Organized Crime

Nov. 30, 2009 Special to Crime Magazine

by Ron Chepesiuk

(This excerpt is from Ron Chepesiuk’s new book, Gangsters of Miami, True Tales of Mobsters, Gamblers, Hitmen, Con Men and Gang Bangers from the Magic City, which Barricade Books (Barricadebook.com) published in November 2009. All rights reserved.)

June 01, 2008

Albert Anastasia (l) and Abe "Kid Twist" Reles (r)

by Robert Walsh

It's a cold and dark night on November 12, 1941. Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, once a senior member of Murder Inc. and now one of the most important canaries in American history, is preparing a makeshift ladder that will help him climb from the sixth floor of the Half Moon Hotel on Coney Island, N.Y., where he is being held in protective custody to turn state's evidence against that most vicious and notorious of New York's mobsters, Albert "Lord High Executioner" Anastasia.

by Allan May

According to Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Clark R. Mollenhoff, Louis Fratto, better known as Lew Farrell, "was not a master criminal. He was no more than a second or third operator from the lower ranks of the Capone mob in Chicago." This may have been Mollenhoff's opinion when the Capone gunman arrived in Des Moines, Iowa, in September 1939, but things would change.

As a cub reporter for the Des Moines Register during the early 1940s, Mollenhoff witnessed, "the tentacles of Lew Farrell reach into the Des Moines Police Department to promote his friends; into the Sheriff's Office for a gun permit; into the Prosecutor's Office to kill a criminal indictment; into the local courts to manipulate decisions on evidence; and into the state political arena."

by Allan May

Other than Tammany Hall in New York, the Pendergast machine in Kansas City was the longest-running and most thorough melding of vice and politics ever seen in the United States. So complete was the marriage of underworld to political world, that Tom Pendergast – the son of Irish immigrants and unabashedly known as "Boss Tom" to everyone in town – controlled not just the political machine that bore his family name but the local Mafia as well.

Before the Pendergast dynasty took root, the early Mafia influence in Kansas City involved Black Hand extortion, which, as in other cities, was carried out by Italians against Italians. This activity came to an end with the onset of Prohibition in 1920. The Mafia faction under control of the DiGiovanni and Balestrere gang then focused on bootlegging.

by Ronald J. Lawrence

Prologue

It was an improbable criminal coalition. There was Bob Neal Carson, the sultan of sin whose efforts in the early 1970s to become a feared, ruthless rackets boss in the Fort Leonard Wood area ended in disaster that brought down the entire lucrative prostitution and gambling business. His hapless collection of hit men and enforcers became the laughing stock of the Missouri underworld, the proverbial gang that couldn't shoot or bomb straight who were their own worst enemy.

On the other side was Jesse Stoneking, the deadly efficient, stone-cold killer who was second in command of Art Berne's powerful mob on St. Louis' East Side and who spoke with the authority of the Chicago Outfit. Not only did he possess the reputation of being a ferocious enforcer of prodigious strength who feared no man and had the agility and cunning of a mountain lion, he was an adept thief and burglar who plotted his scores with the patience and precision of a an architect. He was everything the impulsive, bungling Carson was not.

by J.D. Chandler

Frankie and the Boys 1976 - Left to right: Paul Castellano, Gregory DePalma, Sinatra, Tommy Marson, Carlo Gambino, Aladena Fratianno, Salvatore Spatola, Seated: Joseph Gambino, Richard Fusco

by Allan May

Gabriel and Teresa Capone, like many Italians, produced a large family; seven boys in a row, followed by two daughters. Sons James and Ralph were born in Italy, Frank, Alphonse (on Jan. 17, 1899), John, Albert and Matt were born in America. The daughters were Rose and Mafalda.

James Capone

Vincenzo, called James by family members, was born in 1882. When he was 16 he ran away from home to join the circus. A year after he departed he wrote the family to say that he was fine and not to worry. The letter was postmarked Wichita, Kan.

James enjoyed living in the Midwest, moving from town to town, doing his best to hide his Brooklyn accent. He never revealed his Italian ancestry, preferring people to mistake him for Mexican, Indian or a combination of both. He became fascinated with guns and spent hours shooting at empty beer bottles and tin cans, becoming an expert marksman.