Download or read book The Last Gangster written by Charlie Richardson and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-01-20 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charlie Richardson, one of Britain's most notorious gangland bosses, sheds light on his extraordinary life story completed just weeks before his death in September 2012. Notorious Charlie Richardson was the most feared gangster in 1960s London. Boss of the Richardson Gang and rival of the Krays, to cross him would result in brutal repercussions. Famously arrested on the day England won the World Cup in 1966, his trial heard he allegedly used iron bars, bolt cutters and electric shocks on his enemies. The Last Gangster is Richardson’s frank account of his largely untold life story, finished just before his death in September 2012. He shares the truth behind the rumours and tells of his feuds with the Krays for supremacy, undercover missions involving politicians, many lost years banged up in prison and reveals shocking secrets about royalty, phone hacking, bent coppers and the infamous black box. Straight up, shocking and downright gripping, this is the ultimate exposé on this legendary gangster and his extraordinary life.
Download or read book The Last Gangster written by George Anastasia and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-10-18 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Journalist George Anastasia’s New York Times bestseller The Last Gangster is a revelatory biography of mobster turned informant Ron Previte. “It’s over. You’d have to be Ray Charles not to see it.” —former New Jersey capo Ron Previte, on the mob today As a cop, Ron Previte was corrupt. As a mobster he was brutal. And in his final role, as a confidential informant to the FBI, Previte was deadly. The Last Gangster is his story—the story of the last days of the Philadelphia Mob, and of the clash of generations that brought it down once and for all. For thirty-five years Ron Previte roamed the underworld. A six-foot, 300-pound capo in the Philadelphia-South Jersey crime family, he ran every mob scam and gambit from drug trafficking and prostitution to the extortion of millions from Atlantic City. In his own words, “Every day was a different felony.” By the 1990s, old-school workhorse Previte found himself answering to younger mob bosses like “Skinny Joe” Merlino, who seemed increasingly spoiled, cocky, and careless. Convinced that the honor of the “business” was gone, he became the FBI’s secret weapon in an intense and highly personalized war on the Philadelphia mob. Operating with the same guile, wit, and stone-cold bravado that had made him a force in the underworld—and armed with only a wiretap secured to his crotch—Previte recorded it all; the murder, the mayhem, and even the story of mob boss Ralph Natale’s affair with his youngest daughter’s best friend. Previte and his FBI cronies eventually prevailed, securing the convictions of his nemeses, “Skinny Joey” Merlino and Ralph Natale.
Download or read book The Chronicles of The Last Jewish Gangster written by Myron Sugerman and published by . This book was released on 2019-06-21 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Myron Sugerman's memoir, The Last Jewish Gangster: From Meyer to Myron, is more than just a riveting account of the author's nearly sixty-year career as an international outlaw in the field of slot machines and casinos. Its Also a fascinating meditation on a variety of themes: aging, respect, adventure, greed, and man's tendency to be his own worst enemy. Although it is chock-full of hilarious anecdotes about Mr. Sugerman's hapless cohorts in what he calls "disorganized crime," the book also contains life lessons for those perceptive enough to look for them--lessons on how to differentiate calculated risk taking from compulsive gambling, and how to maintain one's place in the world as one grows older. The Last Jewish Gangster follows its author from 1959 to the present day as he travels the globe from Europe to Africa to South America to Asia, rubbing shoulders with dangerous men and legendary mob figures like Longie Zwillman, Meyer Lansky, Joe "Doc" Stacher, Gerry Catena, Tony Bananas Caponigro, Tommy Ryan Eboli, and many others. The story covers everything from his dealings with the fearsome Cali Cartel to his attempt to help famous Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal track down the Angel of Death, Josef Mengele in Paraguay. The remarkable book contains something to pique the interest of any reader--Gritty crime stories, harrowing adventure, twentieth century history, and the Jewish religious philosophy--and the perspective of a man who has lived a long life and seen more than most of us have even imagined seeing.
