Podcasts about Lucky Luciano

In this powerful and wide-ranging episode of Gangland Wire, host Gary Jenkins sits down with Ken Behr, author of One Step Over the Line: Confessions of a Marijuana Mercenary. Behr tells his astonishing life story—from teenage marijuana dealer in South Florida, to high-level drug runner and smuggler, to DEA cooperating source working major international cases. Along the way, he offers rare, first-hand insight into how large-scale drug operations actually worked during the height of the War on Drugs—and why that war, in his view, has largely failed. From Smuggler to Source Behr describes growing up during the explosion of the drug trade in South Florida during the 1970s and 1980s, where smuggling marijuana and cocaine became almost commonplace. He explains how he moved from street-level dealing into large-scale logistics—off-loading planes, running covert runways in the Everglades, moving thousands of pounds of marijuana, and participating in international smuggling operations involving Canada, Jamaica, Colombia, and the Bahamas. After multiple arrests—including a serious RICO case that threatened him with decades in prison—Behr made the life-altering decision to cooperate with the DEA. What followed was a tense and dangerous double life as an undercover operative, helping law enforcement dismantle major trafficking networks while living under constant pressure and fear of exposure. Inside the Mechanics of the Drug Trade This episode goes deep into the nuts and bolts of organized drug trafficking, including: How clandestine runways were built and dismantled in minutes How aircraft were guided into unlit landing zones How smuggling crews were paid and organized Why most drug operations ultimately collapse from inside The role of asset seizures in federal drug enforcement Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. Transcript [00:00:00] well, hey, all your wire taps. It’s good to be back here in studio of Gangland Wire. I have a special guest today. He has a book called, uh, title is One Step Over the Line and, and he went several steps over the line, I think in his life. Ken Bearer, welcome Ken. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. Now, Ken, Ken is a, was a marijuana smuggler at one time and, and ended up working with the DEA, so he went from one side over to my side and, and I always like to talk to you guys that that helped us in law enforcement and I, there’s a lot of guys that don’t like that out there, but I like you guys you were a huge help to us in law enforcement and ended up doing the right thing after you made a lot of money. So tell us about the money. We were just starting to talk about the money. Tell us about the money, all those millions and millions of dollars that you drug smuggler makes. What happens? Well, I, you know, like I said, um, Jimmy Buffett’s song a pirate looks at 40, basically, he says, I made enough money to to buy Miami and pissed it away all so fast, never meant to last. And, and that’s what happens. I do know a few people that have [00:01:00] put away money. One of my friends that we did a lot of money together, a lot of drug dealing and a lot of moving some product, and he’s put the money away. Got in bed with some other guy that was, you know, legal, bought a bunch of warehouses, and now he lives a great life, living off the money he put away. Yeah. If the rents and stuff, he, he got into real estate. Other guys have got into real estate and they got out and they ended up doing okay. ’cause now they’re drawing all those rents. That’s a good way to money. Exactly what he did. Uh, my favorite, I was telling you a favorite story of mine was the guy that was a small time dealer used to hang out at the beach. And, uh, we en he ended up saving $80,000, which was a lot of money back then. Yeah. And then put it all, went to school to be a culinary chef and then got a job at the Marriott as a culinary chef and a chef. So he, you know, he really took the money, made a little bit of money, didn’t make a lot Yeah. But made enough to go to school and do something with his life. That’s so, um, that’s a great one. That’s a good one [00:02:00] there. That’s real. Yeah. But he wasn’t a big time guy. Yeah. You know what, what happens is you might make a big lick. You know, I, I never made million dollar moves. I have lots of friends that did. I always said I didn’t want to be a smuggler. ’cause I was making a steady living, being a drug runner. If you brought in 40, 50,000 pounds of weed, you would come to me and then I would move it across the country and sell it in different, along with other guys like me. Having said that, so I say I’m a guy that never wanted to do a smuggling trip. I’ve done 12 of them. Yeah. Even though, you know, and you know, if you’ve been in the DEA side twelve’s a lot for somebody usually. Yeah. That’s a lot. They don’t make, there’s no longevity. Two or three trips. No. You know, I did it for 20 years. Yeah. And then finally I got busted one time in Massachusetts in 1988. We had 40,000 pounds stuck up in Canada. So a friend of mine comes to me, another friend had the 40,000 pounds up there. He couldn’t sell it. He goes, Hey, you wanna help me smuggle [00:03:00] this back into America? Which, you know, is going the wrong direction. The farther north it goes, the more money it’s worth. I would’ve taken it to Greenland for Christ’s sakes. Yeah. But, we smuggled it back in. What we did this time was obviously they, they brought a freighter or a big ship to bring the 40,000 pounds into Canada. Mm-hmm. He added, stuffed in a fish a fish packing plant in a freezer somewhere up there. And so we used the sea plane and we flew from a lake in Canada to a lake in Maine where the plane would pull up, I’d unload. Then stash it. And we really did like to get 1400 pounds. We had to go through like six or seven trips. ’cause the plane would only hold 200 and something pounds. Yeah. And a sea plane can’t land at night. It has to land during the day. Yeah. You can’t land a plane in the middle of a lake in the night, I guess yourself. Yeah. I see. Uh, and so we got, I got busted moving that load to another market and that cost, uh, [00:04:00] cost me about $80,000 in two years of fighting in court to get out of that. Yeah. Uh, but I did beat the case for illegal search and seizure. So one for the good guys. It wasn’t for the good guys. Well the constitution, he pulled me over looking for fireworks and, ’cause it was 4th of July and, yeah. The name of that chapter in the book is why I never work on a holiday. So you don’t wanna spend your holiday in jail ’cause there’s no, you can’t on your birthday. So another, the second time I got busted was in 92. So just a couple years later after, basically I was in the system for two years with the loss, you know, fighting it and that, that was for Rico. I was looking at 25 years. But, uh, but like a normal smuggling trip. I’ll tell you one, we did, I brought, I actually did my first smuggling trip. I was on the run in Jamaica from a, a case that I got named in and I was like 19 living down in Jamaica to cool out. And then my buddies came down. So we ended up bringing out 600 pounds. So that was my first tr I was about 19 or [00:05:00] 20 years old when I did my first trip. I brought out 600 pounds outta Jamaica. A friend of mine had a little Navajo and we flew it out with that, but. I’ll give you an example of a smuggling trip. So a friend of mine came to me and he wanted to load 300 kilos of Coke in Columbia and bring it into America. And he wanted to know if I knew anybody that could load him 300 kilos. So I did. I introduced him to a friend of mine that Ronnie Vest. He’s the only person you’ll appreciate this. Remember how he kept wanting to extradite all the, the guys from Columbia when we got busted, indict him? Yes. And of course, Escobar’s living in his own jail with his own exit. Yeah. You know, and yeah. So the Columbian government says, well, we want somebody, why don’t you extradite somebody to America, to Columbia? So Ronnie Vest had gotten caught bringing a load of weed outta Columbia. You know, they sent ’em back to America. So that colo, the Americans go, I’ll tell you what you want. Somebody. And Ronnie Vests got the first good friend of mine, first American to be [00:06:00] extradited to Columbia to serve time. So he did a couple years in the Columbian prison. And so he’s the one that had the cocaine connection now. ’cause he spent time in Columbia. Yeah. And you know, so we brought in 300 kilos of Coke. He actually, I didn’t load it. He got another load from somebody else. But, so in the middle of the night, you set up on a road to nowhere in the Everglades, there’s so many Floridas flat, you’ve got all these desolate areas. We go out there with four or five guys. We take, I have some of ’em here somewhere. Callum glow sticks. You know the, the, the glow sticks you break, uh, yeah. And some flashing lights throw ’em out there. Yeah. And we set up a, yeah, the pilot came in and we all laid in the woods waiting for the plane to come in. And as soon as the pilot clicks. The mic four times. It’s, we all click our mics four times and then we run out. He said to his copilot, he says, look, I mean, we lit up this road from the sky. He goes, it looks like MIA [00:07:00] behind the international airport. But it happens like that within a couple, like a minute, we’ll light that whole thing up. Me and one other guy run down the runway. It’s a lot, it’s a long run, believe me. We put out the lights, we gotta put out the center lights and then the marker lights, because you gotta have the center of the runway where the plane’s gonna land and the edge is where it can’t, right? Yeah. He pulls up, bring up a couple cars, I’m driving one of them, load the kilos in. And then we have to refuel the plane because you don’t, you know, you want to have enough fuel to get back to an FBO to your landing airport or real airport. Yeah. Not the one we made in the Everglades. Yeah. And then the trick is the car’s gotta get out of there. Yeah, before the plane takes off. ’cause when that plane takes off, you know you got a twin engine plane landing is quiet, taking off at full throttle’s gonna wake up the whole neighborhood. So once we got out of there, then they went ahead and got the plane off. And then the remaining guys, they gotta clean up the mess. We want to use this again. So we [00:08:00] wanna clean up all the wires, the radios. Mm-hmm. Pick up the fuel tanks, pick up the runway lights, and their job is to clean that off and all that’s gonna take place before the police even get down the main road. Right? Mm-hmm. That’s gonna all take place in less than 10 minutes. Wow. I mean, the offload takes, the offload takes, you can offload about a thousand pounds, which I’ve done in three minutes. Wow. But, and then refueling the plane, getting everything else cleaned up. Takes longer. Yeah. Interesting. So how many guys would, would be on that operation and how do you pay that? How do you decide who gets paid what? How much? Okay. So get it up front or, I always curious about the details, how that stuff, I don’t think I got paid enough. And I’ll be honest, it was a hell of a chance. I got 20 grand looking at 15 years if you get caught. Yeah. But I did it for the excitement. 20 grand wasn’t that much. I had my own gig making more money than that Uhhuh, you know, but I was also racing cars. I was, there’s a [00:09:00] picture of one of my race cars. Oh cool. So that costs about six, 7,000 a weekend. Yeah. And remember I’m talking about 1980s dollars. Yeah. That’s 20,000 a weekend. A weekend, yes. Yeah. And that 20,000 for a night’s work in today’s world would be 60. Yeah. Three. And I’m talking about 1985 versus, that was 40 years ago. Yeah. Um. But it’s a lot of fun and, uh, and, but it, you kind of say to yourself, what was that one step over the line? That’s why I wrote the book. I remember as a kid thinking in my twenties, man, I’ve taken one step over the line. So the full name of the book is One Step Over the Line Con Confessions of a Marijuana Mercenary. That’s me actually working for the DEA. That picture was at the time when I was working for the DEA, so the second time I got busted in 1992 was actually for the smallest amount of weed that I ever got, ever really had. It was like 80, a hundred pounds. But unfortunately it was for Rico. I didn’t know at the [00:10:00] time, but when they arrested me, I thought, oh, they only caught me with a hundred pounds. But I got charged with Rico. So I was looking at 25 years. What, how, what? Did they have some other, it must have had some other offenses that they could tie to and maybe guns and stuff or something that get that gun. No, we never used guns ever. Just other, other smuggling operations. Yeah, yeah. Me, me and my high school friend, he had moved to Ohio in 77 or 78, so he had called me one time, he was working at the Ford plant and he goes, Hey, I think I could sell some weed up here. All right. I said, come on down, I’ll give you a couple pounds. So he drives down from Ohio on his weekend off, all the way from Ohio. I gave him two pounds. He drove home, calls me back. He goes, I sold it. So I go, all right. He goes, I’m gonna get some more. So at that time, I was working for one of the largest marijuana smugglers in US History. His name was Donny Steinberg. I was just a kid, you know, like my job, part of my [00:11:00] job was to, they would gimme a Learjet. About a million or two and I jump on a Learjet and fly to the Cayman Islands. I was like 19 years old. Same time, you know, kid. Yeah, just a kid. 19 or 20 and yeah. 18, I think. And so I ended up doing that a few times. That was a lot of fun. And that’s nice to be a kid in the Learjet and they give me a million or two and they gimme a thousand dollars for the day’s work. I thought I was rich, I was, but people gotta understand that’s in that 78 money, not that’s, yeah. That was more like $10,000 for day, I guess. Yeah. You know? Yeah. It was a lot of money for an 18, 19-year-old kid. Yeah. Donnie gives me a bail. So Terry comes back from Ohio, we shoved the bale into his car. Barely would fit ’cause he had no big trunk on this Firebird. He had, he had a Firebird trans Am with the thunder black with a thunder, thunder chicken on the hood. It was on the hood. Oh cool. That was, that was a catch meow back then. Yeah. Yeah. It got it with that [00:12:00] Ford plant money. And uh, by the way, that was after that 50 pounds got up. ’cause every bail’s about 50 pounds. That’s the last he quit forward the next day. I bet. And me and him had built a 12 year, we were moving. Probably 50 tons up there over the 12 year period. You know, probably, I don’t know, anywhere from 50 to a hundred thousand pounds we would have, he must have been setting up other dealers. So among his friends, he must have been running around. He had the distribution, I was setting up the distribution network and you had the supply. I see. Yeah. I was the Florida connection. It’s every time you get busted, the cops always wanna grab that Florida connection. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You gotta go down there. I there, lemme tell you, you know, I got into this. We were living in, I was born on a farm in New Jersey, like in know Norman Rockwell, 1950s, cow pies and hay bales. And then we moved to New Orleans in 1969 and then where my dad had business and right after, not sure after that, he died when I was 13. As I say in the book, I [00:13:00] probably wouldn’t have been writing the book if my father was alive. Yeah. ’cause I probably wouldn’t have went down that road, you know? But so my mother decides in 1973 to move us to, uh, south Florida, to get away from the drugs in the CD underside of New Orleans. Yeah. I guess she didn’t read the papers. No. So I moved from New Orleans to the star, the war on where the war on drugs would start. I always say if she’d have moved me to Palo Alto, I’d be Bill Gates, but No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was so, uh, and everybody I knew was running drugs, smuggling drugs, trying to be a drug deal. I mean, I was, I had my own operation. I was upper middle level, but there were guys like me everywhere. Mm-hmm. There were guys like me everywhere, moving a thou, I mean, moving a thousand, 2000 pounds at the time was a big thing, you know? That’s, yeah. So, so about what year was that? I started in 19. 70. Okay. Three. I was [00:14:00] 16. Started selling drugs outta my mom’s house, me and my brother. We had a very good business going. And by the time I was got busted, it was 19 92. So, so you watched, especially in South Florida, you watched like where that plane could go down and go back up that at eventually the feds will come up with radar and they have blimps and they have big Bertha stuff down there to then catch those kinds of things. Yeah. Right, right. Big Bertha was the blimp. Uhhuh, uh, they put up, yeah. In the beginning you could just fly right in. We did one trip one time. This is this, my, my buddy picked up, I don’t know, 40 or 50 kilos in The Bahamas. So you fly into Fort Lauderdale and you call in like you’re gonna do a normal landing. Mm-hmm. And the BLI there. This is all 1980s, five. You know, they already know. They’re doing this, but you just call in, like you’re coming to land in Fort Lauderdale, and what you do is right before you land, you hit the tower up and you tell ’em you wanna do a [00:15:00] go around, meaning you’re not comfortable with the landing. Mm-hmm. Well, they’ll always leave you a go around because they don’t want you to crash. Yeah. And right west of the airport was a golf course, and right next to the golf course, oh, about a mile down the road was my townhouse. So we’re in the townhouse. My buddies all put on, two of the guys, put on black, get big knives, gear, and I drive to one road on the golf course and my other friend grows Dr. We drop the guys off in the golf course as the plane’s gonna do the touchdown at the airport. He says, I gotta go around. As he’s pulling up now, he’s 200 feet below the radar, just opens up the side of the plane. Mm-hmm. The kickers, we call ’em, they’re called kickers. He kicks the baskets, the ba and the guys on, on the golf court. They’re hugging trees. Yeah. You don’t wanna be under that thing. Right. You got a 200, you got maybe a 40 pound package coming in at 120 miles an hour from 200 feet up. It’ll break the bra. It’ll yeah. The [00:16:00] branches will kill you. Yeah. So they pull up, they get out, I pull back up in the pickup truck, he runs out, jumps in the back of the truck, yells, hit it. We drive the mile through the back roads to my townhouse. Get the coke in the house. My buddy rips it open with a knife. It’s and pulls out some blow. And he looks at me, he goes, Hey, let’s get outta here. And I go, where are we going? Cops come and he goes, ah, I got two tickets. No, four tickets to the Eddie Murphy concert. So we left the blow in this trunk of his car. Oh. Oh, oh man. I know. We went to Eddie Murphy about a million dollars worth of product in the trunk. Oh. And, uh, saw a great show and came back and off they went. That’s what I’m trying to point out is that’s how fast it goes down, man. It’s to do. Yeah. Right in, in 30 minutes. We got it out. Now the thing about drug deals is we always call ’em dds delayed dope deals because the smuggling [00:17:00] trip could take six months to plan. Yeah. You know, they never go, there’s no organized crime in organized crime. Yeah. No organization did it. Yeah. And then, then of course, in 1992 when I got busted and was looking at Rico, a friend of mine came up to me. He was a yacht broker. He had gotten in trouble selling a boat, and he said, Hey, I’d you like to work for the DEA. I’d done three months in jail. I knew I was looking at time, I knew I had nothing. My lawyers told me, Kenny, you either figure something out or you’re going to jail for a mm-hmm. And I just had a newborn baby. I just got married three weeks earlier and we had a newborn baby. I said, what are you crazy? I mean, I’m waiting for my wife to hear me. You know, he’s calling me on the phone. He goes, meet me for lunch. I go meet him for lunch. And he explains to me that he’s gonna, he’s got a guy in the, uh, central district in Jacksonville, and he’s a DEA agent, and I should go talk to him. And so the DEA made a deal with the Ohio police that anything that I [00:18:00] confiscated, anything that I did, any assets I got, they would get a share in as long as they released me. Yeah. To them. And, you know, it’s all about the, I hate to say this, I’m not saying that you don’t want to take drugs off the street, but if you’re the police department and you’re an agent, it’s about asset seizures. Yeah. Yeah. That’s how you fund the dr. The war on drugs. Yeah. The war begets war. You know, I mean, oh, I know, been Florida was, I understand here’s a deal. You’re like suing shit against the tide, right? Fighting that drug thing. Okay? It just keeps coming in. It keeps getting cheaper. It keeps getting more and more. You make a little lick now and then make a little lick now and then, but then you start seeing these fancy cars and all this money out there that you can get to. If you make the right score, you, you, you hit the right people, you can get a bunch of money, maybe two or three really cool cars for your unit. So then you’ll start focusing on, go after the money. I know it’s not right, but you’re already losing your shoveling shit against the tide anyhow, so just go after the goal. [00:19:00] One time I set up this hash deal for the DEA from Amsterdam. The guy brought the hash in, and I had my agent, you know, I, I didn’t set up the deal. The guy came to me and said, we have 200 kilos of hash. Can you help us sell it? He didn’t know that I was working for the DEA, he was from Europe. And I said, sure. The, the thing was, I, so in the boat ready to close the deal, now my guy is from Central. I’m in I’m in Fort Lauderdale, which is Southern District. So he goes, Hey, can you get that man to bring that sailboat up to Jacksonville? I go, buddy, he just sailed across the Atlantic. He ain’t going to Jacksonville. So the central district has to come down, or is a northern district? I can’t remember if it’s northern or central. Has to come down to the Southern district. So, you know, they gotta make phone calls. Everybody’s gotta be in Yep. Bump heads. So I’m on the boat and he calls me, he goes, Hey, we gotta act now. Yeah. And I’m looking at the mark, I go, why? He [00:20:00] goes, customs is on the dock. We don’t want them involved. So you got the two? Yeah. So I bring him up, I go, where’s the hash? He goes, it’s in the car. So we go up to the car and he opens the trunk, and I, I pull back one of the duffle bags I see. I can tell immediately it’s product. So I go like this, and all hell breaks loose, right? Yeah. I could see the two customs agents and they’re all dressed like hillbillies. They, you know. So I said to my, my handler, the next day I called them up to debrief. You know, I have to debrief after every year, everything. I goes, so what happened when customs I go, what’d they want to do? He goes, yep. They wanted to chop the boat in threes. So they’re gonna sell the boat and the 2D EA offices are gonna trade it. Yeah. Are gonna shop the money. Yeah. I remember when I registered with the DEA in, in, in the Southern district, I had to tell ’em who I was. They go, why are you working for him? Why aren’t you working for us? I’m like, buddy, I’m not in charge here. This is, you know? Yeah. I heard that many [00:21:00] times through different cases we did, where the, the local cop would say to me, why don’t you come work for us? Oh yeah. Try to steal your informant. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So how about that? So, can you get a piece of the action if they had a big case seizure? Yeah. Did they have some deal where you’d get a piece of that action there? Yep. That’s a pretty good deal. Yeah. So I would get, I, I’d get, like, if we brought down, he would always tell everybody that he needed money to buy electronics and then he would come to me and go, here’s 2000. And to the other cis, he had three guys. I saw a friend of mine, the guy that got me into the deal. Them a million dollar house or a couple million dollar house. And I saw the DEA hand him a suitcase with a million dollars cash in it. Wow. I mean, I’m sorry, with a hundred thousand cash. A hundred thousand. Okay. I was gonna say, I was thinking a million. Well, a hundred thousand. Yeah, a hundred thousand. I’ve heard that. I just didn’t have any experience with it myself. But I heard that. I saw, saw Open it up, saw money. I saw the money. It was one of those aluminum halla, Halliburton reef cases and Yeah, yeah. A [00:22:00] hundred thousand cash. But, uh, but you know, um, it’s funny, somebody once asked me out of, as a kid I wanted to be a cowboy, a race car driver, and a secret agent. Me too. Yes. Yeah. I didn’t want, I wanted to be a, I grew up on a farm, so I kind of rode a horse. I had that watched Rowdy, you got saved background as me, man. Yeah. You know, we watched, we watched, we grew up on westerns. We watched Gun Smoke, rowdy. Oh yeah. You know, uh, bananas, uh, you know, so, um. So anyway, uh, I got to raise cars with my drug money, and I guess I’m not sure if I was more of a secret agent working as a drug dealer or as the DEA, but it’s a lot of I, you know, I make jokes about it now, but it’s a lot of stress working undercover. Oh, yeah. Oh, I can’t even imagine that. I never worked undercover. I, that was not my thing. I like surveillance and putting pieces together and running sources, but man, that actual working undercover that’s gotta be nerve wracking. It’s, you know, and, and my handler was good at it, but [00:23:00] he would step out and let, here’s, I’ll tell you this. One day he calls me up and he goes, Hey, I’m down here in Fort Lauderdale. You need to come down here right now. And I’m having dinner at my house about 15 minutes away. Now he lives in Jacksonville. I go, what’s he doing in Fort Lauderdale? So I drive down to the hotel and he’s got a legal pad and a pen. He goes, my, uh, my, my seniors want to, uh, want you to proffer. You need to tell me everything you ever did. And they want me to do a proffer. And I go, I looked at him. I go, John, I can’t do that. He start, we start writing. I start telling him stuff. I stop. I go, I grew up in this town. Everybody I know I did a drug deal with from high school, I go, I would be giving you every single kid, every family, man, I grew up here. My, I’m gonna be in jail, and my wife and my one and a half year old daughter are gonna be the only people left in this town, and they’re not gonna have any support. And I just can’t do this to all my friends. Yeah. So he says, all right, puts the pen down. I knew [00:24:00] he hated paperwork, so I had a good shot. He wasn’t gonna, he goes, yeah, you hungry? I go, yeah. He goes, let’s go get a steak. And right across the street was a place called Chuck Steakhouse, which great little steak restaurant. All right. So we go over there, he goes, and he is a big guy. He goes, sit right here. I go, all right. So I sit down. I, I’m getting a free steak. I’m gonna sit about through the steak dinner, it goes. Look over my shoulder. So I do this. He goes, see the guy at the bar in the black leather jacket. I go, yeah. He goes, when I get up and walk outta here, when I clear the door, I want you to go up to him and find a talk drug deal. See what you can get out of him. I go, you want me to walk up to a complete stranger and say, he goes, I’m gonna walk out the door. When I get out the door. You’re gonna go up and say, cap Captain Bobby. That was his, he was a ca a boat captain and his nickname, his handle was Captain Bobby. And he was theoretically the next Vietnam vet that now is a smuggler, you know?[00:25:00] Yeah. And so he walks out the door and I walked out and sat with the guy at the bar and we started, I said, hi, captain Bobby sent me, I’m his right hand man, you know, to talk about. And we talked and I looked around the bar trying to see if anybody was with him. And I’m figuring, now I’m looking at the guy going, why is he so open with me? And I’m thinking, you know what? He’s wearing a leather jacket. He’s in Florida. I bet you he’s got a wire on and he’s working for customs and I’m working for the DEA, so nothing ever came of it. But you know, that was, you know, you’re sitting there eating dinner and all of a sudden, you know, look over my shoulder. Yeah. And, you know, and I’m trying to balance all that with having a newborn that’s about a year old and my wife and Yeah. Looking at 25 years. So a little bit of pressure. But, you know, hey and I understand these federal agencies, everybody’s got, everybody is, uh, uh, aggressive. Everybody is ambitious. And you just are this guy in the middle and right. And they’ll throw you to the [00:26:00] wolves in a second. Second, what have you done for a second? Right? It’s what have you done for me lately? He’s calling me up and said, Hey, I don’t got any product from you in a minute. I go, well, I’m working on it. He goes, well, you know, they’ll kick you outta the program. Yeah. But one of the things he did he was one of, he was the GS 13. So he had some, you know, he had level, you know, level 15 or whatever, you know, he was, yeah. Almost at the head of near retirement too. And he said, look, he had me, he had another guy that was a superstar, another guy. And we would work as a team and he would feed us all the leads. In other words, if David had a case, I’d be on that case. So when I went to go to go to trial or go to my final, he had 14 or 15 different things that he had penciled me in to be involved with. The biggest deal we did at the end of my two years with the DEA was we brought down the Canadian mob. They got him for 10,000 kilos of cocaine, import 10,000 kilos. It was the Hell’s Angels, the Rock something, motorcycle [00:27:00] gang, the Italian Mafia and the, and the Irish mob. Mm-hmm. And the guy, I mean, this is some badass guys. I was just a player, but. The state of Ohio, they got to fly up there and you know, I mean, no words, the dog and pony show was always on to give everybody, you know. Yes. A bite at the apple. Oh yeah. But I’ll tell you this, it’s been 33 years and the two people that I’m close to is my arresting officer in Ohio and my DEA handler in Jacksonville. The arresting officer, when he retired, he called to gimme his new cell phone. And every year or so I call him up around Christmas and say, Dennis, thank you for the opportunity to turn my life around, because I’ve got four great kids. I’ve started businesses, you know, he knows what I’ve done with my life. And the DEA handler, that’s, he’s a friend of mine. I mean, you know, we talk all the time and check on each other. And, you know, I mean, he’s, [00:28:00] they’re my friends. A lot of, not too many of the guys are left from those days that will talk to me. Yeah, probably not. And most of them are dead or in jail anyhow. For, well, a lot of ’em are, maybe not even because of you, I mean, because that’s their life. No, but a lot of them, a number of ’em turned their lives around, went into legal businesses and have done well. Yeah. So, you know, there really have, so not all of ’em, but a good share of ’em have turned, because we weren’t middle class kids. We were, my one friend was, dad was the lieutenant of the police department. The other one was the post guy. We weren’t inner city kids. Yeah. We weren’t meeting we, the drug war landed on us and we just, we were recruited into it. As young as I talk about in my book. But I mean, let’s talk about what’s going on now. Now. Yeah. And listen, I’m gonna put some statistics out there. Last year, 250,000 people were charged with cannabis. 92% for simple possession. There’s [00:29:00] people still in jail for marijuana doing life sentences. I’ve had friends do 27 years only for marijuana. No nonviolent crimes, first time offender. 22 years, 10 years. And the government is, I’ve been involved with things where the government was smuggling the drugs. I mean, go with the Iran Contra scandal that happened. We were trading guns for cocaine with the Nicaraguans in the Sandon Easterns. Yeah. Those same pilots. Gene Hassen Fus flew for Air America and Vietnam moving drugs and gun and, and guns out of Cambodia. Same guy. Air America. Yeah. The American government gave their soldiers opium in Civil War to keep ’em marching. You know, I mean, we did a deal with Lucky Luciano, where we let ’em out of prison for doing heroin exchange for Intel from, from Europe on during World War II and his, and the mob watching the docks for the, uh, cargo ships. So the government’s been intertwined in the war on drugs on two [00:30:00] sides of it. Yeah. You know, and not that it makes it right. Look, I’ve lost several friends to fentanyl that thought they were doing coke and did fentanyl or didn’t even know there was any. They just accidentally did fentanyl and it’s a horrible drug. But those boats coming out of Venezuela don’t have fentanyl on ’em. No. Get cocaine maybe. If that, and they might be, they’re probably going to Europe. Europe and they’re going to Europe. Yeah, they’re going, yeah. They’re doubt they’re going to Europe. Yeah. Yeah. And so let’s put it this way. I got busted for running a 12 year ongoing criminal enterprise. We moved probably 50 tons of marijuana. You know what? Cut me down? One guy got busted with one pound and he turned in one other guy that went all the way up to us. So if you blew up those boats, you know, you’re, you need the leads. You, you can’t kill your clients. Yeah. You know, how are you gonna get, not gonna get any leads outta that. Well, that’s, uh, well, I’m just saying [00:31:00] you right. The, if they followed the boat to the mothership Yeah. They’d have the whole crew and all the cargo. Yeah. You know, it’s, those boats maybe have 200 kilos on ’em. A piece. Yeah. The mothership has six tons. Yeah. That’s it. It’s all about the, uh, the, um, uh, optics. Optics, yeah. That’s the word. It’s all about the optics and, and the politic, you know, in, in some way it may deter some people, but I don’t, I I, I’ve never seen anything, any consequence. In that drug business, there’s too much money. There is no consequence that is really ever gonna deter people from smuggling drugs. Let me put it this way, except for a few people like yourself, there’s a few like yourself that get to a certain age and the consequence of going to prison for a long time may, you know, may bring you around or the, all the risk you’re taking just, you know, you can’t take it anymore, but you gotta do something. But no, well, I got busted twice. Consequence just don’t matter. There is no consequence that’s gonna do anything. Here’s why. And you’re right. [00:32:00] One is how do you get in a race car and not think you’re gonna die? Because you always think it’s gonna happen to somebody else. Exactly. And the drug business is the same. It’s, I’m not, it’s not gonna happen to me tonight. And those guys in Venezuela, they have no electricity. They have no water. Yeah. They got nothing. They have a chance to go out and make a couple thousand dollars and change their family’s lives. Yeah. Or they’re being, they’re got family members in the gar, in the gangs that are forcing them to do it. Yeah. It’s the war on drugs has kind of been a political war and an optics war from the seventies. I mean, it’s nobody, listen, I always say, I say in my book, nobody loved it more than the cops, the lawyers and the politicians. No shit. In Fort Lauderdale, they had nothing, and all of a sudden the drug wars brought night scopes and cigarette boats and fancy cars and new offices. Yes. And new courthouses, and new jails and Yep. I don’t have an answer. Yeah. The problem is, [00:33:00] you know what I’m gonna say, America, Mexico doesn’t have a drug problem. Columbia doesn’t have a drug problem. No. America has a drug problem. Those are just way stations to get the product in. In the cover of my book, it says, you don’t sell drugs, you supply them like ammunition in a war. It’s a, people, we, how do we fix this? How do we get the American people? Oh, by the way, here’s a perfect example. Marijuana is legal in a majority of states. You don’t see anybody smuggling marijuana in, I actually heard two stories of people that are smuggling marijuana out of the country. I’ve heard that. I’ve heard that. Yeah. They’re growing so much marijuana in America that it’s worth shipping to other places, either legally or illegally. Yeah. And, and, and you know, the biggest problem is like, what they’ll do is they’ll set up dispensaries, with the green marijuana leaf on it, like it’s some health [00:34:00] dispensary. But they, they just won’t it’ll be off the books. It just won’t have the licensing and all that. And, you know, you run that for a while and then maybe you get caught, maybe you don’t. And so it’s, you know, it’s, well, the other thing is with that dispensary license. It’s highly regulated, but you can get a lot of stuff in the gray. So there’s three markets now. There’s the white market, which is the legal Yeah. Business that, you know, you can buy stocks in the companies and whatnot. Yeah. There’s the black market, which is the guy on the street that Kenny Bear used to be. And then there’s the gray market where people are taking black market product and funneling it through the white markets without intact, you know, the taxes and the licensing and the, the, uh, testing for, you know, you have to test marijuana for pesticides. Metals, yeah. And, and the oils and the derivatives. You know, there’s oil and there’s all these derivatives. They have to be tested. Well, you could slide it through the gray market into the white market. So I know it’s a addiction, you know, whether it’s gambling or sex or Right. Or [00:35:00] there’s always gonna be people who are gonna take advantage and make money off of addiction. The mafia, you know, they refined it during the prohibition. All these people that drink, you know, and a lot, admittedly, a lot of ’em are social drinkers, but awful lot of ’em work. They had to have it. And so, you know, then gambling addiction. And that’s, uh, well here’s what I say. If it wasn’t for Prohibition Vegas, the mob never would’ve had the power and the money to build Vegas. No, they wouldn’t have anything. So when you outlaw something that people want, you’re creating a, a business. If, if somebody, somebody said the other day, if you made all the drugs legal in America, would that put out, put the drug cartels in Mexico and Columbia and out of business? Yeah, maybe. How about this statistic? About 20 to 30,000 people a year die from cocaine overdose. Most have a medical condition. Unknown unbe, besides, they’re not ODing on cocaine. Yeah. Alright. 300,000 people a year die from obesity. Yeah. And [00:36:00] another, almost four, I think 700, I don’t know, I might be about to say a half a million die from alcohol and tobacco. Mm-hmm. I could be low on that figure. So you’re, you probably are low. Yeah. I could be way more than that. But on my point is we’re regulating alcohol, tobacco, and certainly don’t care how much food you eat, and why don’t we have a medical system that takes care of these people. I don’t know that the answer if I did, but I’m just saying it, making this stuff more valuable and making bigger crime syndicates doesn’t make sense. Yeah. See a addiction is such a psychological, spiritual. Physical maldy that people can’t really separate the three and they don’t, people that, that aren’t involved and then getting some kind of recovery, they can’t understand why somebody would go back and do it again after they maybe were clean for a while. You know, that’s a big common problem with putting money into the treatment center [00:37:00] business. Yep. Because people do go to treatment two and three times and, and maybe they never get, some people never, they’ll chase it to death. No, and I can’t explain it. And you know, I, I’ll tell you what, I have my own little podcast. It’s called One Step Over the Line. Mm-hmm. And I released a show last night about a friend of mine, his name is Ron Black. You can watch it or any of your listeners can watch it, and Ron was, went down to the depths of addiction, but he did it a long time ago when they really spent a lot of time and energy to get, you know, they really put him through his system. 18 months, Ron got out clean and he came from a good family. He was raised right. He didn’t, you know, he had some trauma in his life. He had some severe trauma as a child, but he built one of the largest addiction. He has a company that he’s, he ran drug counseling services. He’s been in the space 20 or 30 years, giving back. He has a company that trains counselors to be addiction specialists. He has classes for addiction counseling. He become certified [00:38:00] members. He’s run drug rehabs. He donates to the, you know, you gotta wa if you get a chance to go to my podcast, one step over the line and, and watch this episode we did last night. Probably not the most exciting, you know, like my stories. Yeah. But Ronnie really did go through the entire addiction process from losing everything. Yeah. And pulling himself out. But he was also had a lot of family. You know, he had the right steps. A lot of these kids I was in jail with. Black and brown, inter or inner city youth, whatever, you know, their national, you know, race or nationality, they don’t have a chance. Yeah. They’re in jail with their fathers, their cousins, their brothers. Mm-hmm. The law, the war on drugs, and the laws on drugs specifically affect them. And are they, I remember thinking, is this kid safer in this jail with a cement roof over his head? A, a hot three hot meals and a bed than being back on the [00:39:00] streets? Yeah. He was, I mean. Need to, I used to do a program working with, uh, relatives of addicts. And so this mother was really worried about her son gonna go to jail next time he went to court. And he, she had told me enough about him by then. I said, you know, ma’am, I just wanna tell you something he’s safer doing about a year or so in jail than he is doing a year or so on the streets. Yeah. And she said, she just looked at me and she said, you know, you’re right. You’re right. So she quit worried about and trying to get money and trying to help him out because she was just, she was killing him, getting him out and putting him back on the streets. This kid was gonna die one way or the other, either shot or overdosed or whatever. But I’ll tell you another story. My best friend growing up in New Orleans was Frankie Monteleone. They owned the Monte Hotel. They own the family was worth, the ho half a billion dollars at the time, maybe. And Frankie was a, a diabetic. And he was a, a junk. He was a a because of the diabetic needles. [00:40:00] He kind of became a cocaine junkie, you know, shooting up coke. You know, I guess the needle that kept him alive was, you know, I, you know, again the addict mentality. Right, right. You can’t explain it. So he got, so he got busted trying to sell a couple grams. They made it into a bigger case by mentioning more product conspiracy. His father said, got a, the, the father made a deal to give him a year and a half in club Fed. Yeah. He could, you know, get a tan, practice his tennis, learn chess come out and be the heir to one of the richest families in the world, all right. He got a year and a half. Frankie did 10 years in prison. ’cause every time he got out, he got violated. Oh yeah. I remember going to his federal probation officer to get my bicycle. He was riding when he got violated. Mm-hmm. And I said, I said, sir, he was in a big building in Fort Lauderdale or you know, courthouse office building above the courthouse. I go, there’s so many cops, lawyers, [00:41:00] judges, that are doing blow on a Saturday night that are smoking pot, that are drinking more than they should all around us. You’ve got a kid that comes from one of the wealthiest families in America that’s never gonna hurt another citizen. He’s just, he’s an addict, not a criminal. He needs a doctor, not a jail. And you know what the guy said to me? He goes but those people aren’t on probation. I, I know. He did. 10 years in and out of prison. Finally got out, finally got off of paper, didn’t stop doing drugs. Ended up dying in a dentist chair of an overdose. Yeah. So you, you never fixed them, you just imprisoned somebody that would’ve never heard another American. Yeah, but we spent, it cost us a lot of money. You know, I, I, I dunno what the answer is. The war on drugs is, we spent over, we spent 80, let’s say since 1973. The, the DEA got started in 73, let’s say. Since that time we’ve, what’s that? 70 something years? Yeah. We’ve done [00:42:00] no, uh, 50, 60. Yeah. 50 something. Yeah. Been 50. We spent a trillion dollars. We spent a trillion dollars. The longest and most expensive war in American history is against its own people. Yeah. Trying to save ’em. I know it’s cra it’s crazy. Yeah, I know. And it, over the years, it just took on this life of its own. Yeah. And believe me, there was a, there’s a whole lot of young guys like you only, didn’t go down the drug path, but you like that action and you like getting those cool cars and doing that cool stuff and, and there’s TV shows about it as part of the culture. And so you’re like, you got this part of this big action thing that’s going on that I, you know, it ain’t right. I, I bigger than all of us. I don’t know. I know. All I like to say I had long hair and some New Orleans old man said to me when I was a kid, he goes, you know why you got that long hair boy? And this is 1969. Yeah, 70. I go, why is that [00:43:00] sir? He goes, ’cause the girls like it. The girls didn’t like it. You wouldn’t have it. I thought about it. I’m trying to be a hippie. I was all this, you know, rebel. I thought about it. I go, boy, he’s probably right. Comes down to sex. Especially a young boy. Well, I mean, I’m 15 years old. I may not even how you look. Yeah. I’m not, listen, at 15, I probably was only getting a second base on a whim, you know? Yeah. But, but they paid attention to you. Yeah. Back in those days you, you know, second base was a lot. Yeah. Really. I remember. Sure. Not as, not as advanced as they are today. I don’t think so. But anyway, that’s my story. Um, all right, Ken b this has been fun. It’s been great. I I really had a lot of fun talking to you. And the book is 1, 1, 1 took over the line. No one, no, no. That’s a Friday slip. One step over that. But that was what I came up with the name. I, I believe you, I heard that song. Yeah. I go, I know, I’m, I’ve just taken one step over the line. So that’s where the book actually one step over the line confessions of a marijuana mercenary. [00:44:00] And I’ll tell you, if your listeners go to my website, one step over the line.com, go to the tile that says MP three or the tile that says digital on that website. Put in the code one, the number one step, and then the number 100. So one step 100, they can get a free, they can download a free copy. Yeah, I got you. Okay. Okay. I appreciate it. That’d be good. Yeah, they’ll enjoy it. Yeah. And on the website there’s pictures of the boats, the planes. Yeah. The runways the weed the, all the pictures are there, family pictures, whatever. Well, you had a, uh, a magical, quite a life, the kinda life that they, people make movies about and everybody watches them and says, oh, wow, that’s really cool. But they didn’t have to do it. They didn’t have to pay that price. No. Most of the people think, the funny thing is a lot of people think I’m, I’m, I’m lying or I’m exaggerating. Yeah. I’m 68 years old. Yeah. There’s no reason for me to lie. And you know, the DEA is, I’m telling that. I’m just telling it the way it [00:45:00] happened. I have no reason to tell Phish stories at this point in my life. No, I believe it. No, no, no. It’s all true. All I’ve been, I’ve been around to a little bit. I, I could just talk to you and know that you’re telling the truth here I am. So, it’s, it’s a great story and Ken, I really appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you for having me. It’s been a very much a, it is been a real pleasure. It’s, it’s nice to talk to someone that knows both sides of the coin. Okay. Take care. Uh, thanks again. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

