John - I started to buy this book until I read what you said in an earlier post. You folks should check the reviews before you purchase . I decided not to buy the book. I have viewed some of the YouTube videos, but that's all.

If you read it, just read it for entertainment value, knowing that it's probably at least half made up.

Unfortunately Russo used it as a source, which also makes me question some of his own claims.

But, a lot of this stuff, I guess we'll never know the definitive truth.

Read Double Cross and Brashler's book and you should be able to disseminate from what's true and what's bullshit in the first.

JJB - Good catch on the Pranno pic, it appears that the newspaper did screw up on the caption.

Enjoy the topic but unfortunately the same argument is made over and over so it becomes unemployable.

Appreciate the words Gar

Cheech, where did you see Brashler's book for 9 bucks? The lowest I see is around 23 on Amazon and that's only for "good".

For anyone interested. Captive City - $3.99 used

http://www.amazon.com/Captive-City-Startling-Truth-Chicago/dp/0671772015/ref=pd_cp_b_1

I've not read The Don yet; I just managed to run into that page pic when I was Google searching pictures of Giancana for any more hints on that ANP picture. As soon as I saw the Pranno pic up top and the Potenza pic below it, I knew a lazy reporter was behind our confusion on Pranno.

From the bit that was posted from the New Yorker piece, I'd be interested in reading it, though.

Yeah it sounds good. I checked Amazon expecting to find tons of books on Giancana, but there are surprisingly not nearly as many as I thought there would be. I'd like to read a good one on him.

i bought it

I don't think so, as the guy on the ANP photo has an effing gorilla-hairy chest and none of the Centracchio photos even give a hint of that. Also, if you zoom in on the ANP photo, #6 has a very square if not cleft chin, as does Potenza in various photos.

Take a look at this '64 photo of Sam DeStefano:
[img:center]http://www.corbisimages.com/images/Corbi...92-224731ba1ec3[/img]

Do his glasses and hair part not match mystery man #8?

This photo is driving me batty.

Could be. I knew this was "bugging" you so I thought I'd give it a shot. I'll keep checking and see if I recognize anyone.

When is Fosco going to reveal the names ?

As far as I can tell, he's waiting for somebody to guess at least 7 correctly. Lord knows I've been trying...

Any and all suggestions are welcome. Perhaps we should start a thread dedicated to it.

I'll do that now, as a matter of fact.

Good idea.

I wonder if Fosco is even 100 percent sure of who everyone is.

1. Centracchio wasn't high up enough at that point to be with these type of guys.

2. Fosco has a source for the identities of the guys in the photo, I don't think he claims to know them all himself.

CCC supporting bill to outlaw gambling machines. Directly targeting what they perceive is a big source of Outfit income.


http://www.chron.com/news/article/Commission-Sweepstakes-games-should-be-outlawed-5341130.php

Looks like a guy was killed outside Spina's bar on Sunday. Guy was trying to stop another person from driving drunk.


http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Man-Killed-in-Hit-and-Run-in-West-Town-251776671.html

Found this interview online

Although Small in Numbers, American Mafia Still Terrorizes such Cities as Chicago



Although the Mafia remains active in America, it has taken many major hits and its impact has been reduced in recent decades. However, the Mafia is currently most active in New York City, New Jersey, Philadelphia, New England, Detroit and Chicago. There have been at least 26 cities around the United States with Cosa Nostra families, with many more offshoots, splinter groups and associates in other cities.

There are five main New York City Mafia families, known as the Five Families: the Gambino, Lucchese, Genovese, Bonanno and Colombo families. At its peak, the Mafia dominated organized crime in the U.S. While each crime family operates independently, nationwide coordination is provided by the Commission, which consists of the bosses of each of the strongest families. Law enforcement still considers the Mafia the largest organized crime group in the United States.

It has maintained control over much of the organized crime activity in the United States and certain parts of Canada.



Today most of the Mafia's activities are contained to the Northeastern United States and Chicago where they continue to dominate organized crime despite the increasing numbers of street gangs and other organizations that are not of Italian origin.

The term Mafia was originally used in Italy by the media and law enforcement to describe criminal groups in Sicily. The first published account of what would evolve into the Mafia in the United States came in the spring of 1869. The New Orleans Times reported that the city's Second District had become overrun by "well-known and notorious Sicilian murderers, counterfeiters and burglars, who, in the last month, have formed a sort of general co-partnership or stock company for the plunder and disturbance of the city."

Emigration from southern Italy to the Americas was primarily to Brazil and Argentina, and New Orleans had a heavy volume of port traffic to and from both locales.

In the 21st century, the Mafia has continued to be involved in a broad spectrum of illegal activities. These include murder, extortion, corruption of public officials, gambling, infiltration of legitimate businesses, labor racketeering, loan sharking, tax fraud schemes and stock manipulation schemes.

Another factor contributing to the Mafia's downfall is the assimilation of Italian Americans, which left a shallower recruitment pool of new mobsters. Although the Mafia used to be nationwide, today most of its activities are confined to the Northeast and Chicago.