Download or read book The Last Pirate of New York written by Rich Cohen and published by Random House. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Was he New York City’s last pirate . . . or its first gangster? This is the true story of the bloodthirsty underworld legend who conquered Manhattan, dock by dock—for fans of Gangs of New York and Boardwalk Empire. “History at its best . . . I highly recommend this remarkable book.”—Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Lost City of the Monkey God Handsome and charismatic, Albert Hicks had long been known in the dive bars and gin joints of the Five Points, the most dangerous neighborhood in maritime Manhattan. For years, he operated out of the public eye, rambling from crime to crime, working on the water in ships, sleeping in the nickel-a-night flops, drinking in barrooms where rat-baiting and bear-baiting were great entertainments. His criminal career reached its peak in 1860, when he was hired, under an alias, as a hand on an oyster sloop. His plan was to rob the ship and flee, disappearing into the teeming streets of lower Manhattan, as he’d done numerous times before, eventually finding his way back to his nearsighted Irish immigrant wife (who, like him, had been disowned by her family) and their infant son. But the plan went awry—the ship was found listing and unmanned in the foggy straits of Coney Island—and the voyage that was to enrich him instead led to his last desperate flight. Long fascinated by gangster legends, Rich Cohen tells the story of this notorious underworld figure, from his humble origins to the wild, globe-crossing, bacchanalian crime spree that forged his ruthlessness and his reputation, to his ultimate incarnation as a demon who terrorized lower Manhattan, at a time when pirates anchored off 14th Street. Advance praise for The Last Pirate of New York “A remarkable work of scholarship about old New York, combined with a skillfully told, edge-of-your-seat adventure story—I could not put it down.”—Ian Frazier, author of Travels in Siberia “With its wise and erudite storytelling, Rich Cohen’s The Last Pirate of New York takes the reader on an exciting nonfiction narrative journey that transforms a grisly nineteenth-century murder into a shrewd portent of modern life. Totally unique, totally compelling, I enjoyed every page.”—Howard Blum, New York Times bestselling author of Gangland and American Lightning
Download or read book Sonny written by S. J. Peddie and published by Citadel Press. This book was released on 2022-03-29 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Couldn’t put it down.” —Nicholas Pileggi, author of Wiseguy (Goodfellas) and Casino The extraordinary life and times of a legendary crime boss who refused to squeal—but who finally agreed to talk to an award-winning New York Newsday reporter shortly before his death at age 103 . . . John “Sonny” Franzese reportedly committed his first murder at the age of fourteen. As a “made man” for the Colombo crime family, he operated out of his Long Island home specializing in racketeering, fraud, loansharking, and other illicit deeds he would deny to his dying day. His career in organized crime spanned over eight decades—and he was sentenced to fifty years in prison for robbery charges. But even behind bars, Sonny Franzese never stopped doing business . . . This is the true story of an old-school mafioso as it’s never been told before. Newsday reporter S. J. Peddie interviewed Franzese in prison—and uncovered a lifetime of shocking secrets from the legend himself: * Why FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had a very personal interest in Sonny. * How Sonny managed to juggle numerous affairs with women, including a famous model. * How Sonny spent a third of his life in prison—and still managed to earn untold millions for the mob. * How Sonny accidentally revealed some of his worst crimes—to a “friend” wearing a wire. Through it all, Franzese refused to break the Mafia’s code of silence. Authorities believe he may have murdered, or ordered the murders of, forty to fifty people. Yet he earned a grudging respect from law enforcement and an absolute reverence from his fellow gangsters. Eventually he managed to outlive them all—until his death in 2020 of natural causes, a rare event in the Mafia. Thanks to a series of exclusive firsthand interviews, the astonishing life story of John “Sonny” Franzese can be told in all its bold, brutal, and blood-spattered glory. This is a must-read for anyone fascinated with Mafia history—and a rare look inside a criminal mind that has become the stuff of legend.
Download or read book Gotti s Rules written by George Anastasia and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2015-01-27 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of Blood and Honor and The Last Gangster—“one of the most respected crime reporters in the country” (60 Minutes)—comes the sure to be headline-making inside story of the Gotti and Gambino families, told from the unique viewpoint of notorious mob hit-man John Alite, a close associate of Junior Gotti who later testified against him. In Gotti’s Rules, George Anastasia, a prize-winning reporter who spent over thirty years covering crime, offers a shocking and very rare glimpse into the Gotti family, witnessed up-close from former family insider John Alite, John Gotti Jr.’s longtime friend and protector. Until now, no one has given up the kind of personal details about the Gottis—including the legendary “Gotti Rules” of leadership—that Anastasia exposes here. Drawing on extensive FBI files and other documentation, his own knowledge, and exclusive interviews with insiders and experts, including mob-enforcer-turned-government-witness Alite, Anastasia pokes holes in the Gotti legend, demystifying this notorious family and its lucrative and often deadly machinations. Anastasia offers never-before-heard information about the murders, drug dealing, and extortion that propelled John J. Gotti to the top of the Gambino crime family and the treachery and deceit that allowed John A. “Junior” Gotti to follow in his father’s footsteps. Told from street level and through the eyes of a wiseguy who saw it all firsthand, the result is a riveting look at a family whose hubris, violence, passion, and greed fueled a bloody rise and devastating fall that is still reverberating through the American underworld today. Gotti’s Rules includes 8 pages of black-and-white photographs.
