Bombs, Bullets, and Bribes


Book Description

The true story of Shondor Birns, an aging Jewish mobster struggling to maintain control and his reputation in a black-dominated gambling empire. His relentless challenges include a rogue protégé and a high-stakes, high-finance mystery stretching from the US to Israel, and Canada to Cuba.




Superthief


Book Description

Superthief is a captivating first-hand look at the life of Phil Christopher, a career criminal, Mafia associate, and one of the most successful bank burglars in the United States. In a raw and candid accounting, Rick Porrello takes his readers inside Phil's brutal street world and prison life and exposes the details behind the planning and execution of the daring and record-setting 1972 United California Bank burglary in Orange County, California.




Kill the Irishman


Book Description

Be sure to see Kill the Irishman—the major motion picture based on Rick Porrello’s true-crime masterpiece! A modern warrior known as Greene Was very quick and smart, and mean. He scrambled hard and fought like hell, And led a charmed existence. They shot him down and blew him up With most regular persistence. —From The Ballad of Danny Greene Clevelan d, the 1970s: A fearless Irishman boldly muscles in on the Italian-American Mafia—intrepid, charismatic, shrewd, cunning, and armed with a master plan to take over the rackets under the auspices of the Irish banner of which he was so fiercely proud. His name is Greene, his signature color is green, and with his Irish luck for surviving bungled mob attempts on his life, he is seemingly indestructible. In the end, the war with Danny Greene—and his ultimate murder—severely crippled the Italian stranglehold on organized crime, with historic repercussions that outlived the unsinkable Irishman himself.




Mobbed Up


Book Description

The spellbinding saga of Teamster boss Jackie Presser’s rise and fall In his rise from car thief to president of America’s largest labor union, Jackie Presser used every ounce of his street smarts and rough-edged charisma to get ahead. He also had a lot of help along the way—not just from his father, Bill Presser, a Teamster power broker and thrice-convicted labor racketeer, but also from the Mob and the FBI. At the same time that he was taking orders from the Cleveland Mafia and New York crime boss Fat Tony Salerno, Presser was serving as the FBI’s top informant on organized crime. Meticulously researched and dramatically told, Mobbed Up is the story of Presser’s precarious balancing act with the Teamsters, the Mafia, and the Justice Department. Drawing on thousands of pages of classified files, James Neff follows the trail of greed, corruption, and hubris all the way to the Nixon and Reagan White Houses, where Bill and Jackie Presser were treated as valued friends. Winner of an Investigative Reporters & Editors Award for best reporting on organized crime, it is a tale too astonishing to be made up—and too troubling to be ignored.




The Rise and Fall of the Cleveland Mafia


Book Description

A vivid exploration of the rise of the Cleveland Mafia as a rival to the Mafia of New York and Chicago. Detailed are important connections with mega-mobsters like Charles 'Lucky' Luciano and Meyer Lansky, as well as the Cleveland mob's move to Las Vegas. Now finally back in print following the film release of Kill the Irishman, Porrello's startling account contains all of the gritty details and local flavour readers have come to expect from Barricade's mafia books.




To Kill the Irishman


Book Description

The story of Irish-American racketeer Danny Greene and his war with the Mafia. Basis for the film Kill the Irishman starring Ray Stevenson, Vincent D'Onofrio, with Val Kilmer and Christopher Walken.




Crimes Committed by Terrorist Groups


Book Description

This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. Examines terrorists¿ involvement in a variety of crimes ranging from motor vehicle violations, immigration fraud, and mfg. illegal firearms to counterfeiting, armed bank robbery, and smuggling weapons of mass destruction. There are 3 parts: (1) Compares the criminality of internat. jihad groups with domestic right-wing groups. (2) Six case studies of crimes includes trial transcripts, official reports, previous scholarship, and interviews with law enforce. officials and former terrorists are used to explore skills that made crimes possible; or events and lack of skill that the prevented crimes. Includes brief bio. of the terrorists along with descriptions of their org., strategies, and plots. (3) Analysis of the themes in closing arguments of the transcripts in Part 2. Illus.