In this episode of Gangland Wire, Mafia Genealogist Justin Cascio joins Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins to explore one of the most remarkable—and overlooked—figures of the Prohibition era: Pasqualina Albano Siniscalchi, the so-called Bootleg Queen of Springfield, Massachusetts. At the dawn of Prohibition in 1921, Pasqualina was a young widow living in Springfield's South End when she inherited her late husband's powerful bootlegging operation—one of the largest in western Massachusetts. Rather than step aside, she took control. Pasqualina ruled a crew of toughs and bootleggers, oversaw liquor distribution, and launched a relentless campaign of vengeance against rivals who challenged her authority. Newspapers dubbed her The Bootleg Queen, but her fight went far beyond rival gangs. She clashed with lawmakers, battled competing bootleggers, and even faced resistance from within her own family—all while operating in service of a secret society that would never fully accept her because she was a woman. Her story exposes the contradictions of organized crime: loyalty demanded without equality, power wielded without recognition. Cascio draws from years of meticulous research and family histories to bring Pasqualina's story to life, revealing her pivotal role in early Mafia expansion in New England and the hidden influence women could wield behind the scenes. His book, Pasqualina: The True Story of the Bootleg Queen of Springfield, challenges long-held assumptions about gender, power, and the Mafia during Prohibition. If you're interested in Prohibition-era crime, New England Mafia history, or the untold stories of women who shaped organized crime from the shadows, this episode is one you won't want to miss. Learn more about Justin and his work on Mafia Geneology by clicking this sentence. Get Justin’s book, Pasqualina: The Bootleg Queen of Springfield, Massachusetts Listen now on Gangland Wire — available on all major podcast platforms and YouTube. 0:02 Introduction to Mafia Genealogy 1:16 Pasqualina Albano’s Story 2:30 Family Reunion Revelations 4:56 The Impact of Prohibition 7:45 Prejudice and Organized Crime 10:50 Connecting the Genovese Family 12:34 Views from Sicily 13:50 Cultural Differences in Dress 16:37 Encounters with Modern Gangsters 18:36 Gina’s Documentary and Art 23:53 The Romance of the Gangster 27:24 The Nature of Risk 28:46 The Evolution of Organized Crime 33:16 Closing Thoughts and Future Plans Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. Transcript [0:00] Hey, all you wiretappers. Good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. I’ve got on tap here a repeat guest. He’s been on before. I had a little technical glitch this morning with the internet, and I had to scurry around and do something different. I totally forgot about what I was going to talk about with Justin, but I knew Justin’s been on there before. I knew he does mafia genealogy, and I knew he knows his stuff, and so he doesn’t really need a lot of help from me. So this is Justin Cascio from the website and some books, some mafia genealogies. Welcome, Justin. Thanks so much, Gary. Great to be here. Really. And you’re from the Springfield, Massachusetts area. And so that’s been some of your emphasis has been on that area. But you’ve done a lot of other mob genealogy, correct? Yes. On my website, on mafiagenealogy.com, I write about a whole lot of different places that the mafia has been in the United States. In fact, coming up, I’m going to be writing about Kansas City. But for the last 25 years or so, I’ve lived in New England. I live about 20 miles away from Springfield, Massachusetts, which if you’ve heard of Anthony Aralata or Bruno or the Shabelli brothers, then you know the Springfield crew of the Genovese crime family. [1:12] And I’ve been following them pretty closely since I’ve lived here. A few years ago, I got into the story of Pasqualina Albano, who was a bootlegger in Springfield during Prohibition. [1:25] That’s what my new book is about. Yeah. Oh, that’s a new book, right? I’m sorry. I didn’t pick up real quick there. And she’s done a documentary recently that hasn’t been seen by very many people. And they really, she was a woman. They do use the A at the end. Those of us that know about romance languages would know as probably a woman, but she’s a woman. And she was running a certain segment of bootlegging back during the 30s and late 20s, exactly when it was, which is really unusual. She must have been a powerful individual. I think that she was a very remarkable person, so I couldn’t find out enough about her. I really needed to understand how it was possible that somebody who the Mafia would never have accepted as a member allowed her to lead this crew for so long, even into the years when it was associated with Vito Genovese and that crime family. Yeah. Don’t you imagine it was, she must have been making money for them. [2:24] She was making money for her family, for sure. Got a few people probably pretty comfortable, yeah. [2:30] So that family, you went to a family reunion recently and learned quite a little bit. You want to tell your experiences about that? Yes. So, Pasqualea Albano, that bootlegger, has a nephew who is now 101 years old. His name is Mario Fiore. And when he turned 100, I was invited to his birthday party. And it was an enormous scene. It was tremendous. In fact, it’s a cliche, but the opening scene of The Godfather, if you imagine that wedding scene, it’s what it looks like. There’s a guy singing live on a PA system. There’s a pizza oven parked over here. There’s kids in the pool. There’s so many people, so much food, and this great big lawn and incredible view. Just an amazing scene to be at. And I met so many different people who were in Mario’s family. I met people who came over from Italy to come celebrate his birthday and talked with them as much as I could. I have no Italian, by the way. So we did the best we could. But I also talked to her American relative. She has all these grand nieces and nephews, and nieces and nephews who are still living, who were at this party and told me stories and drew little family trees for me. And what I was able to get a real good sense of is how the family feels about this legacy. Because not just Pasqualina, who was in organized crime, so many of her relatives were involved as well and continued to be up until the 80s, at least. [4:00] So the name, was it Albano? Was it got on in the modern times? The last name, was it still Albano? Was there another name? There are a few. Let’s see. I want some more modern names. There’s Mario Fiore. So he is one of her nephews. And then there’s Rex Cunningham Jr., who is one of her grandnephews. There’s the Sentinellos. So Jimmy Sentinello, who owns the Mardi Gras, or he did anyway. It’s a nude club, you know, a gentleman’s club, as they say. A gentleman’s club. We use that term loosely. Oh, boy, do we? Another old term that I picked up from the newspapers that I just love and like to bring back is sporting figure. Yeah, even sporting man. They don’t play sports. They’re not athletes. They’re sporting figures. I know. I heard that when I was a kid. Somebody was a sporting man. Yep. [4:57] This has been a family tradition. It’s something that has been passed down through the generations, and it’s something that I talk about in the book. But mostly what I’m focused on in the plot of the story is about Pasqualea’s time during Prohibition when this gang was turning into something bigger, turning into a part of this American mafia. Yeah. Interesting. And so tell us a little bit about how that developed. You had a Genovese family that moved in and she got hooked up with them. How did that develop? Yeah. More end of modern times. Early on, so 1920, beginning of Prohibition, Pasqualea Albana was newly married to this sporting figure, we’ll call him, Carlo Sinascocci. And I’m probably pronouncing that last name as wrong as well. He also came from a family of notable people who were involved in organized crime, getting into scrapes in Little Italy, New York City. There’s a whole separate side story about his cousins and all the things that they were getting into before Carlo even got on the scene. So by the time he arrived in New York City, he had a bit of a reputation preceding him because of these relatives of his. [6:06] And Pascalina was a young woman in Springfield. And the first question I even had writing about her is, how did she meet this guy? He was a Brooklyn saloon keeper. She was the daughter of a grocer in Springfield, three and a half hours away on the train. Like, why do they even know each other? And so trying to piece all that together, how that was reasonable for them to know one another and move in the same circles, and then for him to immediately, when he moved to Springfield, start picking up with vice because it was before Prohibition. So he was involved in gambling and police violence. And you could see some of the beginnings of the corruption already happening where he’s getting police protection before prohibition even begins. And then once it starts, he is the king of Water Street, which was the main drag of Little Italy. He was the guy you went to if you wanted to buy wholesale. [6:57] Justin, I have a question here. I was just discussing this with who’s half Italian, I guess, FBI agent that worked the mob here in Kansas City. We were talking about this, the prejudice that Italian people felt when they first got here, especially. And Bill’s about 90, and so he said his father told him. His father worked at a bank in New York, and he was told that with that last name, he had a different last name than Bill does. And with that last name, he said, you’re owning and go so high in the bank. And so talk a little bit about the prejudice that those early people felt. And that’s what drove people into the dark side, if you will, to make money. You had these bright guys that came over from Sicily looking for opportunity. And then us English and Irish Germans kept them out. [7:45] And so can you talk about that a little bit? Did they talk about any of that or have you looked into any of that? [7:52] I have. And it’s a theme that comes up again and again. Whenever I look at organized crime in any city, I’m seeing things like that ethnic succession of organized crime that you’re alluding to, how the Irish were controlling, say, the machine in Kansas City Hall or what have you. And they had that same kind of control over politics in other cities, too. And the way that they were getting a leg up and finally getting that first protection of their rackets was from outside of their ethnicity. It was Irish politicians protecting Italian criminals. And then eventually the Italians were getting naturalized where they were born here. And so then they move into politics themselves. [8:31] And that is one of the theories about how organized crime develops in American cities. It’s because you’re poor and ethnic and you’re closed out of other opportunities. And so the bright kids get channeled into organized crime where maybe in a better situation, they would have gone to college. Right. And then Prohibition came along, and there was such a huge amount of money that you can make in Prohibition. And it was illegal. That’s why you made money. But there was opportunity there for these young guys. Yes. And you really start to see a lot of new names in the papers after Prohibition begins. You have your established vice criminals who you’re already seeing in the newspapers through the 19-teens. Once Prohibition begins, now they have all these other guys getting into the game because there’s so much money there. And it’s such a big pie. Everybody feels like they can get a slice. [9:21] Yeah, interesting. Carry on. I’ve distracted you, Azai, but you were talking about Pasqualina and her husband. Of course, I’m not even going to try that. When you talk about discrimination against Italians, one of the things that makes my job really hard is trying to find news about a guy with a name like Carlos Siniscalchi. First of all, I’m probably saying it wrong. I think the Italian pronunciation is… So I’m getting all of the consonant clusters wrong, but I do it with my own name too. We’ve Americanized Cassio. That’s not the right name. How do you pronounce it? It’s Cassio. But we’re Cassio. That’s my grandfather said it. So how do I find Carlos Nescalci in the newspaper when every reporter mangles that name? And spells it differently. Yeah. Everybody spells it differently. How am I going to guess how all these different English speaking reporters were going to mess up Carlos’ name? And so I find it every which way. And sometimes I’ve just had to plain stumble over news about him and his relatives. It just happens by chance. I’m looking for general crime, and then I find him specifically. So yeah, it’s a little hard to find the Italians sometimes because their names are unfamiliar and they get written wrong in censuses and in the news. So we lose a little bit of their history that way. And that’s what you might call, I don’t know, a microaggression because they can’t get that name. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, yeah. You don’t care enough to spell it. I just, I know the thought process, I have to admit. I’ll just spell it anyway. I understand that thought process. [10:51] So you were asking earlier, I don’t know if you want me to continue this, but how the Genovese family were able to get involved in this thing going on in Springfield. Yeah, connected. Because of her second husband. Okay. Pascalina lost her first husband in 1921. He was killed by a fellow bootlegger. He takes over the gang. She conducts a war of vengeance against the guy who kills her husband and his whole family because they’re gangsters. And that takes years. She’s also pursuing her through the courts. And when that all finally gets settled a few years later, she has a quiet little second marriage to a guy that nobody had ever heard of called Antonio Miranda. [11:28] Now, Antonio Miranda is a small time gangster from Little Italy, New York City, and his brother is Mike Miranda, who is very close to Vito Genovese, and he became this conciliator eventually. So that old connections, going back to the days before the Castello-Moraisi War, when it was Lucky Luciano bootlegging with some of his pals, that’s the time frame in which she formed this alliance by marrying Tony Miranda. And that’s when it starts. That’s the relationship’s beginning between Genovese crime family having, before it was even the Genovese crime family, when it was the Luciano family. And so they’ve had that relationship with the Springfield crew ever since. A little bit like old world feudalism in a way, where one member of a royal family marries a member of another royal family. And I know in Kansas City, we’ve got our underboss, his sister, is married to our boss’s nephew. So, bring those two families together, the Lunas and the Savellas together, yes, very well, like noble families. Exactly. Interesting. Absolutely. [12:31] So that’s how they got together. I remembered that, but I’d forgotten it. So, you went to this reunion with people from Sicily there. So, tell us a little bit about that. How? [12:43] How do people in Sicily view the people in the United States? And they didn’t talk about the mafia. I’m sure there’s no doubt that they’re not going to really talk about that unless you got to find somebody that’s really lucky. But kind of care about the sociological impact and the old world and the new world, and the new world people that, you know, established here. Okay, so Pasqualea and his family are from outside of Naples, and they maintain really close ties to their family back in Italy. Like I am the third generation born in America. I don’t speak Italian. Neither does my father. Neither of us has ever been to Italy. We don’t have, we’re not Italians. We’re Americans. Okay. And the Italians will remind you of that if you forget. We’re not Italian. And like spaghetti and meatballs, not Italian. Chicken Parmesan, not Italian. These are things that we invented here out of a sense of, out of homesickness and a sudden influx of middle-class wealth. We were like, let’s have the spaghetti and the meatballs. I had separate courses anymore where the meatballs are, where they’re both a special treat and I’m going to take two treats with chicken and waffles. [13:50] So being around them, they’re formal. You know, I was meeting like Pasquena’s relatives from Mercado San Sivarino, where they’re from in Italy, they own a funeral home. They own the biggest funeral home business in the town, and they also own some other sort of associated businesses, like a florist and things like that. So I would expect a certain sort of decorum and conservatism of tone from somebody who works in the funeral business and from Italy. But they were also among the only people there in suits, because it was a summer day, we’re outside. Most of us were dressed a little less formally. Yeah. Old school, 1950s stuff. He does those old 1950s photographs, and everybody, every man’s wearing a suit. And there were women’s hat on. Also, that ongoing thing where people in Europe just dress better. Yeah, they dress more formal. I see a little bit in New York City. I noticed it when I moved up from the South. In the South, you go to a funeral and flip-flops, okay? It’s very casual because the weather absolutely demands it. I moved that back up North, and I’m like, wow, everybody’s just wearing the same black coat, aren’t we? And you go into New York. People are dressed a little better, even. You go to Europe, and it’s just another level is what I hear. People, they dress better. They’re not like us where we would roll out of bed and put on pajama pants and some crocs and go to the grocery store. They would never do something. Yes. [15:10] I was in a restaurant several years ago, and there’s a guy sitting at a table, and another young guy comes in. And the guy at the table says, dude, you wore your pajama bottoms in the restaurant. [15:22] People need to be sold. And I’ll have to admit, at the time, I hadn’t seen that before. And since then, I see it all the time now. I live in a college town. I see it a lot. Yeah. So i’ll carry on a little more about that reunion there uh okay so how to describe this so much of it was very surreal to me just being in this place like very fancy house the longest driveway i’ve ever seen like more than a mile i finally like when i parked my car because the track you know you can the parked cars are starting i parked and i get out of the car. And I’ve got this big present with me that I’m going to give to Mario. It’s unwieldy. And I’m like, oh man, this is going to be quite a schlep. And I’m wearing my good shoes and everything. And these two young fellas come up on a golf cart and bring me a ride. So I get in the golf cart and we get up to the house and my friend Gina was trying to point people out to me. Oh, he’s somebody that was in my documentary and you got to talk to this guy. And there was a lot of that. you’ve got to talk to this guy and you’ve got to talk to this woman and dragging me around to meet people. And one of the groups of people that I was, that I found myself standing in, [16:35] I’m talking to gangsters this time. Okay. This is not cousins who won a funeral home. These are gangsters. And I’m standing with them and they’re having the absolute filthiest conversation that I’ve heard since high school. [16:48] And, but the difference is boys in high school are just talking. These guys have done all the things they’re talking about. Wow. What a life is. The lives you would have led. Bye. I’m just trying to keep it. Are these American gangsters or are these? Americans. Okay, yeah. Current gangsters, they’re in the Springfield area with Anthony Arilada there. They’ve all hated him, probably. I’m sorry? I said Anthony Arilada when he’s there, and they all hated him. You probably didn’t bring his name up. Yeah, really. There are different factions in Springfield, it feels like to me, still. bill. And I haven’t got them all sorted. There are people who are still very loyal to the old regime and they have their figure, their person that they follow. And sometimes they can live with the rest of them and sometimes the rest of them are a bunch of lowlives and they want everybody to know about it. Yeah. [17:45] I’ve heard that conversation before. Interesting. Now, whose house was this? Somebody made it well in America. Yes. And I think it was one of his nephews. I don’t know exactly whose house it was. I was invited by Gina’s brother. He texted me and invited me to the party. And people just accepted me right in. The close family members who have seen Gina’s documentary, who have heard her talk about Pastelina and the research and meeting me, they think of me as the family a genealogist. And so I have a title in the family and belong there. Oh yeah, it’s here to document us. As you do, because we’re an important family. And so they didn’t really question my presence there at all. And you were able to ask questions from that standpoint too. That’s what was nice. Yeah. [18:37] And a lot of times it was just standing still and listening because there was so much going on, That was enough. Interesting. Now, her documentary, you’ve seen it, so tell us a little bit about it. Folks, it’s not out there streaming yet. She’s trying to get something going, I would assume. [18:58] Explain her just a little bit, too, in her book. Talk about her and her book and her documentary. Yeah. Okay. Gina’s a part of this big family that has got some wealth still and goes back to bootleggers in Prohibition and has gangsters in it, including her brother, Rex Cunningham Jr. So Cunningham is the name you don’t expect to hear in the mafia. Yeah, yeah. Done by Marietta Beckerwood. I don’t know if he was a member or associate, but at any rate, he was a known figure around here. Sportsbook and that kind of thing. Sportsbook, yeah. Yeah. She grew up with a little bit of wealth and privilege, but also feeling a little bit outsider because her family was half Irish. So among the Italians, it was a, you go to the wrong church, you go to the wrong school kind of vibe. And she grew up into more of a countercultural person. Her family is very conservative politically, religiously. I don’t know if you would expect that of a gangster family, but that’s what I’ve noticed is pretty common, actually. No, it’s pretty, that’s the way it is here. Yeah, real conservative, yeah. Yeah. You have to be socially for the whole thing to work. I can get into that, but And they keep going to the same church and school and everything, and you maintain these close ties with the neighborhood and local businesses and so forth. But she really was like, I’m going my own way. And so she became this free spirit as a young woman. And Gina’s, I don’t know how old she is. I want to say in her late 60s, around 70, about there. [20:23] That’s Gina Albano Cunningham. Cunningham. Oh, Gina. Okay, Gina Cunningham. See, I’m getting mixed up with the names. And Cunningham was… Ask Elena Albanos. Her sister married and became a Fiore. Okay. All right. That’s a little bit confusing. People have to go to your website to get this straightened out. Or maybe you have this, a picture, an image of this family tree on your website. In the book, you can find multiple family trees because I’m working with all these different branches. I’ll take a look if I can’t put an image in here for everybody to get this straight. But the modern woman that did the book and the movie, she’s in her 70s now. [21:04] Yeah. Yeah, and she’s a grandniece of Pasqualina, and her brother and her cousins were in organized crime in this room. Okay, all right, all right. Go ahead, go ahead. She’s absolutely immersed in this life, but she did not want any part of it, and so she left. And there are other people in her family that you can point to that did the same thing, like some of Pasqualina’s children just did not want to have anything to do with the family. Well, they left. They went and moved to another state. They stayed in another place. They didn’t come back. And she did the same thing, but she’s not cut ties. She keeps coming back and she has good relationships with her family members, even though she’s not aligned with them politically and so forth. [21:42] And she’s an artist. I’ve seen her work on a couple of different mediums. I don’t want to really try and explain what her art is, but she’s a feminist artist. And she’s also really been pointing the camera at her family quite a bit. And it seems like film might be a newer medium for her. She’s used to do more painting and sculpture and stuff kind of thing. How’d the family take that? A lot of these people, I’ve talked to some relatives here, and one of them come on to talk to me, but I said, your Uncle Vince, he said, yeah, I know. But then he never would get back to me all of a sudden. So a lot of pressure to not say anything about it. Oh, yeah. Sometimes I will get started talking to somebody and then it’ll reach a certain point where they’re like oh no we can’t don’t be recording this don’t put my yeah anything so yeah news to that but gina was like no this is going to be part of my, political art. I’m going to point the camera at my family. I’m going to expose, some of the hypocrisy that I see there, the things I disagree with. [22:41] It’s a short documentary, and I find it very powerful because it’s a family video. One of the first people she’s aiming the camera at is, I think, one of her nieces. Talking to this young woman who is leaning on her car, maybe in her late teens, early 20s, and this young woman is saying, oh, yeah, I would marry a gangster if I had the chance. And I’m just like, do you not know your family? Do you not know the heart? And later on in the video, you get to hear some of the really just like gut wrenching stories of what pain people in her family have brought upon themselves through their involvement in organized crime and all the things that it entails. And this young woman is, I don’t know, she’s acting because she doesn’t even know this other uncle or this other cousin that she’s got that can tell her these stories. Or is it, I don’t know, it doesn’t matter or something. And that to me was shocking. That’s the kind of thing that needs, that’s somebody who needs their mind changed. And I was like, I hope she watches this video she’s in and changes her mind about how she feels about that life and wanting to be a part of it. But that’s what mafia culture creates more of, is people who want to be a part of that. [23:53] There’s a certain romance to it that started out with Robin Hood, if you will. You get a romance of the gangster, the criminal that maybe is good to some people, good to support people, good to their family. And it continues on to this day to John Gotti. He’s the most recent iteration of Robin Hood and Jesse James here in the Midwest. People love Jesse James. When I grew up, everybody, every family had a story about how a couple of guys came by their house back in the 1800s and they gave them a place to stay and a meal. And they left them like a $20 gold piece, which was like $500 or something. And they said, it was Jesse James. I know it was. It’s the romance of the gangster continues. Yes. We all would love to imagine that we’re on the gangster side and that the gangster agrees. Yeah. As long as we don’t have to go to jail or pay that price. Because to me, I’ve got a friend today that he spent about 12 years and he would give all that gangster life back to get that 12 years back for these kids growing up. He’s turned over a new life today. I had lunch with him and his son not too long ago. And it’s just his son has told him, he said, every time I had to walk away from you in the penitentiary and come back home after our visit, he said, I was just crushed. It’s a huge price to pay for that. But there’s still that romance continues. [25:13] That terrible price, I think, is part of what feeds the romance. If there was no risk, there wouldn’t be that allure. Yeah, that’s true. You met that risk and overcame it and went on, came out on top. It’s what they always like to claim that came out on top of it. So I understand that thought process. I take a lot of risk in my life just from the other side. I said, live to fight another day. Yeah, there really are different kinds of risks that you can take. I was writing about a contract killer in Texas, and one of his targets was a guy who was a grain dealer. And I was like, that’s a really weird target for murder, right? Like, why would you kill a grain dealer from rural Texas? And it was because his old partner had an insurance policy out on him and decided to cash in on it. That was Charles Harrison, wasn’t it? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Sad story. Charles Harrison. Yeah. It was like, these were two guys that took very different kinds of risks, right? You got Charles Harrelson, who kills people for money. That’s a certain kind of risk you’re definitely taking. And then there’s the guy who buys grain and then sells it. So he’s taking these risks for his community of farmers. [26:27] And I was like, that’s really wholesome. And that’s, I don’t know, I feel like it’s a really positive example of masculinity. That’s the kind of risk we’re supposed to take for the safety and well-being of our neighbors? Yeah. Even the farmers, they risk everything every year. Smaller farmer, I grew up in those families and a smaller farmer practically risk everything every year, being in on the weather. That’s why I didn’t stay on the farm. And the markets, you don’t know what the markets are going to do. It’s a gamble every year. That Charles Harrelson, that’s Woody Harrelson’s dad who killed the Judds, famous murder down in El Paso. And he had a business. He carried a card that said he was a hitman. It was his story. [27:10] Bold. He was a crazy bold dude. I did a whole three-part series on that whole Jimmy Chagra marijuana business [27:20] down there on the border. and his connection to it and the killing of Judge Wood. So it’s just a business in these guys. Hey, it’s not personal. It’s just business. Yikes. It’s crazy. But Justin, you got anything else you want to tell us about? Anything you’re working on? And remind guys your website and what you can find there. He has some really interesting stuff about the old early days in Chicago. I know that. I referred to some of that several years ago when I was doing something on Chicago. So give guys a little walk through on your website. It’s really interesting. Okay, so John Gotti is one name I don’t think you’re ever going to find on my website. Yeah, good. [27:59] I’m really addicted to origin stories. I like to find out how the Mafia was already present before that point when we say it started. Yeah, in the 20s. But gangsters don’t come out of nowhere. Gangs don’t come out of nowhere. They evolve. They grow. There are forces to create them. And so that’s what I’m interested in. I like to go around. And I spent a lot of my early career writing about one place and its effect on the United States, Corleone, where my family’s from in Sicily. And that was my first book, In Our Blood. And some of my first posts on mafia genealogy are in that thread. They’re about my family and the Corleonesi. But then I started to get into other [28:42] places and wanting to know about their stories and getting into other parts of Italy as well. So if you go to my website, you’re going to find stories like Charles Harrelson and the two guys that he killed before the judge, or in Chicago about the different little Italys that existed before Capone consolidated everything, or Kansas City I’m writing about, Nick Fatsuno and the Passantino brothers. I don’t even know if you know those guys, but I thought their further stories were amazing. [29:09] Passantino had a funeral home today, but the other names I don’t really know back then. I don’t know much about that or those early days. Did they seem to come from the same little town, the same general area? They didn’t, actually. A lot of them were Sicilian, and they come from Palermo province, but not all from the same town. Not from okay. Yeah. Yeah, I wasn’t able to put—there’s not a strong current there in Kansas City like I’ve found in other places where everybody is from one town. Yeah. [29:37] But not so much in Kansas City. A little more varied. Interesting. So that’s what you’ll find on my website. And then Pasqualina is my second book, and you can buy both of my books at Amazon. Got them behind me here, Airblood, Pasqualina. And Pasqualina is about that prohibition era, and if you like to understand where big-nosed Sam Koufari got his start, it’s in there. And the Shabelli brothers show up. It’s about those origins. I was talking to a friend of mine about this name, Skeeball or Skeebelly. Yes. Who had some relationship back in Springfield, and he just really knew Skeeball when he was young. [30:17] Yep, because it was the spelling of his name. I’m not even sure how they pronounced it. I think it’s Skeebelly. Skeebelly. That probably was. Yeah, Skeebelly. I know somebody named Skeebelly, so probably was. That’s like the name of the body shop here in Kansas City, and it’s P-A-C-E. But really it’s Pache. We’ve got to do it right. And that’s probably short for Pache. I don’t know. I wonder if the family pronounces it Pache or Pace. I think business-wise, but then the person who was talking was close to the family and they said, oh no, it’s Pache. So I thought, okay. [30:53] Interesting. The immigrant experience in this country is really always interesting. There’s always conflict and the interest is in the conflict. And as people try to make their way, and stopping with, oh God, it was an author, T.J. did the Westies. You guys know T.J. that did the Westies. And he said, yeah, he said, and he really was articulate about, as we’ve discussed this, that people come here want an opportunity, because they didn’t have any opportunity in the old country, whether it be Naples or southern Italy or Sicily. They came here, they really just wanted opportunity. And then the opportunity, you have to start fighting for opportunity. That’s the nature of the beast in this country. In any kind, any society, you’ve got to fight for opportunity when you’re an outsider and you come in. And so that was the early development. These people just wanting a little slice of this American pie that they’d heard so much about. The streets are paved with gold over here, but found out you’ve got to dig that old man. [31:52] Some people probably came over here thinking they were going to make an honest living and found themselves, by one step and another, involved in organized crime. And then there were other men who came here from Italy for whom the opportunity was to be a criminal here. Richer pickings. Yeah. And they started restaurants and had your typical immigrant, all the immigrant restaurants, all these Chinese, whatever kind of ethnic food is, they start out with an immigrant who then puts his kids and his cousins and his nephews and sisters and grandmas in the back room kitchen, start those restaurants. And people, us people that are already here like that food and they run them, they do a really good job at it. And so that’s a way to get started in grocery stores for their other fellow paisans. And those were the ways that they made it here, at least now, probably the same way in every city where there’s a large Italian population. Got to feed the other Italians. And so an Italian restaurant is natural. Yeah. And also owning your own business is just really smart for a lot of people. If you’re an organized crime, it’s a great way to hide what you’re doing. [32:59] And if you’re trying to get a naturalization status, especially now, being a business owner is really advantageous. Yeah, I bet. I was talking about that on getting a naturalization process that showed that you’re an entrepreneur and you believe in the system and you’re doing well. Yeah, interesting. [33:17] All right, Justin Cascio, and the website is Mafia Genealogy. He’s got a couple books on there in this documentary. I don’t know. Keep us up on that. Maybe if it comes out, I’ll make sure to get it out on something where people know that they can go out and see it. It sounds really interesting. Thanks, YOL. All right. Thanks, Justin. I’ll do that no more. Thank you, Justin. It’s really a pleasure to talk to you again. Always a pleasure being on your show. Thank you. Great. [33:44] Justin, see, I was going to ask you about something. What? Are you going through a publisher? You got a publisher? No, I’m self-published. You’re self-published? Okay. Yeah. See, I self-published several books, and I’m doing probably my last ones, a story of my life, kind of more of a memoir, my struggles and my moral dilemmas and all that during when I worked intelligence. And then I’ll explain all about the big civil mob war we had here during those years. And I don’t know. I started poking around. I thought, well, maybe I’ll try to get a regular publisher. But boy, it’s hard. You’ve got to get an agent. You can’t get attention of an agent because there’s hundreds and thousands of people out there writing books wanting to do all this. So thank God for Amazon. Yeah. I think if you already have your audience. Yeah. And you know who they are and you’re already talking to them. You don’t need to pay somebody else to do that for you. Yeah. Yeah. I’m paying an editor to go over to… That’s different. That’s no other strengths. But to get it sold out there. Out here making videos every day. The good thing about getting a publisher is you can get, and then you got a chance of getting it into Barnes & Noble and into libraries. [34:59] See, libraries. You might into libraries anyway. How’d you do that? How’d you figure that out? The local library has an interest in the book, so they bought it. Yeah, they did. But I’m talking about other libraries. Yeah, they can all buy the book the same way. Yeah, but how do they find the library buy books? [35:18] I think buy them from the publishers normally. And if your book is self-published and they want to carry that book, because, for instance, about local history, then they’ll buy it. Yeah. I’m thinking about how do they get it out in other New York or Chicago or some other city that will be looking for nonfiction books. Publishers. You have to do every step yourself instead of being massive. Yeah. And then like Barnes & Noble and places like that to get it in, that’s hard too. You can do that locally. Those places carry my books on the website. Who does? They’re buying it from Amazon. Oh, okay. Interesting. Oh, really? Yeah. Because that’s the only place you can get it. I think I sell a couple of my, I’ve seen some people from, I think it’s through at Brafta Digital, I think’s the name of it. That’s another thing that this thing went up on that Barnes & Noble did sell a few copies of it. As a matter of fact, now that you mention it. [36:21] But it’s interesting. It’s fun. How are you ever going to get a screenplay sold if you don’t get their attention? [36:30] That’s why most people I talk to, they’re trying to figure out how to get a movie made from their book. Gangsters ask me that question. They’re like, you figure I know the answer to how to get a movie made from YouTube? and I do not have that answer. Nobody knows that. It’s hard work. Yeah, I tell them nobody knows that, the answer. It’s God. A divine being that strikes you, whether it be the Apollo or the God of Abraham, or Jesus or some higher power reaches out and touches you and says, okay, I bless you, and now you’re going to have a movie made and Robert De Niro is going to play your part. Although anymore, they don’t want De Niro to play him because they hate him now, and they want somebody else. Oh, my God. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you, Justin. Likewise, Gary. Thanks so much. If I can do anything for you here in Kansas City, and as you’re going through your thing, if you’ve got any question or anything, I’ve got that one friend, that FBI agent, that he could maybe help you with if you’re looking for a connection or something. He knows quite a little bit. And somebody else was just talking about that, looking into that, those early days. But if you do have any questions or anything that you’re stumbled about here in Kansas City, be sure and give me a call, and I’ll see if I can’t steer you to somebody. I don’t know myself. I don’t really ever look at it. Okay. Okay. Stay safe. Thank you. You too.