Download or read book Takedown written by Rick Cowan and published by Putnam Adult. This book was released on 2002 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NYPD detective describes his work as an undercover cop, in which role he infltrated a lethal mob cartel to uncover evidence of a conspiracy among the various mob families to extort billions of dollars from the nation's most influential corporations.
Download or read book The Last Gangster written by George Anastasia and published by William Morrow. This book was released on 2004-03-16 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a cop Ron Previte was corrupt. As a mobster he was brutal. And in his final role, as a confidential informant to the FBI, Previte was deadly. The Last Gangster is his story -- the story of the last days of the Philadelphia mob, and of the clash of generations that brought it down once and for all. For thirty-five years Ron Previte roamed the underworld. A six foot-tall, 300-pound capo in the Philadelphia-South Jersey crime family, he ran every mob scam and gambit from drug trafficking and prostitution to the extortion of millions from Atlantic City. By the 1990s, Previte, an old-school workhorse, found himself answering to younger mob bosses like "Skinny Joey" Merlina. Spoiled, cocky, and careless, the young, up-and-coming gangsters were hungry for the media's attention and the public's recognition. Gone were the days of loyalty and discretion. Convinced that the honor of the "business" was over, Previte became the FBI's secret weapon in an intense and highly personalized war on the Philadelphia mob. Operating with the same guile, wit, and stone-cold bravado that had made him a force in the underworld, and armed with only a wiretap, Previte recorded it all: the murder, the mayhem, and the betrayal.In The Last Gangster, George Anastasia -- the critically acclaimed author of Blood and Honor and The Goodfella Tapes -- tells Previte's story for the first time. Unflinching and enthralling, The Last Gangster is the true story of how the once monolithic, highly organized, powerful, and secretive Cosa Nostra was defeated by its own hand.
Download or read book The Last Real Gangster The Final Truth About The Krays And The Underworld We Lived In written by Freddie Foreman and published by Kings Road Publishing. This book was released on 2015-09-03 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over fifty years, Freddie Foreman's name has commanded respect, and occasionally fear, from those who work to uphold the law - and those who operate just outside of it. With almost all of his compatriots - like the notorious Kray twins - now gone, Freddie is truly The Last Real Gangster. A true entrepreneur and businessman, Freddie was one of the great personalities of the criminal underworld. A man of principle, protective of his family and unfailingly loyal to his friends, Freddie was someone who could be relied upon with complete confidence in all circumstances. Together with co-authors Frank and Noelle Kurylo - who have themselves been intimately involved in the underworld for a number of decades - as well as dozens of previously unpublished photographs, The Last Real Gangster contains the musings and reminiscences of someone who truly was there and really did see it all. Including a detailed look at the life of the Kray twins, alongside dozens of other recognisable 'Faces', this book is the no-holds-barred story of Freddie's life and the exciting and glamorous world in which they lived.
Download or read book Mob Culture written by Lee Grieveson and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mob Culture offers a long-awaited, fresh look at the American gangster film, exposing its hidden histories from the Black Hand gangs of the early twentieth century to The Sopranos. Departing from traditional approaches that have typically focused on the "nature" of the gangster, the editors have collected essays that engage the larger question of how the meaning of criminality has changed over time. Grouped into three thematic sections, the essays examine gangster films through the lens of social, gender, and racial/ethnic issues.
Download or read book Dreams and Dead Ends written by Jack Shadoian and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-01-16 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dreams and Dead Ends provides a compelling history of the twentieth-century American gangster film. Beginning with Little Caesar (1930) and ending with Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead (1995), Jack Shadoian adroitly analyzes twenty notable examples of the crime film genre. Moving chronologically through nearly seven decades, this volume offers illuminating readings of a select group of the classic films--including The Public Enemy, D.O.A., Bonnie and Clyde, and The Godfather--that best define and represent each period in the development of the American crime film. Richly illustrated with more than seventy film stills, Dreams and Dead Ends details the evolution of the genre through insightful and precise considerations of cinematography, characterization, and narrative style. This updated edition includes new readings of three additional movies--Once Upon a Time in America, Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead, and Criss Cross--and brings this clear and lively discussion of the history of the gangster film to the end of the twentieth century.
