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In the world of organized crime the bosses grab the headlines, as the names Capone, Gotti, Bonnano, Cotroni and Rizzuto attest. But a crime family has many working parts and the young mobster known as The Weasel was the epitome of a crucial, invisible cog-the soldier, the muscle, the driver, the gopher. By a quirk of fate, Marvin Elkind-later The Weasel-was placed in the foster home of a tough gangster family, immersing him from the age of nine in a daring world of con men, cheats, bootleggers, loan sharks, bank robbers, leg breakers and Mafia bosses. During a Golden Age of underworld life in New York, Detroit and across Canada, The Weasel found himself working with a surprising cast of colo...
The definitive book about the explosive Rizzuto crime family On May 5, 1981, three rebellious members of New York’s Bonanno crime family were gunned down in a Brooklyn social club. One of the gunmen was Vito Rizzuto, a man who would rise to the top of the underworld in Canada and then expand his reign across continents to become a global superboss. The Sixth Family, now revised and updated, reveals the hidden history of the rise of the Rizzuto clan, the alliances it forged around the world and the bloody events that led to charges against Vito Rizzuto in the United States and Italy for racketeering and corruption. As police in the United States, Italy and Canada meticulously pieced together the puzzle that is Vito Rizzuto, established notions about the nature of authority within the Mafia were called into question. Who was this so-called “John Gotti of Canada”? How did he become one of the biggest names in global crime? And how did he survive the deadly assault from gangland rivals that almost destroyed his family?
Shortly after lunch on May 31, 1997, Johnny Papalia-also known as Johnny Pops, Canada's Capone, Godfather or The Enforcer-was gunned down outside his office at 10 Railway Street in Hamilton, Ontario. For close to forty years, gangsters across Canada had bowed to the fearsome will of Johnny Pops Papalia, a Mafia chieftain who grew up in a working-class ghetto and rose to hold a tenuous grip on organized crime. Journalist Adrian Humphreys followed the life, business and influence of Papalia, and using an intriguing selection of sources-from gangsters and street rogues to police and honest citizens-he recreates that shadowy world and reveals a man who could be as brutal as he was generous. The Enforcer takes the reader inside the Mafia's inner sanctum and reveals the power this organization still wields.
From The Sixth Family, according to witness testimony: BROOKLYN, MAY 5, 1981 "We were in the closet. We all had our weapons loaded. We sat there and waited for the doorbell to ring," said Salvatore Vitale, a slender New York mobster known as Good-Looking Sal. "We left the door open a smidge to look out." The ringing of the bell at the private social club’s entrance signaled the arrival of the first of the invited guests. Vito Rizzuto crouched low, peeking out from his vantage point. Through the swelling crowd and loud chatter from tough men all accustomed to having their say, Vito kept his eyes on one man, Gerlando Sciascia, a fellow Sicilian who was a long-time Rizzuto family friend. Brea...
The story of Johnny "Pops" Papalia is the story of the Mafia in Canada. It is a story that begins and ends on the same, small, working-class street in Hamilton, Ontario, where Johnny Pops was born and where he was shot dead at the age of 73. This book is the dramatic account of his bloody rise to power, his rocky tenure as the most powerful Mafia boss in Canada, his connections with the New York mob, and his inevitable gangland slaying. Few Canadians have lived a life so large and so violent.
In the world of organized crime, the bosses grab the headlines. But a crime family has many working parts and the young mobster known as The Weasel was the epitome of a crucial, invisible cog—the soldier, the muscle, the driver, the gopher. By a quirk of fate, Marvin Elkind—The Weasel—was placed in the Toronto foster home of a tough gangster family, immersing him from the age of nine in a daring world of con men, cheats, bootleggers, bank robbers and Mafia bosses. During a Golden Age of underworld life in New York, Detroit and across Canada, The Weasel found himself working with a surprising cast of colourful characters. He befriended powerful gangsters by smuggling bottles of Scotch t...
The ‘ndrangheta – the Calabrian region of Italy’s mafia – is one of wealthiest and most powerful criminal organizations today. It is considered Italy’s most powerful mafia; it’s not only the main object of concern for anti-mafia units in Italy, but also for joint investigative teams in Europe and beyond. Combining autobiography, travel ethnography, memoir, academic rigour and investigative journalism, this book provides a global outlook on the ‘ndrangheta, taking the reader to small villages and locations in Italy and abroad to Australia, Canada, United States and Argentina.
This book picks up where The Desperate Ones: Canada’s Forgotten Outlaws left off. Here are more remarkable true stories about Canadian crimes and criminals — most of them tales that have been buried for years. The stories begin in colonial Newfoundland, with robbery and murder committed by the notorious Power Gang. As readers travel across the country and through time, they will meet the last two men to be hanged in Prince Edward Island, smugglers who made lake Champlain a battleground, a counterfeiter whose bills were so good they fooled even bank managers, and teenage girls who committed murder in their escape from jail. They will meet the bandits who plundered banks and trains in Eastern Canada and the West, and even the United States. Among them were Same Behan, a robber whose harrowing testimony about the brutal conditions in the Kingston Penitentiary may have brought about his untimely death in "The Hole"; and John "Red" Hamilton, the Canadian-born member of the legendary Dillinger gang.
When it became possible to extend the dying process, it became necessary to decide when to stop doing so because of the enormous personal and social costs. But perspectives on "assisted suicide" vary greatly. Physicians see it as a medical issue, jurists as a legal issue, philosophers as a moral issue and the media as a political issue. These original essays show how these perspectives shape the ongoing debate.
In this ground-breaking book, Antonio Nicaso, an internationally renowned expert on organized crime groups, and Lee Lamothe, a veteran investigative journalist specializing in criminal conspiracies, present solid evidence of how established organized crime groups — such as the Mafia and the Triads — have changed their tactics and allegiances to protect their interests against the rise of violent and power-hungry gangs from Albania, Mexico, and Russia. Angels, Mobsters, & Narco-Terrorists reveals how, due to their shared border, the USA and Canada have become prime targets for criminal groups that engage in money laundering and prostitution rings, and trafficking in human cargo, narcotics, and arms. On the international scene, state-sanctioned crime is thriving on heroin profits and cyber crime is emerging as a very lucrative and baffling activity to investigate and shut down. Dive inside the world of organized crime and discover how far it has penetrated our lives.