Take a tour of Buffalo, NY's mobster and mafia history. Local mob expert reveals gangsters' stories, hangouts and more. Buffalo has housed its fair share of thugs and mobsters. Besides common criminals and bank robbers, a powerful crime family headed by local boss Stefano Magaddino emerged in the 1920s. Close to Canada, Niagara Falls and Buffalo were perfect avenues through which to transport booze, and Magaddino and his Mafiosi maintained a stranglehold on the city until his death in 1974. Local mob expert Michael Rizzo takes a tour of Buffalo's mafia exploits everything from these brutal gangsters' favorite hangouts to secret underground tunnels to murder.
While J. Edgar Hoover was denying that there was such a thing as organized crime, in the forties, fifties, and sixties the mob was busy forming powerful syndicates in many northeastern cities. This book tells the fascinating, first-hand story of how FBI Special Agent Joe Griffin, with the help of a team of courageous professionals, succeeded through dogged determination and uncanny street smarts to convict major La Cosa Nostra leaders in Buffalo, Cleveland, Rochester, and Youngstown. Forget Hollywood''s version of the mafia; this is the real inside story from a man who observed the day-by-day behavior of these "instinctual killers" and for whom "it was a matter of principle to destroy them." FBI Medal of Valor recipient Joe Griffin, with the help of writer/researcher Don DeNevi, provides intimate details of mob intrigue, drug deals, gambling rings, hits, bloody gangland wars, and even a plot to plant a "mole" in the Cleveland FBI office. All the more fascinating because it''s true, Mob Nemesis is an engrossing story of the underworld from a man who took them on and won.
Joined by award-winning Mexican journalist Luis Nájera, leading organized-crime author Peter Edwards introduces a motley assortment of millennial bikers, gangsters and Mafia whose bloody trail of murders and schemes gone wrong led to the arrival in Canada of the world's most dangerous criminal organizations: the drug cartels of Mexico. A man watching the Euro Cup on a restaurant patio is shot dead on a busy Sunday afternoon in Toronto. Another dies in a sidewalk ambush just outside a bus-tling college campus. Two men in a Vancouver hotel lobby are gunned down in an attack that sends an American soccer star scrambling for cover. In Mexico, a Canadian is killed at a Nuevo Vallarta coffee shop, his death barely registering amidst the terrifying death tolls of President Calderón’s war on drugs and the cartels’ response; while a Montreal cop is beaten within an inch of his life in a Playa del Carmen nightclub. An infamous heckler from an NBA Toronto Raptors game turns up dead in a bullet-riddled car in a midtown lane-way. Throughout the 2010s, these and other disparate acts of violence entered the public awareness like iso-lated tragedies—but there was nothing isolated about them. In this masterly investigation, veteran journalists Peter Edwards and Luis Nájera introduce readers to the common cause of a near-decade of chaos. Meet the Wolfpack, millennial-aged gangsters from across the spectrum of Canada’s underworld. Vying to fast-track their way into the criminal void left by the death of Montreal godfather Vito Rizzuto, the Wolfpack sought advantage in a steady supply of cocaine from El Chapo Guzmán’s Sinaloa cartel, among the deadliest and most far-reaching of criminal organizations. The juniors had just stepped into the big leagues. This is the roiling landscape of The Wolfpack, a brilliant examination of a time of criminal disruption and rapid adaptation, when one gang’s unchecked ambition unwittingly gave away the most hotly contested corner of the Canadian underworld without a fight. Brazen criminal disruptors or entitled upstarts looking to get rich without paying their dues--whatever you think of them, you will never forget the Wolfpack.
The two most famous mobsters of the twentieth century were Al Capone and Don Corleone. The most powerful American mobster of the twentieth century was Stefano Magaddino. This book tells the story of a decade-long war against the Magaddino crime family waged by an elite stealth New York State police team. Veteran crime reporter Matt Gryta, who covered many of the events and trials described in the book, and former State Trooper George Karalus, a member of the undercover unit that shadowed Magaddino, have teamed up to tell the story of the secret unit's war against the Mafia. From The Real Teflon Don: "Magaddino quieted the complaints about his Apalachin strategy by issuing "assignments" that led to the deaths of several of his biggest mob critics. As Magaddino always did when he approved an "assignment" to have someone killed he said nothing, but raised his right hand over his head. His henchmen knew that meant the "assignment" had his approval. His Apalachin "critics" were handled that way, quieting the criticism fairly quickly within years of that public embarrassment for the entire mob family nationwide."
Ronald Fino, one of the FBI's foremost undercover operatives, does not scare easily.That is why he's not afraid to name names in this undercover exposé. For years, Fino wanted to write about his experiences, but each time the FBI managed to stop him. Even requests from major authors like Tom Clancy were placed on old. Today, Ronald Fino is retired from his service to the FBI and is ready to tell his story. Because of his unique position as the son of a Mafia boss, Fino got to know the ins and outs of organized crime from the ground up. He learned how they control members of Congress and local officials as well as their ties to presidents, politicians, and law enforcement officials.But working to bring mob members to justice and exposing political corruption wasn't enough for Fino. He also managed to infiltrate the Russian Mafia, made underground contact with Muslim terrorists, and exposed illegal arms smugglers, child porn organizers, narcotics dealers, and international money launderers. It's all here. It's all true. And as Ronald Fino says, "It's not going away anytime soon."
Al Capone. The Untouchables. The Valentine's Day massacre. You may think you know everything about the Roaring Twenties in the Windy City, but in the early twentieth century, the harsh environment of the Maxwell Street ghetto produced a proliferation of Jewish gangsters involved in everything from labor racketeering to white slavery. Their illegal activity offended their own community's value system and sparked rifts between Reform and Orthodox Jews. It also ignited tensions between city officials and Jewish leaders, indelibly marked the gentile population's perception of Chicago's Jews and shaped the city's West Side for years to come.
The true story of how a small-town lawman in upstate New York busted a Cosa Nostra conference in 1957, exposing the Mafia to America. In a small village in upstate New York, mob bosses from all over the country—Vito Genovese, Carlo Gambino, Joe Bonanno, Joe Profaci, Cuba boss Santo Trafficante, and future Gambino boss Paul Castellano—were nabbed by Sergeant Edgar D. Croswell as they gathered to sort out a bloody war of succession. For years, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had adamantly denied the existence of the Mafia, but young Robert Kennedy immediately recognized the shattering importance of the Apalachin summit. As attorney general when his brother JFK became president, Bobby embarked on a campaign to break the spine of the mob, engaging in a furious turf battle with the powerful Hoover. Detailing mob killings, the early days of the heroin trade, and the crusade to loosen the hold of organized crime, this momentous story will captivate fans of Gus Russo and Luc Sante. Reavill scintillatingly recounts the beginning of the end for the Mafia in America and how it began with a good man in the right place at the right time. “The best, and best-written, true-crime story I’ve ever read. It’s as suspenseful, detailed, racy, and knowing as a novel by Hammett or Chandler.” —Howard Frank Mosher, award-winning author of North Country “A close investigation into the crime bosses’ upstate New York summit and its grisly aftermath, Reavill’s book accurately recreates one of the golden eras of American organized crime.” —Publishers Weekly
Undercover cop Alex Vaughn goes deeper than ever into the organized crime family of Buffalo, NY. Motivated by justice and revenge, he seeks out the assassin that laid his friend Jack low. Professional killer Rafael Rontego traverses the deadly politics of Buffalo's mafia underbelly. In a city whose winter can be just as deadly as those wielding power, Rontego tries to stay ahead of the game. Their two worlds collide in this epic thriller that takes the reader on a search for self, justice, and truth.
Buffalo at the Crossroads is a diverse set of cutting-edge essays. Twelve authors highlight the outsized importance of Buffalo, New York, within the story of American urbanism. Across the collection, they consider the history of Buffalo's built environment in light of contemporary developments and in relationship to the evolving interplay between nature, industry, and architecture. The essays examine Buffalo's architectural heritage in rich context: the Second Industrial Revolution; the City Beautiful movement; world's fairs; grain, railroad, and shipping industries; urban renewal and so-called white flight; and the larger networks of labor and production that set the city's economic fate. The contributors pay attention to currents that connect contemporary architectural work in Buffalo to the legacies established by its esteemed architectural founders: Richardson, Olmsted, Adler, Sullivan, Bethune, Wright, Saarinen, and others. Buffalo at the Crossroads is a compelling introduction to Buffalo's architecture and developed landscape that will frame discussion about the city for years to come. Contributors: Marta Cieslak, University of Arkansas - Little Rock; Francis R. Kowsky; Erkin Özay, University at Buffalo; Jack Quinan, University at Buffalo; A. Joan Saab, University of Rochester; Annie Schentag, KTA Preservation Specialists; Hadas Steiner, University at Buffalo; Julia Tulke, University of Rochester; Stewart Weaver, University of Rochester; Mary N. Woods, Cornell University; Claire Zimmerman, University of Michigan