Download or read book Gangster Squad written by Paul Lieberman and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2012-08-07 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Read this man's book." --James Ellroy Gangster Squad presents a harrowing, edge-of-your-seat narrative of murder and secrets, revenge and heroism in the City of Angels—the real events behind the blockbuster Warner Brothers film starring Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. GANGSTER SQUAD chronicles the true story of the secretive police unit that waged an anything-goes war to drive Mickey Cohen and other hoodlums from Los Angeles after WWII. In 1946, the LAPD launched the Gangster Squad with eight men who met covertly on street corners and slept with Tommy guns under their beds. But for two cops, all that mattered was nailing the strutting gangster Mickey Cohen. Sgt. Jack O'Mara was a square-jawed church usher, Sgt. Jerry Wooters a cynical maverick. About all they had in common was their obsession. So O'Mara set a trap to prove Mickey was a killer. And Wooters formed an alliance with Mickey's budding rival, Jack "The Enforcer" Whalen. Two cops -- two hoodlums. Their fates collided in the closing days of the 1950s, when late one night "The Enforcer" confronted Mickey and his crew. The aftermath would shake both LA's mob and police department, and signal the end of a defining era in the city's history. Warner Brothers developed the film Gangster Squad based on the research award-winning journalist Paul Lieberman conducted for this book, which reveals the unbelievable true stories behind the film. He spent more than a decade tracking down and interviewing surviving members of the real police unit as well as families and associates of the mobsters they pursued. Gangster Squad is a tour-de-force narrative reminiscent of LA Confidential.
Download or read book Blood and Honor written by George Anastasia and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the rise and fall of the Scarfo family, one of the most violent Mafia families in America.
Download or read book The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano written by Martin Gosch and published by Enigma Books. This book was released on 2013-06-25 with total page 470 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this true crime classic, out of print since 1981, Lucky Luciano remains a mythical underworld figure.
Download or read book Gangster written by Lorenzo Carcaterra and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2002-07-30 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Love. Violence. Destiny. These powerful themes ricochet through Lorenzo Carcaterra’s new novel like bullets from a machine gun. In Gangster, he surpasses even his bestselling Sleepers to create a brutal and brilliant American saga of murder, forgiveness, and redemption. Born in the midst of tragedy and violence and raised in the shadow of a shocking secret, young Angelo Vestieri chooses to flee both his past and his father to seek a second family—the criminals who preside over early 20th century New York. In his bloody rise from soldier to mob boss, he encounters ever more barbaric betrayals—in friendship, in his brutal business, in love—yet simultaneously comes to understand the meaning of loyalty, the virtue of relationships, and gains a perspective on the lonely, if powerful, life he has chosen. As the years pass, as enemies are made and defeated, as wars are fought and won, the old don meets an abandoned boy who needs a parent as much as protection. By taking Gabe under his wing and teaching him everything he knows, Angelo Vestieri will learn, in the winter of his life, which is greater: his love for the boy he cherishes, or his need to be a gangster and to live by the savage rules he helped create. A sweeping panoramic with riveting characters, a unique understanding of the underworld philosophy, and a relentless pace, Gangster travels through the time of godfathers and goodfellas to our own world of suburban Sopranos. But this is more than just an authentic chronicle of crime. Setting a new standard for this acclaimed author, Gangster is a compassionate portrait of one man's fight against his fate—and an unforgettable epic of a family, a city, a century.
Download or read book Rock Solid written by Billy Stonewall Birt and published by . This book was released on 2017-04-27 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The story of Georgia's 'Dixie Mafia' has never been told. At its core was one man and he was bigger than life. He was the author and enforcer of the rules that governed the entire organization. He set the standard of code that made the 'Dixie Mafia" impenetrable. And he was the one that anyone who broke that code would have to face. His name was Billy Sunday Birt and this is his story" --page 4 cover.
Download or read book The Last Boss of Brighton written by Douglas Century and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-07-05 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bestselling author Douglas Century reveals the untold story of the epic rise and fall of Boris Nayfeld, also known as Biba, one of the most notorious Russian mob bosses of our era. Boris Nayfeld, a.k.a. “Biba,” is the last living boss of the old-school Russian mob in America, and he’s survived to tell it all. Filled with sex, drugs, and murder, Biba’s story is a mind-boggling journey that took him from petty street crime in the USSR to billion-dollar embezzlement in America. Born in Soviet-era Belarus, abandoned by his parents in infancy, Biba’s brutal upbringing left him hungry for more—more power, control, and money. Taking advantage of the rampant corruption in the Soviet Union, Biba’s teenage hooliganism quickly turned into bolder “black cash” rackets, making him, by Soviet standards, a very rich young man. When authorities took notice and threatened him with “the supreme measure”— execution by firing squad—he managed to get out of the USSR just in time. Within months of landing in America, his intimidating presence and street smarts quickly made him legendary in the Soviet émigré community of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, and launched him to the top of New York’s Russian Jewish mob, one of the world’s most inventive, powerful and violent criminal organizations. After decades as a globe-trotting boss, and three stints in U.S. federal prisons he remains unbroken and unrepentant, even as his entire life has unraveled around him. Now seventy-four years old, Biba is a lion in winter. Douglas Century vividly brings the notorious gangster to life in these pages, telling not only his epic journey but also the history of the Russian mob in America.