In this episode, we welcome Vincent Piazza. Vincent stars in “Tulsa King,” and is also known for his lead role as Lucky Luciano in “Boardwalk Empire.” In our chat, we hear about his NYC roots, education, career path, and approach to his character in “Tulsa King.” In addition, Vincent offers insights and recommendations for actors and emerging filmmakers today.“The Making Of” is presented by AJA:UDC-4K: More than just an average 12G-SDI and HDMI up/down/cross converterAJA's newest Mini-Converter boasts powerful 12G-SDI and HDMI 2.0 I/O, 4K/UltraHD/2K/HD scaling, frame sync, frame rate conversion, and more. Unlocking an expansive range of conversion possibilities, UDC-4K enables teams to get disparate sources into a common format and timing reference. Explore how UDC-4K solves some of the most common production and post challenges.Shoot. Store. Secure. Smile.The OWC Guardian is a bus‑powered, portable NVMe SSD featuring 256‑bit AES OPAL hardware encryption and a color touch‑screen for intuitive, secure access. With up to 1,000 MB/s real‑world transfer speeds, platform‑agnostic operation (Mac, PC, iPad Pro), and a rugged anodized aluminum enclosure, it's built to protect audit‑sensitive media and projects anytime, anywhere. Learn more hereZEISS Events at CamerimageImmersive Action Cinematography with Movement Specialist Daniel IlabacaTuesday, November 1814:30 - 16:00Venue: CKK Jordanki – Seminar Room and Camerimage Online PlatformFormer stuntman and Parkour performer turned filmmaker Daniel Ilabaca has been researching immersive filming for a while. Now with smaller camera bodies and compact full format lenses such as the ZEISS Nano Primes, it's becoming possible to literally wear the camera without compromising the quality of the footage. Be a fly on the wall as Daniel turns the seminar room into a production office: from screenwriting to shot-listing, location scouting, and camera rigging, he'll take us on a gliding tour of his creative process, as he goes through the preproduction of his upcoming passion project. Learn more hereMeet Stream Deck Studio:Meet Stream Deck Studio, the ultimate control surface designed for professional broadcast and live production environments. Built on the iconic Elgato hardware and powered by Bitfocus software, it offers a hyper-customizable experience that simplifies even the most complex workflows. With compatibility across hundreds of devices from the industry's top vendors, Stream Deck Studio gives you complete command over your production setup, making it easier than ever to create seamless, high-quality broadcasts. Call Videoguys at 800-323-2325 to learn more and take your production control to the next level today! Explore herePodcast Rewind:Nov. 2025 - Ep. 103…Advertise in “The Making Of” and reach 250K film & TV industry pros each week. For more information, email mvalinsky@me.com Get full access to The Making Of at themakingof.substack.com/subscribe

