Showing titles in Organized Crime

From his abusive childhood, his inevitable journey into crime and his role in the dangerous underworld of south London’s gangland through to his eventful spells in many of Britain’s most secure jails, Ronnie Field is ready to recount his incredible story for the very first time. It’s a new take on the criminal fraternity of the 1970s and 80s from one of the last men standing. A raw, honest and sometimes humorous portrayal of a life in the fast lane of organised crime, Nefarious is a reflection on a bygone era from which there are few regrets. Though some things are best laid to rest.

Genovese, Gambino, Bonnano, Colombo, and Lucchese. For decades these Five Families ruled New York and built the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra) into an underworld empire. Today, the Mafia is an endangered species, battered and beleaguered by aggressive investigators, incompetent leadership, betrayals, and generational changes that produced violent, unreliable leaders and recruits.

In "The Five Families of New York," Mafia Library presents a gripping account of the ascension and decline of New York's foremost crime syndicates, from the legendary Lucky Luciano to the notorious Paul Castellano and John Gotti, and beyond. Through vivid storytelling, the book chronicles the relentless assault waged against these five families over two decades, a campaign that stands as the most successful law enforcement effort of the last century.

Cindy Murphy is the early 2000s poster girl for having it all. A top job in finance in Manhattan, two delightful daughters and a house in the suburbs. But Cindy’s life is built on a lie. She’s really a Russian spy sent to live in deep cover in the US and send intel back to Moscow. Rosamund Pike narrates this true story documentary about an extraordinary woman who deceives her friends, neighbors, boss and even her children.

Un libro che racconta il potere della camorra, la sua affermazione economica e finanziaria, e la sua potenza militare, la sua metamorfosi in comitato d'affari. Una scrittura in prima persona fatta dal luogo degli agguati, nei negozi e nelle fabbriche dei clan, raccogliendo testimonianze e leggende. La storia parte dalla guerra di Secondigliano, dall'ascesa del gruppo Di Lauro al conflitto interno che ha generato 80 morti in poco più di un mese.

Blow is the unlikely story of George Jung's roller-coaster ride from middle-class high school football hero to the heart of Pablo Escobar's Medellín cartel - the largest importer of the United States cocaine supply in the 1980s. Jung's early business of flying marijuana into the United States from the mountains of Mexico took a dramatic turn when he met Carlos Lehder, a young Colombian car thief with connections to the then newly-born cocaine operation in his native land. Together they created a new model for selling cocaine.

Freddie Scappaticci was born in 1946 and raised in a deeply nationalist area of Belfast. When the Troubles broke out in 1969, he joined the Provisional IRA, where he quickly rose through the ranks, becoming commander of Belfast in 1984. From the outside, Scappaticci appeared to be a dedicated volunteer, but inwardly, he had become disenchanted with the IRA and, in 1977, he started working for British intelligence.

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.

In 1985, Peter Everett landed the job as Superintendent of Southwark Mortuary. In just six years he’d gone from lowly assistant to running the UK’s busiest murder morgue. He couldn’t believe his luck. What he didn’t know was that Southwark, operating in near-Victorian conditions, was a hotbed of corruption. Attendants stole from the dead, funeral homes paid bribes, and there was a lively trade in stolen body parts and recycled coffins. Set in the fascinating pre-DNA and psychological profiling years of 1985-87, this memoir tells a gripping and gruesome tale.

At home, Richard Kuklinski was a dedicated suburban family man; on the street, he was the Iceman, a professional hit man and lethal scam artist, a man so heartless he kept one of his victims frozen for over two years to disguise the time of death. His personal body count was over 100, but the police couldn’t touch him. Then undercover agent Dominick Polifrone posed as a mobster and began a deadly game of cat and mouse. The Iceman chronicles Kuklinski’s grisly career and exposes his murderous double life.

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.

In 1999, when Tom O’Neill was assigned a magazine piece about the 30th anniversary of the Manson murders, he worried there was nothing new to say. Weren’t the facts indisputable? Charles Manson had ordered his teenage followers to commit seven brutal murders, and in his thrall, they’d gladly complied. But when O’Neill began reporting the story, he kept finding holes in the prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi’s narrative, long enshrined in the best-selling Helter Skelter. Before long, O’Neill had questions about everything from the motive to the manhunt.

Todo indica que en realidad AMLO no era el hombre que venía a romper el sistema criminal, sino que ha sido su Caballo de Troya, uno más de los instrumentos del Cártel de Sinaloa para culminar su plan de conquista de nuestra nación.

Alfonso "Little Al" D'Arco, the former acting boss of the Luchese crime family, was the highest-ranking mobster to ever turn government witness when he flipped in 1991. His decision to flip prompted many others to make the same choice, including John Gotti's top aide, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, and his testimony sent more than fifty mobsters to prison. In Mob Boss, award-winning news reporters Jerry Capeci and Tom Robbins team up for this unparalleled account of D'Arco's life.

Shay grew up on a tough Manchester council estate where drugs and gangs were rife. A life of crime would have been an easy path to take. So it went against everything that was expected of him when he joined the police. It wouldn't be long before Shay's prodigious talent caught the attention of the top. Then came the call that changed his life: an offer to join the secret level one undercover unit known as Omega. And it was easy to see why they wanted him; he wouldn't have to stray too far from what he already knew.

To Britain's criminal underworld, Freddie Foreman is the Godfather. Held responsible for the gangland killings of Ginger Marks and Frank 'The Mad Axeman' Mitchell, he was the punisher to those who broke the underworld's strict code of conduct. Foreman's dramatic kidnap and arrest for Britain's biggest cash robbery made headlines around the world, yet this daring raid was just the peak of the safe-blowing, bank-robbing career that spanned decades.

Cosa Nostra is the compelling story of the Sicilian mafia, the world's most famous, most secretive and most misunderstood criminal fraternity. The mafia has been given many names since it was founded 140 years ago: the Sect, the Brotherhood, the Honoured Society and now Cosa Nostra. Yet as times have changed, the mafia's subtle and bloody methods have remained the same. Now, for the first time, Cosa Nostra reconstructs the complete history of the Sicilian mafia from its origins to the present day. 

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.

San Pedro is Bolivia's most notorious prison. Small-time drug smuggler Thomas McFadden found himself on the inside. Marching Powder is the story of how he navigated this dark world of gangs, drugs and corruption to come out on top. Thomas found himself in a bizarre world, the prison reflecting all that is wrong with South American society. Prisoners have to pay an entrance fee and buy their own cells (the alternative is to sleep outside and die of exposure); prisoners' wives and children often live inside, too; high-quality cocaine is manufactured and sold from the prison.

As the last don of the Philadelphia mob, Ralph Natale, the first-ever mob boss to turn state's evidence, provides an insider's perspective on the Mafia. Natale's reign atop the Philadelphia and New Jersey underworlds brought the region's Mafia back to prominence in the 1990s. Smart, savvy, and articulate, Natale came up in the mob and saw firsthand as it hatched its plan to control Atlantic City's casino unions.