The Prometheus Deception/The Sigma Protocol


Book Description

Prometheus Deception Robert Ludlum is the acknowledged master of suspense and international intrigue. For over thirty years, in over twenty international bestsellers, he has a set a standard that has never been equaled. Now, with the Prometheus Deception, he proves that he is at the very pinnacle of his craft. Nicholas Bryson spent years as a deep cover operative for the American secret intelligence group, the Directorate. After critical undercover mission went horribly wrong, Bryson was retired to a new identity. Years later, his closely held cover is cracked and Bryson learns that the Directorate was not what it claimed - that he was a pawn in a complex scheme against his own country's interests. Now, it has become increasingly clear that the shadowy Directorate is headed for some dangerous endgame - but no one knows precisely who they are and what they are planning. With Bryson their only possible asset, the director of the CIA recruits Bryson to find, reinfiltrate, and stop the Directorate. But after years on the sidelines, Bryson's field skills are rusty, his contacts unreliable, and his instincts suspect. With everything he thought he knew about his own life in question, Bryson is all alone in a wilderness of mirrors - unsure what is and isn't true and who, if anyone, he can trust - with the future of millions in the balance. Sigma Protocol Ben Hartman is vacationing in Zurich, Switzerland when he chances upon his old friend Jimmy Cavanaugh—a madman who's armed and programmed to assassinate. In a matter of minutes, six innocent bystanders are dead. So is Cavanaugh. But when his body vanishes, and his weapon mysteriously appears in Hartman's luggage, Hartman is plunged into an unfathomable nightmare... Meanwhile, Anna Navarro, field agent for the Department of Justice, has been asked to investigate the sudden, random deaths of eleven men throughout the world. The only thing that connects them? A secret file, over a half-century old, that's linked to the CIA—and is marked with the same puzzling codename: Sigma. As Anna follows the connecting thread—and Hartman finds himself on the run—she ends up in the shadows of a relentless killer who is one step ahead of her...victim by victim. Now, she and Hartman together must uncover the diabolical secrets long held behind Sigma. It will threaten everything they think they know about themselves—and confirm their very worst fears...




The Kosher Capones


Book Description

The Kosher Capones tells the fascinating story of Chicago's Jewish gangsters from Prohibition into the 1980s. Author Joe Kraus traces these gangsters through the lives, criminal careers, and conflicts of Benjamin "Zuckie the Bookie" Zuckerman, last of the independent West Side Jewish bosses, and Lenny Patrick, eventual head of the Syndicate's "Jewish wing." These two men linked the early Jewish gangsters of the neighborhoods of Maxwell Street and Lawndale to the notorious Chicago Outfit that emerged from Al Capone's criminal confederation. Focusing on the murder of Zuckerman by Patrick, Kraus introduces us to the different models of organized crime they represented, a raft of largely forgotten Jewish gangsters, and the changing nature of Chicago's political corruption. Hard-to-believe anecdotes of corrupt politicians, seasoned killers, and in-over-their-heads criminal operators spotlight the magnitude and importance of Jewish gangsters to the story of Windy City mob rule. With an eye for the dramatic, The Kosher Capones takes us deep inside a hidden society and offers glimpses of the men who ran the Jewish criminal community in Chicago for more than sixty years.




Organized Crime in Miami


Book Description

While other cities are credited for birthing and honing the legendary crime figures who inevitably influenced and shaped their susceptible surroundings and culture, Miami is where the Mob, like many American citizens, often turned when seeking vacation, vice, or a new beginning. Dating back to the first quarter of the 20th century, resourceful gangsters from across the nation recognized the profitable business opportunities Miami could provide with its booming population, perfect year-round climate, cooperative law enforcement, and mutual understanding among otherwise rival gangs. The promise of an open city, free from familiar encumbrances and restrictions, prompted eager mobsters from around the country to migrate south and trade in their suits and fedoras for swim trunks and flip-flops. Organized Crime in Miami examines the considerable yet heavily underpublicized involvement of the American Mafia in South Florida and its lasting impact on the community through their business activities, both illegal and within the confines of the law.