True Organized Crime

Mafia Prince is the first-person account of one of the most violent eras in Mafia history - "Little" Nicky Scarfo’s reign as boss of the Philly family in the 1980s - written by Scarfo’s underboss and nephew, "Crazy" Phil Leonetti. The youngest-ever underboss at the age of 31, Leonetti was at the crux of the violent downfall of the traditional American Mafia in the 1980s when he infiltrated Atlantic City after gambling was legalized, and later turned state’s evidence against his own.

Baltimore, 2015. Riots are erupting across the city as citizens demand justice for Freddie Gray, a twenty-five-year-old Black man who has died under suspicious circumstances while in police custody. In this urgent book, award-winning investigative journalist Justin Fenton distills hundreds of interviews, thousands of court documents, and countless hours of video footage to present the definitive account of the entire scandal.

Step back in time to the winter of 1929, where the magic of Christmas in Brooklyn, New York, was shattered by a heinous act that reverberated through the ages. In "The Murder of Mary Falzone: A Shocking True Crime Story,” Rod Kackley unravels the chilling tale of a family torn apart by an explosion that claimed the lives of Mary, Philip, and Rose Falzone, innocent children whose lives were extinguished by a bomb disguised as a holiday gift. As the city grappled with the aftermath of this unspeakable tragedy, a relentless investigation unfolded to unmask the perpetrators behind the ...

The Calabrese family of Chicago is a close-knit, middle-class, multi-generational Italian-Irish-American clan. They operate family businesses. They work day and night striving for the American Dream. All three sons forge a bond with their controlling father, Frank Sr., and their soft-spoken favorite uncle, Nick. As a boy, the oldest son, Frank Jr., realizes that his father and uncle are also "made" members of another close-knit family: the outfit.

The Brotherhoods is the chilling chronicle of the shocking crimes of NYPD detectives Stephen Caracappa and Louis Eppolito, notorious rogue cops convicted in April 2006 of the ultimate form of police corruption-shielding their acts behind their badges while they worked for the mob. Their crimes included participation in the murders of at least eight men, kidnapping, torture, and the betrayal of an entire generation of New York City detectives and federal agents

Books about the Kennedys are legion. Yet missing until now has been the exploration of the bond between Jack and Bobby, and the part that it played in their rise and fall. Richard D. Mahoney gives us Jack and Bobby in all their hubris and humanity, youthfulness and fatalism. Here is American history as it unfolds. The Kennedy Brothers is a fresh and masterful account of the men whose legacy continues to hold the American imagination.

In Public Enemies, Bryan Burrough strips away a thick layer of myths put out by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI to tell the full story of the most spectacular crime wave in American history, the two-year battle between the young Hoover and an assortment of criminals who became national icons: John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, and the Barkers.

From the author of the number one international best seller Gomorrah comes an electrifying investigation of the international cocaine trade, as vicious as it is powerful, and its hidden role in the global economy. In many countries, “000” flour is the finest on the market. It is hard to find, but it is soft, light, almost impalpable - like the purest, highest quality grade of cocaine. ZeroZeroZero is also the title of Roberto Saviano’s unforgettable, internationally best-selling exploration of the inner workings of the global cocaine trade.

Baby-faced teen Giovanni Macedo is desperate to find belonging in one of LA's most predatory gangs, the Columbia Lil Cycos—so desperate that he agrees to kill an undocumented Mexican street vendor. The vendor, Francisco Clemente, had been refusing to give in to the gang's shakedown demands. But Giovanni botches the hit, accidentally killing a newborn instead. The overlords who rule the Lil Cycos from a Supermax prison 1,000 miles away must be placated and Giovanni is lured across the border where, in turn, the gang botches his killing.

When you can’t hear…death comes silently. Scotland Yard detective Valerie Crowther is assigned to investigate the murder of a student at a university for the Deaf in London, England. The murder investigation coincides with a deadly flu virus outbreak, resulting in the university being quarantined from the outside world. When more Deaf students are murdered, it becomes clear there is a serial killer operating within the sealed-off university. A chilling cat-and-mouse game evolves as the unknown killer targets Valerie and the virus claims more lives. A stunning, claustrophobic, “...

