True Organized Crime

Carlos Lehder es mundialmente famoso por haber sido uno de los fundadores y principales capos del cartel de Medellín, tal vez el más singular del grupo, y el primero de ellos en ser extraditado a los Estados Unidos, en 1987, luego de ser traicionado por Pablo Escobar Gaviria, su socio y cabecilla indiscutible del cartel. Lehder fue sentenciado a cadena perpetua y 135 años adicionales, que logró reducir por su colaboración en el juicio de Estados Unidos contra el dictador panameño Manuel Antonio Noriega.

On November 7, 1974, a nanny named Sandra Rivett was bludgeoned to death in a Belgravia basement. Veronica, Countess of Lucan, was also attacked. The man named as perpetrator of these crimes, Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, disappeared in the early hours of the following morning. The case, solved in the eyes of the law, has retained its fascination ever since. Laura Thompson narrates the story that led up to that cataclysmic event, and draws on her considerable forensic skills to re-examine the possible truths behind one of postwar Britain's most notorious murders.

Back in the fall of 2016, we heard the news about the passing of Eddie Antar, "Crazy Eddie" as he was known to millions of people, the man behind the successful chain of electronic stores and one of the most iconic ad campaigns in history. Few things evoke the New York of a particular era the way "Crazy Eddie! His prices are insaaaaane!" does. The journalist Herb Greenberg called his death the "end of an era" and that couldn't be more true. What's insane is that his story has never been told.

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.

Operation White Rabbit traces the rise and fall - and rise and fall again - of the psychedelic community through the life of the man known as the "Acid King": William Leonard Pickard. Pickard was a legitimate genius, a follower of Timothy Leary, a con artist, a womanizer, and a believer that LSD would save lives. He was a foreign diplomat, a Harvard fellow, and the biggest producer of LSD on the planet - if you believe the DEA.

The incredible true story of the decade-long quest to bring down Paul Le Roux - the creator of a frighteningly powerful internet-enabled cartel who merged the ruthlessness of a drug lord with the technological savvy of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

Burn Boston Burn is an astounding true crime narration. A conspiracy of nine men, including three Boston cops and a Boston firefighter, burned Boston and surrounding communities in the early 1980s due to tax-cutting measures that caused layoffs of hundreds of police and firefighters. Over two years, these fire buffs-turned-arsonists torched 264 buildings, causing millions of dollars in damages and hundreds of injuries. The city was ablaze with nightly fires, sirens wailing through the streets, and people too afraid to sleep.

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.

At first glance Gabriel Cardona is the poster-boy American teenager: great athlete, bright, handsome, and charismatic. But the streets of his border town of Laredo, Texas, are poor and dangerous, and it isn't long before Gabriel abandons his promising future for the allure of the Zetas, a drug cartel with roots in the Mexican military. His younger friend, Bart, as well as others from Gabriel's childhood join him in working for the Zetas, boosting cars and smuggling drugs, eventually catching the eye of the cartel's leadership.

The Gambino family is a prime example of organized crime families and how their in-house fighting and varying styles of leadership have defined the age of the mob. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the family went through a series of names and leaders, but they always remained at the top of the New York mob regime and retained their Sicilian ties.

The first of its kind, Three Weeks in July provides the definitive narrative on the harrowing events of 7th July 2005 and the aftermath, where chaos, confusion and terror reigned on the streets of London. A true-crime investigation woven together with high-politics and seminal history, the book will intricately explore the untold accounts of the Met’s and Government’s response to 7/7, and their desperate attempts to prevent a possible second wave.

Una noche de enero de 1993, en una apartada provincia italiana, dos jóvenes soldados carabinieri detienen a un vehículo. Una semana después, el 15 de enero, Totò Riina es aprehendido tras 24 años de vivir en la clandestinidad. "El último capo" narra los hechos de aquella semana decisiva. Esos días enmarcan el relato de la etapa más sanguinaria de la mafia de Corleone, en boca de quienes la vivieron en carne propia y de los hombres que cazaron a Riina. Una semana que representa la historia de una época.

Las Vegas was the Mob's greatest venture and most spectacular success, and through 40 years of frenzy, murder, deceit, scams, and skimming, the FBI listened on phone taps and did virtually nothing to stop the fun. This is the truth about the Mob's control of the casinos in Vegas like you've never heard it before, from start to finish.

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.

By the mid 1980s, the criminal underworld in the United States had become an ethnic polyglot; one of the most powerful illicit organizations was none other than the Cuban mob. Known on both sides of the law as "the Corporation", the Cuban mob's power stemmed from a criminal culture embedded in south Florida's exile community - those who had been chased from the island by Castro's revolution and planned to overthrow the Marxist dictator and reclaim their nation.

From the only American journalist ever to have been admitted to the insular Tokyo Metropolitan Police press club: a unique, firsthand, revelatory look at Japanese culture from the underbelly up.

It's men like Jimmy Coonan and Mickey Featherstone who gave Hell's Kitchen its name. In the mid-1970s, these two longtime friends take the reins of New York's Irish mob, using brute force to give it hitherto unthinkable power. Jimmy, a charismatic sociopath, is the leader. Mickey, whose memories of Vietnam torture him daily, is his enforcer. Together they make brutality their trademark, butchering bodies or hurling them out the window.

A mesmerizing narrative about the rise and fall of an unlikely international crime boss. Based on hundreds of interviews, Patrick Radden Keefe's sweeping narrative tells the story not only of Sister Ping, but of the gangland gunslingers who worked for her, the immigration and law enforcement officials who pursued her, and the generation of penniless immigrants who risked death and braved a 17,000 mile odyssey so that they could realize their own version of the American dream.

Born in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Joseph Bonanno found his future amid the whiskey-running, riotous streets of Prohibition America in 1924, when he illegally entered the United States to pursue his dreams. By the age of only 26, Bonanno became a don. He eventually took over the New York underworld, igniting the "Castellammarese War", one of the bloodiest Family battles ever to hit New York City.

Northern Ireland, 1975. Violence has erupted on the streets of Belfast. After years as a guerilla army, the IRA is clashing with Loyalist gangs and heavily armed British soldiers. But the Troubles have spilled beyond the island: An ocean away, in the heart of Philadelphia’s Irish enclave, a teenage girl finds a letter in her mailbox. Inside is a bullet, and the message is clear: The next one is for you or your family. As reporter Ali Watkins reveals, the conflict in Northern Ireland might have gone very differently had it not been for a small ragtag band of gunrunners in the United States.