¡Vótame en los Premios iVoox 2025! Pocas palabras italianas son tan comunes en prácticamente todos los idiomas como mafia. Una mafia es cualquier organización criminal, pero su origen es siciliano. La palabra en sí proviene del árabe, pero no adquiriría pleno significado hasta mucho después, cuando la isla fue invadida por los normandos para pasar luego a ser controlada por los reyes de Aragón. Con la llegada de los normandos se impuso un sistema de latifundios que despojó a muchos campesinos de sus tierras. Eso les empujó a a refugiarse en las montañas. Estos refugios se convirtieron en nidos de bandoleros que asaltaban caminos. Los bandidos, conocidos como “mafiosi”, se ganaron respeto de sus comunidades ya que actuaban como defensores de los lugareños frente los invasores extranjeros. La mafia moderna, surgida en el siglo XIX, tiene sus raíces en esta resistencia. La mafia siciliana se organizaba en clanes familiares con estrictos códigos de conducta como la omertà (ley del silencio), que imponía no colaborar con las autoridades, y la vendetta (venganza). Estas normas fomentaban un sentido de honor, lealtad y obediencia absoluta al jefe de familia. Durante el dominio español y el reino de las Dos Sicilias, los mafiosi mantuvieron su influencia ya que actuaban como una justicia paralela en las zonas rurales. En la segunda mitad del siglo XIX con la unificación italiana no cambio la cosa demasiado. Controlaban los pueblos y sus tierras de labor y, a cambio, cobraban servicios de “protección”. Era una administración paralela, más efectiva incluso que el gobierno para el día a día. Fue en esa época cuando dio su salto a América de mano de la emigración. Allí los sicilianos formaron comunidades en las que la mafia replicó sus métodos traídos de Italia conformando bandas que apelaban a la identidad siciliana, a la “cosa nostra”. Pero EEUU era muy distinto a Sicilia, así que no tardaron en evolucionar hasta convertirse en poderosas bandas dedicadas en exclusiva al crimen organizado. Fue en ciudades estadounidenses como Nueva York o Chicago donde aparecieron los mafiosos más reconocidos como Al Capone o Lucky Luciano, ambos de origen siciliano, que modernizaron la mafia hasta convertirla en un sindicato del crimen que incluía tanto a italianos como a judíos e irlandeses. En Sicilia, entretanto, los mafiosos fueron perseguidos de forma implacable por el Gobierno fascista de Mussolini, que llegó a ponerlos fuera de juego, pero resurgieron con fuerza tras la segunda guerra mundial. En la posguerra, los gobiernos republicanos se apoyaron en los capos mafiosos, una decisión que terminarían lamentando porque el problema se enquistó durante décadas. El milagro económico de aquellos años transformó la isla en una sociedad urbana e industrial mucho menos controlable, lo que obligó a los mafiosos a adaptarse. En EEUU, donde el crimen organizado llegó a tener una gran importancia, la mafia fue diluyéndose en negocios legales, lo que tuvo como consecuencia que perdiese lo poco que le quedaba de aquella mafia siciliana que había llegado con la inmigración. Así, algo que había nacido como un movimiento de resistencia frente a los invasores fue evolucionando hasta transformarse primero en una organización criminal muy poderosa cuya actividad abarcaba dos continentes, y luego en sofisticados criminales dedicados al lavado de dinero del narcotráfico. De aquella mafia que presentan las películas casi nada queda salvo el nombre que, ese sí, ha hecho una fortuna extraordinaria. En El ContraSello: 0:00 Introducción 3:48 La Cosa Nostra 25:32 Premios iVoox - https://premios.ivoox.com/ 1:20:58 El tesoro del Vita 1:26:44 Los polacos en el III Reich Bibliografía: “Cosa Nostra. Historia de la mafia siciliana” de John Dickie - https://amzn.to/3IWOOUr “Historia de la mafia” de John Dickie - https://amzn.to/4o8ar2T “Historia de la mafia de Nueva York” de Erlantz Gamboa - https://amzn.to/4hdBwzx “Al Capone” de Deirdre Bair - https://amzn.to/478B5SG · Canal de Telegram: https://t.me/lacontracronica · “Contra el pesimismo”… https://amzn.to/4m1RX2R · “Hispanos. Breve historia de los pueblos de habla hispana”… https://amzn.to/428js1G · “La ContraHistoria del comunismo”… https://amzn.to/39QP2KE · “La ContraHistoria de España. Auge, caída y vuelta a empezar de un país en 28 episodios”… https://amzn.to/3kXcZ6i · “Contra la Revolución Francesa”… https://amzn.to/4aF0LpZ · “Lutero, Calvino y Trento, la Reforma que no fue”… https://amzn.to/3shKOlK Apoya La Contra en: · Patreon... https://www.patreon.com/diazvillanueva · iVoox... https://www.ivoox.com/podcast-contracronica_sq_f1267769_1.html · Paypal... https://www.paypal.me/diazvillanueva Sígueme en: · Web... https://diazvillanueva.com · Twitter... https://twitter.com/diazvillanueva · Facebook... https://www.facebook.com/fernandodiazvillanueva1/ · Instagram... https://www.instagram.com/diazvillanueva · Linkedin… https://www.linkedin.com/in/fernando-d%C3%ADaz-villanueva-7303865/ · Flickr... https://www.flickr.com/photos/147276463@N05/?/ · Pinterest... https://www.pinterest.com/fernandodiazvillanueva Encuentra mis libros en: · Amazon... https://www.amazon.es/Fernando-Diaz-Villanueva/e/B00J2ASBXM #FernandoDiazVillanueva #mafia #cosanostra Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals

When hear the term bootlegging, what jumps into your mind? Maybe names like Al Capone, Bill McCoy, “Lucky” Luciano, and George Remus…that were famously associated with the Prohibition era. Or maybe you think about the role moonshine played in American History. But what about the infamous 5-Hour Energy bootlegging case from a decade ago? Oh…you hadn't heard of arguably the craziest crime story involving the energy drinks market before just now? From late-2009 until supposedly October 2012, an 11-person operation…led by a husband-and-wife team, placed into interstate commerce nearly 4 million bottles of counterfeit 5-Hour Energy. Accused initially of relabeling Mexican bottles of 5-Hour Energy and reselling them in the U.S. market, it was later discovered that blank bottles were filled with unknown liquids after authentic 5-Hour Energy inventory became unavailable. But adding even more craziness to this story, President Trump commuted the wife's sentence in early 2021…and one of the original perpetrators was just extradited from Italy after being a fugitive since the initial arrests.

Questo video traccia l'ascesa al potere di Lucky Luciano, soprannominato il “Pericolo Pubblico Numero 1”, dal 1930 fino al momento in cui venne arrestato e condannato nel 1936. Un racconto che intreccia guerra tra clan mafiosi, tradimenti, affari illeciti e la costruzione di un impero criminale moderno. l'indagine del procuratore Thomas E. Dewey nei primi anni '30, che fece irruzioni nei bordelli, raccolse testimonianze contro Luciano, dichiarazioni di prostitute che lo collegavano al racket del sesso (“compulsory prostitution”) e l'anno cruciale, il 1936, in cui Luciano venne arrestato, processato e condannato a 30-50 anni di carcere a Dannemora. #italiamistero #LuckyLuciano #PublicEnemyNumber1 #Mafia #ThomasEDewey #History #NewYorkCrimes www.italiamistero.it: https://www.italiamistero.it/ 

Chef de gang redouté à New-York, Lucky Luciano, en visionnaire du crime organisé, fédère les familles mafieuses dans un véritable « syndicat du crime ». Son pouvoir semble illimité et son empire criminel s'étend partout : rackets, proxénétisme, contrebande, drogue... Arrêté, il continue pourtant à diriger ses affaires depuis sa prison. Découvrez l'homme qui inventa la mafia moderne : Lucky Luciano, le plus grand parrain de tous les temps. Crédits : Lorànt Deutsch, Éric Lange. Hébergé par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Chef de gang redouté à New-York, Lucky Luciano, en visionnaire du crime organisé, fédère les familles mafieuses dans un véritable « syndicat du crime ». Son pouvoir semble illimité et son empire criminel s'étend partout : rackets, proxénétisme, contrebande, drogue... Arrêté, il continue pourtant à diriger ses affaires depuis sa prison. Découvrez l'homme qui inventa la mafia moderne : Lucky Luciano, le plus grand parrain de tous les temps. Crédits : Lorànt Deutsch, Éric Lange. Hébergé par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Diventa un supporter di questo podcast: clicca qui.➨ Iscrivetevi al nostro canale Telegram: clicca quiMilano, aprile 2012. Intervento del giornalista Giampiero Rossi, coautore con Mario Portanova e Franco Stefanoni del libro Mafia a Milano. Sessant'anni di affari e delitti (Melampo editore, 2012).Si ringrazia il Laboratorio Lapsus per la condivisione del reperto.Tra gli argomenti trattati all'interno della registrazione: 1) «Andreotti ha qualcosa a che vedere con la mafia. A Milano c'è un partito trasversale della corruzione e secondo noi Craxi ne sa qualcosa»; 2) «A Milano c'è la mafia». La reazione di Pillitteri e Craxi; 3) Il «fortino di via Bianchi»; 4) La prima edizione del libro «Mafia a Milano. Quarant'anni di affari e delitti» (1996); 5) Cosa Nostra italo-americana. Primi anni Cinquanta, a Milano; 6) Joe Adonis e Lucky Luciano; 7) Lacune normative e soggiorni obbligati; 8) L'arresto di Liggio; 9) La Direzione distrettuale antimafia di Milano; 11) «Gettate fango». Si continua a negare; 12) La fase di «inabissamento»; 13) Imprenditoria «impermeabile» e politica «negazionista"». 