In a ranch south of Texas, the man known as The Executioner dumps 500 body parts in metal barrels. In Brazil's biggest city, a mysterious prisoner orders hit men to gun down 41 police officers and prison guards in two days. In Southern Mexico a meth maker is venerated as a saint while enforcing Old Testament justice on his enemies. A new kind of criminal kingpin has arisen: part CEO, part terrorist, and part rock star, unleashing guerrilla attacks, strong-arming governments, and taking over much of the world's trade in narcotics, guns, and humans.

In 1850, an impoverished twenty-five-year-old named Fredericka Mandelbaum came to New York in steerage and worked as a peddler on the streets of Lower Manhattan. By the 1870s she was a fixture of high society and an admired philanthropist. How was she able to ascend from tenement poverty to vast wealth? In the intervening years, “Marm” Mandelbaum had become the country’s most notorious “fence”—a receiver of stolen goods—and a criminal mastermind.

Despite what Scarface might lead one to believe, violence was not the dominant characteristic of the cocaine business. It was corruption: the dirty cops, agents, lawyers, judges, and politicians who made the drug world go round. And no one managed that carousel of dangerous players better than Willy Falcon.

Women of Southie tells the story of six women who grew up in and, in most cases, still live in their beloved town of South Boston, a place most notably recognized as the home of organized crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger. But while Bulger might have been ruling the town with an iron fist, as depicted by Johnny Depp in Black Mass, what the town ought to have been recognized for are the brave women who ruled their own lives and their families with equally strong but far more beneficial hands. The stories of these women, ages 40 to 67, are filled with honest details.

Makoto Saigo is half-American and half-Japanese in small-town Japan with a set of talents limited to playing guitar and picking fights. With rock stardom off the table, he turns toward the only place where you can start from the bottom and move up through sheer merit, loyalty, and brute force―the yakuza. Saigo, nicknamed “The Tsunami”, quickly realizes that even within the organization, opinions are as varied as they come, and a clash of philosophies can quickly become deadly. One screw-up can cost you your life, or at least a finger.

In 1979, the gruesome slaying of a thirteen-year-old boy riveted the suburbs of Suffolk County, New York. As the county hustled to bring the case to a dubious resolution, a wayward local teenager emerged with a convenient story to tell. For his cooperation, Jimmy Burke was rewarded with a job as a cop. Thus began Burke’s unlikely ascent to the top of one of the country’s largest law enforcement jurisdictions. He and a crew of likeminded allies utilized vengeance, gangster tactics, and political leverage to become the most powerful and feared figures in their suburban empire.

Today, MS-13 is one of the most infamous street gangs on earth, with an estimated ten thousand members operating in dozens of states and linked to thousands of grisly murders each year in the US and abroad. But it is also misunderstood—less a drug cartel and more a hand-to-mouth organization whose criminal economy is based mostly on small-time extortion schemes and petty drug dealing. Steven Dudley brings listeners inside the nefarious group to tell a larger story of how a flawed US and Central American policy, and exploitative economic systems, helped foster the gang and sustain it.

Cuando se pensaba que ya estaba todo dicho sobre Pablo Escobar, aparece este libro sumamente revelador, escrito en clave de vértigo. Quien lo lea se sentirá asistiendo a una sala de cine, oirá los latidos agitados de la Medellín de comienzos de los noventa y verá desfilar a los más disímiles personajes, unidos tras un solo propósito: cazar y dar de baja a Pablo Escobar Gaviria.

In Asia’s narcotics-producing heartland, the Wa reign supreme. They dominate the Golden Triangle, a mountainous stretch of Burma between Thailand and China. Their 30,000-strong army, wielding missiles and attack drones, makes Mexican cartels look like street gangs.

The first serious external threat to the mafia's existence in America comes from U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who repeatedly expresses his desire to eradicate organized crime in America. Kennedy unleashes the full force of the U.S. Justice Department to the apparent dismay of long-time FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. The mafia's unforgiving response is executed by Louisiana don Carlos Marcello along with Florida don Santo Trafficante, who together take aim at the attorney general's brother, the president of the United States.