While other criminal organizations such as Russian Mafia, Chinese Triad, Mexican drug cartels and others have all grabbed a share of criminal activities, the Mafia continues to be the dominant criminal organization in these regions, partly due to its strict hierarchical structure.

U.S. Naval Intelligence entered into an agreement with Lucky Luciano to gain his assistance in keeping the New York waterfront free from saboteurs after the destruction of the SS Normandie.

In August 1960, Colonel Sheffield Edwards, director of the Office of Security of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), proposed the assassination of Cuban head of state Fidel Castro by Mafia assassins. Between August 1960 and April 1961, the CIA, with the help of the Mafia, pursued a series of plots to poison or shoot Castro.

Those allegedly involved included Sam Giancana, Carlos Marcello, Santo Trafficante, Jr., and John Roselli.

Gregory ScarpaIn 2007, Linda Schiro testified in an unrelated court case that her late boyfriend, Gregory Scarpa Sr. (pictured at left), a capo in the Colombo family, had been recruited by the FBI to help find the bodies of three civil rights workers who had been murdered in Mississippi in 1964 by the Ku Klux Klan. She said that she had been with Scarpa in Mississippi at the time and had witnessed him being given a gun, and later a cash payment, by FBI agents.

She testified that Scarpa had threatened a Klansman by placing a gun in the Klansman's mouth, forcing the Klansman to reveal the location of the bodies. Similar stories of Mafia involvement in recovering the bodies had been circulating for years, and had been previously published in the New York Daily News, but had never before been introduced in court.

Book cover: Organized Ccrime in ChicagoRobert M. Lombardo is an associate professor of criminal justice at Loyola University Chicago and a former Chicago Police officer. He answered our questions about his new book Organized Crime in Chicago: Beyond the Mafia. This interview was posted on the University of Illinois Press Blog:

Q: What is your definition of organized crime?

Lombardo: I use the term organized crime to define the political corruption that afforded protection to gambling, prostitution, and other vice activity in large American cities from the second half of the nineteenth century until the end of the twentieth century.

Q: Conventional wisdom traces the roots of organized crime in large U.S. urban centers to the Sicilian mafia. What’s wrong with this paradigm?

Lombardo: Tracing organized crime to the South of Italy ignores the historical record. Organized crime in Chicago existed before Italian immigration, and it existed in Chicago’s black community independent of Italian participation for a period of almost 50 years. Additionally, much of the information upon which this “importation” model is based comes from popular, non academic sources.

Q: When did reports of organized crime first surface in Chicago?

Lombardo: In 1873 Michael Cassius McDonald organized Chicago’s saloon and gambling interests into “Mike McDonald’s Democrats,” and elected their own candidate, Harvey Colvin, Mayor of Chicago. With Colvin in office, McDonald organized the first criminal syndicate in Chicago composed of both gamblers and compliant politicians.

Al CaponeQ: Al Capone is synonymous with “Chicago mafia.” Are there more influential figures about which the general public is unaware?

Lombardo: Mike McDonald for sure, but also Chicago Mayor Ed Kelly. Kelly “franchised” all vice activity in Chicago to the Capone Syndicate during the 1940s.

Q: Do related crime syndicates still operate in Chicago today?

Lombardo: There may be some bookmakers and old-time gangsters still around, but traditional organized crime in Chicago is largely a thing of the past. The Chicago Outfit as the progeny of the old Capone Syndicate is almost dead. They have been destroyed by law-enforcement efforts.

Q: What was the most interesting thing that you learned while researching the book?

Lombardo: What I found most interesting was the untold story of Lt. Joe Morris and the Chicago Police Scotland Yard detail under Mayor Kennelly. Had they not been disbanded by Richard J. Daley, they would have drove the Chicago Outfit out of town.

Q&A with Organized Crime in Chicago author Robert M. Lombardo at University of Illinois Press.

The truth hurts.

I agree that it has been all but decimated. It has been in decline for a long time: 25 plus years. It's dead. Its most notable remnants are a bunch of 80+ year old guys. They own legitimate businesses and maybe they're shady and cut corners, pay off some lowlife city official here and there but that's it.
I bet Nick Calabrese could get out of the WPP, and go buy a house next door to John DiFronzo and nothing would happen to him. Whats gonna happen? He's gonna get killed? Yeah right.

For instance: Frank Calabrese Jr. wrote a book and does book signings in Chicago am I correct? These things are announced all over the place; where he'll be at what time, etc. Where's the hitmen at? Oh yeah. There aren't any.

Why would the article say that the mafia still terrorizes Chicago and then quote an expert who says it's a thing of the past

CDS and their partnership with the Latin Kings is the most powerful crime syndicate in Chicago, just look around if you live up here

we shouldn't ignore the daily security in our life such as the GPS tracking or other method used by someone to steal our privacy. Therefore a jammer gsm with a good function of cutting off cell phone signals as well as other frequency bands signals can help to create the security system to protect us. And then we can enjoy the quiet and peaceful environment.

I more or less agree with you, particularly about the part that a lot of people identified as gangsters or associates of gangsters are likely mostly quasi-legit now. If someone stole a car 30 years ago they immediately go into the "potential made guy" file.

Just doesn't seem realistic to me.

The actual evidence that's been seen, like Calabrese Sr.'s juice loan notebook, or Marcello's video poker books, suggest things are taking place at an extremely diminished level.

Ehhh I think if that was really the case, the US Marshalls and FBI probably wouldn't waste the money on him. You need to realize that Calabrese Jr. and Nick are different--Frankie only ratted on his father and refused to speak about anyone else. The guy comes back to Chicago all the time to hang out with the Elmwood Park boys and many of them are cousins, sons and relations of active mob soldiers. However, the guy is still weary--I remember seeing a picture of him on Facebook with John Kass and someone mistook Kass for Albie Vena in the comment section. Frankie immediately corrected it and apologized "to his old pal Albie." Shit like that shows you Frankie still knows these guys could hurt him.

In his book, Frankie only discussed the crimes of dead guys. Rumor on the street was that Frankie reached out to Frank Caruso and asked for permission to rat his father out--then the Caruso's split up the old man's rackets.

Also NO ONE ON THIS BOARD WOULD DISAGREE WITH THE BLATANT TRUTH THE OUTFIT IS NO LONGER THE POWER IT ONCE WAS.

But if you really think it's all 80 year old guys running around, go talk to people like Tony Calabrese, Jonny Spina, Paulie Carparelli and Casey Szaflarski. I would not want to be the guy who had his legs broken on Lake Street by Carparelli's thugs, nor the tattooist who had his hands smashed by Calabrese for tattooing someone's daughter. We just read about the Outfit's control over various strip clubs and plots to literally mutilate guys in a basement.

All powerful Tony Accardo Chicago Outfit that ran Vegas, Hollywood and had the city in a vice? Definitely not and no one disputes that. A bunch of "80 year old guys" running around? Sorry but too many facts and examples contradict that.

There are still young gangsters in Chicago running around and beating people up and at times even murdering. They still have rules, they still have a heirarchy, they still run the same old crimes. It's far smaller, far less money, far less notoriety and far less glamorous than it once was. But it's still there no matter how hard you want to believe it's not.

I doubt the "word on the street" re: Caruso is true. If so, he isn't very bright.

I would have to go back and read the book but I believe the wire Frank Jr. wore on Sr. was instrumental in corroborating certain elements of the prosecutions against everyone else up there.

Remember, they were all tried at once--against their strong, strong objections. And the other guys all blamed Calabrese Sr. more than anyone else for sinking the whole ship.

In any event, when you have a bunch of gangsters on trial together, or anyone on trail together, what happens to one affects all of them.

Jonny you have become quite the expert there haven't you

I would assume a guy like Frank Caruso, who has been involved in the Outfit his entire 60 plus year long life without serving one night in prison is relatively smart. So are both of his brothers, all of whom are extremely wealthy. Have you ever even seen a photo of a Caruso brother in the last 10 years? Each of them are very adept at remaining out of the limelight. And based on testimony and evidence heard in recent trials from Sarno to Szaflarski, they are indeed very real and involved in the Outfit.

Caruso took over Frank Sr.'s loan book and perhaps Frank Jr. is even kicking up some of his book deals. Pure speculation and obviously I don't have an inch of proof beyond the rumors I hear. So I guess you guys will just have to choose between my theories and those of JonnyNoNo's

The reality is that Frank Jr. was very close with the Caruso brothers and some of the younger members of the 26th Street Crew like the Talarico boys. Frank Jr. was also tight with guys in other crews like Albie, Magnafichi, etc. None of that is mentioned in his book however, nor would it ever be. Because my theory is that the guy is still connected.

ChiTown:

You can get into a p***ing match with someone more bored than I am.

I was merely pointing out a fairly obvious logical discrepancy in your theory that Caruso gave Jr. the go-ahead to sink his dad.

If you would have said that Caurso gave him the go ahead to sink his dad and didn't care that that was going to sink everyone else on trial as well, I wouldn't have written anything. Or I would have asked you how he could possibly not have cared that he gave a green light to help sink Lombardo, Marcello, et al.

Your theory only makes sense if you maintain the above, or unless you are going to suggest that Calabrese Sr.'s trial did not affect the other defendants, which is, unequivacally, untrue.

I've heard your theory thrown about several times now.

I suppose to the degree that a board like this has a useful purpose it is to talk about what is and is not probable in this subject that we all have a shared interest in.

I am saying that for obvious reasons I find the piece of information you posted unlikely to be true.

One needn't be an Outfit "expert;" one need have a bit of common sense and an extremely rudimentry knowledge of the trial.

And, yes, you are absolutely correct--everyone can make their own judgement.

Since I don't want to start a dedicated thread to it, I will post this link here. Will be interesting to see what names come out of it. I AM NOT SAYING THERE IS AN OUTFIT CONNECTION.


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-arrests-made-in-international-atm-skimming-20140326,0,2239227.story

ChiTown, how deep are the Outfit's connections to Sicilian/mainland OC groups? Is there a connection at all anymore?