Năm 1980, nhà xã hội học người Mỹ Ronald L. Morris, trong tác phẩm đề tựa « Wait until Dark: Jazz and Underworld » (tạm dịch là Khi màn đêm buông xuống : Jazz và Thế giới ngầm), từng khẳng định nhạc Jazz trong giai đoạn Lệnh cấm (1920-1933) sẽ không còn là Jazz nếu không có sự che chở của các băng đảng tội phạm. Theo ông, Jazz chịu rất nhiều ảnh hưởng từ mafia. Storyville, New Orleans : Nền tảng đầu tiên của mối liên hệ Jazz - Mafia Mối liên hệ này được hình thành tại Storyville, New Orleans vào cuối thế kỷ XIX. Đó là thời điểm làn sóng di cư người Ý diễn ra mạnh mẽ : Trong vòng 20 năm, 1880 – 1900, hơn 650 ngàn người Ý và Sicilia đổ vào nước Mỹ, quốc gia vừa thoát khỏi cảnh Nội Chiến. Họ băng Đại Tây Dương, mơ về một nước Mỹ thịnh vượng và cởi mở. Không chỉ có người Ý, trên các cầu cảng còn có người Ireland, và hàng triệu di dân đến từ Đông Âu, phần lớn là người Do Thái. Họ chạy trốn cảnh nghèo đói, thoát cảnh chiến tranh hay sự truy bức. Nhưng giấc mộng đó nhanh chóng tan vỡ khi phải đối mặt với thực tế nghiệt ngã : Nạn kỳ thị chủng tộc và chủ nghĩa bản địa. Bị hắt hủi, bị gạt ra bên lề xã hội, thất nghiệp, không được học hành, những di dân gốc Ý, Do Thái hay châu Phi sống chen chúc trong những khu phố nghèo tại các thành phố cảng lớn như Lower East Side ở New York hay như khu Vieux-Carré tại New Orleans. Các băng đảng tội phạm lần lượt xuất hiện : Mano nera, mafia, cosa nostra…. Không được tiếp cận các ngành kinh doanh hợp pháp, những nhóm tội phạm này mở rộng các hoạt động ngầm về đêm, thâu tóm các lĩnh vực giải trí và sân khấu, giang tay đón nhận những người nghệ sĩ lang thang, đặt nên nền tảng đầu tiên cho mối liên hệ giữa Jazz và Mafia trong nhiều thập niên sau đó của thế kỷ XX. Nhạc sĩ dương cầm Earl Hines, từng giải thích : « Các thành viên mafia đã nhanh chóng tìm thấy trong âm nhạc một lớp vỏ bọc tuyệt vời cho những mánh lới được thực hiện trong hậu trường, từ các trò cờ bạc trái phép, buôn thuốc phiện, cho đến cả mãi dâm. » Steven Jezo – Vannier, tác giả tập sách « Music Connection. Les parrains de la musique américaine au XXè siècle » (tạm dịch là Kết nối âm nhạc. Những người bảo trợ cho âm nhạc Mỹ thế kỷ XX), cho biết, vào năm 1902, người ta ước tính ở Storyville, đã có đến 85 sàn nhảy, gần 800 quán rượu và 230 nhà chứa, nơi hoạt động của khoảng 1.500 gái làng chơi. Ba phần tư các chủ sở hữu những cơ sở này đều là trùm các băng đảng với những cái tên Joe Segretta, Henry Matranga, Peter Ciacco hay Pete Lala, với câu lạc bộ nổi tiếng Big 25, sàn diễn đầu tiên của Joe Oliver – người sau này trở thành King Oliver. Đó cũng là nơi xuất thân của nhiều tên tuổi khác trong làng nhạc Jazz như Jelly Roll Morton, Kid Ory, Buddy Bolden, Louis Amstrong hay Cab Calloway… 1920 : Thời điểm quyết định cho cuộc hội ngộ Jazz - Mafia Theo nhà sử học Ronald L. Morris, cuộc hội ngộ mang tính quyết định giữa giới nhạc sĩ Jazz và Mafia là vào những năm 1920. Đây là thời điểm chính quyền tổng thống Woodrow Wilson ban hành Lệnh Cấm Rượu (1920-1933), bị cáo buộc là nguồn cội của mọi tệ nạn xã hội, khiến các quán rượu và tụ điểm hội hè bị đóng cửa, kết thúc thời kỳ hoàng kim một thế hệ Mafia tại New Orleans. Các nhóm tội phạm cùng những người chơi nhạc Jazz rời Storyville đi về phía bắc đến New York, Chicago, Kansas City… Họ sắp xếp lại hoạt động về đêm dọc theo các tuyến đường buôn rượu với sự tiếp tay của giới chức địa phương, và nhiều nghị sĩ Mỹ. Một thế hệ mới các ông trùm băng đảng gốc Ý, Do Thái hay Ireland ra đời, trong số này phải kể đến Al Capone, Alcatraz hay Dutch Schulz…    Đam mê mãnh liệt nhạc Jazz cùng với sự táo bạo trong cách tổ chức và quản lý thế giới ngầm, thế hệ tội phạm mới này đã tái hiện các đêm nhạc với những câu lạc bộ tiện nghi, vui nhộn hơn, mở cửa cho tất cả các thành phần, và do vậy, đáp ứng nhu cầu hưởng thụ mới của thời kỳ hậu chiến. Tại các cơ sở mới này, nhạc cũ lỗi thời nhường chỗ cho Jazz thống trị với sự xuất hiện của những nhạc sĩ trẻ tài năng : Sydney Bechet, Bessie Smith, Earl Hines, Duke Ellington… Trong một chương trình trên đài France Culture (15/05/2024), Jacques B. Hesse, nhạc sĩ đại vĩ cầm, dịch giả tập sách của nhà xã hội Ronald L. Morris, giải thích : « Luận điểm của Ronald L. Morris rất đơn giản. Ông ấy nói rằng giới tội phạm đã góp phần phát triển nhạc Jazz không chỉ bằng cách cung cấp cho các nhạc sĩ Mỹ sự bảo vệ về mặt xã hội và pháp lý, họ còn trả phí luật sư cho các vụ ly hôn, viện phí và tang lễ cho người thân của các nhạc sĩ. Họ còn giúp các nhạc sĩ mua xe trả góp, với mức hoàn trả từ 5 đến 7 đô la một tuần. » Jazz – Mafia : Mối quan hệ ràng buộc Steven Jazo-Vannier trong tập sách viết : « Mối liên kết lâu dài này được hung đúc, neo giữ sâu đậm cứ như một sự phụ thuộc lẫn nhau, hợp nhất hai mặt của một thế giới về đêm (…) ».  Jacques B. Hesse nhắc tiếp nhận định của Ronald L. Morris : « Bằng cách sử dụng các dàn nhạc có hợp đồng dài hạn từ một đến ba năm trong các hộp đêm và câu lạc bộ nhạc Jazz của mình, các băng đảng Mafia đã khuyến khích sự trưởng thành trong phong cách riêng của từng dàn nhạc, phân biệt phong cách của Duke Ellington với phong cách của Cab Calloway ». Thế nên, mới có giai thoại rằng, Al Capone, một trong những trùm Mafia lớn, đam mê âm nhạc, có cảm tình đặc biệt với một nhạc sĩ : Fats Waller. Trong tập sách Music Connection, Steven Jazo-Vannier thuật lại rằng, người nghệ sĩ dương cầm, kiêm ca sĩ này, một đêm, vào cuối buổi trình diễn, người ta bịt mắt ông dẫn đến một nơi bí mật. Khi đến nơi, ông thấy một cây đàn piano, họ đẩy ông về phía cây đàn rồi bảo « Hãy đến chơi đàn đi ! ». Ông không biết nơi đó là ở đâu, nhưng khi nghe tiếng cười giữa đám đông, ông nhận ra tiếng cười nổi tiếng của Al Capone, người đã chọn Fats Waller chơi nhạc cho đêm tiệc của mình với bạn bè và khách mời. Mafia cung cấp việc làm, và sự bảo vệ nhưng cũng rất chiếm hữu. Ca sĩ Lena Horne, bắt đầu ca hát rất sớm tại Cotton Club, với mức lương nghèo đói : 25 đô la một tuần. Hợp đồng trọn đời ngăn cản cô rời Cotton Club. Mọi nỗ lực thương lượng của cô kết thúc trong bạo lực. Để giải thoát cho cô, gia đình ra một quyết định táo bạo : Bắt cóc cô và bỏ trốn ngay giữa đêm cho đến tận Philadelphia. Tại đây, Lena Horne bắt đầu sự nghiệp mới và sau này trở thành nữ diễn viên người Mỹ gốc Phi đầu tiên ký hợp đồng với MGM. Sự im lặng Nếu như phần lớn giới nghệ sĩ gìn giữ một quy tắc bất thành văn : Ba Không – Không nghe, Không thấy, Không nói – để đổi lấy sự bảo trợ của Mafia, thì Frank Sinatra, nhân vật hiếm có công khai thừa nhận về mối liên hệ với tay trùm Lucky Luciano, đến từ cùng một làng với gia đình Sinatra ở Sicilia. Thế giới Jazz muôn sắc muôn mầu, vô vàn giai thoại. Danh sách các nhạc sĩ bị lệ thuộc vào Mafia dài vô tận, trong số này nhiều gương mặt điển hình từ Louis Amstrong, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, cho đến Billie Holiday hay Chet Baker… Các băng đảng Mafia không chỉ sở hữu các hộp đêm, phòng nhạc nổi tiếng, mà sau này họ còn trở thành các nhà tuyển dụng, nhà quản lý và sản xuất các nhạc sĩ, sở hữu họ, những người nhạc sĩ và âm nhạc của họ. Mafia thâm nhập vào mọi cấp độ sáng tạo âm nhạc có lợi nhuận. Đối với Earl Hines, trong những năm 1940 chẳng còn chút nghi ngờ, « các băng đảng đã làm cho ngành kinh doanh âm nhạc phát đạt » hơn bao giờ hết !   (Nguồn France Musique, France Culture)

In the 1930s, an association of primarily Italian mafiosos and Jewish organized crime gangsters, based in Brooklyn, was formed for the purpose of putting distance between the underworld figures ordering hits, and the people carrying out those executions. This organization would come to be known as, Murder Incorporated. And this is their insanely violent story, loaded with crazy characters and their colorful nicknames. Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com Timesuck Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious PrivateFacebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch-related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard? Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast.Sign up through Patreon, and for $5 a month, you get access to the entire Secret Suck catalog (295 episodes) PLUS the entire catalog of Timesuck, AD FREE. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch.

Hinweis: Diese Folge entstand gemeinsam mit Niklas & Hannes von Tatort Geschichte, zu denen ihr hier kommt!Elegant, charmant - und tödlich: Bugsy Siegel gilt als einer der bekanntesten amerikanischen Mobster des 20. Jahrhunderts. Als Gründungsmitglied der Kosher Nostra, dem jüdischen Pendant zur italienischen Mafia, bewegt sich Siegel in einer Welt aus Gewalt, Macht und Luxus. Zusammen mit seinem engen Vertrauten Meyer Lansky baut er ein Unterwelt-Imperium auf und wird von anderen Mafiagrößen wie Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese und Frank Costello geachtet und gefürchtet. Doch während Lansky strategisch und kontrolliert agiert, verliert Siegel zunehmend die Bodenhaftung. Sein Traum: ein Casino-Imperium mitten in der Wüste Nevadas. Das "Flamingo" in Las Vegas sollte nicht nur ein Hotel, sondern ein Denkmal seines Größenwahns werden. Die Baukosten explodieren, Gelder werden veruntreut und damit der Sturz eines Gangsters eingeläutet, der mit Stil tötete und mit Arroganz verlor. Bugsy Siegel - der Gentleman-Gangster, der sich verzockte und schließlich als Vorlage in Mario Puzos “Der Pate” landete.…….WERBUNGDu willst dir die Rabatte unserer Werbepartner sichern? Hier geht's zu den Angeboten!.......Jetzt His2Go unterstützen für tolle Vorteile - über Steady!Klick hier und werde His2Go Hero oder His2Go Legend.......Das Folgenbild zeigt Bugsy Siegel........LITERATURMichael Shnayerson: Bugsy Siegel: The Dark Side of the American Dream. New Haven 2021.Robert A. Rockaway: Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel & Co. Lebensgeschichten jüdischer Gangster in den USA, Hamburg 1998........UNTERSTÜTZUNG & KONTAKTSupportet uns! Folgt und bewertet uns bei Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Podimo oder über eure Lieblings-Podcastplattformen.Wir freuen uns über euer Feedback, Input und Vorschläge zum Podcast, die ihr uns über das Kontaktformular auf der Website, his2go.de, Instagram und unsere Feedback E-Mail: kontakt@his2go.de schicken könnt. An dieser Stelle nochmals vielen Dank an jede einzelne Rückmeldung, die uns bisher erreicht hat und uns sehr motiviert, noch lange weiterzumachen!…….COPYRIGHTMusic from https://filmmusic.io: “Sneaky Snitch” by Kevin MacLeod and "Plain Loafer" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) License: Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hinweis: Unsere Folge als Gäste beim Podcast His2Go findet ihr ab dem 30.05.2025 auf dem Kanal von His2GoElegant, charmant - und tödlich: Bugsy Siegel gilt als einer der bekanntesten amerikanischen Mobster des 20. Jahrhunderts. Als Gründungsmitglied der Kosher Nostra, dem jüdischen Pendant zur italienischen Mafia, bewegt sich Siegel in einer Welt aus Gewalt, Macht und Luxus. Zusammen mit seinem engen Vertrauten Meyer Lansky baut er ein Unterwelt-Imperium auf und wird von anderen Mafiagrößen wie Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese und Frank Costello geachtet und gefürchtet. Doch während Lansky strategisch und kontrolliert agiert, verliert Siegel zunehmend die Bodenhaftung. Sein Traum: ein Casino-Imperium mitten in der Wüste Nevadas. Das "Flamingo" in Las Vegas sollte nicht nur ein Hotel, sondern ein Denkmal seines Größenwahns werden. Die Baukosten explodieren, Gelder werden veruntreut und damit der Sturz eines Gangsters eingeläutet, der mit Stil tötete und mit Arroganz verlor. Bugsy Siegel - der Gentleman-Gangster, der sich verzockte und schließlich als Vorlage in Mario Puzos "Der Pate” landete.

Get ready for a hilarious and insightful trip down memory lane with the latest episode of The Friend Of Ours Podcast! Hosts Big Vito LoGrasso and Duke Loves Rasslin are back, and this time they're diving into your favorite moments from the podcast so far.In this special episode, you'll hear:Big Vito's gripping stories about navigating real-life beefs with Mobsters, offering a rare and unfiltered perspective you won't find anywhere else.Vito's no-holds-barred opinions on the most iconic characters from the legendary HBO series, The Sopranos – prepare for some surprising takes!Fascinating insights into the portrayal of Vito's own Uncle, the infamous Lucky Luciano, in the acclaimed show Boardwalk Empire. Hear firsthand how reality stacks up against the dramatization.Duke Loves Rasslin's uproarious reactions and hilarious commentary to Vito's incredible stories and opinions, guaranteeing laugh-out-loud moments throughout the episode.Don't miss this must-listen episode packed with captivating stories, strong opinions, and the signature comedic chemistry of Big Vito and Duke!#FriendOfOursPodcast #BigVito #DukeLovesRasslin #Podcast #MobStories #TheSopranos #BoardwalkEmpire #LuckyLuciano #TrueCrime #PopCulture #Comedy #ListenerFavorites #PodcastCompilation**Want to buy Vito a Coffee? Visit www.buymeacoffee.com/thedonofwrestling & show you're a true "Friend Of Ours". **Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):⁠https://uppbeat.io/t/bosnow/autumn-coffee⁠License code: 7FISFVIDI3IUYD46**All views expressed are that of whomever is expressing them. If you like it great. If you don't like it, great! #PullUpYourSkinnyJeans ****Theme music & episode art created with AI assistance**

Luciano is forced to leave the United States and return to Sicily. But, he immediately makes plans to set up a base of operations near the U.S. With the help of Meyer Lansky, Luciano organizes a meeting in Havana, Cuba to discuss the mafia's future and deal with troublesome associates. Luciano discovers that controlling his criminal family from afar is difficult, and ambitious underlings seize the opportunity to take power. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join   Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial.   On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage.   For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Luciano flees New York to evade Thomas E. Dewey. But after months of searching, Dewey's agents find Luciano and bring him back to face charges related to a prostitution business. Luciano fears he will spend the rest of his life in prison, but then the U.S. government asks for his help to keep the New York ports safe during World War II. Luciano has an opportunity to earn his freedom, but it will come with a high price. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join   Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial.   On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage.   For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are back with another remastered episode and this time we are covering the one and only Lucky Luciano. Known as the father of the Mafia, he got his start in bootlegging and eventually became the most powerful Mafia boss in the country where he would found the commission and shape the mob into what we know it today.  Subscribe to our YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/@bangdangnetwork  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/outlaws-gunslingers--4737234/support.

