. Officers found about 1.7 grams of marijuana inside the car, which likely would have just resulted in a misdemeanor citation and a fine for Wilbourn, Armstrong said.

"He's a coward," Armstrong said of Wilbourn. "You gunned down, you murdered a police officer, for less than 2 grams of marijuana. You literally destroyed a family."

Armstrong says the U.S. Marshal's office has offered to help in the search of Wilbourn, whom he says is armed and dangerous. He said Wilbourn is on supervised release after serving a federal sentence for robbery of a banking institution.

Earlier Sunday, police officers wearing protective vests descended on an apartment complex in southeast Memphis, about three miles from the scene of the shooting. An armored truck and a mobile command center were among the police vehicles there.

Officers could be seen going in and out of a sliding door and onto a balcony on the second floor of the two-story building.

Bolton is the third Memphis officer to be fatally shot in slightly more than four years. Officer Tim Warren was killed while responding to a shooting at a downtown Memphis hotel in July 2011. In December 2012, Officer Martoiya Lang was killed while serving a warrant.

Memphis Mayor A.C. Wharton Jr. said Bolton's death "speaks volumes about the inherent danger of police work" and asked others to "pray for the family and pray for our city." During past police shootings, both Wharton and Armstrong have said too many violent criminals are out on the street and have easy access to guns.

"The men and women in blue have certain rules of engagement that they have to follow, but at any given minute in a 24-hour day they're dealing with folks who have no rules of engagement," Wharton said.

Bolton was a former U.S. Marine and served a tour of duty in Iraq, police said. He joined the department in 2010.

Jason Mendoza, a minister at Woodland Presbyterian Church, said Bolton served as the best man at the wedding of his brother, Brian Bolton, this summer. Church member Pam Haley said Bolton's father died about a month ago. Brian is a member of the church.

During the church's morning service, Mendoza asked worshippers to pray for the Bolton family. "Lord, lift up Brian and his family," said Mendoza.

Thanks to Adrian Sainz.

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Remembering the Disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, 40 Years Ago Today

Odds are, 40-years ago today when Jimmy Hoffa was staring down the barrel of a revolver, I was 100 yards away looking into the stainless steel abyss of a hot fudge sundae dish.

On the anniversary of Hoffa's disappearance, July 30, 1975, this is no Forrest Gump story or even a case of mis-remembering. The once-omnipotent Teamsters Union boss was last seen alive on that day at a suburban Detroit shopping center.

He was there for a 2 p.m. meeting with mobsters Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone and Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano. The meeting was to be at the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Township, one mile from where I grew up.

Straight across the parking lot from where Hoffa was last seen alive, was an ice cream shop known as Sanders. That summer of '75, on my way home from working a 5 a.m.-1 p.m. radio-news shift, I would stop there for one of Sanders' Detroit-famous sundaes. Or maybe a hot fudge cream puff. Every day.

It was a summertime ritual of gluttony. The front window of the ice cream shop faced the restaurant where Hoffa had come for his meeting 40 years ago today.

If only I had known that one of America's greatest all-time crime mysteries was happening, perhaps I would have paid more attention. But only a few people even knew Hoffa was there: the men he was to meet and his wife, who he called just after 2 p.m. from a pay phone in the restaurant to report he'd been stood up.

Hoffa was never heard from again.

During the last four decades, there have been dozens of suggested plots and conspiracies. There was a movie about it and an occasional excavation project based on a tip that always led to nowhere. Hoffa's body has never been found, and if there is consensus among the original investigators who are still alive, that is because his remains were dissolved without a trace.

One retired Chicago FBI agent who worked the Hoffa case in Detroit and Newark, N.J., said that within the bureau the mystery of what happened to Hoffa and why was essentially was solved - even if never brought to prosecution. Hoffa's kidnapping and murder was motivated largely by personal vendetta, according to Joe Brennan, a long-time organized crime squad supervisor.

In interviews over the years, Brennan told the I-Team that New Jersey Teamster official and organized crime boss Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano had ordered the grudge killing. The late Provenzano's role in Hoffa's disappearance has been reported over the years. But his motive has always been presumed to be a union-related, checkmate-murder designed to block Hoffa's Teamster comeback.

"Hoffa was trying to get back into labor even though he was told not to," by the courts, Brennan said. "Information we got was that the mob was concerned that his re-entry was going to create investigative interest in union activities which could cause problems (for the mob).

"Provenzano saw a great opportunity to exact revenge" under the cover of a preventive union move, says Brennan. "So, he launched a couple of his guys" to eradicate Hoffa. But Hoffa's gangland termination had nothing to do with his second coming to the Teamster. It was fueled by Provenzano's blood feud with Hoffa, from the time that both men were serving time in the same federal prison.

The FBI's information was that "Hoffa didn't show the appropriate respect for a made (Mafia) guy in prison." In short, Hoffa didn't kiss Provenzano's Cosa Nostra ring while both were at the Lewisburg penitentiary. According to the working theory, Tony Pro never let go of that hostility and eventually got revenge. The FBI was told by mob informants that New Jersey enforcer Salvatore "Sally Bugs" Briguglio and a lesser-known wheelman grabbed Hoffa and took him on his final ride, July 30, 1975.

The FBI belief is that Hoffa was grabbed, killed in Detroit and brought back to New Jersey in a 55-gallon drum for Provenzano to personally verify that he was dead. Federal agents believe the body may have then been melted into the Meadowlands sports stadium in New Jersey, dumped into the Atlantic or dissolved in a vat of zinc in a mob-connected factory. Regardless, Hoffa was declared dead in 1982.

The case is technically open today because his body was never found. Generations know Hoffa only as the punchline of jokes, fueled even by the labor leader's middle name: Riddle (his mother's maiden name.) But for me, 40 years after he vanished and after decades of coincidentally reporting on organized crime, Hoffa remains just another scoop that got away.

Thanks to Chuck Goudie.

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Bust: How I Gambled and Lost a Fortune, Brought Down a Bank--and Lived to Pay for It

A North Shore butcher is having the book thrown at him by the feds—literally.

The book is called "Bust: How I Gambled and Lost a Fortune, Brought Down a Bank--and Lived to Pay for It." It's the autobiography of imprisoned gambling junkie Adam Resnick, who helped destroy a Chicago bank by pilfering more than $10 million to pay his gambling debts.

The butcher is Dominic Poeta, a short fellow with plenty of muscle in his neck and hands, like a fighter or a jockey. He's feeling pressure, and he doesn't like being squeezed like a handful of ground pork spiked with dry fennel, some sausage from a grinder.

"Please help me," he told me, as we stood Poeta's Food Market in Highwood this week. "I just want this to end. I'm not the guy they say I am. I was the go-between. I'm nobody big." But federal authorities hunting the Chicago Outfit by tracing their lifeblood—the illegal sports booking operation—believe he's big enough.

The feds, who took down a chunk of the Chicago Outfit in the Family Secrets trial, aren't finished. Some are loyal Resnick readers, particularly Assistant U.S. Atty. Joseph Stewart, who took copious notes on "Bust: How I Gambled and Lost a Fortune, Brought Down a Bank--and Lived to Pay for It."

Stewart argues in federal court filings that Poeta is a bookie who accepted $647,211 in checks from Resnick for gambling debts and that Poeta plays a part in Resnick's book under the alias "Luciano 'Lucky' Petrelli."

There are other wacky characters in the book, including a Tavern on Rush fixture named Marty, who augments his income by bringing high rollers to casinos for a percentage, and is described as a "slimmer, younger version of the opera singer Andrea Bocelli."

We called Tavern on Rush boss Marty Gutilla to determine whether he is a Bocelli fan but he didn't return our call.

There's also an unnamed state senator in the book, who drives with Marty and Resnick to the gambling boats, where the state senator talks and talks about sports and politics the Chicago Way. Jeepers. Do any of you know this guy?

What I do know is that last summer, I began writing about a tsunami heading toward Rush Street, and sports booking and high-end nightclubs with "bottle service," where $40 bottles of Scotch retail to the suckers for $500 so they can pour their own. Although the waves haven't hit—and I don't know if they will—you can definitely feel the rain in the wind, with Poeta due in federal court next week as the feds continue their investigation.

"They were genuine Chicago characters, veterans of the gambling scene," Resnick writes. "They had access to the underworld. . . . I felt privy to inside information about the way the city worked."

Resnick also writes extensively about the character the feds insist is the butcher Poeta.

"I was playing with another bookie. Luciano Petrelli, a star high school athlete in his mid-40s, owned a local deli and took bets while he worked" writes Resnick in "Bust" about the beginning of this decade. "When he answered the phone, you could hear him chopping in the background.

"Luciano hooked me up with a gigantic specimen of a human being, whom he introduced as a 'sometime associate of mine.' Timmy was six foot five and 280 pounds of rock."

Resnick describes the interaction between Timmy and a guy named Roberts who owed Resnick some money. When the guy said no, he didn't owe Resnick a thing, Big Timmy advocated on Resnick's behalf.

"Without even a half second of hesitation, Timmy backhanded Roberts across the face," Resnick writes. "Roberts was seeing stars."

Stunned, but certainly not stupid, Roberts quickly paid Resnick $25,000 in cash to avoid the wrath of Timmy.

In a federal deposition taken last August—one that will clearly be referred to in Monday's federal hearing scheduled for the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Wayne Andersen—Stewart asked Poeta a series of questions about whether he was the "Luciano Lucky Petrelli" in "Bust."

"I respectfully refuse to answer, based upon my rights under the 5th Amendment," Poeta told the feds time and again. But to me, not under oath, he told a different story. No, he wasn't the bookie called "Lucky" but he was a middleman for Resnick, hanging with Resnick and Gutilla in Las Vegas, a scene described in the book.

"I'm the guy who hooked him up," Poeta told me of Resnick. "I hooked him up with guys in our area. When he got too big for them, I hooked him up with guys in Vegas. I was just a go-between.

"He would take checks to me. And I would cash them. They didn't want checks."

Poeta stood at his butcher counter, a short, tired man in old brown shoes, feeling the federal pinch. If he accepted the checks from Resnick as he says—then the feds know it—and he's got problems.

"I'm no big bookie," he told me. "If I was a bookie, I wouldn't be standing on my feet, cutting meat for 80 hours a week, would I?"

I grew up working in my father's butcher shop on the South Side.

And there's only one way to make sausage. You squeeze.

Thanks to John Kass

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Don't Call Me Bugsy Documentary

A curious phenomenon occurs all too often with documentary films about organized crime. Even the most rational and high-minded documentarian tends to fall prey to the notion that they must adhere to the tropes of a gangster B-movie. Don't Call Me Bugsy, which details the rise and fall of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, is no exception. From its self-consciously hardboiled voiceover narration to its formulaic presentation, the 70-minute doc is a passable, if unexceptional, examination of the underworld figure who helped create modern-day Las Vegas.

Don't Call Me Bugsy touches on the essentials about Siegel, whose crazy temper earned him the sobriquet "Bugsy," a nickname he despised (hence the title of the flick). Born in Brooklyn, he aligned himself at an early age with fellow gangsters Meyer Lansky and Charles "Lucky" Luciano. Lansky was the brains of the outfit and Luciano the connection to the Sicilian Mafia, but Siegel possessed the murderous instinct that made him the favored triggerman. True-crime author Tim Power notes that the trio was undeniably vicious, but "it's impossible not to admire their energy, their drive."

As Prohibition ensured there was a fortune to be made trafficking in illegal booze, the Luciano-Lansky-Siegel alliance maneuvered to head criminal activities in New York and along the East Coast. In 1931, Siegel and three others killed old-school Mob boss Joe Masseria, setting the stage for the new generation of young Turks to transform organized crime into more of a streamlined business operation. But Siegel was restless for more adventure and, in 1935, relocated to Los Angeles. Enlisting the help of childhood-friend-turned-actor George Raft, Siegel dived into Beverly Hills society. His movie-star looks and roguish charm made him a favorite among polite society, particularly with rich women.

His most significant achievement, however, came when Lansky directed Siegel to spearhead the construction of the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Gambling had been legal in the dusty desert town since the mid-1930s, but Lansky envisioned a gaming Mecca along the lines of what organized crime had built in pre-Castro Cuba.

Siegel took to the assignment with a vengeance, sparing no expense in his desire to make the Flamingo a world-class destination. Nevertheless, costly delays and a ballooning budget assured his own demise. In 1947, Siegel was gunned down in his Beverly Hills home, a crime that remains unsolved.

The documentary intersperses black-and-white still photographs and archival footage with a handful of interviews from true-crime experts and various folks who knew Siegel, including his lawyer, barber and next-door neighbor. While the interviewees offer some juicy tidbits, they must compete with a hackneyed voiceover narration read by Larry Moran. When relating Siegel's 1926 arrest for rape, the narrator's sonorous voice tells us, "When it came to sex, he didn't discriminate. He didn't always ask, either." Siegel's longtime girlfriend, Virginia Hill, is described as "a feisty redhead from the foothills of North Carolina." Cue the eye-rolling. It's enough to make Mickey Spillane shudder.

It isn't a bad documentary, but it is uninspired and surprisingly lifeless. Too much of the film is a recitation of facts that don't shed much light on the subject. Only when we get to the saga of the Flamingo does Don't Call Me Bugsy really grab you, and most of that is due to rarely seen footage of Las Vegas in its early days.

The Video: The full-frame picture is solid but unremarkable. A few of the modern-day interviews suffer from softness, but much of the black-and-white archival footage is in very good condition.

The Audio: The 2.0 Stereo audio track gets the job done without any fanfare. The sound is somewhat flat, but you clearly hear the interviews and voiceover narrator, which is all that an audience would need.

English subtitles are available, but it should be noted that whoever is responsible for them evidently has little understanding of when a comma is necessary.

Extras: None.

Final Thoughts: Made in 1992, Don't Call Me Bugsy is a run-of-the-mill true-crime documentary that packs more information than it does illumination. The film chronicles Siegel's extravagant tastes for the Flamingo, but there is no speculation about what prompted it. What was his vision for Las Vegas? Did he even have a vision for it? People fascinated by organized crime (a group that includes your reviewer) would be better-served elsewhere, while viewers with only a casual interest are not likely to find much here worth their time.

Thanks to Phil Bacharach

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It Ain't Pretty, But It's Real

John Drummond proudly calls himself a pack rat.

A retired reporter for WBBM Channel 2, Drummond has interviewed countless people over the years, including mobsters, murderers, athletes and assorted Chicago oddballs. Drummond did more than just get those interviews on tape -- he also transcribed them. And now, the basement of his Wilmette home is filled with transcripts and tapes.

With his book, It Ain't Pretty But It's Real (Chicago Spectrum Press), Drummond offers the public a peek into his filing cabinets.

In 1998, Drummond wrote a similar book, Thirty Years in the Trenches Covering Crooks, Characters and Capers, but one book wasn't enough to contain all the colorful characters Drummond has encountered in Chicago. Talking about his reasons for writing a second book, Drummond gives a characteristically blunt explanation. "It's an ego trip," he says.

It's also a trip into the past for readers. Drummond writes about organized-crime trials, conspiracy theorist Sherman Skolnik, boxer Tony "The Man of Steel" Zale, and Frank Pape: "the toughest cop in Chicago."

On the comical end of the spectrum, Drummond remembers Ted Serios, a mentalist who claimed the ability to photograph people's thoughts. Serios was not able to pull off the feat when Drummond tried to film him doing it. "He'd just make a lot of noise and grunt and groan," Drummond recalls. The Polaroids never came out.
Criminal intent But while Drummond's first book focused on eccentric people like Serios, criminals dominate his second book. "In the first book, those people didn't get a lot of play," he says. "I thought, 'You know, there's a lot of stuff I left out.'"

One of the most memorable bad guys Drummond ever interviewed was Silas Jayne, the horseman who went to prison for conspiring to murder his brother, George, after years of bitter feuding. "He was considered a bogeyman," Drummond remembers.

In the book, Drummond recalls a disagreement in 1978 with an editor at Channel 2 who didn't see the news value in Drummond's exclusive interview with Jayne -- who just happened to be visiting home on a furlough from prison at the time. "He didn't know Silas Jayne from Joe Six-Pack," Drummond says of the editor, who was new in town.

The editor postponed the broadcast, but then when newspapers got wind of Jayne's temporary release from prison, he rushed it onto the air. "That was quite a scoop at the time," Drummond says.

Drummond says Jayne had an intimidating stare, but that the man also knew how to turn on the charm. "I enjoyed interviewing Silas Jayne," he says. "I have a soft spot for him, I have to admit."
Nice wise guys

At the same time, Drummond says he knew that Jayne could be dangerous. The same is true of the many mobsters Drummond covered. They rarely agreed to appear on camera, but when they chatted with Drummond and other reporters, they often seemed like amiable fellows.

"They claimed they were providing goods and service to the public: girls, gambling, whatever people wanted," Drummond says. "But you have to remember they're very ruthless."

Drummond still gets phone calls with tips about investigations and crimes. He does occasional reporting as a freelancer, including the Family Secrets trial. He says that case revealed the continued decline of the Chicago Outfit's power.

"The Family Secrets trial is very significant, but the trial that devastated the mob as we know it occurred in Kansas City 20 years before," he says. That case -- Operation Strawman -- is another chapter in Drummond's book.

Years ago, his fellow journalists started calling him Bulldog Drummond. In part, it was a reference to a detective who appeared in a series of 1920s novels, but it also seemed like an apt description of this newsman.

"They thought I was very tenacious," he says. And so he still is.

Thanks to Robert Loerzel

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Gaspipe: Confessions of a Mafia Boss

Anthony "Gaspipe" Casso is currently serving thirteen consecutive life sentences plus 455 years at a federal prison in Colorado. Now, for the first time, the head of a mob family has granted complete and total access to a journalist. Casso has given New York Times bestselling author Philip Carlo the most intimate, personal look into the world of La Cosa Nostra ever seen. "Gaspipe: Confessions of a Mafia Boss" is his shocking story.

From birth, Anthony Casso's mob life was preordained. Michael Casso introduced his young son around South Brooklyn's social clubs, where "men of honor" did business by shaking pinkie-ringed hands—hands equally at home pilfering stolen goods from the Brooklyn docks or gripping the cold steel of a silenced pistol. Young Anthony watched and listened and decided that he would devote his life to crime.

Casso would prove his talent for "earning," concocting ingenious schemes to hijack trucks, rob banks, and bring into New York vast quantities of cocaine, marijuana, and heroin. Casso also had an uncanny ability to work with the other Mafia families, and he forged unusually strong ties with the Russian mob. By the time Casso took the reins of the Lucchese family, he was a seasoned boss, a very dangerous man.

It was a great life—Casso and his beautiful wife, Lillian, had money to burn; Casso and his crew brought in so much cash that he had dozens of large safe-deposit boxes filled with bricks of hundred-dollar bills. But the law finally caught up with him in his New Jersey safe house in 1994. Rather than stoically face the music like the old-time mafiosi he revered, Casso became the thing he most hated—a rat. It broke his family's heart and made the once feared and revered mobster an object of scorn and disgust among his former friends. For it turned out that a lifetime of street smarts completely failed him in dealing with a group even more cunning and ruthless than the Mafia—the U.S. government.

Detailing Casso's feud with John Gotti and their attempts to kill each other, the "Windows Case" that led to the beginning of the end for the mob in New York, and Casso's dealings with decorated NYPD officers Lou Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa—the "Mafia cops"—Gaspipe is the inside story of one man's rise and fall, mirroring the rise and fall of a way of life, a roller-coaster ride into a netherworld few outsiders have ever dared to enter.

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Francis Ford Coppola Gift Basket from The Director of The Godfather

Francis Ford Coppola Loves Food and Wine - Gourmet Gift Basket

Oscar-winning director, writer and producer, Francis Ford Coppola, loves creating. Not only are the wines produced under his direction, but as an avid cook, he has created "Mammarella," a line of authentic organic pastas and sauces honoring his mother, Italia Pennino Coppola. Included in this package are the Diamond Series Claret and Cabernet Sauvignon, two types of artisan pasta, classic tomato/basil pasta sauce, red pepper packets and a "Mammarella" kitchen towel. Delicioso!

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