Morris A. Shenker was a St. Louis lawyer who represented Midwest mob figures in the 1950s and became a lawyer for Jimmy Hoffa and the $700 million Central States Teamster’s pension fund. He encouraged the pension fund to invest in Las Vegas casinos. During the 1970s, Shenker borrowed several million personally and bought the Dunes […]
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Nick Civella‘s mole in Las Vegas was Joe Agosto. Immigration claims he was born Sicily, probably in the 1920s. He claims he was born in a Cleveland brothel and had been sent back to Sicily as a child. The government tried to deport Agosoto several times and he finally prevailed in 1978. He obtained the
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Nick Civella returned from Chicago and he became the driver for Tony Gizzo, the Kansas City Boss. This was a promotion in La Cosa Nostra hierarchy. To those in the know, Nick was being groomed for the job of boss job. He had one big job. Two mob members named Charlie Gargotta and Charlie Binnagio
One hidden microphone in the Villa Capri restaurant in Kansas City led to wiretaps and hidden microphones in Milwaukee, Las Vegas, Chicago and 19 separate wires in Kansas City. In Chicago, agents developed probable cause to place a tap on a telephone in the office of Allen Dorfman. They soon learned that Chicago Mob Caporegime
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Gangland Wire starts in an unusual place. In 1971, a local businessman named Marion Trozollo had an idea to revitalize a blighted area close to downtown. At that time, city dwellers were fleeing to the suburbs and downtown was losing businesses and population. Mr. Trozollo envisioned a French Quarter or Greenwich village type of district
Gangland Wire tells the real story behind the book and film, Casino. The film’s Director, Gary Jenkins, was an Intelligence Unit detective with the Kansas City Police Department. It is not often that a documentary filmmaker is a participant in the events documented. He starts with a local mob squabble that escalates into several murders
The Chicago Outfit has its roots in Sicily as with other La Cosa Nosta (LCN) style organized crime organizations of La Familia. As with the New York based LCN families, the old world Mustache Petes were usurped by the younger mobsters in the 1920s. Al Capone and Prohibition brought national attention to the Chicago family. Capone made
The origins of the Kansas City Crime Family, known better on the street as the “Outfit,” date back to the early part of the 20th Century. A small band of immigrant Italian/Sicilian predators, operating in the Little Italy north end section of the city, coalesced, organized and united during prohibition to become an organized crime