After Luciano organizes the removal of Salvatore Maranzano, he institutes significant changes to the American Mafia. Luciano's most notable innovation is the creation of a governing body known as The Commission. The hope is that The Commission – made up of mob bosses from across the country – will resolve internal conflicts and avoid another major war. In 1935, The Commission faces its first big test when Dutch Schultz, an infamous New York gangster, wants to kill an ambitious federal prosecutor named Thomas E. Dewey. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join   Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial.   On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage.   For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the spring of 1931, Charles Luciano orchestrates the removal of his boss, Joe Masseria. Luciano cuts a deal with Salvatore Maranzano to become the boss of his own crime family. But when Maranzano declares himself “the boss of all bosses,” Luciano becomes concerned. After months of Maranzano's tyranny, Luciano realizes he needs to force another dramatic change in order to institute his vision for the mafia. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join   Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial.   On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage.   For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of Gangland Wire, I sit down with award-winning journalist and Mafia historian Anthony DeStefano to discuss New York City's organized crime. We discuss his meticulous research on New York's most infamous mobsters and how his background in newspaper journalism has shaped his storytelling. One of the most significant topics we cover is Alto Nights, the highly anticipated Mafia film written by Goodfellas scribe Nicholas Pileggi and starring Robert De Niro in dual roles. Anthony shares how his books Top Hoodlum, which focuses on Frank Costello, and The Deadly Don: Vito Genovese Mafia Boss played a crucial role in Pileggi's research. He also gives us an inside look at the film's development, including how real-life mob history is translated to the big screen. We explore the legendary rivalry between Frank Costello and Vito Genovese, diving into their power struggles, assassination attempts, and Costello's efforts to legitimize himself while staying deeply tied to organized crime. Anthony reveals new details from unseen FBI interviews, shedding light on Costello's complex underworld dealings. We also discuss Costello's mentorship under Lucky Luciano, the infamous Manhattan meeting that escalated tensions with Genovese, and how Vincent “Chin” Gigante played an unexpected role in Costello's fate. Beyond the mobsters, we also examine the women behind the Mafia men, discussing how the personalities of Costello's and Genovese's wives influenced their rise and fall. Anthony breaks down the casting choices for Alto Nights and the creative liberties taken to heighten the drama. Finally, we reflect on why the public remains fascinated with Mafia history, from books to films to documentaries. If you love true crime, mob history, and behind-the-scenes Hollywood insights, this is an episode you won't want to miss. Click the link on Anthony DeStefano's name here to see his mob books. Subscribe to gangster stories weekly Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to "buy me a cup of coffee" To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here.  To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here To buy my Kindle book, Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos. To subscribe on iTunes click here. Please give me a review and help others find the podcast. Donate to the podcast. Click here!   Transcript [0:00] Well, welcome, all you wiretappers out there. Good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. We have a show today with Anthony DeStefano. Now, any of you guys that read my books, and especially about the New York Mafia families, you probably know this name, Anthony DeStefano. And welcome, Anthony. I'm really glad to have you on the show, because you have been a huge contributor to the knowledge base of Mafia history in this country. Welcome. Well, thank you. Thank you for having me, and thank you for that very kind word. You know, I've read some of those books, and you're a good writer. You're like an old newspaper guy, right? [0:38] Well, yeah, I still am. That's right. You still are. You and, well, Nick Pileggiis an old newspaper guy. Larry McShane is a newspaper guy. There's several of you guys in New York that kind of cut your teeth on the mob news, and there's a lot of news there. And speaking of Nick Pileggi, you got involved with this movie that he's written a screenplay for called Alto Knights. It's creating quite a stir among mob fans right now. They're really anxiously waiting for this movie to come out with Robert De Niro playing two parts of [1:13] all things. I don't know how that works, but we'll see when the movie comes out. So how did you get involved with this? I'm sure you know Nick Pileggi and known him for quite a while.

Prison, Money, Years in SEG, Gangs, Music, Death, and Addiction are a few things that you will hear about from our guests Pastor Johnnie and Tony as they share how God changed them and gave them a completely new life after prison and how God can do that for you if you surrender to Him in your life. Featuring 3 music videos from Pastor Johnnie featuring Lucky Luciano. We pray this episode blesses you as we share transformation and the goodness of God. Cody and Julia send their love and look forward to seeing you soon! If this episode impacted you or you want to help us produce more quality content and conversations like this to reach hundreds of thousands in prisons then we would like to invite you to help support this work financially by visiting https://worthypeople.org/give/ You can also follow us on all social media platforms and join our Facebook group!

After Arnold Rothstein's murder, Charles Luciano works full time for a Sicilian gangster named Joe “the Boss” Masseria and quickly becomes Masseria's top lieutenant. Masseria begins to feud with a rival Sicilian, Salvatore Maranzano. By the start of the 1930s, the feud escalates into the mafia's bloodiest conflict yet, The Castellammarese War. As bodies pile up, Luciano decides he needs to take matters into his own hands. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join   Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial.   On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage.   For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the late 1800s, millions of immigrants come to the United States for the opportunity for a better life. Among those who come from Sicily is a boy named Salvatore Lucania who will be known as Charles “Lucky” Luciano. Luciano grows up on the mean streets of New York's Lower East Side and gravitates toward a life of crime. When Prohibition begins, Luciano becomes a prominent bootlegger and finds a mentor in Arnold Rothstein. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join   Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial.   On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage.   For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How does a guy go from running with gangs on the Lower East Side to reinventing the mafia to going to prison as a convicted felon…to finally working with the U.S. government to protect NYC’s waterfront during World War II?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we're continuing to express respect and appreciation for "Big Ang" from Mob Wives & much more: Robert De Niro: Review of the trailer for the new Robert De Niro mob movie "The Alto Knights" De Niro vs Pachino: The fellas give their take on who they prefer as an actor; Robert De Niro or Al Pacino Lucky Proof: Vito shows Duke proof he is related to Lucky Luciano R.I.P. Big Ang: Extended conversation about Big Ang from Mob Wives including what made her respected by so many. The Sopranos: Vito tells a crazy story about his run in with one of the stars from The Sopranos Much More Don't miss this entertaining and educational episode of the Friend Of Ours Podcast! #TheFriendOfOursPodcast #TheAltoKnights #LuckyLuciano #Big Ang #MobWives #BigVito #Podcast #MafiaHistory #DukeLovesRasslin *Theme and Artwork created with AI assistance.*

Join Big Vito LoGrasso and Duke Loves Rasslin' for another action-packed episode! Godfather II Deep Dive: We explore the iconic restaurant scene and uncover how it was inspired by the real-life mobster Lucky Luciano's hit on Joe Masseria. Gym Tan Laundry: Before the Shore: Discover the surprising origins of the "Gym Tan Laundry" lifestyle and why the Jersey Shore cast wasn't the first to embrace it. Mob Wives Roundtable: Vito shares his candid opinions on the cast of Mob Wives, analyzing their personalities and how they presented themselves to the world. Word of the Day: Learn a new Italian word from Vito himself and see how it can be used in a sentence. Don't miss this entertaining and educational episode of the Friend Of Ours Podcast! #TheFriendOfOursPodcast #GodfatherII #BoardwalkEmpire #LuckyLuciano #BigVito #Podcast #MafiaHistory #FiveFamilies #TheCommission #MobWives #DukeLovesRasslin *Theme and Artwork created with AI assistance.*

Happy New Year! The Friend Of Ours Podcast returns with a fascinating look at the how the life of historic organized crime figures still impact modern life. "The Don Of Wrestling" Big Vito LoGrasso and Duke Loves Rasslin delve into the world of Charles "Lucky" Luciano, examining his depiction in the acclaimed HBO series Boardwalk Empire. This episode explores: Similarities between Big Vito's experiences and Lucky Luciano's life. The historical context behind the formation of the Five Families and The Commission. Crucial self-defense advice from Big Vito on how to handle confrontations in a club setting. Tune in for a unique blend of family values, historical analysis, and practical life lessons. #TheFriendOfOursPodcast #BoardwalkEmpire #LuckyLuciano #BigVito #Podcast #MafiaHistory #FiveFamilies #TheCommission #SelfDefenseTips #DukeLovesRasslin *Theme and Artwork created with AI assistance.*

AT THE HOTEL BOHEMIA WE BELIEVE YOU CAN'T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE GOING UNLESS YOU KNOW WHERE YOU HAVE  BEEN.2025 COMIN' ROUND THE MOUNTAIN.CAN YOU DIG IT? Drummer Buddy Rich died after surgery in 1987. As he was being prepped for surgery, a nurse asked him, “Is there anything you can't take?” Rich replied, “Yeah, country music.”Lucky Luciano was a mob leader who helped the U.S. work with the Sicilian Mafia during World War II in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. His last words were, “Tell Georgie I want to get in the movies one way or another.”Donald O'Connor was a singer, dancer, and actor known for his role in Singin' in the Rain. He also hosted the Academy Awards in 1954. O'Connor died at age 78 with his family gathered around him. He joked, “I'd like to thank the Academy for my lifetime achievement award that I will eventually get.” He still hasn't gotten one.Groucho's brother Leonard, who was better known as Chico Marx, gave instructions to his wife as his last words: “Remember, Honey, don't forget what I told you. Put in my coffin a deck of cards, a mashie niblick, and a pretty blonde.” A “mashie niblick” is a type of golf club.As he was dying, Alfred Hitchcock said, “One never knows the ending. One has to die to know exactly what happens after death, although Catholics have their hopes.”Blues guitarist Huddie William Ledbetter, a.k.a. Lead Belly, said, “Doctor, if I put this here guitar down now, I ain't never gonna wake up.” And he was right.Bo Diddley died giving a thumbs-up as he listened to the song “Walk Around Heaven.” His last word was “Wow.”"It was Christmas Eve babeIn the drunk tankAn old man said to me, won't see another oneAnd then he sang a songThe Rare Old Mountain DewI turned my face awayAnd dreamed about you"-Shane McGowenA VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU AND YOURS FROM YOUR SPLENDID BOHEMIANS!

The Don Of Wrestling, Big Vito LoGrasso, delves deep during this powerful and revealing episode about his journey from a family deeply involved in the Mafia to the world of professional wrestling. Vito and Duke Loves Rasslin explore Vito's connections to some of the biggest names in organized crime. Paul Castellano & Family Lineage: Vito discusses his family's connection to the infamous "Boss of Bosses," Paul Castellano. John Gotti & the Gambino Power Shift: Hear Vito's insights into the events surrounding Castellano's death and the rise of John Gotti. Lucky Luciano in Pop Culture & Family History: Vito gives his perspective on the portrayal of his relative, Lucky Luciano, in "Boardwalk Empire." Leaving "The Life" Behind: Vito shares the personal experiences that led him to step away from the Mob and pursue a different future. Don't miss this incredible story of transformation on #TheFriendOfOursPodcast. #BigVito #Mafia #Mob #PaulCastellano #JohnGotti #LuckyLuciano #BoardwalkEmpire #OrganizedCrime #WrestlingPodcast #DukeLovesRasslin #RedemptionStory #FromMobToWrestling *Theme and Artwork created with AI assistance.*

Big Vito LoGrasso joins The Duke for an eye opening new limited edition series, The Friend Of Ours Podcast. Part True Crime, Part behind the scenes and all REAL. In episode 1, Vito opens up about : Made Guys: Numerous times Vito was almost wacked for fighting with Made Guys. The Family: Vito's family tree including Lucky Luciano and other well known figures from La Cosa Nostra. First Wrestling Trip: How Vito made it clear not to mess with him when he started working for WWE originally. Italian Cuisine: What you should order on date night at an Italian restaurant. Much More #TheFriendOfOursPodcast #WWE #Mob #LuckyLuciano ** All views expressed on Duke Loves Rasslin are that of whomever is expressing them. If you like it great. If you don't like it, great! #PullUpYourSkinnyJeans ** **Theme & Episode Art generated with AI.**

You don't earn a nickname like The Lord High Executioner by not killing a whole lot of people. And Albert Anastasia, one of the most psychotic gangsters to ever come out of New York City, was alleged to have participated in at least 60 murders as part of his role as one of the leaders of Murder, Inc., the hitmen organization that Lucky Luciano and the other members of The Commission tasked with doling out mafia justice. Anastasia's rise to power in the violent mob wars of the 1920's and 1930's is the stuff of mafia lore, but there is such as thing as being too violent, even for someone who became the boss of one of the five families. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the first half, former FBI agent Mike Campi discussed his extensive career targeting organized crime, specifically the Genovese crime family in New York, the country's most secretive and powerful Mob organization. Campi's determination helped lead to the indictment of key figures within the Genovese administration. He shared the harrowing story of Michael 'Cookie' D'Urso, a Genovese associate who survived being shot in the head at a social club where his cousin was killed. Despite the dangers, D'Urso ultimately decided to cooperate with authorities, motivated by a desire for justice for his cousin's murder. Campi explained, "He wanted his story told... to discourage and talk about the hypocrisy of that life." D'Urso's cooperation with the FBI led to a significant investigation that uncovered deep connections within organized crime, including plans for violent confrontations with rival factions, a war with Albanian crime families, and the control of port unions.Another Genovese mobster, George Barone, who worked the docks and waterfronts, eventually became a cooperating witness for the government, Campi reported. He traced the evolution of organized crime from Prohibition in the 1920s through pivotal events like the Appalachian meeting of 1957, which marked a significant shift in mob dynamics. He highlighted how figures like Lucky Luciano and Vito Genovese navigated a treacherous landscape of alliances and betrayals, explaining their ethos: "Your crime family is supposed to come before your blood family." Regarding Hollywood's portrayal of mobsters, he said it's often over the top, "painting them as sophisticated figures manipulating law enforcement," while the truth reveals a world steeped in betrayal and hypocrisy.

In this episode, Gary Jenkins interviews Kansas City-based screenwriter and author John Sanders, who brings compelling insights into the life of Owney Madden—a notorious figure in organized crime. As a former Kansas City police detective, I've always been fascinated by mob history, and John's unique perspective, intertwined with personal family stories, provides a captivating look into Madden's life. We trace Madden's journey from his early days with the Gophers gang in New York City to his days as a respected citizen in Hot Springs, Arkansas. John shares gripping tales of Madden's resilience, including surviving multiple gunshots, which underscore the brutal realities of the gangster lifestyle. Madden's transformation from street thug to savvy businessman during Prohibition paints a picture of a man whose rise to power was fueled by sharp business instincts and connections with major players like Frank Costello. Our conversation explores Madden's partnerships with colorful characters, including Big Frenchy DeMange, Lucky Luciano, and Meyer Lansky, as he navigated the cutthroat world of organized crime. From his ownership of the famed Cotton Club to his brewery, Madden's ventures reveal the strategic moves that solidified his influence in 1920s New York. We also discuss Madden's eventual downfall and the power struggles that led to dramatic events, such as Mad Dog Coll's kidnapping of Big Frenchy. This episode ultimately sealed Coll's fate. These stories shed light on the treacherous nature of mob alliances, where loyalty is fleeting and betrayals are often fatal. Finally, John delves into Madden's later years in Hot Springs, where he became a respected figure in the community. His transition from notorious gangster to local businessman highlights redemption themes and human behavior's complexities. Alongside John's family anecdotes, we discuss Hot Springs as a place of historical intrigue—a resort town with a darker past as a haven for mobsters. Tune in to this fascinating conversation on Owney Madden's life and legacy as we unravel the cultural and historical threads that make his story unforgettable. Subscribe to get new gangster stories every week. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to "buy me a cup of coffee" To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here.  To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here To buy my Kindle book, Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How FBI Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos. To subscribe on iTunes click here. Please give me a review and help others find the podcast. Donate to the podcast. Click here! Transcript [0:00] Well, hey, welcome all you wiretappers out there. It's good to be back here [0:03] in the studio of Gangland Wire. You know, this is Gary Jenkins, your host and producer of Gangland Wire podcast. I am a former retired, not former, retired Kansas City police detective and sergeant. I was in the intelligence unit for 13 years, 14 maybe altogether. [0:21] And, you know, after I left, I got into making documentary films and i made three documentary films you can find on amazon just search for my name and mafia you'll find all kinds of stuff about me and what i've done so we won't belabor that but i let's get on to the show i have a man that i recently met a kansas city man is john sanders he's a kansas city based screenwriter and author welcome john thanks carrie i appreciate it all right well john got hold of me and he just wanted to meet and talk about the mob because he had this big interest in it so we met the coffee shop here close to me and had a had a nice long conversation and and he was telling me in particular he's been working on something about only madden and i hadn't done anything on only madden or if i did it was a long time ago and the early begin...

