By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.
The man who appeared to be always photographed with a perpetual sneer on his face, seemingly had a temperament to match. Like many short men, he made up for lost inches with a bombastic, in-your-face approach to l
jones (19)
By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.
Part One - Part Two
Through 1958 tensions rose and it was becoming increasingly obvious that Doctor Navarra and Luciano Leggio were heading for a showdown. Navarra, despite being well educated and a man of the w
By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.
Salvatore Avellino recorded by electronic surveillance:
'Do you understand me, now when you got a guy that steps out of line and this and that, now you got the whip. You got the fuckin' whip. This is what he, To
By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.
In those last few seconds, as his life was disappearing like an evanescent breath, nothing to protect him, no salvation at hand, his thoughts must have been perhaps his wife and children; his family to be torn apa
By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.
Any one interested in the subject of Italian-American organized crime, is probably familiar with the story concerning Charlie Luciano’s final departure from New York.
After serving 10 years of a thirty year sent
By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.
It begins and ends with a man who had a name that sounded like a musk melon.
His impact on the American Mafia was much more than to just have helped the law incarcerate a man who at the time, they considered perh
By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.
Before Lunch
It was not quite the dog days of August, but almost. The temperature was in the upper eighties by mid-day, baking the cracked asphalt that shimmered under the relentless rays of the noon-day sun, beat
Back to part 1
During Lunch
As his nephew drove away from the drop-off, Galante walked into the restaurant, whose front windows were masked by yellow curtains. It was a favourite meeting place, where he often arranged sit-downs with his closest ass
By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.
He went to church every Sunday in Deal, New Jersey, with his wife and three daughters. The kids in the neighbourhood called him 'cump.' He had a home there on five acres, where he raised prize ducks, that was valu
By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.
Way back in 1955, Alfred Hitchcock made this great movie called ‘The Trouble with Harry’ starring John Forsythe. An offbeat, hilarious black comedy about a bothersome corpse that keeps getting buried and then keep
By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.
The man with the heavy black beard had left his comfortable, six-room apartment at 130 West Twelfth Street. It was late in the morning, and he had to go to his office; but first he had a lunch meeting.
It was Jan
By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.
By all accounts he wasn’t that nice a person.
Described as small, lecherous and ugly, with a temperament to match, it’s hard to find anything redeeming in a life like his, cut short by the mid forties. He played
By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.
Whatever they amounted to as a bunch of criminals, the derivation of their name is intriguing enough in itself. There seems to be more versions of its origin and meaning, than combinations of a Rubik Cube.
One st
By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.
I think he is one of my favourite mobsters of all time. The one-eyed killer who couldn't shoot straight.
Most people have never heard of him. He never achieved any immortal status as a big player in the Mafia cri
By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.
Missing Person #75-3425.
To paraphrase that famous line from The Scarlet Pimpernel, 'they seek him here, they seek him there, trouble is, Jimmy’s buried everywhere.'
There never really was any serious doubt abou
By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.
No body knows for sure, just how the name came about.
I picture it a bit like this:
Michael Fiaschetti (photo right), 'Big Mike,' the boss of The Italian Squad, lounging back in a chair in his office, Police Hea
By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.
In the history of New York’s underworld, buried among the mythology that has created the people and places making up this often confusing landscape, there is one story that has grown much bigger over the years than
‘Man lives with the society he finds around him.’
Salvatore Lima, Christian Democratic politician,
Murdered by the Mafia, March 1992.
By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.
If he was right in what he said, it happened on the afternoon of September 20t
By Thom L. Jones for Gangsters Inc.
He could easily have been the first Mafia boss of bosses from Sicily to come to the United States, although when he hit New York, he may not yet have reached that lofty position. There were at least three men whos