Today's True Werid Stuff - Cokey & Lucky His name is Lucky Luciano. An Italian-born gangster, Luciano was credited as the Godfather of American organized crime. From extortion, to bootlegging, and prostitution, Luciano was on top of the world as he rose to power beyond his wildest dreams. That is, until a woman named "Cokey Flo" helped expose his prostitution ring in front of a jury, causing Luciano's luck to finally run out.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Award-winning author Matt Cost brings us back to Brooklyn in the Roaring '20s and Hungarian private eye, 8 Ballo, who is hired by Theda Lazar Vogel to prove that her husband was murdered. His colorful cast of friends returns, as well as legendary figures such as Dorothy Parker, Coleman Hawkins, Bugsy Siegel, and Lucky Luciano.8 discovers that a priceless Aquila—an ancient eagle Roman standard carried into battle 2,000 years ago—was stolen from Karl Vogel when he was killed. This provides ties to a secret German organization known as the Batavi. But Vogel was also involved in the eugenics movement centered in Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island, as well as being involved with the Ku Klux Klan.As 8 peels back layers of the underbelly of 1920s Brooklyn, the more complicated and dangerous it becomes for him and those who are important to him. What is happening at Cold Spring Harbor with Herman Wall and the eugenics movement? Who are the mysterious Germans threatening 8? And what is the identity of the charismatic Grand Cyclops? 8 must race against time to uncover the truth and put a stop to the most chilling triumvirate ever conceivedSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/houseofmysteryradio. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/houseofmysteryradio. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Del 2 av 2. Vi fortsätter att utforska Capri i veckans program och berättar om storslagna villor, dekadenta opiumrum, babianer som heter Bobby och när Europas mest excentriska kvinna kom till ön. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. I del två av vår Capri-special fortsätter Viveka Adelswärd, författare till boken Alltför adlig, alltför rik, alltför lättjefull, att berätta om den unga franska adelsmannen Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen och hans flytt till Capri. Där bygger han Villa Lysis på en brant klippa högt över havet i början av 1900-talet.Vi berättar också om Birgitta Stenbergs tid på Capri under tidigt 1950-tal, som hon skildrar i romanen Kärlek i Europa. Hon dricker vin på piazzettan, lär känna gangsterkungen Lucky Luciano och överväger att köpa en apa.Vi besöker Axel Munthes Villa San Michele tillsammans med museets intendent Kristina Kappelin. Och så berättar religionshistorikern Per Faxneld om när Europas mest excentriska och utflippade kvinna Luisa Casati kuppade sig in i Villa San Michele och gjorde en makeover på huset.Programmet är gjort av Erik Sjölin.

Ever wondered what it's like to juggle Hollywood, Broadway, and a spiritual journey? Join us as we celebrate our 200th episode with the incredible Michael Nouri! From his iconic role in "Flashdance" to his Broadway stints with legends like Julie Andrews, Michael shares captivating stories from his illustrious career. Discover his philanthropic heart, his meditation practice since 1970, and his dreams of playing Zorba in "Zorba the Greek." Plus, get a peek into his personal life and the adorable tale of his rescue dog, Charlie. Tune in for an episode brimming with inspiration and Hollywood magic! Michael Nouri's Bio:After starring in an off-Broadway production of The Crucible, Nouri landed his first Broadway role in Forty Carats, which ran for two years. He made his film debut in 1969 with an uncredited role in Goodbye, Columbus. He appeared on several television soap operas and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for his role as Steve Kaslo on Search for Tomorrow. Nouri portrayed Lucky Luciano in the miniseries The Gangster Chronicles and its theatrically released feature film Gangster Wars. In 1979, he appeared in the episode "The Curse of Dracula" of the series Cliffhangers.[citation needed]In 1983, he had a starring role as Nick Hurley in the romantic drama Flashdance. Despite mixed reviews, the film was one of the highest-grossing films of 1983 and was nominated for several top awards, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song.[3]Nouri has appeared in numerous television series and television films. He starred opposite Kyle MacLachlan in the horror film The Hidden. He starred on the short-lived series Bay City Blues and Downtown, and on the sitcom Love & War. Nouri also starred in the Broadway production of the musical Victor/Victoria as King Marchan opposite Julie Andrews. He appeared in three separate entries of Law & Order, each time in different roles. He had recurring roles on the series The O.C., Damages, NCIS, and Army Wives. Nouri returned to soap operas with a year-long stint on All My Children. More recently, he had a recurring role on the series Yellowstone for three seasons. Connect with Michael:Website: www.michaelnouri.comThank you for listening. Please check out @lateboomers on Instagram and our website lateboomers.biz. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to watch it or listen to more of our episodes, you will find Late Boomers on your favorite podcast platform and on our new YouTube Late Boomers Podcast Channel. We hope we have inspired you and we look forward to your becoming a member of our Late Boomers family of subscribe

Send us a Text Message.Step into the shadowy world of organized crime as we unravel the life of the infamous Charles "Lucky" Luciano. From his rise to power in New York's ruthless underworld to his role in shaping the modern Mafia, every twist and turn of Luciano's story is packed with intrigue. Discover the betrayals, the brutal power struggles, and the cunning tactics that solidified his legacy as the father of organized crime in America. This episode uncovers the enigmatic figure behind the legend, revealing secrets and strategies that kept him ahead of the law. Prepare for a journey through the gritty streets of New York City, where danger lurks at every corner and power is the ultimate prize.Watch the video version here: https://youtube.com/live/avLxkXTDMOcDon't forget, you can watch us live on Tuesday nights at 8PM CST - U.S. on YouTube and Facebook! Support the Show: Patreon (Bonus Content)Follow us on Social Media: YouTube ChannelFacebook Fan PageInstagram Fan Page X (formerly Twitter)TikTok Fan Page"After Dark with EVP" (Use code "AFTERDARK25" for 25% off an annual subscription)https://bit.ly/46GOmAzSubmit Your Story, Comments, or Questions: theevppod@gmail.com

“Don't ask me nothin'! You hear me? Don't ask! And don't bring anybody in here for me to identify. I won't identify them even if I know they did it!” This is the story of the nation's up-and-coming criminal underground.  By 1920, with few exceptions, producing, buying, and selling alcohol is outlawed, but that doesn't stop enterprising Americans. Many feel perfectly comfortable flouting the law and continuing to drink at their leisure, albeit with the added thrill that comes with evading halfhearted lawmen. Some cops are even in on it! But even as law enforcement steps up their game with undercover agent extraordinaire, Izzy Einstein, criminals get organized and start doing serious business—serious as in murderous. Home-brewers like Maude Vogan can be found in rural America, but in the big cities, Prohibition provides a marketplace for organized crime to flourish. There is money to be had, if one can ignore that the likelihood of getting killed just shot up dramatically. Notorious gangsters George Remus, Legs Diamond, and Lucky Luciano run this underworld, double-crossing each other, planning takeovers, and making millions off of booze-loving Americans. But can law and order triumph over these mafiosos? For now, fuhgeddaboudit. ____ Connect with us on HTDSpodcast.com and go deep into episode bibliographies and book recommendations join discussions in our Facebook community get news and discounts from The HTDS Gazette  come see a live show get HTDS merch or become an HTDS premium member for bonus episodes and other perks. HTDS is part of the Airwave Media Network.  Interested in advertising on the History That Doesn't Suck? Email us at advertising@airwavemedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From owning acclaimed eateries to forging unexpected alliances in a federal detention center, Frankie “Spice” Morelli has made his mark as a culinary maestro who respects the power of authentic Italian food. Now, in his publishing debut, Morelli creates and compiles delicious recipes, healthful nutrition and decades of experience into MOBB Cookbook & Diet: Savor and Slim the Italian Way (MOBB Publishing; ISBN: 9798989079612; Hardcover). It's a pizza box-sized, full-color coffee table cookbook blending 70-plus recipes, along with nearly 200 original full-color photos and tantalizing mob lore with a vital ingredient: a priority on health. Teaming up with Dr. Sandra “Diet Duchess” Frank, Ed.D., RDN, FAND, who nutritionally vetted the recipes in the book, Morelli guarantees that every dish in this book can be enjoyed as part of a well-balanced, nourishing diet. Whether cooking on-camera, providing b-roll footage for the perfect virtual demo, or just chatting with the host, producer or editor, Frankie can share his five secrets for making the BEST spaghetti and meatballs … this side of The Clink: Undercook your pasta because even when you take it out of boiling water it is still cooking! To prepare the sauce, sauté fresh garlic in oil, deglaze with white wine … and mix in salt and black pepper. To make the sauce, use only San Marzano tomatoes—they are imported from Italy and are naturally sweet without an acidic taste. With a stick or a home blender, puree the tomatoes and combine with the sautéed garlic mixture. Do not add sugar! Simmer it all on “low” for 4 hours. Make the meatballs as big as a softball … the smaller you make the balls, the harder they become when you cook ‘em. Use 80/20 ground beef/ground pork, parmesan cheese, breadcrumbs, parsley, eggs, cream, salt and pepper, and olive oil. Says Frankie, “The better the meatball, the more protection I had in The Joint!” Put the balls into the oven for 30 minutes at 325 degrees … take ‘em out, flip them and cook for the same amount of time … and that's it. Simplicity is the essence of Italian cooking! MOBB Cookbook & Diet includes an array of recipes, like Don Pasquale's Shrimp Scampi, Lucky Luciano's Luscious Lady Fingers and even Lou “The Hebrew Hammer's” favorite Matzo Ball Soup. It's filled with “fun” facts about notorious and alleged mobsters, including “Tommy Guns,” Jimmy “The Beast,” Jeremy “The Jett” and other members of the author's diverse circle of acquaintances from the Sicilian mob, Italian Cosa Nostra and the wide multicultural world of gangsters. Web: www.ourmobb.com About the Author Frankie "Spice" Morelli is a resilient culinary maestro and entrepreneur with an innate understanding of delicious and nourishing, authentic yet innovative Italian food. He owned and operated the award-winning Morelli's Ristorante Italiano in Florence, Colorado, and founded Nona Morelli Pasta, an international pasta and sauce company that supplied prominent retail chains, engaged in private-label partnerships with respected brands like Kraft Foods' Budget Gourmet, and pioneered the introduction of microwave pasta. After divesting the restaurant in 1990 and selling the company in 1992, he applied his business savvy to taking companies public through reverse mergers. For more information, please visit www.ourmobb.com. ► Luxury Women Handbag Discounts: https://www.theofficialathena.... ► Become an Equus Coach®: https://equuscoach.com/?rfsn=7... ► For $5 in ride credit, download the Lyft app using my referral link: https://www.lyft.com/ici/ASH58... ► Review Us: https://itunes.apple.com/us/po... ► Subscribe: http://www.youtube.com/c/AshSa... ► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1lov... ► Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ashsa... ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/1loveAsh ► Blog: http://www.ashsaidit.com/blog #atlanta #ashsaidit #theashsaiditshow #ashblogsit #ashsaidit®Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-ash-said-it-show--1213325/support.

In the 1930s, Lucky Luciano, one of American history's most notorious mobsters, was finally taken down by a rookie prosecutor. Eunice Carter was one of the first Black Women ever to become a prosecutor in America. She operated from the heart of the Harlem Renaissance to navigate the corrupt world of downtown Manhattan politics, and a deeply racist and sexist pre-civil rights American society. But her pioneering role in what became known as the “trial of the century” has been forgotten by popular history. Hers is the story of a writer, social worker, mother, teacher, sister, socialite, political candidate, community organizer and unheralded pioneer. This eight part immersive podcast is hosted by poet and writer, Nichole Perkins. It tells the story of Eunice Carter: a bad-ass anti-hero unafraid to bend the rules in pursuit of ambition, justice and legacy. Listen to The Godmother on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-godmother-141201920/They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 1930s, Lucky Luciano, one of American history's most notorious mobsters, was finally taken down by a rookie prosecutor. Eunice Carter was one of the first Black Women ever to become a prosecutor in America. She operated from the heart of the Harlem Renaissance to navigate the corrupt world of downtown Manhattan politics, and a deeply racist and sexist pre-civil rights American society. But her pioneering role in what became known as the “trial of the century” has been forgotten by popular history. Hers is the story of a writer, social worker, mother, teacher, sister, socialite, political candidate, community organizer and unheralded pioneer. This eight part immersive podcast is hosted by poet and writer, Nichole Perkins. It tells the story of Eunice Carter: a bad-ass anti-hero unafraid to bend the rules in pursuit of ambition, justice and legacy. Listen to The Godmother on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-godmother-141201920/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 1930s, Lucky Luciano, one of American history's most notorious mobsters, was finally taken down by a rookie prosecutor. Eunice Carter was one of the first Black Women ever to become a prosecutor in America. She operated from the heart of the Harlem Renaissance to navigate the corrupt world of downtown Manhattan politics, and a deeply racist and sexist pre-civil rights American society. But her pioneering role in what became known as the “trial of the century” has been forgotten by popular history. Hers is the story of a writer, social worker, mother, teacher, sister, socialite, political candidate, community organizer and unheralded pioneer. This eight part immersive podcast is hosted by poet and writer, Nichole Perkins. It tells the story of Eunice Carter: a bad-ass anti-hero unafraid to bend the rules in pursuit of ambition, justice and legacy. Listen to The Godmother on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-godmother-141201920/  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 1930s, Lucky Luciano, one of American history's most notorious mobsters, was finally taken down by a rookie prosecutor. Eunice Carter was one of the first Black Women ever to become a prosecutor in America. She operated from the heart of the Harlem Renaissance to navigate the corrupt world of downtown Manhattan politics, and a deeply racist and sexist pre-civil rights American society. But her pioneering role in what became known as the “trial of the century” has been forgotten by popular history. Hers is the story of a writer, social worker, mother, teacher, sister, socialite, political candidate, community organizer and unheralded pioneer. This eight part immersive podcast is hosted by poet and writer, Nichole Perkins. It tells the story of Eunice Carter: a bad-ass anti-hero unafraid to bend the rules in pursuit of ambition, justice and legacy. Listen to The Godmother on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-godmother-141201920/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 1930s, Lucky Luciano, one of American history's most notorious mobsters, was finally taken down by a rookie prosecutor. Eunice Carter was one of the first Black Women ever to become a prosecutor in America. She operated from the heart of the Harlem Renaissance to navigate the corrupt world of downtown Manhattan politics, and a deeply racist and sexist pre-civil rights American society. But her pioneering role in what became known as the “trial of the century” has been forgotten by popular history. Hers is the story of a writer, social worker, mother, teacher, sister, socialite, political candidate, community organizer and unheralded pioneer. This eight part immersive podcast is hosted by poet and writer, Nichole Perkins. It tells the story of Eunice Carter: a bad-ass anti-hero unafraid to bend the rules in pursuit of ambition, justice and legacy. Listen to The Godmother on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-godmother-141201920/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 1930s, Lucky Luciano, one of American history's most notorious mobsters, was finally taken down by a rookie prosecutor. Eunice Carter was one of the first Black Women ever to become a prosecutor in America. She operated from the heart of the Harlem Renaissance to navigate the corrupt world of downtown Manhattan politics, and a deeply racist and sexist pre-civil rights American society. But her pioneering role in what became known as the “trial of the century” has been forgotten by popular history. Hers is the story of a writer, social worker, mother, teacher, sister, socialite, political candidate, community organizer and unheralded pioneer. This eight part immersive podcast is hosted by poet and writer, Nichole Perkins. It tells the story of Eunice Carter: a bad-ass anti-hero unafraid to bend the rules in pursuit of ambition, justice and legacy. Listen to The Godmother on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-godmother-141201920/  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 1930s, Lucky Luciano, one of American history's most notorious mobsters, was finally taken down by a rookie prosecutor. Eunice Carter was one of the first Black Women ever to become a prosecutor in America. She operated from the heart of the Harlem Renaissance to navigate the corrupt world of downtown Manhattan politics, and a deeply racist and sexist pre-civil rights American society. But her pioneering role in what became known as the “trial of the century” has been forgotten by popular history. Hers is the story of a writer, social worker, mother, teacher, sister, socialite, political candidate, community organizer and unheralded pioneer. This eight part immersive podcast is hosted by poet and writer, Nichole Perkins. It tells the story of Eunice Carter: a bad-ass anti-hero unafraid to bend the rules in pursuit of ambition, justice and legacy. Listen to The Godmother on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-godmother-141201920/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 1930s, Lucky Luciano, one of American history's most notorious mobsters, was finally taken down by a rookie prosecutor. Eunice Carter was one of the first Black Women ever to become a prosecutor in America. She operated from the heart of the Harlem Renaissance to navigate the corrupt world of downtown Manhattan politics, and a deeply racist and sexist pre-civil rights American society. But her pioneering role in what became known as the “trial of the century” has been forgotten by popular history. Hers is the story of a writer, social worker, mother, teacher, sister, socialite, political candidate, community organizer and unheralded pioneer. This eight part immersive podcast is hosted by poet and writer, Nichole Perkins. It tells the story of Eunice Carter: a bad-ass anti-hero unafraid to bend the rules in pursuit of ambition, justice and legacy. Listen to The Godmother on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-godmother-141201920/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 1930s, Lucky Luciano, one of American history's most notorious mobsters, was finally taken down by a rookie prosecutor. Eunice Carter was one of the first Black Women ever to become a prosecutor in America. She operated from the heart of the Harlem Renaissance to navigate the corrupt world of downtown Manhattan politics, and a deeply racist and sexist pre-civil rights American society. But her pioneering role in what became known as the “trial of the century” has been forgotten by popular history. Hers is the story of a writer, social worker, mother, teacher, sister, socialite, political candidate, community organizer and unheralded pioneer. This eight part immersive podcast is hosted by poet and writer, Nichole Perkins. It tells the story of Eunice Carter: a bad-ass anti-hero unafraid to bend the rules in pursuit of ambition, justice and legacy. Listen to The Godmother on the iHeartRadio App or wherever you get your podcasts. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-godmother-141201920/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Trafficante crime family ruled Florida for decades, earning the respect and admiration of powerful mobsters like Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Sam Giancana. Santo Trafficante Sr arrived in Tampa as a boy from Sicily and took to the underworld with a talent for business, setting up the illegal lottery known as the Bolita before using his Spanish skills to make him indispensable to the powerful five families who wanted to set up shop in Cuba. When his son, Santo Jr, took the reigns, they soon controlled casinos, nightclubs and luxury hotels, as well as narcotics trafficking routes, from Cuba to Miami to Tampa. But the heady days of Fulgencio Batista's Cuba was coming to a close, and the Cuban revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro were going to complicate things. So much so that Trafficante soon found himself in one of America's strangest alliances and even stranger assassination plots. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices