Gangland Wire

In this special short episode of Gangland Wire, Gary Jenkins presents a wild and largely forgotten chapter from Bob Cooley’s life—the former Chicago Outfit fixer, gambler, and lawyer whose career straddled the worlds of organized crime, corruption, and courtroom drama. Fresh off a long-form interview with Cooley, Gary pulls out a standalone story that feels almost too strange to be true: Cooley’s first real legal case, involving the infamous Chicago martial arts cult figure Count Dante, self-proclaimed “Deadliest Man Alive.” The episode revisits 1970s Chicago, when Count Dante ran multiple dojos across the city and cultivated a fearsome public image. A rivalry with a competing martial arts school—the Green Dragon Dojo—boiled over into violence when Dante and his followers stormed the school armed with medieval-style weapons. The confrontation ended with one man dead, and Dante charged with murder. At the time, Bob Cooley wasn’t even officially a lawyer yet—he had just taken the bar exam and was still working as a Chicago police officer. Despite that, Count Dante tracked him down, hired him on the spot, and insisted Cooley would be his attorney. What followed was a surreal two-year relationship involving Chicago nightlife, the Playboy Club and Mansion, mob figures, bar fights, and mounting public attention. When the case finally went to trial, the courtroom devolved into chaos as rival martial artists from both sides reenacted the violence with shouting, threats, and theatrical testimony. The judge, fed up with the spectacle, dismissed the case outright—instantly launching Bob Cooley’s reputation as a lawyer who had “beaten” a murder charge. Get Bob Cooley’s book When Corruption Was King. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. [0:00] Hey guys, this is a little shorty, uh, part of the long interview I did with Bob Cooley, former Chicago outfit, mob fixer, lawyer, uh, general man about town gambler been in, uh, not in witness protection, but he has been off the radar for several years and in hiding. He recently came back and he got hold of me and he wanted to come on the podcast. And you know, I’ve done one story about him, part of his story. This is another part of his story that’s kind of separate from everything else. It’s about a guy by the name of Count Dante. Now, he was kind of well-known in Chicago at the time back in the 70s. You’ll see some images of him in the show. He liked Bob. He got hold of Bob, and he wanted him to defend him. And Bob wasn’t even out of law school yet, but he wanted him to defend him. He had got in an argument with something called the Green Dragon Dojo. He had a dojo, and he had a whole bunch of dojos around town. [1:04] And he was pretty successful, but he built himself as a deadliest man alive. And this other dojo, they said something bad about him or something. I don’t know exactly how it started. So he took a crew of his and went over to the Green Dragon Dojo and kicked in the front door and went in. they had a big battle and they had maces and spears and, and a huge big fight. And somebody ends up getting killed in this fight. So they charged the count with murder and end up going to trial. Uh, Bob’s got, he’ll talk a little bit about it and, and, and his relationship with the count. They became good friends and he did a lot of stuff with the count over two years. It’s, uh, he didn’t say a lot, but, uh, enough to let you know that he and the count were, were pals for a while. In the end, Bob defends him. He’s just out of law school. It was first case, really first client, I think maybe. And they go to trial and, and both the prosecution puts on all their. [2:03] Prosecution witnesses, which are people of this Green Dragon dojo. And then Bob puts on the count and some of his people. And by the time they get done screaming and yelling and almost replaying this whole fight in the courtroom, the judge is so fed up with the whole thing that he just dismisses the whole case. And of course, when the count, he goes around telling everybody how Bob Cooley helped him beat a murder case. And from then on, you know, that’s the start of his reputation as a lawyer so it’s a it’s a hell of a story i’ll tell you that right now it’s a it’s a heck of a story so i’m in the police station now i’m in in fact after that that’s when i got involved out there with all the mobsters and the rest of them in the 18th district when i wasn’t able to work i was i was working undercover out there with them because it was something to do and uh. [2:58] I’m in the police station. I get a call to come into the police station because I’m in law school. I had just taken the bar. I had just taken the bar, and I knew I passed it. I just did. I never had a problem with anything. I knew that it was just a matter of when I’d be practicing law. I get a call to come into the police station. And when I come in there, there was this silly looking guy with a cape, with one of those, a C-tooth mesh outfit with a cape on and using blue eyes and with what I call the Dante beard. And he says, you’re Bob Foley? Yeah. Yeah. He says, you know, can I talk to you? [3:46] Can I talk to you? And I said, he says, John Began told me that, you know, this is where you’re working now. He said, I’d like to talk to you. He said, I have a little problem. And we go upstairs. His little problem was it was front page news in the papers. And I didn’t notice it or realize it. He was involved. He was charged with murder because he had been involved in that situation up there at the Green Dragon. He had broken in there, and they had killed, and his friend Jim Concevic had gotten killed. But anyhow, he said, and I’m charged with murder. He says, and I want to hire you. I says, you want to hire me? I says, I’m not a lawyer yet. He says to me, I’ve been following you. I’ve been, he says, I’ve noticed, I’ve known who you were for a long time, he said, and I’ve really been anxious to maybe get to, you know, I didn’t know where you were or whatever happened to you, he said, but he said, he said, I knew you at Mount Carmel, he said, you were a wrestler, he said, I was a wrestler too, he said, I was a wrestler too, and I didn’t remember his name, because it was John Kean at the time, I didn’t, I didn’t remember him, you know, for anything. He says, I haven’t passed the bar yet. He says, but John, sure you are, and I’m sure you will. [5:16] And if you don’t pass the bar, I want you to find me somebody. He says, because John tells me, you know all kinds of people. You have a lot of connections, which I did. I had been friendly with a lot of judges and a lot of other people who had known me for a number of years as a policeman and whatever. And when I first started practicing, even before I started practicing, a lot of these were friends of mine at the time. But anyhow, he says, so he gives me $5,000, and he says, and he said to me, if you don’t, he said, I said, well, then here’s what you can do. I said, and he had one of the big-name lawyers in Chicago. I think his name was Conley. He was one of the top lawyers in the city. Just tell him, tell him, continue. You don’t want to, because the case was set for trial. It was supposed to go to trial in a couple of weeks. Oh, yeah. I says, tell him you want to get it continued. Yeah. No way. This is front page. This is front page. Newspaper. Yeah. [6:26] The deadliest man in the world. And it was, you know, when they broke into this place and constipated a spear put through him, the count had pulled the guy’s eye out or whatever. This is at this Green Dragon. It was like a Green Dragon. It was a restaurant. No, no, no. The Green Dragon was a school. It was a Kung Fu school. Oh. In the Kung Fu school, they teach you how to use weapons, maces and swords and daggers. The Count had a number of skulls, but they were skulls just to teach you how to fight with your hands and teach you how to do it, you know, not with weapons, just by your hands. They broke the count. [7:12] The place itself had like one of those real thick wooden doors. I don’t know how he did it, but he broke it off the hinges when he went in there, and he came in with like four people. There were four people and himself, Joey Casello, Konsevic, and I forgot the other two guys’ names. But they broke in there. When they broke in there, one of the guys came at the count with one of those maces, those big ball things that you throw around. And the count took his eye out. He blocked it, took his eye out. Wow. In Konsevic, they threw a spear through him. They first hit him with a, and they put a spear right through him. What was this all about? What was the deal? What had happened was the count, the count got a call from the guy, the guy who owned it. They were competitors. The count had all kinds of these schools. And the other guy from the other school, the count had about six schools all throughout the city. [8:17] The other guy that owned that called the count and called him a pussy. He called him because he was upset because a lot of his students were going to the count. And he calls up there and basically said, you’re nothing but a pussy or something like that. Whatever he said, I don’t know what it was. But the count told him, you motherfucker, I’ll see you. And with six of his guys he went over there and broke in the door during one of the classes, and that’s when this quick fight broke off but when Tonsavik got stabbed he ran about a block away and that’s when he fell over for dead, so anyhow so you got a continuance I assume you got a continuance so then what h

In this episode of Gangland Wire, Gary Jenkins sits down with Bob Cooley, the once–well-connected Chicago lawyer who lived at the center of the city’s most notorious corruption machine. After years out of the public eye, Cooley recently resurfaced to revisit his explosive memoir, When Corruption Was King—and this conversation offers a rare, firsthand look at how organized crime, politics, and the court system intersected in Chicago for decades. Cooley traces his journey from growing up in a police family to serving as a Chicago police officer and ultimately becoming a criminal defense attorney whose real job was quietly fixing cases for the Chicago Outfit. His deep understanding of the judicial system made him indispensable to mob-connected power brokers like Pat Marcy, a political fixer with direct access to judges, prosecutors, and court clerks. Inside the Chicago Corruption Machine Cooley explains how verdicts were bought, cases were steered, and justice was manipulated—what insiders called the “Chicago Method.” He describes his relationships with key figures in organized crime, including gambling bosses like Marco D’Amico and violent enforcers such as Harry Aleman and Tony Spilotro, painting a chilling picture of life inside a world where loyalty was enforced by fear.   As his role deepened, so did the psychological toll. Cooley recounts living under constant threat, including a contract placed on his life after he refused to betray a fellow associate—an event that forced him to confront the cost of the life he was leading. Turning Point: Becoming a Federal Witness The episode covers Cooley’s pivotal decision in 1986 to cooperate with federal authorities, a move that helped dismantle powerful corruption networks through FBI Operation Gambat. Cooley breaks down how political connections—not just street-level violence—allowed the Outfit to operate with near-total impunity for so long.   Along the way, Cooley reflects on the moral reckoning that led him to turn on the system that had enriched and protected him, framing his story as one not just of crime and betrayal, but of reckoning and redemption. What Listeners Will Hear How Bob Cooley became the Outfit’s go-to case fixer The role of Pat Marcy and political corruption in Chicago courts Firsthand stories involving Marco D’Amico, Harry Aleman, and Tony Spilotro The emotional and psychological strain of living among violent criminals The decision to cooperate and the impact of Operation Gambat Why Cooley believes Chicago’s corruption endured for generations Why This Episode Matters Bob Cooley is one of the few people who saw the Chicago Outfit from inside the courtroom and the back rooms of power. His story reveals how deeply organized crime embedded itself into the institutions meant to uphold the law—and what it cost those who tried to escape it.   This episode sets the stage for a deeper follow-up conversation, where Gary and Cooley will continue unpacking the most dangerous and revealing moments of his life. Resources   Book: When Corruption Was King by Bob Cooley Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. 0:03 Prelude to Bob Cooley’s Story 1:57 Bob Cooley’s Background 5:24 The Chicago Outfit Connection 8:24 The Turning Point 15:20 The Rise of a Mob Lawyer 23:54 A Life of Crime and Consequences 26:03 The Incident at the Police Station 50:27 The Count and His Influence 1:19:51 The Murder of a Friend 1:35:26 Contracts and Betrayal 1:40:36 Conclusion and Future Stories Transcript [0:00] Well, hey guys, this is a little prelude to my next story. Bob Cooley was a Chicago lawyer and an outfit associate who had been in, who has been in hiding for many years. I contacted him about six or seven years ago when I first started a podcast, I was able to get a phone number on him and, and got him on the phone. He was, I think it was out in the desert in Las Vegas area at the time. And at the time he was trying to sell his book when corruption was king to a movie producer And he really didn’t want to overexpose himself, and they didn’t really want him to do anything. And eventually, COVID hit, and the movie production was canceled. And it was just all over. There were several movie productions were canceled during COVID, if I remember right. A couple people who I have interviewed and had a movie deal going. Well, Bob recently remembered me, and he contacted me. He just called me out of the clear blue, and he wanted to revive his book and his story. He’s been, you know, way out of the limelight for a long time. And so I thought, well, I always wanted to interview this guy because he’s got a real insider’s knowledge to Chicago Outfit, the one that very few people have.   [1:08] You know, here’s what he knows about. And he provides valuable insight into the inner workings of the Outfit. And I don’t mean, you know, scheming up how to kill people and how to do robberies and burglars and all that. But the Chicago court system and Chicago politics, that’s a, that’s a, the, the mob, a mafia family can’t exist unless they have connections into the political system and especially the court system. Otherwise, what good are they? You know, I mean, they, they just take your money where they give you back. They can’t protect you from anybody.   [1:42] So I need to give you a little more of the backstory before we go on to the actual interview with Bob, because he kind of rambles a little bit and goes off and comes back and drops   [1:54] names that we don’t have time to go into explanation. So here’s a little bit of what he talked about. He went from being, as I said before, Chicago Outfit’s trusted fixer in the court system, and he eventually became the government star witness against them. He’s born, he’s about my age. He was born in 1943. He was an Irish-American police family and came from the Chicago South side. He was a cop himself for a short period of time, but he was going to law school while he was a policeman. And once he started practicing law, he moved right into criminal law and into first ward politics and the judicial world downtown.   [2:36] And that’s where the outfit and the old democratic machine intersected. He was in a restaurant called Counselor’s Row, which was right down. Bob had an office downtown. Well, he’s inside that system, and he uses his insider’s knowledge to fix cases. Once an outfit started noticing him that he could fix a case if he wanted to, he immediately became connected to the first ward power broker and outfit political conduit, a guy named Pat Marcy. Pat Marcy knew all the judges He knew all the court clerks And all the police officers And Bob was getting to know him too During this time But Bob was a guy who was out in He was a lawyer And he was working inside the court system Marcy was just a downtown fixer.   [3:22] But Bob got to where he could guarantee acquittals or light sentences for whoever came to him with the right amount of money, whether it be a mobster or a bookmaker or a juice loan guy or a crap politician, whoever it was, Bob could fix the case.   [3:36] One of the main guys tied to his work he was kind of attached to a crew everybody’s owned by somebody he was attached to the Elmwood Park crew and Marco D’Amico who was under John DeFranco and I can’t remember who was before DeFranco, was kind of his boss and he was a gambling boss and Bob was a huge gambler I mean a huge gambler and Bob will help fix cases for some notorious people Really, one of the most important stories that we’ll go into in the second episode of this is Harry the Hook Aleman. And he also helped fix the case for Tony Spolatro and several others. He’s always paid him in cash. And he lived large. As you’ll see, he lived large. And he moved comfortably between mobsters and politicians and judges. And he was one of the insiders back in the 70s, 60s or 70s mainly. He was an insider. But by the 80s, he’s burned out. He’s disgusted with himself. He sees some things that he doesn’t like. They put a contract out on him once because he wouldn’t give somebody up as an informant, and he tipped one of his clients off that he was going to come out that he was an informant, and the guy was able to escape, I believe. Well, I have to go back and listen to my own story.   [4:53] Finally in 1986 he walked unannounced they didn’t have a case on him and he walked unannounced in the U.S. Courthouse and offered himself up to take down this whole Pat Marcy and the whole mobster political clique in Chicago and he wore a wire for FBI an operation called Operation Gambat which is a gambling attorney because he was a huge gambler   [5:17] huge huge gambler and they did a sweeping probe and indicted tons of people over this. So let’s go ahead and listen to Robert Cooley.   [5:31] Uh, he, he, like I said, he’s a little bit rambling and a little bit hard to follow sometimes, but some of these names and, and, uh, and in the first episode, we’ll really talk about his history and, uh, where he came from and how he came up. He’ll mention somebody called the count and I’ll do that whole count story and a whole nother thing. So when he talks about the count, just disregard that it’ll be a short or something. And I got to tell that count story. It’s an interesting story. Uh, he, he gets involved with the only own, uh, association, uh, and, uh, and the, uh, Chinese Tong gang in, uh, Chicago and Chicago’s Chinatown. Uh, some of the other people he’ll talk about are Marco D’Amico, as I said, and D’Amico’s top aide, Rick Glantini, uh, another, uh, connected guy and worked for the city of Chicago is Robert Abinat

In this gripping episode of Gangland Wire, host Gary Jenkins sits down with Robert “Bob” Cooley, the Chicago lawyer whose extraordinary journey took him from deep inside the Outfit’s criminal operations to becoming one of the federal government’s most valuable witnesses against organized crime. Cooley pulls back the curtain on the hidden machinery of Chicago’s underworld, describing how corruption, bribery, and violence shaped the Chicago Outfit’s power in the 1970s and beyond. As a lawyer, gambler, and trusted insider, Cooley saw firsthand how mob influence tilted the scales of justice—often in open daylight. Inside the “Chicago Method” of Courtroom Corruption Cooley explains the notorious system of judicial bribery he once helped facilitate—what he calls the “Chicago Method.” He walks listeners through: How defense attorneys worked directly with Outfit associates to buy favorable rulings. The process of approaching and bribing judges. Why weak forensic standards of the era made witness discrediting the key mob strategy. His personal involvement in the infamous Harry Aleman murder case, where clear guilt was erased by corruption. Life in the Outfit: Gambling, Debt, and Mob Justice Cooley recounts his early days gambling with Chicago Outfit associates, including Marco D’Amico, Jackie Cerrone, and John DeFranzo. Notable stories include: The violent implications of unpaid gambling debts in mob circles. Tense interactions with bookmaker Hal Smith and the chaotic fallout of a bounced check involving mobster Eddie Corrado. How D’Amico often stepped in—sometimes with intimidation—to shield Cooley from harm. These stories reflect the daily volatility of life inside the Outfit, where money, fear, and loyalty intersect constantly. Bob Cooley has a great book titled When Corruption Was King where he goes into even greater detail and has many more stories from his life inside the Chicago Mob. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. 0:06 Introduction to Bob Cooley 1:32 Life as an Outfit Gambler 2:00 My Relationship with Marco D’Amico 10:40 The Story of Hal Smith 11:05 A Dangerous Encounter 20:21 Meeting Sally D 22:23 A Contract on My Life 22:37 The Harry Alleman Case 34:47 Inside the Courtroom 51:08 The Verdict 52:26 Warning the Judge 53:49 The Case Against the Policewoman 58:36 Navigating the Legal Maze 1:08:14 The Outcome and Its Consequences 1:11:39 The Decision to Flip 1:24:38 A Father’s Influence 1:33:57 The Corruption Revealed 1:50:12 Political Connections 2:02:07 The Setup for Robbery 2:20:29 Consequences of Loyalty transcript [0:00] Hey, guys, my guest today is a former Chicago outfit associate named Robert Bob Cooley. He has a book out there titled When Corruption Was King. I highly recommend you get it if you want to look inside the Chicago outfit of the 1970s. Now, Bob’s going to tell us about his life as an outfit gambler, lawyer, and I use payoff to judges to get many, many not guilty verdicts. Now, I always call this the Chicago method. This happened for, I know, for Harry Ailman, a case we’re going to talk about, Tony Spolatro got one of these not-guilties. Now, the outfit member associate who is blessed to get this fix put in for him may be charged with a crime, even up to murder. And he gets a lawyer, a connected lawyer, and they’ll demand a bench trial. That means that only a judge makes the decision. A lawyer, like my guest, who worked with a political fixer named Pat Marcy. [0:53] They’ll work together and they’ll get a friendly judge assigned to that case and then they’ll bribe the judge. And all that judge needs is some kind of alibi witnesses and any kind of information to discredit any prosecution witnesses. Now, this is back in the olden days before you had all this DNA and all that kind of thing. So physical evidence was not really a part of it. Mainly, it was from witnesses. And they just have to discredit any prosecution witness. Then the judge can say, well, state hadn’t really proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt and issue a not guilty verdict and walk away. Now, our guest, Bob Cooley, is going to take us inside this world. [1:29] And it’s a world of beatings, murders, bribes, and other kinds of plots. He was a member of the Elmwood Park crew. He was a big gambler. He was a big loan shark. And he worked for a guy named Marco D’Amico, who was their gambling boss and loan shark in that crew. Among other bosses in this powerful crew were Jackie Cerrone, who will go on and become the underboss and eventually the boss for a short [1:55] period of time. and John no-nose DeFranzo, who will also go on to become the boss eventually. What was your relationship with Marco D’Amico? I talked about when I first came into the 18th district, when I came into work there, and they put me back in uniform, the first person I met was Rick Borelli. Rick Borelli, he was Marco’s cousin. [2:23] When I started gambling right away with Rick, within a couple of days, I’m being his face, and I’m calling and making bets. There was a restaurant across the street where every Wednesday and sometimes a couple days a week, I would meet with Ricky. And one of the first people he brought in there was Marco. Was Marco. And Marco would usually be with a person or two. And I thought they were just bookmakers. [2:55] And I started being friendly with him, meeting him there. Then I started having card games Up in my apartment And, Because now I’m making, in the very beginning, I’m making first $100 extra a week. And within a couple of weeks, I’m making $500, $600 extra a week. And within about a month, I’m making $1,000, sometimes more than that. So now I’m having card games, relatively big card games, because I’ve got a bankroll. I’ve got probably about $5,000, $6,000, which seemed like a lot of money to me. Initially uh and after a while that was a daily that was a daily deal but uh so we we started having card games up there and then we started socializing we started now he’d be at these nightclubs all the time when when i’d go to make my payoffs he was part of the main group there he was one of the call he was right he was right under jack right under at that time originally Jackie Cerrone, and then he was right under Johnny DeFranco. [4:07] But he was… And we became real good friends. We would double date and we spent a lot of time together. And we had these big card games. And that’s when I realized how powerful these people were. Because after one of the card games, there was somebody that was brought in, a guy named Corrado. I’m pretty sure his name was I can’t think of his first name, but Corrado was this person that somebody brought into the game. And after we finished playing cards, and I won all the time. I mean, I was a real good card player, and I wouldn’t drink. I’d supply liquor and food and everything, but I wouldn’t drink. And as the others drank, they were the same as at my office. After we finish up, this guy says, you want to play some? We can play maybe some gin. just human being. And he was there with another friend of his who just sat there and watched. So we played, not gin, but blackjack. We played and passed cards back and forth when you win. Then you’re the dealer and back and forth. And I lost, I think I lost about $4,000 or $13,000 to him. [5:26] I lost the cash that I had. I had cash about $5,000 or $6,000. And I gave him a check for the rest. You know, but everything I was doing was wrong, you know. Yeah, one of those nights. It’s in there. And it’s funny because you asked about Marco. [5:47] And I thought, you know, oh, well, and whatever. And I gave him a check. I said, no, it’s a good check. And it was. It was for my office. It was an office check that I gave him. And that next morning, I’m meeting with Ricky and with Marco at this restaurant across from the station before I go in and to work. And I said, son of a B. I said, you know, they had a bad night first ever. Marco wasn’t at that game, at that particular game. And what happened? I said, I blew about 12,000. Okay, but you? Wow. And I said, yeah, I said, one of the guys at the game played some, I played some blackjack with somebody. What was his name? Eddie, Eddie Corrado. Eddie Corrado. He said, that mother, he said, stop payment on the check. He said, stop payment on the check. He said, because it wasn’t nine o’clock. It was only like, you know, seven, you know, seven 30 or whatever. He said, and when he gets ahold of you, arrange to have him come to your house. Tell him you’ll have the money for him at your house. So that’s what I, that’s what I do. So I stopped payment on it probably about five after nine. I get a call from, from Mr. Corrado. You mother fucker. [7:17] I said, no, no. I said, there wasn’t enough money in the account. I said, I’m sorry. I said, all right, then I’ll be over. I said, no, no, no. I said, I’m in court right now. I said, I’m in court. I said, I’m going to be tied up all day. I’ll meet you at my place. I’ll meet you back there. Well, I’ll be there. You better have that. I want cash and you better have it. Okay. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m at home. Marco comes in. And he was there with Tony and Tony was there and Ricky was there. And Ricky was there. And they come over a little ahead of time and he comes in. I live on the 27th floor. The doorbell rings. Up he comes with some big mustache. [8:00] I open the door. You better have the fucking money and whatever. And I try to look nervous. I try to look real nervous. and when you walk into my apartment you walk in and you see the kitchen right in front of you and to the lef

Retired Kansas City, Missouri, Police Intelligence Unit Detective Gary Jenkins tells the story of the unsolved murder of James Ragen. Gary Jenkins digs into an old-school Chicago Outfit story pulled from a vintage newspaper clip by legendary columnist Drew Pearson. The article centers on James M. Ragen,” a key figure in the Continental Press and Racing Wire—and what happened when the Outfit decided it wanted total control of the race wire business. This is a gritty snapshot of how Chicago’s underworld allegedly dominated legitimate businesses in the 1940s—bars, taverns, suppliers, and especially gambling infrastructure—then used violence and influence to keep it that way. Gary returned to Chicago Outfit history after spotting an old Drew Pearson column: “A Songbird Who Sang, Murdered.” Who James Ragen was: a major player in distributing horse racing results nationwide How race wire services powered mob-controlled bookmaking across U.S. cities The Outfit’s push to muscle in with a competing racing wire—and the warning: don’t compete with Chicago Mob-linked figure Mo Annenberg and the money behind race wire “tolls” and kickbacks.  Outfit names mentioned in the takeover fight, including “Greasy Thumb” Jake Guzik and others from the era. Pearson claimed that Ragen gave information about mob domination in Chicago to the U.S. Attorney General Tom Clark, and that resulted in his murder. The broad daylight attack: a fruit truck pulls alongside, and a machine gun ambush erupts at a stoplight, and James Ragen goes down in a hail of .45 bullets. The “stranger-than-fiction” twist: Ragen later dies, and an autopsy allegedly finds a tube of mercury in his stomach. Why the case remained murky: the coroner allegedly refused to pin it cleanly as murder (per Pearson’s reporting) Gary frames it as a reminder of how deep the Outfit’s influence ran in city systems and politics. Memorable Moments Ragen/Reagan’s fatalistic line (as told by Pearson): “If they want you, they’re gonna get you.” The bizarre mercury detail and Gary asking listeners if they’ve ever heard anything like it Why This Story Matters This bonus episode connects the dots between information networks (race results), organized gambling, and the Outfit’s approach to business: control the pipeline, control the profit—and crush anyone who won’t move aside. Gary invites listeners to share any other “old but gold” Chicago Outfit stories or clippings worth covering in future bonus episodes—and reminds everyone to check out his books and films (search Gary Jenkins on Amazon or visit his website). Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. Transcript James Ragen race wire story Speaker: [00:00:00] Well, hey, all you wire tappers. Good to be back here in the studio. Gangland wire. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City, Missouri Police Detective, formerly of the Intelligence Unit. I spent 14 years there investigating organized crime in Kansas City. Best 14 years of my life. Speaker: I think sometimes you know, I’ve got this True Crime podcast and we focus on the mob and I haven’t. Been to Chicago for a little bit, it seemed like. And I was, I was looking through some stuff from the Chicago outfit Facebook page, and there’s a newspaper clip on the, the, the group that has newspaper clips on it that had an article by a man named Drew Pearson. Speaker: Now, drew Pearson was a real famous columnist back in the forties and fifties, and the title of it is A Songbird Who, mur, who Sang, murdered. Now he starts off talking about the singing of Joe Vce. I guess he, he wrote this article about the time Joe Vce had all the newspapers, Andre, and talked about the New York mob. Speaker: But he had [00:01:00] a guy who talked about the Chicago outfit. He said that, he feels, he said that he felt responsible for the death of this informant outta Chicago. So he dropped in, he said he dropped into the morgue of Chicago’s American newspaper to refresh his memory just about this guy and, and what he said. This guy was a man named James M. Reagan, who was a of the continental press and racing wire. He was machine gunned down from a fruit truck. In August 14th, 1946, Speaker: Reagan, before he died, had told him many things in, in 1946 four years before the Koff Commission and just before he got killed. Reagan told Drew Pearson about the Chicago Mob rule and gave him permission to take it to the Attorney General of the United States, Tom Clark. Now, Tom Clark is the same guy who [00:02:00] commuted the sentences of. Speaker: The four Chicago outfit bosses who were given tenure prison sentences for the Hollywood scandal for, for trying to extort money from Hollywood unions and Hollywood film companies. Now this story that he told was about hotels and taverns and nightclubs and restaurants, and he said they’re all dominated by the mob in Chicago. Speaker: He said to hire a bartender, to buy ice cubes or to launder. Roller towels. Those are the old towels that you used to pull down in the bathrooms. I don’t think they have ’em anymore. Speaker: And they take those towels out and send them off and they’d launder ’em and give you a freshman to buy any beer. To replenish your alcohol supply in a bar, you had to do business with the mob. The mob ruled a very large part of Chicago. He took this story back to Attorney General Clark, who authorized a dozen or so FBI men to check on Reagan’s facts. Speaker: Couple weeks later, they reported back and he said, this is all [00:03:00] true. They also reported that the control of the underworld reached in a very high places in Chicago and political places, and then Illinois too, also to Tom Clark, although nobody really knew that at the time and, and only indirectly. Some of these rules of the underworld in Chicago were on the surface, respected businessmen and, and politicians whose names were household words in Chicago. Speaker: Some of them had reformed, but they still controlled the mob. They, which means that they maybe didn’t go out and do mob stuff anymore, but they still were, had some control in the mob. In some respects, Reagan’s information was much more important than that at Joe Bachi, especially when it came to Chicago. Speaker: Achi didn’t know anything about Chicago, didn’t talk about Chicago, but the Justice Department in Washington had no jurisdiction at the time, which is kind of interesting. They had to pass a lot of special laws in order to bring the feds in or catch these guys on a, some kind of a interstate. Violation [00:04:00] now, they just didn’t wanna do it because they had interstate theft at that time. Speaker: There’s a lot of things they could do. Transportation, women across state lines for immoral purposes. They could use the interstate transportation of stolen autos. There was all kinds of stuff they could use, but, but they wouldn’t use it. Claim the state’s rights city of Chicago and state of Illinois responsible, not the FBI or the Justice Department now, ain’t, that’s something they claim they had no responsibility for all this crime going on in Chicago. Speaker: Lot different than it is today. The feds are trying to, to send the national Guard in and, and all the new federal police, a newly hired federal police , into Chicago to. Clean up Chicago. So back then they didn’t want anything to do with Chicago. Called drew Pearson back a little later, shortly after, and there was a leaky place up there in Washington. Speaker: He said the mob. Was wise to him. They were out to get him and he asked for FBI protection, the FBI did give him a bodyguard for a short period of time. But you know, it, that didn’t last. And Reagan [00:05:00] himself was not exactly a saint. He was, he was the the bar boss of the continental racing wire. And he, you know, he distributed raising results. Speaker: And there’s a huge amount of gambling in all the different cities that was ran by the mob. And the results came over this continental racing wire. Immediately you could have a race in, in upstate in Saratoga. And when that, that race was done, the results were sent back to Chicago and Kansas City and Baltimore, and, and Cleveland and all those states. Speaker: And he was involved with a mob associate named Mo Annenberg and distributing this news to RS all over the country. He actually had some minor altercations with this Mo Annenberg, who was definitely a mob associate when Annenberg wanted to increase the race wire tolls to some certain publications that that weren’t kicking back to the mob. Speaker: He wanted almost, he wanted to almost triple him from $200 a week to $500 a week. And his troubles really began because [00:06:00] Chicago Mob had started their own racing wire that was gonna compete with them. And, you know, you just don’t compete with the Chicago outfit on a business level. You just don’t compete with them. Speaker: A couple of names he said, Jaime Levin and greasy th. And greasy thumb, Jake Guzzi directed that battle to take over the race wire. The former Illinois State Senator involved Pat Burns. He was working for the mob acquired property over over, over the tracks where men with binoculars could flash the odds and the race results to offices, which then in turn sent ’em out over the wire to bookmakers all over the country. Speaker: And Reagan’s continental wire was already doing the same thing. And the take on this was fabulous for the mob and the mob demanded Reagan move over and let them have it all. You know, the mob, you just don’t, if they wanna move in, they’re gonna take it all. They’re always gonna take it all. Probably that’s wh

In this explosive episode of Gangland Wire, host Gary Jenkins sits down with actor, entrepreneur, and mob insider Gianni “Johnny” Russo, best known for his unforgettable role as Carlo Rizzi in The Godfather. Russo pulls back the curtain on a lifetime of stories that stretch from Frank Costello and Joe Colombo to Las Vegas skimming, the Vatican Bank, Marilyn Monroe, Jimmy Hoffa, and even Pablo Escobar. Russo discusses his new book, Mafia Secrets: Untold Tales from the Hollywood Godfather, co-written with Michael Benson—an unfiltered account of power, violence, politics, and survival inside the criminal underworld and Hollywood royalty. This is not recycled mythology—this is Gianni Russo’s personal version of history from the inside. Whether you believe every word or not, the stories are raw, violent, and utterly fascinating. This episode discusses: The Godfather, The Kennedy assassinations, Vegas skimming, Marilyn Monroe, Jimmy Hoffa, the Chicago Outfit, Pablo Escobar 🔥 Episode Highlights 🎬 How Gianni Russo REALLY Got Cast in The Godfather. Russo reveals that Joe Colombo personally helped secure his role. Paramount Studios negotiated directly with Colombo to avoid trouble. The real-life mob influence behind Carlo Rizzi’s casting. Initially, James Caan was slated to play Michael Corleone 🏛️ Growing Up Under Frank Costello Russo describes how Costello became his protector. Living for decades in a Manhattan apartment, Costello employed him as an errand runner and messenger for influential mob figures 💰 Vegas Skimming & Vatican Money Laundering Russo details moving hundreds of millions of dollars through the Vatican Bank. How casino cash from Las Vegas was “cleaned” overseas, and how Chicago Outfit figures like Jackie Cerone were tied to the financial pipeline. 🎭 Marilyn Monroe, the Kennedys & a Dark Secret Russo claims Marilyn was pregnant with Bobby Kennedy’s child. The explosive fallout and her alleged assassination. Why her body would never reveal the truth, according to Russo. The mysterious death of journalist Dorothy Kilgallen 🚬 Jimmy Hoffa’s Fate Russo shares what he says is the real story about Hoffa’s murder, the crushing and disappearance of the body. Why Hoffa was marked for death after returning to union power 🔫 Pablo Escobar & the Vegas Casino Shooting Russo describes killing Pablo Escobar’s underboss in a self-defense shooting. The terrifying private meeting that followed—with Escobar himself, how respect between two men prevented a bloodbath ⚰️ Tony & Michael Spilotro: What Casino Got Wrong Russo disputes Scorsese’s version of the murders. First-hand account of seeing the brothers after their brutal beating. The real setup and why Tony Spilotro sealed his own fate Mafia Secrets: Untold Tales from the Hollywood Godfather by Gianni Russo & Michael Benson A memoir covering: The Mob, Hollywood, Politics Vatican corruption, Murder, betrayal, and survival 👉 Available now wherever books are sold 🎯 Why You Should Listen Few guests in the history of Gangland Wire have touched so many legendary crime stories in one lifetime. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. Transcript Speaker: Well, hey, are you wire tapper? It’s good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. I have a guest today, which is, as you can see, if you’re looking, it’s, Johnny Russo. And I know a lot of you guys know Johnny. , He is, been a, a character, a mover in the shaker in this mob entertainment business for a long time. Starting with The Godfather, I think the first time we heard of him. He, , somehow got selected for the part to get beat up by James Conn and earned the, the reputation of being a wifebeater. Now that was all fiction. You guys realize that was all fictionalized for the story. But anyhow, welcome Johnny. It’s great to have you on the show. Speaker 2: Always my man. So much fun. Always. And I, the fact you’re still doing it and you know, the intrigue of the mob is never going away. Speaker: Never going away is it’s just, it’s gotten more in the last, I’ve been doing this for five, six years and it’s gotten more and more each year. It’s crazy. Speaker 2: Well, yeah. The funniest thing you say that, most people don’t know I own all the IP of the Godfather.[00:01:00] Speaker: Yeah. Speaker 2: All the intellectual property. Speaker: Yeah. Speaker 2: Like if all your listeners go on right now to quarterly own fine Italian foods. Speaker: Uh, Speaker 2: my, all my food. I’m in 83 countries, Gary. Speaker: That’s right. You got in the food business, didn’t you? Crazy, Speaker 2: crazy food business. I got in the liquor business. I, I mean, clothing. My, I mean, it’s crazy. My clothing line is called the mia. By Gianna. I try to keep everything in the mod mob feeling. Speaker: Well now you got a new book out called Mafia Secrets, untold Tales from the Hollywood Godfather. And we’re gonna talk a little bit about those mafia secrets, which that’s what, you know, that’s what we all wanna know. We wanna know the secrets of mafia. That’s think that’s part of the, that’s part of the, uh, j quo, the, uh. A little bit of something different. What we, what’s, intriguing about the mafia is this code of erta and the secrets that they had tried to keep over the Speaker 2: years. Well, you know, the situation with this, which book here that you’re talking about, that this [00:02:00] book. On, on the, one of the cove notes is Chei had it wrong in Casino. Speaker: Interesting. Speaker 2: Because I was, I one of the highlights, one of the big chapters in here. It’s pretty gory. I mean, we were just talking about Michael Benson Pryer going on. This guy is really a great graphic. Uh, writer and I mean, when he, when he’s talking about killing somebody, you could smell the blood. Speaker: Cool. That’s what we like. Well, let’s, let’s talk just a little bit about your history, your background. You go clear back to Frank Costello when you were a kid in, in New York City. You grew up in New York. Right. Tell us a little bit about that. Speaker 2: In, in 73 when he died, he left it to me. I’ve been in this apartment 70, I’ve been in this apartment 71 years. Speaker: On the Upper East Side, I guess. [00:03:00] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Speaker: yeah. Oh yeah. Speaker 2: Like sit 16. I mean, it’s ridiculous. People come and say, how did you, how could you afford it? I said, I can’t. It was given to me. Speaker: Really? Especially these days. Speaker 2: Oh my Speaker: God. Now you still living in New York City? Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. That’s my base. Yeah. I, I, I, I have a house in Sicily. I’ve had for a while now. I bought different properties in different, where I like going. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 2: And then. I kept them all by made, I’m the only guy, even, even when I bought my boat, they said, that’s gonna be a money pit that’s gonna eat all your money up. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 2: So I, I bought a boat when I was 21. I bought a Riva 148 foot Riva Speaker 4: Damn. Speaker 2: And I was good friends with Grace Kelly. ’cause Grace was going to the Baran school right around the corner on 62nd Street. Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. Speaker 2: Well, I got to know all of these young actresses when they were just coming out. [00:04:00] That’s how I got invited to her wedding. Sinatra couldn’t believe I got invited to the wedding. What happened? I, I got the boat and the boat had a slip in Monaco. Speaker 5: Yeah. Speaker 2: So I used to go there April, stay on my boat for a couple of months, and then I gave it to the Carlton Hotel to lease out. I made money from that boat every year. Speaker: I bet. And so it wasn’t holding the water. You stuck money in, as we say, that’s what you always hear about a boat. So, uh, speaking of of money and money, you talked about money laundering for the Vatican. Now I heard a story here in Kansas City, bear with me. This guy gave, he wanted to buy a church. He gave like a million dollar. Donation and the only way they’d take it if he had it converted to gold, actual gold and he took it over to the Vatican. Does that sound right to you? Speaker 2: [00:05:00] Uh, that we do Well, I used to do that myself, so I mean, I know that, but they, gold got too heavy. And then when they put all these restrictions after nine 11, yeah, you would never get on the plane. Speaker: Oh. Speaker 2: So, so I did something new. I’ll reveal it to your audience. I started buying diamonds. Speaker: Mm-hmm. Speaker 2: Which they don’t even reflect going through the machine. So I have a solid gold Davidoff cigar holder. Speaker: Yeah. Speaker 2: I put a hundred karats of diamonds. I put it in my suit jacket. I don’t smoke. It goes right through the machine. Speaker: Huh, interesting. Speaker 2: I guess every drug dealer in the world is doing because Speaker: it probably smell no problem. Smell that cocaine going through the machine. Be all over that cocaine. Try that. Speaker 2: I mean, I never took a drug. Thank God. Speaker: Yeah, me neither. So I see in the background you got the Godfather. I mean this is, I [00:06:00] know it’s been told before, but, so we got some guys out here that that may not know that story. You’re you, how did you get that part anyhow? You were the son-in-law of the Godfather and the brother-in-law to Son Corleone James. James Conn James Conn’s character. How’d you get that part? Speaker 2: I, I, I left the country for about three or four years after the Kennedy assassination. ’cause I, I mean, I was a messenger. I knew nothing about who, what and where. Yeah. But they wanted to question me. So Costello sent me on a nice trip and while I was out

In this episode of Gangland Wire, Gary Jenkins interviews bestselling author Mark Shaw about his explosive new research into the JFK and RFK assassinations — and the hidden role of New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello. Shaw breaks down newly uncovered FBI documents, including Marcello’s alleged 1985 prison confession claiming involvement in JFK’s murder. We explore Marcello’s long-running war with Robert Kennedy, the suspicious death of journalist Dorothy Kilgallen, and significant inconsistencies in the official story of RFK’s assassination. This conversation challenges the lone-gunman narrative and exposes how organized crime, politics, and government investigations may have collided to shape American history. Subscribe to get notified about new content. 0:10 The Kennedy Connection 21:37 Sirhan’s Background Uncovered 31:56 The Role of Marcello in Assassinations 44:54 The Quest for Justice 🎧 Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. Transcript [0:00] Aaron Cohen began to expose a goings-on in Louisiana, which eventually came to the attention of Robert Kennedy and a Senate committee investigating corruption. [0:11] Through Robert Kennedy’s efforts in the Justice Department, our organized crime and racketeering section really was established. That was a Robert Kennedy brainchild. To concentrate a group of prosecutors, who were specially trained to engage in traditional organized crime investigations. Marcello and other mobsters who appeared before the committee refused to acknowledge the existence of the mafia. Even FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover seemed to concur. For the reason for Marcello’s absence, he was still subpoenaed to appear before the McClellan Committee. Marcello defiantly pleaded the Fifth Amendment to 66 questions that Robert Kennedy directed toward him. His arrogance and contempt for the proceedings provided even more incentive for Robert Kennedy to attack the mafia. [1:02] Marcello even refused to answer the question of where he was born. This very withholding of information became the weapon that Robert Kennedy would use to go after Marcello. Hey, all you wiretappers, good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective with a special guest today. Man, you know, recently, guys, I had always just gone along with the fact Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Sirhan Sirhan acted alone. And those investigations were all legit and they were accurate. [1:36] And, you know, over the last year, there’s been a lot of stuff come out and I’ve started looking into this and I’m beginning to wonder myself. And so I was able to find Mark Shaw, who we have sitting here, who has done more work than maybe anybody on this whole thing. And he’s come up with some really compelling evidence on a mob connection on Carlos Mosello. So welcome, Mark. I’m really glad to have you on the show. Thank you, sir. So Mark, God, I was looking over your credentials here. You’ve been doing this for 30 years or so, or your whole life, I guess. And, and you’ve got him. Oh, you got 30. I know where I got the number 30. You got 30 books out there. You’ve done, and you’ve really, you’ve done a bunch of them on the JFK investigation and murder. So, guys, I’m going to put up his website, put a link on his website, and you’ll see what all those books are. So, if you want to really take some more deep dives into the JFK thing. [2:32] Go to that and get some of his books. And this book is a little more about the RFK. See, I just really always assumed Sirhan Sirhan did it, Mark. I don’t know what to say. It’s just that’s the only information I ever heard was Sirhan Sirhan did it. And they got the video of him doing it. So there’s no doubt, I guess, I don’t know if he did it or not now. So let’s, uh, uh, and Carlos Marcello was so involved in all this. Let’s start unpacking this a little bit, if we will, if we could like, okay, let’s talk a little bit about Carlos Marcello. How does he figure into both of them? Well, I felt like you did. You know, I grew up when I was real young, when JFK was assassinated, I just took what J Edgar Hoover said about Oswald alone. You know, I’d never even thought about it for years and years and years. And then I practiced law with Melvin Belli, who, you know, that name, the famous lawyer in San Francisco. Yeah. And I wrote a biography of him and I started to learn about his mafia connections. [3:32] And his main client, for instance, was Mickey Cohen, who you I’m sure you know that name. Yeah. Oh, yeah. West Coast racketeer, killer, all of that. And I started to wonder about Belli’s representation of Jack Ruby. So I looked into that and that led me to the 1960 election. and some of the mafia, Joe Kennedy, bringing them in to win Chicago so they could get JFK elected. So that made me wonder about all that. I wrote a book called The Poison Patriarch about that. And then I found out about this Dorothy Kilgallen that was the most credible reporter to have ever covered the JFK assassination. So that got me into writing these different books. The Reporter Who Knew Too Much was the first one, and it did well, and so I kept going and going. But today we want to talk about the Marcello effect, I would call it, on both the JFK assassination and now the new evidence that I have in the book Abuse of Power coming out December 2nd, indicating that Marcello was not only responsible, in my opinion, for JFK’s assassination, but also Robert Kennedy’s. And I think the most amazing news to your listeners, as it was to me when I found out about it earlier this year, when the JFK assassination records were released, finally, after all these years, I came across a FBI file. [4:58] And basically, the long and short of it is a confession by Carlos Marcello. And it happened on March 4th, 1985. I’ve got it in front of me. When Jack Ronald Van Landingham, an inmate at the Seagalville Federal Institution, Pareto Institution in Texas, said the following. He was in the company of Carlos Marcello and another inmate at the Federal Corrections Institute yard in Texarkana, Texas, in the courtyard, engaged in conversation. Carlos Marcello discussed his intense dislike of former president John Kennedy, as he often did. Unlike other such tirades against Kennedy, however, on this occasion, Carlos Marcello said, referring to President Kennedy, yeah, I had the son of a bitch killed. I’m glad I did. I’m sorry I couldn’t have done it myself. Now, you have to pause and really think about those words. [5:53] Would Marcello have done that? Because, as you know, most mafia were supposed to keep their mouth shut. Was he just bragging? What was he doing this? or, you know, what was his motive for saying that to this Van Leningham, who actually was a government’s plant who they had put in there to set up Marcello, trying to get information about him regarding the JFK assassination. So I was a little bit dubious of it. And I went, though, back into some research and everything. And I found out more about why this happened. And it seemed to be more credible to me all the time. And then I found out that there was actually an auto recording. [6:35] And I think you know that what they had done is give this snitch a transistor radio with a microphone in there. And so the confession was audio taped. Now, the location now of that audio tape, which has never been released, I want to talk about a little bit later. But this changes everything because I feel like, in fact, that it validates a lot of my research and that of Dorothy Kilgallen in my first four books. Because we always pointed the finger at Marcello, And Kilgallen, who was the only reporter to have interviewed Jack Ruby, and Jack Ruby sent her to New Orleans, the home of Carlos Marcello. And things go on from there to where Dorothy, finally in 1965, 60 years ago, is mysteriously killed right as she’s writing a book for Random House implicating Marcello. So Marcello is in the middle of all of that. And if you know if you’re if you and your listeners know his history it was frank costello in new york who set up marcello in new orleans now i’ve interviewed several people down there who knew him and he was not somebody that you want to mess around with that’s for sure and it’s it’s very i always look at motive like you did when you were a detective and marcello obviously and now shut up for a minute uh marcello had obviously the strongest motive to have eliminated uh jfk. [8:02] When Bobby Kennedy became attorney general, the first thing that he did was go after they swore that they would never go after the media or go after the mafia if they’d help him elect JFK president. First thing he did was was deport Marcello to Central America, where he almost died. Marcello spent two agonizing months in exile. After making his way through the rugged Central American jungle, Marcello somehow got back to Louisiana. How exactly Marcello was able to re-enter the U.S. is uncertain. Investigator Ed Becker believes Marcello used his connections to sneak back into the country. When he got back in the United States, Robert Kennedy charged him with racketeering. [8:43] And Marcello knew that Bobby Kennedy was going to keep going after him. So what did he think? Smart man that he was. [8:52] If I kill Bobby Kennedy, which I want to have happen, then Jack Kennedy will come after me with everything the government has. But if I eliminate JFK, Bobby Kennedy will be powerless. And that’s exactly what happened. Now, we’re going to t

In this powerful episode of Gangland Wire, retired Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins sits down with Tegan Broadwater, a former Fort Worth Police officer, musician, and undercover operative whose story reads like a movie script. Broadwater takes listeners on a riveting journey from his early years as a professional musician to his dramatic turn infiltrating one of America’s most dangerous street gangs—the Crips. Drawing from his book Life in the Fishbowl, he details how music, culture, and human connection became unexpected tools for survival and success inside the underworld. Listeners will hear: How Tegan Broadwater transitioned from touring musician to undercover police officer, bringing creativity and adaptability to the streets. The story of his two-year infiltration into the Crips—posing as a South Texas drug dealer with the help of a trusted informant. His insights into gang hierarchy, loyalty, and manipulation, and how understanding culture was key to earning trust. The moral challenges of living undercover—forming friendships with men he would eventually arrest. The emotional impact of a major gang raid that ended with over 50 arrests, and how it changed his outlook on justice and humanity. His decision to donate proceeds from his book to the children of incarcerated parents aims to break the cycle of violence. He continues to share lessons on leadership, empathy, and cultural understanding through his private security firm and new podcast projects.   Broadwater’s story isn’t just about crime and undercover operations—it’s about identity, compassion, and the human cost of violence. This episode offers a rare look at what it means to live behind a mask while still holding onto one’s purpose. 🎧 Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. 1:08 Life in the Fishbowl 4:54 The Dangerous Fishbowl 11:09 Going Undercover with the Crips 14:14 The Kingpin and His Operations 26:54 Encountering the Mob 34:27 Comparing Gangs and Organized Crime 44:30 Tegan’s Current Projects and Future Goals Transcript [0:00] Well, hey, all you wiretappers. Good to be back here in studio of Gangland Wire. I have a guest today that is another former cop, just like me, worked for the Fort Worth PD. I’m talking with Tegan Broadwater. Now, Tegan has an unusual background. He was a professional musician at one time who ended up going deep undercover to infiltrate the Crips. Now, you know that the Crips is a black gang, don’t you? I know you guys do. The Crips and the Bloods. If you know anything at all about inner city crime, the Crips and the Bloods or the gangs, well, here’s this white dude goes undercover with the Crips. Now, we’re going to find out how he did that. I’m dying to know myself. So welcome, Teagan. [0:42] Thank you. I appreciate you having me. All right. Now, let’s tell us a little bit about yourself. You just told me kind of nomadic growing up. You went to high school in Houston. You ended up in Fort Worth working for the PD. But you also have been a professional musician and you have a podcast today, written a book, Life in the Fishbowl. You have a company called the Tactical Systems Network. So tell us a little bit about yourself. [1:08] Yeah, I mean, music was my original passion, and from fourth grade on until my late 20s, that was all I wanted to do. So I went to college for music, went to a prestigious jazz program, and was touring on the road and got signed by a label at one of the early South by Southwest conferences back in the 90s, and just grew a little weary of the music industry itself. I love music, and I still consider myself a creative for the book and the music and stuff that I still do today. I still love to express myself. I think it also played a great role in leveraging it in cop work. So ultimately what happened was as I grew tired of the industry and sharing two beds with five dudes at a day’s end in Oklahoma City on the road, I also had a kid. [1:57] In 95 I had a kid and I thought, man, I do not want to be gone. So I decided to, at the behest of a few cops that used to come see us play when we were in town they talked me into doing that which was crazy because i just never imagined anything else so i cut eight inches of locks off and retook my driver’s license picture so the guys wouldn’t criticize me when i applied yeah and got into the pd i applied actually at houston pd and for pd and whoever was going to take me first and fort worth was quick to the draw and and although i had absolutely no experience in police work or firearms or anything like that i feel like I really had the type of personality that they needed. I don’t know if they realized that or not, but from the jump, I really wanted to work undercover because I felt like, you know, here I am. I’ve been touring with multicultural bands. I’m the only white guy in this group and that group and whatever. And I’m going to a music school, a bunch of artists and stuff. And so I feel like even in high school, I’d hang out with the jocks, I’d hang out with the smokers, hang out with the whoever. We’re just kind of a pliable personality, just like good people. So I felt like I could really excel at that. And it turns out that I really could. So I got into the police work and ended up being really. [3:14] Really proficient with a firearm because, again, they teach you how to use it. And I had no bad habits to unlearn. So, you know, I took to all that stuff really well. Yeah. And so, most of us do somewhere. But, you know, I ended up just politicking to try to go to the worst part of town, so to speak, with the highest crime areas so that I could gain more experience. I was super ambitious, learned a lot about the neighborhoods. And at one point, you know, I was trying to. [3:44] Get into a narcotics unit and as a six foot one white stiff nerd a little more difficult to do so, i started creating my own resume i politicked some of the captains to try to re-implement some of the old weed and seed programs and and learned how to write search warrants and procured some old used expired gear from swat and after just a few years i was i was spending my shift, making covered buys and learning how to do a few undercover buys. And then at the end of every shift, we would earn overtime and go crack doors down some old dilapidated crack houses and, you know, make some cases that way. And so by the time I applied to narcotics for my fourth time, they couldn’t deny me because I had a bunch of informants. I had, you know, several hundred, pardon me, several hundred dynamic search warrants under my belt and all that kind of stuff. So, ultimately, I was accepted there, and what ironically turned out to be a place that I used to work a lot in, there’s an area of town where it was a gang-ridden part of town where you had the Bloods and the Crips divided by one single street. [4:54] But in terms of the turf, there was a six-square block area with one way in and one way out that was particularly dangerous and particularly problematic. [5:03] We always rode down there too deep and the cops deemed it the fishbowl because every time you went down there people were radioing in everybody got a warning ahead of time and it made it really difficult for for us to do work down there tons of violence i remember answering calls down there you know bloody females and kids screaming and you know having domestic disturbance calls and displacing these kids and just a real crazy situation but fortunately for me having done those warrants for the few years preceding narcotics when the problems finally arose where the finally they had a killing down there that that drew the attention of the city council. [5:41] They got together with the chief of police and said, what can we do? We need to pull all stops to get this little segment of town cleaned up. Because obviously there are good people that are down there being held hostage by these jerks that are just shooting each other and making it impossible for anyone to live a normal life. And these people that are innocents are too poor to just stop and move. It’s not as easy as that. So they started doing all the typical things. Of course, they’re not consulting me. I’m just a grunt. And they’re doing jump outs with unmarked bans and writing search warrants and pulling over everybody that moves and trying to get people to flip and obviously to no avail or else that would have worked prior. So, yeah. My whole idea, me being the genius that I am, I went to an informant and said, hey, what do you think of this idea? I said, you pose as somebody that I’m trying to fund. I’m going to pose as T. I’m a big-time dope dealer from South Texas and just had my source busted by the feds. I’m coming up to North Texas, and I’m trying to get my game restarted. [6:43] But you are the poor crack dude that’s trying to do his little hustle. Because if I’m some kind of big timer and I’m trying to infiltrate Crips here via the dope trade, I certainly can’t go start down at the corners and start buying $25 rack rocks. But I could roll down there with you and tell them that I’m just buying for you. And that was the premise that we went with. He laughed his ass off at first, obviously, too, because obviously the fitting in, I fit in by fitting out, by standing out, right? I wasn’t going to try to fit into that mold. And I even played ignorant along the way by wearing, you know, 49ers, Falcons jerseys and stuff down there in the blue territories. [7:28] And they’d pull me aside and say, fool, what are you doing? You fool, wh

In this episode of Gangland Wire, host Gary Jenkins sits down with former FBI agent Séamus McElearney, author of Flipping Capo, for a deep dive into one of the most remarkable Mafia investigations and how he took down the DeCavalcante Family. McElearney recounts his unlikely path from the world of banking to the FBI, driven by a lifelong fascination with law enforcement. Despite being told he didn’t have the “right background,” he pushed forward—eventually landing in New York’s Organized Crime Squad C-10, where he investigated both the Bonanno and DeCavalcante crime families. He describes the rare and demanding experience of working two Mafia families at once, and the teamwork required to dismantle them from the inside out. As the conversation turns to his book, Flipping Capo, McElearney explains the years-long process of writing it and the rigorous FBI review needed to ensure no sensitive investigative techniques were revealed. He shares early memories of notorious boss Joe Massino, and the high-stakes surveillance and arrests that defined his career. A major focus of the episode is the arrest and flipping of Anthony Capo, a feared DeCavalcante soldier—and the first made member of that family ever to cooperate with the government. McElearney walks listeners through the tension of that operation, his calculated approach to treating Capo with respect, and the psychological tightrope that ultimately persuaded Capo to talk. That single decision triggered a domino effect of cooperation that helped bring down the New Jersey mob family many believe inspired The Sopranos. Gary and Séamus dive into the proffer process, cooperation agreements, and the behind-the-scenes strategies used to turn high-level mobsters. McElearney also draws comparisons between real mob figures and the fictional world of The Sopranos, revealing how much of the hit series was grounded in the actual cases he worked. The interview closes with McElearney’s reflections on how organized crime continues to evolve. While today’s mob may look different from the one he battled in the ’90s, he stresses that the methods—and the money—still flow. His candid insights offer a rare look into the changing face of the American Mafia and the ongoing fight to contain it. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. 2:26 Seamus’ FBI Journey 6:26 Inside the DeCavalcante Family 9:05 The Process of Flipping 10:27 Comparing Families 12:30 The First Cooperation 17:43 The Proffer Process 25:03 Protecting Cooperators 27:44 The Murder of Joseph Canigliaro 29:42 Life on Trial 30:28 The Real Sopranos 39:43 Leading the Columbo Squad 44:15 Major Arrests and Cases 50:57 Final Thoughts and Stories Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. Transcript [0:00]Well, hey, welcome all you wiretappers. Good to be back here in studio of Gangland Wire. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective. [0:07]Welcome to Gangland Wire [0:07]I have a former FBI agent as my guest today. And, you know, I love having these FBI agents on. I’ve had a lot of them on and I worked with a lot of the guys and they’re really good guy. Everyone I ever met and worked with was a really good guy. Now they got their deadhead just like we did. But these aggressive guys are the ones that write books and I’ve got one on today. Seamus McElherney. Welcome, Seamus. Thank you. It’s great to be here. All right. Well, an Irish name now working on the Italian mob, huh? How come you weren’t working on the Westie? So they were maybe gone by the time you came around. There’s no such thing. [0:47]Oh, yeah. You got your code. You Irish guys got your code, too. All right, Seamus, you got a book, Killing, or Killing, Flipping Capo. I want to see it back up over your shoulder there. Really interesting book, guys. He flipped a guy named Anthony Capo. And he really took down the real Sopranos, if you will. So Seamus, tell us a little about how you got started with the FBI, your early career. Okay. When I got out of school, I really didn’t know what to do. And I got into banking and I just decided that was really not for me. And I got lucky where I got to meet an FBI agent. and I was just so fascinated by the work. It seemed like every day was different. You know, one day you could meet a CEO and another day you could be doing surveillance. It just, the job just seemed really interesting. [1:38]Like fascinating to me. So I decided to try to become an agent. And I was constantly told, Shane, you should never become an agent. You didn’t have the background for it. And one, one, a motto in life to me is persistence beats resistance. And I was just determined to become an agent. And back then in the late 1990s, it was a long process and it took me close to two years to actually become an agent. And I was selected to go down to training and I was very fortunate to be selected to go down to training. Now it was your first office back up in New York and the, one of the organized crime squads, or did you go out into boonies and then come back? I actually was born and raised in New York, and I was fortunate to be selected to be sent back to New York. So my first squad, I was sent back to the city, back to 26 Federal Plaza, [2:26]Seamus’ FBI Journey [2:24]and I was assigned to a squad called C-10. And C-10 was an organized crime squad, which was responsible for the Bonanno family, and then later became the DeCavocanti family as well, which I can explain to you yeah yeah we’ll get we’ll get deep into that now now let’s let me ask you a little bit about the book tell the guys a little bit about the process of writing a book from your fbi experiences. [2:47]It’s a long process. First of all, I was contacted by someone who was interested [2:55]Writing a Book [2:53]in writing a book based upon my career. People had encouraged me to write a book because I had a very successful career. And when you work organized crime, it’s never just about you. It’s about the people that you work with, right? It’s definitely a team. It’s never just one person. I had great supervisors. I had great teammates. I had a great partner. And so I was approached to write a book. So then I had no idea. So there was an agent, a famous agent, an undercover agent named Jack Garcia. So I kind of really leaned on him to kind of learn how to write a book. And it’s a long process. You have to get an agent, the publisher, a co-author I had. And then when you finally have all that, and you do have the manuscript ready to be written, you have to send it down to the FBI. And that is a long process. The FBI, in this instance, probably took over a year for them to review the book because what they want to make sure is you’re not revealing any investigative techniques. Fortunately for me, a lot of the information that is in the book is public information because of all the trials that I did. Interesting. Yeah, it is. It is quite a I know it was quite a process. [4:00]Now, the banana squad, you work in a banana squad. You know, we know a little bit about the banana squad. [4:07]Was Joe Pacino the boss when you first came in? Yes, he was. And I actually had the pleasure of arresting Joe as well. Ah, interesting. I did a show on Joe. He’s a really interesting guy. I know my friend, who was at the banana squad, I think just before you were, and he talked a lot of, to me personally, he won’t go on the show, but he talked a lot about Joe Massino. He said, actually, saw him in the courtroom one time later on, he hadn’t seen him in several years. And, and Joe looked across the courtroom. He said, Doug, how are you doing? He said, Joe was that kind of guy. He was real personal. He was. [4:44]Yeah, so when I first got to the squad, the supervisor at the time was a gentleman named Jack Steubing, and he had the thought process to go after Joe and his money. So there was two accountants that were assigned to a squad at that time. It was Kimberly McCaffrey and Jeff Solette, and they were targeted to go after Joe and his money. And it was a very successful case. And when we arrested Joe, I think it was in January of 2003, I believe it was, I was assigned to be part of that arrest team. Interesting. You know, McCaffrey and Sled are going to be talking about that case out at the Mob Museum sometime in the near future. I can’t remember exactly when it is. And it was a hell of a case. I think it just happened, actually. Oh, did it? Okay. I actually just spoke to Jeff, so I think it just happened about a week or two ago. Okay. Yeah, I tried to get him to come on the show, and I think maybe he was committed to doing something else, and I didn’t keep after him. And I don’t like to pester people, you know. [5:44]And Fensell was the one that said, you got to get Jeff Sillett. You got to get Jeff Sillett. When I looked into that money angle of it, that was pretty interesting about how they were laundering their money through the parking lots and just millions. And when he gave up, like $10 million or something? I mean, it’s unbelievable. Yes. And that’s that’s one of the reasons why I wrote the book is because I don’t think the public or the press really put this together where that squad, C-10, is a very unique squad where we were dismantling the two families at the same time. Half the family was working the Bonanno family and half the family was working the Cavalcanti family. So it’s a very unique squad during that six or seven year time period where we were dismantling two families at the same time. [6:26]Inside the DeCavalcanti Family [6:26]Interesting and and that gets us into the dekavocante family i could always struggle with that name for some

In this episode of Gangland Wire, retired Kansas City Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins sits down with author Jay Baer to explore the hidden, human side of organized crime’s biggest names — Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, John Gotti, and Paul Castellano. Jay’s book, Mob Life: The Private World of Capone, Lansky, Gotti, and Castellano, takes a unique look beyond the murders, rackets, and headlines to reveal how these mobsters actually lived — what they ate, how they dressed, their relationships with religion, and how they handled immense power and wealth. Listeners will hear: How Al Capone’s family sold his spaghetti sauce recipe to Ragu — their first commercial product. Why Meyer Lansky, the most devout of the four, was denied the right to die in Israel by Prime Minister Golda Meir. The lavish lifestyle and fatal missteps of Paul Castellano, the “Howard Hughes of the Mafia.”   The contrast between Gotti’s flamboyance and Lansky’s low profile — and how each approach shaped their downfall. The staggering fortunes these men built — and how, in the end, they all lost it. Jay also shares his own lifelong fascination with organized crime, his career outside writing, and his upcoming project, How to Live Like a Gangster — No Prison Required, a look at mob values like loyalty, respect, and power through a modern lens. Gary and Jay swap mob history from New York to Kansas City, including a discussion of the real story behind scenes from Casino and Kansas City’s own underworld power struggles. ON AMAZON Wayne said 5.0 out of 5 stars Great Facts on the Mob Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2021Format: Kindle If your looking for a good fast interesting read on the Mafia, this is the book for you. Full of information on mob types that most have no clue about. You can’t lose with this book I believe. 🎧 Listen now to uncover the side of the mob you’ve never heard before. 📘 Get the book: Mob Life: The Private World of Capone, Lansky, Gotti, and Castellano by Jay Robert Baer on Amazon 00:00 – Intro: Gary Jenkins welcomes Jay Baer 01:00 – Why Jay wrote Mob Life and his lifelong fascination with gangsters 03:30 – From detailing cars to writing true crime books 05:30 – Gary and Jay’s early mob reading influences 07:00 – Researching Al Capone’s private life 08:00 – Capone’s secret spaghetti sauce recipe sold to Ragu 09:00 – John Gotti’s love for Cracker Barrel and biscuits & gravy 10:00 – Meyer Lansky’s religious life and denied burial in Israel 12:00 – Castellano’s wealth, arrogance, and fall 14:00 – Jay’s next book: How to Live Like a Gangster — No Prison Required 15:00 – Loyalty and respect in the mob vs. business life 16:00 – How Castellano’s aloofness led to his murder 18:00 – The real Joe Watts story — the German who made millions 20:00 – Gary shares Kansas City mob stories and Casino connections 23:00 – The failed car bombing of underboss Tuffy DeLuna 25:00 – The Mob Museum and modern mob myths 26:00 – Jay shows his book Mob Life and shares fun mob trivia 28:00 – How much money mob bosses really made — and lost 30:00 – Why law enforcement didn’t chase mob money before the drug era 31:00 – Joe Massino’s $10 million cash and gold surrender 32:00 – Final thoughts: The mob’s empire always ends the same way Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. Transcript Gary Jenkins: Well, hey, all you wire tappers. Good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. This is Gary Jenkins. You know, I’m a retired Kansas City police intelligence unit detective and I am now a mob historian and with the podcast and a few other things, some books and stuff out there. Gary Jenkins: And I interview other mob authors as well as research stories. And today I have an author named Jay Bear. He has written a book about the mob, a really good, solid, historical, factually true book as kind of a basis for a novel he wants to write. So Jay, welcome. Jay Baer: Oh, thank you. I’m, I’m happy to be here. Jay Baer: This is really great. So I’m looking forward to this interview. Gary Jenkins: All right, Jay. Well, you know, we, we like the mob here and we like the the facts about the mob. When I read about your book, that’s, that’s when I got hold of you. I thought, well, this is so interesting. It is Mob life, the private world of [00:01:00] Capone, Lansky, Gotti, and Castellano. Gary Jenkins: And what did Al Capone wear? How much did it cost? Where did he buy it? You know, what, what kind of Italian, right? What kind of, what kind of food did Gotti like besides Italian and, and that kind of a thing. So I, that, that was really interesting, those esoteric little details that we don’t really know usually. Jay Baer: What I wanted to do is I wanted to tell a different story. Everybody writes books about their crimes and law enforcement’s effort to put them away. We’ve heard all that. So this was like something I wanted to do for years. Let me just tell a different story. And I did, and the book is filled with, you know what? Jay Baer: How much money they made, what they, how they dressed religious views really. Which there wasn’t very much in religious views except for May Lansky. The rest of them were, even, even Paul Castellano, the the bishop did not wanna bury him in a Catholic, in, in a Catholic cemetery. And they fought him on it and they got him to do it. Jay Baer: [00:02:00] But yeah, none of ’em had really any religious views except for, may Lansky. Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Jay Baer: He went to synagogue on a regular basis. He belonged, he did a lot of stuff, you know, during the war to help you know, catch the Nazis. Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Jay Baer: In fact, there’s a book out there, an older book with called Luciano’s Luck and it’s about their, what they did and how they got involved in the, you know, world War ii. Gary Jenkins: Interesting. Yeah, I had heard that. I’ve never really, I talked to one guy, an author that had a book really about the, more about the Navy guy that approached Luciano in prison and then worked with this guy named Sox Sox Lanza, who had the Fulton Street Fish market in, in trying to gather information about any possible Nazi saboteurs. Gary Jenkins: But I’ve never really got into that. Mayor Lansky area. So Jay, tell us a little bit about where you come from. You’re not, you’re not a career author. Sometimes I have guys that that’s all they ever done. They’ve been newspaper reporters and written books and stuff. Tell us a little [00:03:00] bit about yourself. Jay Baer: Well, I’m from New York based, you know, originally you can probably tell with my voice, you know, forget about it and all that stuff. I knew you were from north of me. Where are you? Kansas, Missouri. Oh, okay. So. My father moved us down here to Florida, like, oh my God. 1972, and I’ve been here ever since. So, but I, I de, I started detailing cars when I was 28, and I’ve been doing that ever since and it’s, you know, brought me, right now I’m kind of like, I only work in the mornings, you know, I’m almost 70, so I’m kind of like maybe semi-retired. Jay Baer: Yeah. But I’m never gonna retire because, I gotta find something to do all the time. So I write, and right now, you know, I wrote this book, mob Life and I wrote a book before that called Angels of Death. It’s about two girls who are on the run for murder and they become killers for hire and realize they’re in love with each other. Jay Baer: And I also wrote a nonfiction book about public speaking ’cause I [00:04:00] used to teach public speaking. I’m a distinguished Toastmaster. I did a lot of speaking over the years. I taught hundreds of people how to overcome their fear of speaking. So I wrote, I, I took my course and I put it into a book. Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. Jay Baer: It was only a very short book. Jay Baer: ’cause you know, people don’t need a lot. I don’t think people need a lot of information to be successful, but I’ve always been interested in gangsters ever since I was a kid. You know, my, my friends were listening to The Beatles. I was reading books about. Capone and May Lansky. So there’s something about them that always intrigued me, their power, the women, the way that they just controlled so much, you know, they’re very powerful men. Jay Baer: And it’s just something I’ve kept, kept on for, oh my God, since 35 years. No, 55 years. Ever since I was a kid, 15 years old, I’ve been interested in gangsters. So, and I decided, hey, it’s time to write about ’em. [00:05:00] Gary Jenkins: Interesting. You know what just outta teens in my teens, I first read my first. True Crime book, which was in Cold Blood by Truman Capote. Gary Jenkins: And man, that book, I was hooked then in that true crime. And so I was, I was in junior college right outta high school and, and I found green was it Greenfeld Jungle? By Ova DeMars. It was all about the mob in Las Vegas. It was. Thick, real dense book, but, but I bought into it, man, I, I love that book. I devoured that book. Gary Jenkins: I, I read one by a guy named Ken, a New York City detective named I think it was Joe Erno or Tony Tony Erno, I can’t remember his erno and read that. And he really. You know, made these gangsters come alive in that book back then. And I remember even, even back then, I thought, boy, that veto genovese, that was a bad, that’s a bad dude. Gary Jenkins: So they I understand. I got hooked on it early myself. Jay Baer: Oh, that was a nonfiction book. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Right. Oh, okay. Jay Baer: Yeah. You know, there’s a, there’s a lot of stuff [00:06:00] out there like that. I mean, fiction, like, I’m, I’m, I’m rereading The Godfather ’cause I like the way Mar

In this episode of Gangland Wire, retired Kansas City Intelligence detective Gary Jenkins sits down with Burt Gonzalez, a veteran officer from the Miami-Dade Police Department, for an unfiltered look inside one of the most violent and chaotic eras in American law enforcement history. Bert has published his story title The Real Greatest Show on Earth. With decades of experience spanning multiple divisions, Burt recounts the transformation of Dade County’s police force—from Metro-Dade to Miami-Dade—and now back to an elected sheriff. He walks us through the gritty evolution of policing in South Florida, where the drug trade fueled daily violence and cartel wars left bodies in the streets. Burt shares firsthand stories from Miami’s cocaine-crazed years, including a shocking drug bust that netted 208 kilos of cocaine and over a million dollars in cash, offering a vivid glimpse into the unpredictable and dangerous life of a street cop. Beyond the shootouts and seizures, we explore the human side of policing—the growing mental health crisis in Miami-Dade, the deadly unpredictability of domestic violence calls, and the emotional toll that constant exposure to trauma takes on officers. Burt emphasizes the importance of training, de-escalation, and support systems for those on the front lines. The conversation also previews Burt’s upcoming show, Sergeant Maverick, a podcast where he’ll tackle everything from police work and politics to financial advice for first responders—and even the decline of customer service in America. Join us for this candid, eye-opening conversation as Burt Gonzalez pulls back the curtain on the realities, dangers, and hard-earned lessons of Miami policing during the height of America’s drug war. Click here to get the book, The Real Greatest Show on Earth Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. Transcript [0:00] Well, hey, all you wiretappers, welcome to the studio of Gangland Wire. I’m back here, and I have a fellow copper from down in Miami-Dade County, Florida, Burt Gonzalez. And, you know, I worked all the jobs on the police department, mainly spent my time in intelligence, so that’s why I focus on organized crime. But I worked all the rest of the jobs, almost all of them. I never was a wheel man. But other than that, I think I did everything. And Burt’s done a lot of things, too. So welcome, Bert. Thank you, Gary. Appreciate it. Glad to be here. And guys, you need to know, and we’ll talk about this later, Bert has a book out there about his career and some great stories called The Real Greatest Show on Earth. And believe me, Bert, it is the real greatest show on Earth, isn’t it? Well, that’s why I named the book that. [0:49] I was thinking about what is it that we do and what do we call it out there ourselves, in the street, in the homes of our citizens and everything. And really, it’s a circus. So that’s where I came up with that. True circus. All right, now tell the guys a little bit about your department that you spent your time in and how you ended up going on that department and a little bit about the history of it and what it was like as you went over the years. So go ahead. So I was with Miami-Dade Police, formerly known as Metro-Dade Police, when I joined in 1983. And in the areas where my family moved here from New York and I followed a year later, the area was unincorporated Dade County at the time. It wasn’t called Miami-Dade County yet. [1:40] And so the police of the jurisdiction was Metro Dade police. And our neighbor behind our house, Bob Johns, was a sergeant with Metro. So then all of my interactions, I’ve seen Metro everywhere. And then as I got to know Bob and I got to know more about the department, [2:00] Metro Dade is the largest department in the Southeast United States. Now is Miami Dade. It still is. And it’s the sheriff’s office, even though we didn’t call ourselves that. We just called ourselves Metro-Dade and now Miami-Dade Police. It is a sheriff’s office as of a few weeks ago again. First time in 60 years we’ve elected a sheriff. And that involves all the politics about the county governing itself away from the capital, Tallahassee. And then the voters here a couple of years ago said, we want to have an elected sheriff again, as opposed to an appointed director by the mayor and the county commission. And you know, as well as I do, that if you have an appointed chief or an appointed director, the mayor has control over them. So the director is not answerable to the citizens or the chief of police isn’t really answerable to the citizens. They’re answerable to the mayor. [3:04] And it caused a lot of problems. And finally, the citizens down here said, we want an elected sheriff again. In November, we elected a sheriff. One of my colleagues, Rosie Cordero-Stutz, who highly qualified, she was an assistant director with us. So now we’re the sheriff’s office again. [3:22] So the more I learned of what department I wanted to apply to, it was going to be Metro-Dade and only Metro-Dade. I didn’t think about the city of Miami, which is another, the second largest department in South Florida. [3:37] But it was going to be Metro all the way. And there’s going to be folks that may be here, listen to this, and going to say, well, that sounds pretty arrogant. Well, it is the best department down here for sure. And it is a leading agency around the country. And we’re very proud of that reputation. So I joined Metro, like I said, in 83. [4:00] And two years later my brother got out of the army and he came on as well and I gotta tell you at that time it was the height of the cocaine cowboy wars when we came on. [4:13] This is what I was thinking, Miami Vice. You say Miami area in 1983. I’m thinking Miami Vice, maybe. You couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a kilo of cocaine anywhere. I mean, it was everywhere. And the district that I work, Southwest District, we had a lot of dopers that lived there. They built these big houses. And of course, oh, that’s not a doper there. Of course not, right? [4:41] Cameras outside. You know, and the thing about the cowboy wars at that time, besides the fact that cocaine was everywhere, we had a lot of dead bodies dropping all the time. And there was a time literally every day we were finding bodies all over the county, all our different districts. And the homicide rate was so high that our department had to create a specialized narcotics-focused homicide squad to handle it. So when you say Miami Vice, and also, I’m sure you’ve seen it and many of your viewers and our fellow colleagues, Scarface. Yeah. The movie Scarface. And that scene, I’m always reminded of that scene where Tony Montana and his crew are walking into the banks with duffel bags full of cash. Yeah. Well, I’ve got one story about that. And I was working, I worked mostly uniform in my career. I did a lot of training as well, but I also did plainclothes work. [5:58] And we did a lot of street-level narcotics. So I was on this crime suppression team playing clothes, and we were getting hit with a lot of driveway robbers. We have an affluent area in the district I was working. And from the expensive department stores. [6:19] Macy’s, Bloomingdale, Neiman Marcus, the people would get followed home and get robbed in their driveway. And they’re driving an expensive car, You know, so we got assigned to do surveillances and try to catch these bad guys. And, uh, like I wrote in the book, I always describe a bad guy as an asshole bad guy. Yeah. Cause that’s what they are. Right. So what we were doing these surveillances and we hired extra officers, uh, to increase our numbers. Cause we were a small plainclothes squad. Mark, Sylvia and I, uh, went down this one street one night about eight o’clock at night. And it was dark, and as we drove by this one house, we see two guys looking in the picture window next to the front door. Look really suspicious. We drove down the street. We didn’t see a car in the driveway. We came around. They were gone. Okay, we got something here. Go down, park in somebody’s driveway. I got out, told the owner who we were. Can we park in your driveway? We’re going to watch this house. We called the rest of the squad in. we surveilled for a while. [7:30] No movement so we went to the house Mark and I went to the back of the house, and what we in the backs of a lot of Florida houses they have what’s called the Florida room it’s like a second living room that’s in the back of the house next to the yard or the pool, generally screened in or something like that when the other guys went to the front door and knocked on the door and a relatively of a young woman came to the door and Joe on our squad who had the gift of gab, she, he started, uh, interviewing her and said, well, there’s two guys that were just here and they’re gone. And she goes, there’s nobody here. [8:13] So they relayed that to Mark and I, and we’re staring at the two guys in the floor room with the kids in the, in the back of the house. Uh-oh. Okay. Right. So, you know, the, the plot thickens, right? Yes. Joe talked his way into the house and got the lady to sign a consent to search. We secured it. He did have a gift to gab, man. Big time. Big time. We secured the two. [8:40] Asshole bad guys, because that’s what they turned out to be. And we searched the house. In one of the rooms, we found Mac 11 machine guns. We found a table with a ledger book on it that was a code book that we sent to the DEA. [8:59] We found suitcases with coffee grounds. Because at that time, the dopers were running the drugs or coffee grounds to throw the

In this explosive episode of Gangland Wire, retired Kansas City Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins dives deep into one of the most complex and mysterious figures of the Cold War era—Ricardo “Monkey” Morales, a Cuban exile whose life intersected with the CIA, the anti-Castro underground, Las Vegas mobsters, and even the JFK assassination. Gary welcomes Rick Morales Jr., son of Monkey Morales, and author Sean Oliver, co-writer of the new book Monkey Morales: The True Story of a Mythic Cuban Exile Assassin, CIA Operative, FBI Informant, Smuggler, and Dad. Together, they unravel the incredible life of a man who was at once a patriot, a spy, and a killer. Rick recounts growing up in Miami’s Little Havana, where his father’s shadow loomed large—rumored to have ties to the JFK assassination and known for his secret missions across the world. From escaping Cuba as a disillusioned Castro loyalist to training as part of the CIA’s Operation 40 assassination unit, Monkey Morales lived a life that reads like a spy thriller. Sean Oliver walks listeners through Monkey’s covert missions in Africa’s Congo, his deep ties to other operatives like Frank Sturgis and Barry Seal, and the secret wars that connected Cuban exiles, the CIA, and organized crime. The conversation also explores how Monkey became entangled with Lefty Rosenthal, the Chicago Outfit’s Las Vegas gambling mastermind, and how his bomb-making skills were used in mob turf wars across Florida. The discussion culminates with Morales Jr.’s chilling memory of his father confessing he was in Dallas on the day President Kennedy was shot—and that he had seen Lee Harvey Oswald in a CIA training camp. Whether you believe Morales was a hero, a villain, or both, his story weaves through some of the darkest and most intriguing chapters of 20th-century American history. 📘 Get the book: Monkey Morales: The True Story of a Mythic Cuban Exile Assassin, CIA Operative, FBI Informant, Smuggler, and Dad 🎙️ Highlights include: • How Monkey Morales went from a Cuban intelligence officer to a CIA-trained operative • The secretive Operation 40 and its links to the Bay of Pigs, the Congo, Watergate, and Dallas • Morales’s work for the FBI and the CIA—and his dangerous double life in Miami • His connection to mob figure Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal and the Outfit’s Florida operations • A firsthand account from Morales Jr. about his father’s claim to have seen Oswald in CIA training • The moral code of Miami’s Cuban bombers—and how it vanished when Colombian cartels arrived Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. Transcript Speaker: [00:00:00] All right, well, hey, all you wire tappers out there. It’s good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. Uh. Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence unit detective turned podcaster now, and I have another story and we’re gonna talk a little bit about the JFK murder and a connection to it, and a little bit about Lefty Rosenthal. Speaker: And you guys know that I know a lot about ref lefty Rosenthal because he was calling back to Kansas City every once in a while to our mob guys and, and so, so I’m really anxious to talk about this story, but first, let me introduce my guest today and I’m really excited to have these guys on here. Speaker: I have Rick Morales, Rick Morales, Jr, actually, and Sean Oliver. Welcome guys. Well, thanks Gary. Love the show. So, uh, you know, I, I looked at the two chapters you sent me and, and learned about the book and, and a little bit about your lives and especially yours, Rick, and it’s, it’s just fascinating as hell. Speaker: Rick and I were talking a little bit before you [00:01:00] came on here. We, I didn’t tape it or anything, Sean, and about I had, you know, I was a policeman and I had kids growing up and, and Rick, his dad wasn’t a policeman, but his dad was, was in that. Kind of a violent, kind of a uh, occupation, if you will, about bringing that edge of violence home to your family. Speaker: And there’s no way to, you don’t, you know, you know, let it loose on them, but you’ve been in some violent circumstance. All day long, or Rick’s case, maybe his dad’s case, maybe for the last several weeks. And then he comes home and, and so it’s, it’s just an interesting, uh, family dynamic I always think. But, let’s start with you, Sean. Speaker: Tell us a little bit about where you came from. I know you’re an author and you’ve been into wrestling. Speaker 2: Yeah. Um, I’m from a planet called New Jersey. No, no. Strange. I think you’ve covered a lot of my residents in the past. I, neighbor, just a couple of weeks ago ago, I heard you doing Bobby Manna, who was very much a, a local of mine. Speaker 2: Yeah. And my neighbor, Chuck Webner, who you may or may not know, not a mobster, [00:02:00] but I was a, I was a film and television actor for a long time. I, um, I directed television commercials. I, I was in entertainment and then I fell into covering professional wrestling. I wasn’t a wrestler myself. I know the physique has you fooled. Speaker 2: Yeah, so I had a pro wrestling production company, and then through that, kind of fell into that world. And so my first few books when I started writing were covering that world. And then, um, wrote some novels and then, uh, my first foray into true Crime, certainly not reading it, but writing it came when I met a man. Speaker 2: Beside me known as, uh, Rick Morales Jr. When I found out who his father was. And I went on a hunt for someone alive who could talk to me about Ricardo Monkey Morales. And that’s how I met Rick, I guess six years ago now, Rick. Yeah. Speaker 3: Six years. Speaker 2: Yeah. And we began [00:03:00] developing the story initially for television, um, as it’s, uh, really lends itself to an episodic. Speaker 2: It’s, yeah, it’s so vast to the story, but COVID hit production shut down. We, it was impossible for anyone to produce anything of this scope. So about two years ago, I said to Rick, we had been past our last. Pass was, uh, Rob Reiner, I guess. And I said, Rick, I, let’s do this as a book. You know, I have an inn in the publishing world. Speaker 2: I have, you know, multiple books out. Let’s tell your dad, we gotta get the story out. So that’s when we started doing this for publication. Speaker: Interesting, interesting. And it is interesting story. We go from, uh, JFK assassination to Las Vegas, like I said, and, and a whole bunch of stuff down in South America. Rick, you gotta tell us about yourself. Speaker: You know, Richard Morales. Yeah, Ricardo Mon Monkey Jr. I guess her dad was called Monkey Morales. So tell us a little bit about [00:04:00] your childhood. It had to be a little bit different than a lot of other childhood. Speaker 3: Yeah, Speaker: yeah. A little Speaker 3: bit different than Sean’s, I would say. Yeah. I was, uh, born in Miami. I got older brother, younger brother, and a sister. Speaker 3: I was born in 63 in Miami the same year. JFK gets second vaccinated. So I was there, but I wasn’t able to. To watch my dad do much ’cause I was only a couple of months old. So grew up in Miami. My dad and my mom left Cuba. My dad was a G two government agent for the Castro government when it took over. Speaker 3: And then during the two years between 58, 59 or 59 and 60. Disillusioned as much as many were. He was trying to figure out which way the direction of the country was going, and eventually they, uh, tried to kill him. They, they put him on a hit list because his father was a judge for Batista’s regime and [00:05:00] had, his father was a judge in the Batista regime, so they were eliminating anybody that had to do anything with the Batist regime. Speaker 3: So eventually he escapes through the Brazilian embassy. He spends like 82 days there with a bunch of other people. And, uh, eventually they’re taken out and he moves to Miami where he immediately goes to work for Cuban revolutionary groups. Because he’s, he is got the abilities. He’s a bomb maker. He is a master bomb maker. Speaker 3: He is a sniper, so he’s been trained in the government and all those things. So he joins Cuban power groups in Miami trying to fight. Against the castor regime and, and the power. And that’s where he starts making his name for himself and then that leads to further jobs with government agencies. CIA what All this time we’re kids. Speaker 3: We’re not aware in the early ages, like when I’m young, I’m not aware of what my father is [00:06:00] doing, but eventually there comes times when I see news stories on tv, they try to hide it from us, but they can’t. We hear stories from friends. I would go to friend’s house when I was young and they would one day be my friend, and then the next day they weren’t allowed. Speaker 3: And when I would ask them at school, what happened is, your dad’s Monkey Morales, he was involved in the JF Kennedy assassination. That’s what everybody in Little Havana was saying. And so they weren’t allowed to come to my house anymore for fear of anything happening at my house that they would become, uh. Speaker 3: Involved and heard or something. So I grew up with that stigma, you know, uh, as a child. Wow. Speaker: Crazy. Well, like, do you guys, uh, Sean, did you did you get into investigating any of these pro anti-Castro groups down in Southern Miami? They were, it was Southern Florida. They were all kinds of little groups down there. Speaker 2: Yeah, so you’ve got Cuban exiles coming here [00:07:00] landing in the waiting arms of the CIA who are able to train arm, and with the intention of sending them back into Cuba to take care of Cast

In this episode of Gangland Wire, retired Kansas City Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins welcomes author Gregory Macalino, whose book “Little Pussy and Long Branch: Perfect Together” offers a deep dive into New Jersey’s underworld and the life of one of its most notorious figures—Anthony “Little Pussy” Russo. Gregory begins by sharing his own story, growing up in Monmouth County amid the Italian-American enclaves where whispers of mob activity were part of daily life. His firsthand familiarity with the gambling, politics, and personalities that shaped the Jersey Shore inspired him to explore Russo’s remarkable and brutal reign. Gary and Gregory trace Little Pussy Russo’s rise from a small-time Newark street thief to a powerful player in the Genovese crime family, detailing how he infiltrated Long Branch’s political and law enforcement circles to control the town for over twenty years. Gregory explains Russo’s business acumen, his use of gambling and real estate ventures to mask criminal operations, and the dangerous rivalries that emerged with independent drug dealers who threatened his dominance. Listeners will hear how Little Pussy Russo’s empire ultimately unraveled amid violence, betrayal, and federal pressure. Gregory recounts dramatic gangland episodes, family connections, and the eventual collapse of a criminal fiefdom that had once seemed untouchable. The conversation also touches on how Russo’s world parallels modern portrayals of mob life—especially The Sopranos—revealing just how much real New Jersey mobsters influenced America’s favorite mafia fiction. As the discussion closes, Gregory reflects on the lasting cultural footprint of men like Russo and what their stories teach us about power, corruption, and community identity. This is a must-listen for true crime fans, Mafia historians, and anyone fascinated by how organized crime once ruled the Jersey Shore. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. Transcript [0:00] Well, hey, all you wiretappers, good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. For those of you who don’t know me, most of you do, I think, sometimes, a lot of repeat listeners out there, and I really appreciate all you guys that always come back and make comments on my YouTube channel and comment on my Gangland Wire podcast group page, and so I really appreciate all you. And for you guys that don’t know me, I was with the Kansas City Police Department. I spent about 14 years in the intelligence unit. We worked the Sabella crime family here in Kansas city and a variety of other things like that, uh, retired and did a couple other things and find out my last retirement gig is I’m a podcaster. And then this has just been so much fun for me, guys. I really appreciate all your support. I’m getting to know all these authors all around the United States. There’s not a place. If you’re an intelligence, you like to have contacts where you can learn something or find out something or get something done. Well, there’s not any city, I don’t think, in the United States, I don’t know somebody that’s been on my podcast that I can call them up or email them and say, what about this or what about that?   [1:06] So it’s really broadened my life and this made my life much richer. So anyhow, today, without further ado, we have Gregory Macalino. Gregory, welcome.   [1:17] Thank you. Great to be here, really, truly. Yeah, well, I really, as I told you when we were talking before, I really am pleased about getting you on the show and about your book that you wrote, Little Pussy and Long Branch, Perfect Together. This is about New Jersey and not just like New Jersey, just across the river, but down into New Jersey. And there’s a lot of mafia activity that went on down there. And I’ve not really covered it very much, just a little bit. Years ago, Scott D.J. did a book. Uh, I can’t remember the name of it now that got up into New Jersey. Uh, gang state, or I’m sorry, garden state gangland, garden state gangland. Yeah. And that was a God, that was, I was one of my early interviews. I sometime maybe in the first year, like five or six years ago. So.   [2:04] Gregory has put together a book about Anthony Little Pussy and Long Branch, which is part of the Genovese family. And he has really studied this, but he grew up here. So, Gregory, tell us about your life. And you grew up in this area in Monmouth County and Long Branch. And what did you see that then stirred you to eventually write this book about it? Well you know um being in lawn branch you will find out that there is a huge italian community and someone everybody knew everybody that knew someone that was connected and somehow and not like heavy hitters or anything like that but more like you know there was tons and tons of bookies there was numbers runners uh the local the local mob dudes used to hire high school kids that I went to high school with to be the runners.   [2:56] And so everybody knew somebody that was connected. And you couldn’t help but know. And as you read the book, you will come to find out that Little Pussy completely infiltrated the whole municipality in terms of the local politicians, the city council.   [3:14] There’s accusations of the police chief. There’s also Monmouth County police higher-ups that he completely corrupted and he basically ran the town of long branch for 20 years and he was in headlines constantly making headlines for 20 years and you’ll be amazed that there used to be a local newspaper it was over 100 years old it was called um the the daily register i’m sorry the daily record it was out of long branch it was over 100 years old it stopped i think it started in the 1880s and it stopped in like the late 1970s so or just around just about 100 years old and And if you went a month without a blaring headline about the mob in Long Branch, you’d be completely surprised. Because I went through micro-spice and tons of records from the old newspapers. And every other week, there was some big major headline about Anthony Pussy Russo and his little gang of guys and what was going down.   [4:14] And it was prevalent. It was just a constant. It’s amazing. I believe it. I tell you a little side story. Uh, when my son was in high school, he had this friend from who actually spent all of his life up until they got to high school and his dad moved back here in Tom’s river, New Jersey, which is kind of down in that area. And so my son, what they had, he loves sports and this kid loves sports. And he had, I looked down what he had. He had a parlay card. I said, where did you get that? He said, oh, he said, Eddie gets them. His dad gets them at work. He gets them from some guy that has one of those, uh, tow main wagons that comes around those coffee wagons and he gets them. And so we’re making our picks. I said, what are you doing?   [5:02] And he said, well, you know, I don’t know. Big Ed got them, gave them to Eddie’s, you know, we’re just making our picks. We like put five bucks down or I think like put, I think only put a dollar, a dollar down on our picks. I just said, oh my God. I tell you what, we didn’t have anything like that growing up, but in Tom’s River, New Jersey and Long Branch in New Jersey, that was pretty prevalent. I got to say, you probably saw stuff like that yourself when you were in high school and on up since then. Yeah. That’s like, that’s like 40 minutes South of Long Branch. Also, Eddie Murphy, Eddie will be so proud of me to do this show. And I have to, I got to get ahold of him as soon as I get off of here.   [5:42] And I’ll probably give him this book after I get done with it. Cause he’ll be really excited to read it. Anyhow, let’s talk about Anthony big pussy Russo.   [5:54] And, and he was, he was little pussy. His brother was big pussy. Okay. All right. All right. All right. Yeah. I got a little pussy. I just, my, my, I was trying to do two things at once in my mind. So go ahead. You go ahead and start telling us about this guy. Okay. So Auntie Little Pussy is from the Newark area. They migrated up to Newark from Brazil, the family. They were from a lot of Italians. Half of the Italians went to America and half the other Italians went to South America. So his family went to Sao Paulo, Brazil, I believe, and then they migrated to Newark. And he was born 1916, I believe. He was one of 13 children. the father died early and so he was on the streets of newark and he had two older brothers one was called ralph and the other one was called john ralph and john started working for richie boyardo who was a big you know big time bootlegger in newark and this is before the mafia was formulated before you know there was five family all that this is during prohibition and and So Anthony was like the runt of the family, and he idolized his brother, John.   [7:05] Well, one thing led to another. They all started working for Richie Boyardo. The only reason Anthony Little Pussy rose to the heights he did is because of his brother, John. John was the opposite of him. Anthony was boisterous, a loudmouth. He loved to draw attention to himself and supposedly wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box. But his brother was the total opposite of him. And he was a heavy hitter. He ended up going to jail in the 20s for a prohibition murder in the service of Richie the Boot. But because Richie at this point had influence, the 30-year stint that John got was reduced to only 10 years he got out. Meanwhile, the older brother, Ralph, was an incorrigible, unbelievable, and he was being told constantly by Richie the Boot, cool it, cool it, cool it. He didn’t.

In this episode of Gangland Wire, retired Kansas City Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins sits down with Tim Richards, a former St. Louis intelligence officer and author of Crook’s Kill and Cops Lie. Tim brings a wealth of firsthand knowledge from his years investigating the mob and navigating the thin line between law enforcement and organized crime. We dive deep into the history and dynamics of the St. Louis crime families and their ties—or lack thereof—to Kansas City and Chicago. Tim reveals how the St. Louis mob and the Syrian mob were into labor racketeering, ghost workers, and union control, profiting off federally funded projects. Click here to buy Crooks Kill and Cops Lie and to see all of Tim’s books • Listeners will hear gritty stories about: • The interplay between Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago mob families. • The “Syrian” mafia’s role in local unions, vengeance, and violence. • St. Louis mob figures like Paul Leisure, Mike Trupiano, and Jesse Stoneking. • An unforgettable encounter with Trupiano during a traffic stop. • The challenges police faced without legal wiretaps, relying instead on FBI intelligence. • The ripple effects of mob influence reach as far as Las Vegas gambling operations. From bloody reprisals to uneasy alliances, Tim shares not just history but lived experience—vivid accounts of hit jobs, betrayals, and the complexities of policing organized crime. As he reflects on how law enforcement strategies and technology have evolved, Tim leaves us with a powerful reminder of the mob’s enduring mark on Midwestern history. If you want an insider’s perspective on St. Louis mobsters and the Midwest underworld, you won’t want to miss this one. Subscribe to get more stories every week. This is a must-listen for true crime fans, Mafia historians, and anyone fascinated by how organized crime once ruled the Jersey Shore. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. 0:03 Welcome to Gangland Wire 1:02 Exploring Kansas City and St. Louis Mob Ties 4:19 The Influence of the Chicago Mafia 8:56 The Aladdin Hotel and Skimming Operations 11:41 A Deep Dive into Paul Leisure’s Fate 15:12 The Old Italian Mafia and Its Tactics 23:09 Changes in Policing and Mafia Control 24:54 Personal Stories from the Streets 27:43 The Rise and Fall of Jesse Stoneking 33:05 Reflections on Organized Crime and Histor [0:00] Well, hey, all you wiretappers, good to be back here in the studio, Gangland Wire. I have another former intelligence unit detective, Tim Richards. Now, you know, and if you don’t, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m sorry, guys. Some of you all may be new listeners. I’m Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective. Got this podcast, Gangland Wire. We deal with the mob. And I worked a mob in Kansas City, and Tim Richards worked in it in St. Louis, just across the state. So welcome, Tim. Thank you. Thank you, Gary. I’m really glad to have you. I was really glad to find this book. I’ve been working on a book myself. So I’m looking at your book, seeing how you did certain things and then going back to mine. And my story is a little bit different, I guess, but different, but the same. You know, we had very similar experiences, guys. When Tim and I first started talking on the phone, you know, it was like, oh, my God, that’s like I was talking to another guy in the same unit, you know, because we had the same kind of experiences. [0:59] Some of them we’ll talk about, some of them we won’t talk about on here. But we’re going to talk about the mafia primarily. And Tim, what I always found interesting, even back then in the 70s, there seemed to be little to no relationship or connection between Kansas City and St. Louis crime families. Do you remember that like that? Yeah, I recall that. We knew that Nick Zabella was a powerful guy in the families. But we never really saw anything that he was insane. St louis the chicago mafia controlled st louis with some help from detroit the detroit mafia. [1:37] They the chicago mafia came in here in the late 50s when they were rebuilding downtown st louis and they built the poplar street bridge which was called the tunnel project, they came through east st louis with a guy by the name of buster workman who controlled everything in East St. Louis, and they used ghost workers. It was a federal-funded bridge-building event, and they used ghost workers there, and these guys were getting rich. And in the meantime, they came over to St. Louis and infiltrated our two labor workers, 110 and 42. They also infiltrated 562, which is a five-fitters union, a very wealthy union, and they had them for decades. And they apparently Eventually controlled them 110 was controlled totally And 42 was controlled totally By the Chicago mob. [2:34] 562 eventually went under It was controlled totally by the Chicago mob And The Chicago mob ran everything here, Allegedly Some dabbling by Detroit I don’t know how they worked that out But Detroit had some function here But um, Yeah, Tim, you go in your Crook’s Kill and Cops Lie book, guys, and I recommend you get this if you want an inside look at the St. Louis Police Intelligence Unit at Police Intelligence Everywhere, why this book will give it to you. And you have a second book before we get too far into this. Hold that one up. I couldn’t find my copy. It’s over across the room somewhere. This is actually the sequel to Crook’s Kill, Cops Lie. Okay. It’s just another St. Louis Intelligence book. The unit was referred to as Intel 210, which was the code name for the unit within the police department. And this is my second book pertaining to the St. Louis Organized Crime Advice. This goes deeply into the intelligence unit and what we actually did and the things that went on between cops and crooks and FBI agents. And we were whores for the FBI. [3:48] We did all this shit. And the FBI would come over to our office and glean it all. But we didn’t care. We enjoyed what we were doing. And we got to know these FBI guys, and we didn’t mind helping them. The thing is that we couldn’t get legal wiretaps. They could. And so we gave them information, whatever they needed. But anyway, both of my books pertain to that, intelligence and how the unit cops and the FBI and the other feds worked together trying to get these guys together. [4:20] It’s interesting. In St. Louis and Kansas City, from looking at your book, it was basically the same, different than in other cities, I think. [4:30] We really worked closely with the FBI also. And like you said, we were their go boys. We went out and they said, hey, we got this going on. Why don’t you go check this out? Well, see the FBI, they have these high level sources because they’ve got all this power and all this money to spread around. And, you know, they can kick a damn grand jury indictment aside if they want in order to put pressure on somebody. We couldn’t do that. We didn’t have any local wiretaps. We finally got a law. We ran one here and it was, I tell you what, you never want to do a wiretap unless you got a huge, huge, huge budget, which we never do. So, you know, it’s the same way here. It’s really interesting, you know, the talk about the labor racketeering in particular. You go into that pretty in depth because there’s more than just Chicago and more than Italian mafias. And then you had the Syrian mob in St. Louis that got heavy into union racketeering. So it’s just a really interesting mix down there, Tim. [5:32] Well, the Syrian mob, it was named, it was actually Lebanese. Oh, that’s right. The FBI named it the Syrian mob, and it stuck. The newspapers picked up on it. We picked up on it. It was referred to as the Syrian mob. But they were political people. They were all politicians and business people within St. Louis. And the Leisure, Paul Leisure, Anthony Leisure, Paul Leisure was a hitman for years for the Chicago mafia here in St. Louis. But Tony Giordano, they wanted to kill another Syrian guy by the name of Jimmy Michaels for control of a 110, local 110. [6:11] Anthony Giordano told him to lay off of him because the Chicago mob told him, we don’t want him killed. He had worked with them, for them, for years over in East St. Louis for Buster Workman. So Anthony Giordano told the Leisure to lay off of him. The reason they hated him so much is because some Michael’s family killed a Leisure guy over in East St. Louis was back in the 50s shot him in a bar and got away with it and killed him and so there was there was a feud there between the two Syrian families the Lebanese families so the feud just festered and festered and festered and they wanted to kill jimmy michaels for two reasons revenge and control of local 110 jim uh anthony giordano died and that left jimmy michaels wide open so they blew him up in broad daylight with a car bomb on i-55 during rush hour and uh, But then this gang war broke out. Then the Michaels retaliated and blew up Paul Leisure in front of his mom. So I was at both of those scenes, certainly. They’re in my book. My picture’s in the book at the scene. [7:21] But it was an interesting time there. And the politicians were scurrying because they’d been in bed with these people for the last 30 years. I bet, yeah. I mean, yeah, they were scurrying. And it was just really crazy. There was another Lebanese family by the name of Webby, Sarkis Webby Sr. Was a lawyer and a very influential guy. And he owned the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. And they were skimming the money there. Somehow, this is how the Detroit Mafia comes into this. The Detroit Mafia, the New York Mafia, and the Chicago Ma

In this episode of Gangland Wire, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins pulls back the curtain on one of the FBI’s most troubling scandals—the case of Joe Stabile, a corrupt FBI agent whose fall from grace revealed just how deep organized crime’s influence could run. The story begins in November 1978, when Stabile pled guilty to corruption charges. But as Gary explains, that plea was only the tip of the iceberg. Behind it lay years of whispered rumors, shady deals, and quiet payoffs—stories that painted Stabile not as a straight-arrow G-man, but as a hustler working both sides of the law. Drawing on conversations with retired FBI agents who once worked alongside Stabile, Gary explores the tangled web of mob connections and compromised investigations. Listeners will hear how mobsters slipped him bribes to make gambling cases disappear, and how his background as a New York City cop may have set the stage for the choices that pulled him deeper into the mob’s orbit. The episode also highlights the work of honest agents, such as Tony Villano, who began piecing together the truth about Stabile’s corruption. Through case files, informant accounts, and law enforcement interviews, Gary demonstrates how the FBI struggled with a culture of silence that often protected its own—even when integrity was at stake. As the story unfolds, the lines between right and wrong blur, exposing systemic cracks inside federal law enforcement during a time when the Bureau was shifting its focus and fighting for credibility. Gary closes with reflections on the lasting impact of the Stabile case: what it meant for the FBI’s war on organized crime, and how Stabile himself may have continued to live in the shadows after his conviction—a man caught between two worlds, crime and law enforcement, never fully belonging to either. This is a must-listen for true crime fans, Mafia historians, and anyone fascinated by how organized crime once ruled the Jersey Shore. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. 0:06 Introduction to Joe Stabile 1:19 The Corruption Unveiled 3:14 Breakfast with Retired Agents 5:59 The Connection to Organized Crime 9:06 Investigating Stabile’s Allegations 14:18 The Gambler’s Payoff 20:19 Confronting Stabile 21:39 The Aftermath of the Indictment 23:35 Stabile’s New Life 25:39 Reflections on Undercover Operations [0:00] Well, hey, all you wiretappers, Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence [0:04] Unit detective back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. I welcome each and every one of you. I’ve got a story that it’s really interesting how I found out about this. That’s part of the story. Let’s go back. Here’s what I’m talking about. A corrupt FBI agent named Joe Stabile. That’s S-T-A-B-I-L-E. November 1978. [0:26] It was a Monday and FBI agent Joe Stabile was pleading guilty in federal court to corruption charges. Now, you don’t hear about this very much. I know a couple of three here in Kansas City over the years that got popped for doing something. A couple of them were involved in a stolen party or a stolen property ring. A couple of others were one of them was just running his mouth too much and he was drinking too much. I don’t think they actually end up charging him anything, but he did run his run his mouth way too much. Joseph Beal only admitted in this guilty plea that he lied about some money transactions, but that’s just a tip of the iceberg in this, folks. [1:03] The U.S. attorney for the Eastern District was sitting in the spectators that day, and afterwards he would say, you know, this just shows the determination of the Department of Justice to root out misconduct wherever it may be found in federal law enforcement. [1:16] Well, you know, that’s a pretty strong statement after. So you’ll find that they kicked this under the rug as long as they could. Absolutely as long as they could. The head of the organized crime task force there at the time said that there was a bunch of money that Stabile could not account for. He was writing some checks. He was taking some money in and then paying some money back out in a deal. And it was dirty and they had him, but they didn’t have him that good. So they dismissed some other charges and charged him with perjury, and he denied receiving any illegal money. He had actually been involved with a New York City policeman and got a $15,000 payment for dismissing getting a case handled for the Clumbo family. But it really, in the end, he wasn’t really convicted for that. It was a gambling deal involved. He was involved with New York City policemen. [2:06] Now, during that time, there was another New York agent named Anthony Avilano, who had made several allegations of wrongdoing against Joe Stabile. They both worked in the Colombo squad early on when they first met. And really, this became, there was a lot of agents sticking up for Stabile, just like I found that with that H. Paul Rico. There were agents, and they never really found any agents. There were policemen who made a case on him for being involved in a murder, a contract killing. He was a Boston agent. But there was a couple of agents that I interviewed and wrote a book several years ago, and they swear that he didn’t have anything to do with that. So that was part of that whole filthy Boston office where John Conley ended up getting popped out of. And anyhow, they tried to say this was a Sicilian feud between several agents that were of Italian-American extraction. Well, that’s a good way to pass this off and denigrate people. But it really wasn’t that. This guy, this guy was dirty. [3:10] He ended up, he got about five years in the penitentiary and a fine. But let’s go back and take a deeper look at this case. And here’s how I got into it. I was having breakfast with a couple of local retired FBI agents. I mentioned this book, Brick Agent, and asked if they had ever read it or heard about it. And it’s written by a former agent who was assigned to the OC squad in New York City in the 60s and 70s. His name was Tony Villano, and it’s a pretty good book. [3:39] It’s hard to find. It’s really hard to find, folks. So good luck if you go out and try to buy it. I’ll put a link to, I think there’s one that’s like $35 or $36, maybe $40. I can’t remember. I was able to find it online. If you work real hard, you can find it in the Internet Archive online and get a look at it. But it’s hard to do. Now, Volano, I started looking at Volano partly in this book and got interested in him because he was actually the first agent to develop Greg Scarpa. And he worked with Scarpa for quite a while. And when Villano retired and really with no, you know, no smell of any kind of hinky panky going on, like what later happened with Scarpa. Uh, but when he retired, Scarpa refused to be introduced to another agent, carry on any kind of relationship with the FBI. Uh, several years later, this Linda Vecchio made a run on Scarpa and brought him back in as a top echelon informant. And then they did a lot of stuff with him. Now, now, uh. [4:41] Villano is the guy that sent Scarpa down into Mississippi, and in his book, Brick Agent, he tells that story a couple of different ways with some slightly different twists on some of the things that have come out since. And he also names two different people as the informants that they sent down to the south to do these different undercover things on the Ku Klux Klan and try to find those bodies down there and the three civil rights workers down in Philadelphia and solve the murder of Medgar Evers. And there was another one, too. And he names, Villano names two different people trying to cover for Scarpa to make sure nobody can trace this back down to this one guy and it was Scarpa. So anyhow, that morning we were talking about Brick Agent Book and the name Joe Stabile came up because Bill Owsley has read the book. And he said that he worked with Joe Stabile when he was a pretty new agent here in Kansas City who was assigned to the OC squad in Kansas City. Now, Bill has two books on the Kansas City crime family, really great books. You want the whole overall picture of organized crime in Kansas City, his book Open City. [5:53] And then concerning his career, the second book is Mobsters in Our Myths. And that really starts about the time he got here in the 60s. And he was a case agent on the straw man case or the guy that really started the whole thing that brought down the Midwest crime families from skimming from Las Vegas casinos. Bill Owsley was the original case agent on that. You know, it’s funny, by the time they actually had their trials, he was retired. And an even funnier story, ironic maybe you might call this, he was retired and he was doing different jobs in retirement. He worked for the NFL, I think, and maybe the NFL. [6:32] Major league baseball but he did some of those kinds of things and and alan glick came to town to testify now alan glick was a guy that got the 62 million dollar loan thanks to the bob and was kicking back through lefty rosenthal to put him in the context and and bill owsley he needed a bodyguard and a chauffeur so bill owsley took the job of bodyguarding and chauffeuring uh alan glick back and forth to the court when he came in to testify and you know uh you know so much for the mob’s going to go out and kill you if you testify against them because they never did anything to this guy. And he did hire some off-duty policemen out in San Francisco and he hired Bill at the time to do the bodyguard. But he didn’t take great pains to get protection. But I digress. Let’s go b

This is a bonus episode that contains a sample from the new, exciting podcast Chinatown Sting. The Chinatown Sting is a gripping investigative show about a group of mothers who took down Manhattan Chinatown’s drug kingpin, Machine Gun Johnny. Lidia Jean unravels an entire network of women who were roped into Johnny’s criminal underworld and found themselves playing the ultimate high-stakes game. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Listen to a preview of The Chinatown Sting now and find it wherever you get podcasts. Binge the entire season, ad-free, with a Pushkin+ subscription—sign up on The Chinatown Sting Apple Podcasts show page or at pushkin.fm/plus.

In this episode of Gangland Wire, Gary Jenkins, a former KCPD Intelligence Detective, is joined by Lydia Jean Kott (LJ), a producer at Pushkin Industries, the company founded by Malcolm Gladwell. LJ brings us inside the making of Chinatown Sting, a gripping new podcast that uncovers the fascinating and little-known story of Chinese organized crime, China White heroin, and characters like Machinegun Johnny in New York’s Chinatown during the 1980s. LJ explains how her interest in the case was sparked by a personal connection—her boyfriend’s mother was a federal prosecutor involved in the original sting. That legendary case centered on heroin smuggled from Hong Kong into Chinatown, hidden in packages and distributed through a network of mahjong-playing mothers. What began with a flagged parcel at the post office unraveled into a high-stakes undercover investigation. We explore how law enforcement managed to penetrate this tight-knit immigrant community, the risks taken by prosecutors like Beryl Howell, and the difficult moral choices faced by those caught in the middle—including a woman forced to choose between betraying a friend or saving herself. LJ also delves into the history of Chinatowns in America, where family associations and Tongs—formed initially as mutual aid societies—became intertwined with the vice industry. She connects this legacy to gangs like the Flying Dragons and their ties back to organized crime in Hong Kong.   Our discussion is not just about drugs, gangs, and federal stings—it’s about storytelling, community, and the pursuit of survival. LJ shares how she and her co-reporter pieced the story together over the course of years of interviews and archival research, giving voice to people often overlooked in the larger mob narrative.   If you’re fascinated by organized crime, hidden histories, or the way law enforcement takes on international networks, Chinatown Sting is a podcast you won’t want to miss. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app.   Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here.  xx Gary Jenkins : [00:00:00] Hey, welcome all you wire tappers. Good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. This is Gary Jenkins. You know, I’m a retired Kansas City police intelligence unit detective turned podcaster. Gary Jenkins : I did a few other things in between, but this is the love of my life here, guys. And I was just talking with our guests that I don’t do this for the money, but I do it for fun and, and it is a lot of fun and, and I can tell my guests today. Does it to earn a living, but she does it a lot for fun. She really is into it. Gary Jenkins : So it’s Lydia Jean Kott, or we call her lj. Welcome. Lj, L.J. : thank you so much. I’m a huge fan of the show and it’s an honor to get to be on it and to get to talk to you. Gary Jenkins : Well, cool. Thank you for that compliment. I really appreciate that. Kind of makes it worthwhile keeping coming back. I get those nice comments on my YouTube channel quite a little bit. Gary Jenkins : That kinda keeps me coming back when I get down a little bit. Anyhow first of all, you’re. You’re with something called Pushkin, P-U-S-H-K-I-N, which is a Malcolm Gladwell company. I think he started it and had [00:01:00] the first podcast early in the days. Mm-hmm. You know, I’m like one of the earliest I am the earliest Mafia podcast. Gary Jenkins : I think that ever first one had ever started, I believe long before. When did you start? Oh, . 2015, I believe. L.J. : Okay. Yeah. Early, early podcast days, Gary Jenkins : early podcast. I listened to Serial and I thought, man, I think I could do that and tell police stories. Gary Jenkins: Yeah. Gary Jenkins : So tell the guys a little bit about. Gary Jenkins : Pushkin and how this podcast industry works. We talked about this a little bit before, and I’m always kind of curious myself. You know, I’m, I’m what they call A GDI that’s a goddamn independent. If you don’t know what a GDI is, ask my son if he’s gonna join a fraternity. He said, yeah, A GDI. So I’m a GDI. Gary Jenkins : But LJ is with a company and, but she’s been all in all areas and aspects of the business. So tell the guys a little bit about. What we talked about, how this podcasting business works. L.J. : . So [00:02:00] Pushkin is a podcasting company in New York City and we do a whole, we produce a whole bunch of different podcasts. L.J. : So we produce a podcast called Against the Rules, which is hosted by Michael Lewis, who wrote my Ball story. Yeah, that’s Gary Jenkins : a great one. But guys Against the Rules with Michael Lewis, who’s a guy that wrote Moneyball. This is a great one. Go ahead. L.J. : So yeah, so that’s the you know, that’s the podcast that I work on, so I’m a producer on that show. L.J. : And Happiness Lab and Revisionist History. So we make a bunch of shows and we have, you know, people can come to Pushkin with ideas for shows, and then there’s producers on staff, people like myself who then would help you make the show. You know, sometimes ideas originate within the company. So I actually, as a producer, pitched this idea to the higher ups at Pushkin, and then it became a show. Gary Jenkins : And this one here, this one here, to clarify, guys, this one here, Chinatown Sting is the name of it. We’re gonna talk about. Chinese organized crime for a change rather than the Italian organized crime or some drug organization what we call a peckerwood. Peckerwood is non [00:03:00] Italian, by the way. Lj Gary Jenkins : yeah. I never Gary Jenkins: heard that. Gary Jenkins : Yeah, it’s kinda local. It’s little bit like saying hillbilly or a redneck drug association. But anyhow we use it as non Italian in Kansas City. Anyhow, she’s gonna talk about some Chinese organized crime. So it’s I’m really fascinated. I really wanna learn about this. I had just. Gary Jenkins : I was just thinking I need to do a story about Chinese organized crime and, and I was finding a little bit of stuff on YouTube, but not a lot. So, and then this opportunity came along and, and you know, I’m, I’m kind of promoting a competing podcast, if you will, but if you guys are like me, I listen to so many different podcasts that, you know, we’re not in competition with each other. Gary Jenkins : A, a rising ship lifts all a rising tide lifts all boats anyhow, right. L.J. : Yeah. Yeah. You should listen to both the Gangland Wire and the Chinatown sting. You can, you can. Complimentary podcast. Gary Jenkins : Yeah. They are, they are in many ways, a little. I they complimentary L.J. : actually. Gary Jenkins : Yeah. A little different aspect of organized crime. Gary Jenkins : So LJ tell us about, you know, how’d you [00:04:00] first get interested in this story? Like I said, I was harping a hard time finding much about Chinese organized crime. So tell us how you got into it. L.J. : So I, there isn’t, especially when I started working on this, which was like three years ago, there wasn’t very much about Chinese organized crime at all. L.J. : But I, this is a little bit of a reveal of the podcast, but I got interested in it because my boyfriend’s mom, actually, her name is Beryl Howell, . L.J. : But her career got started as a prosecutor, a federal prosecutor in New York City, in the eastern District. And her first big case started with this undercover sting that happened. In Brooklyn, because that’s where the eastern Eastern District of New York is. And this case is kind of legendary in my boyfriend’s family. L.J. : And I’ve known her actually, you know, for a really long time. So I’d always heard about this case and how this was the case that, you know, it helped, et cetera. It was her first big case. She was just a baby prosecutor at the time, et cetera, off in her career. It made a [00:05:00] huge impression on her. It was kind of like family lore. L.J. : And as a journalist, I’ve always been like. I wanna get to the bottom of it. Like I wanna find out, I’ve heard about her side of the story of this case, but I wanna find out about the people who, you know, who else was involved and kind of paint a full picture of this case. So it took me about, I think three or four years and I found a co reporter who speaks Cantonese. L.J. : Her name is Sh Wang. And we worked on it together. And we’ve been telling the story of this case. And what was really helpful is that we barrel my boyfriend’s mom. Has this, she gave me this suitcase that was full of thousands of pages of court documents that she had saved. So it’s all public record, but since this is from the 1980s yeah, you know, it can be, you can only read the documents in the courthouse actually, or you have to pay like a dollar in actual quarters to get it home. Gary Jenkins: Yes, L.J. : I had the advantage of having this suitcase where I could look through and it also had, you know, her notes and things that she underlined. So that was really helpful. So I spent, you know, we started by. [00:06:00] Reading those documents and then trying to find the people who are in the documents. Gary Jenkins : Wow. Gary Jenkins : That’s so tell us about searching for some of these people that are in their documents. That’s really hard to do because you’re, you’re looking into a closed society, a totally closed society to outsiders for the most part, except for the cops. I’m sure you, it was easy to find some of the agents or cops. Gary Jenkins : How did you start, when you start with the cops, how, how did that work? Was it a task force that you could find some supervisors and then they could turn you on to guys that would talk to you? L.J. : Yeah, I mean, maybe it would be helpful, so to start with the, you know, like what the case was, the story? So yeah, basically,

In this episode of Gangland Wire, retired Kansas City Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins sits down with Dan O’Sullivan from the new podcast The Outfit to discuss the incredible story of Ken Eto, known in Outfit circles as “Tokyo Joe.” Ken Eto was unique: the only Japanese American member of the Chicago Outfit, and the only man to survive being shot three times in the head. Eto was the Outfit’s gambling kingpin on Chicago’s North Side, controlling operations along Rush Street, policy wheels in Black neighborhoods, Chinese games in Chinatown, and the Puerto Rican “bolita” numbers racket. His empire generated millions of dollars each year, placing him among the highest-ranking members of the Outfit. But success had its price. In 1980, the FBI caught Eto in a sting, and his Outfit bosses grew nervous—especially since he had ties to a cocaine deal with the Genovese family. Invited to dinner by a mobster who had never broken bread with him before, Eto knew it was a setup. Two gunmen shot him three times in the head. Miraculously, he lived, and his survival changed the history of the Outfit. Subscribe to Gangland Wire wherever you get your podcasts, and join us each week as we uncover the stories buried beneath the headlines—and the bodies. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app.   Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here.  To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here [00:00:00] Hey, y’all, you wire tapers out there. Good to be back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City. Missouri Police Intelligence unit detective with his own podcast. Now, believe it or not, I’ve been doing this for quite a while. Guys, if a lot of you guys have been following me for five, six years, you know, guys, you know, I was one of the first guys that did this podcast this kind of a podcast. And so I have with us today, one of the, maybe the most recent iteration of a Mafia podcast. I have Dan O’Sullivan welcome, Dan. Thank you, Gary. And I like you staking your territory, you know, like that I’m I’m a Johnny. Come lately. It’s true. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I’m a og. You’re the og. Exactly. I’m og. Yeah, right. I mean, I’m an associate. You’re the godfather here, you know? And there you go. We gotta get the pecking order down. This is how. As was said to me by a historian, you know, the mob makes discipline in the military look like nothing, you know, so, yeah. However it [00:01:00] works, you know? Yeah. Well, yeah. That discipline is, and there’s no appeal either, right? Yeah. So anyhow Dan and I, I think you’re gonna have a partner in that. You’re gonna have a podcast called The Outfit. Is that the name of it? That’s right. The outfit got, which is, go ahead. You got it exactly right, Gary. Yeah. We me and my co-host, Alana Hope Levinson our new podcast, the outfits launching August 14th and just every week we’re doing a different mob story that kind of explains something about, you know, America and, and you know, so whether it’s how the milk wars in Chicago led to us having expiration dates on milk cartons, that’s a crazy story to, you know. Who we’re gonna talk about a little bit the history of Japanese Americans in the US or. Americans in Russia during the nineties and seeing that transition of democracy and the mob there. So we just we’re having a lot of fun doing that. But it’s great to be on your [00:02:00] show. I, I’ve loved your show for years, so really an honor to be here. Well, thank you so much. You know, I when I do a program here in the city, I usually started off with a comparison of, I want you people to remember all Italians are not criminals. Yeah. And, and what happened during. The turn of the century is really, has happened here recently. Mm-hmm. What happened was, all these people from a really poor country, Southern Italy and Sicily, came to the United States. They just wanted a piece of the pie. Right. They just wanted to, to have a, a way to get by. They wanted to earn, you know, earn a living and, and get a meal, and they weren’t able to do that. They come here. At that time, the Irish and the English and the Germans, we had all the good jobs, right? We had all the police jobs, the fire jobs, they were squeezed out. They really could hardly get that kind of a job. And so they had push carts and, and you know, spaghetti joints as they used to call ’em restaurants, you could always do that. But they brought this thing from the old country called the Mafia, [00:03:00] and you’ve got all these young men who are bright and, and. Aggressive and, and you know, and then prohibition comes along and they take it. Yeah, they take it and they run with it. And, and you know, the same way today you got all these Hispanics come up and you got this narcotics thing, and, and they’re, you know, they don’t, you know, we’re keeping ’em squeezed out for the most part. They don’t speak the language and look a little different, so you’re kind of squeezed out. So it is not comparing, not exactly apples and oranges, but there’s a lot of similarities there on newly arrived immigrant populations. And they’re not all criminals. It’s such a good point that this repetition just, you know, I mean, look, I’m a journalist. I’ve covered the mob. I’ve written about it and, and tried to get really educated on it. Just you see this cycle over and over again. You know, like you said, my last name’s O Sullivan, the Irish. By the time the Italians and Jews started coming more. Numbers to the us. Well look at Chicago. The Irish first off had been gangsters too, but they had just clammed up the ladder a little bit where they [00:04:00] controlled the political machinery. They controlled police, fire departments, these civil service jobs. So what was left, you know, by the time these guys came along, it was more just the same way, the more criminal thing. And you know, if you look at the stats today, I believe, I believe immigrants commit crime at a lower rate than native born Americans. Yeah, true. So, you know, because most of them are coming here to work, you know? Yeah, I know. So yeah, it’s, it repeats itself. It’s absolutely true. Yeah. It wasn’t, I think it was Mark Twain said, history doesn’t always repeat itself, but it rhymes. That’s a, that guy the pride of Missouri, right? I mean, or is it Missouri Pride of Missouri? Gotta quote him. Yeah. Yeah. Anyhow, Dan, so let’s talk about you know, some of the things you’ve done in your career. You’ve done a variety of things in the news and, and media. So tell us a little bit about what you’ve done in your past. Yeah, so I, I, we were talking earlier, I started out as a sports writer actually, which is, I, I was always interested in the mob for reasons I’ll, I’ll maybe get into, but doing sports [00:05:00] writing, I realized you kind of brush up against organized crime just in the course of doing that, you know? Yeah. So I wrote a piece, God, over 10 years ago now about. Labor exploitation and pro wrestling and you know, that that was run a bit and still to a degree is, is run a bit along underworld lines, you know with these sorts of shady syndicates all over the country. And, and over time that changed with the WWF and WE but still very dangerous for the guys involved. Obviously Hulk Hogan just passed away and, you know, kind of. And embodied it shifting from like a carnival thing to big business. But so I remember an outgrowth of that was the former boss of the WWE e Vince McMahon, it’s not well remembered, was prosecuted by the federal government. For trafficking steroids. And they, it really was prosecuted like a mob case where they got a doctor to flip who was [00:06:00] supplying the, you know, whatever he wanted and shipping it across the country. So. I got into this bizarre story of a stabbing of an NBA player and the, the police subsequently breaking another. This was in New York, subsequently breaking another NBA player’s leg with a baton. So I just started to drift towards crime. And then a few years ago, I wrote a story for Chicago Magazine. That was the history of the life of Kento, who I, I thought was just a, yeah. Fascinating figure, and I couldn’t believe no one had done a deep dive on him. So I, I did that and and here I am today, now doing, now doing a lesser version of your podcast. Well, I’m sure it’ll be good. You’re gonna have high production values. I can see that already better than I had, especially when I first started. They’re a little bit better now, but they’re still not really. Good high production values. Well let, before we get into Ken Etto, let’s talk about you. You mentioned you had a personal connection to the mob, your father, and something happened when Yeah. Where’d you grow [00:07:00] up and, yeah, because you’re not from Chicago, that’s not a Chicago accent, I know that. No, that’s right. And yeah, so I grew up on Long Island in New York originally, which, you know, I was born in 1987, so I was just at the time that the mob was starting to get into trouble on Long Island because. At the time, I, I was a kid there. They were still very much in control, but the commission trial had happened. These, I grew up with all the, the John Gotti trials and, and obviously Long Island was very important, particularly to the Lucchese family for garbage and, and sanitation. And so my father was a telephone lineman for telephone splicer, excuse me. He would get irate if I said lineman. He was a splicer for the phone company for first Belan and then Verizon Ninex. But, so he had this very interesting thing of he would go out to these neighborhoods on Long Island that were. Mob neighborhoods where they all lived, like bedroom communities for the mob. A

In this episode of Gangland Wire, retired Kansas City Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins sits down with journalist and author Rich Gazarik to explore a little-known corner of mob history—one that ties the Pittsburgh Mafia to Fidel Castro, stolen guns, and even the Kennedy assassination. Rich’s latest book, Gun Smuggling, Castro, and the Pittsburgh Mafia, shines a spotlight on Sam Mannarino, a Pittsburgh mob captain under boss John LaRocca, who hatched a wild plan in the early 1960s: supply Fidel Castro with hundreds of stolen weapons in hopes of carving out a piece of Cuba’s casino action. The scheme included an audacious plot to rip off 300 rifles from a National Guard armory in Ohio—an operation that quickly unraveled into chaos. From there, the conversation broadens into the Pittsburgh mob’s stranglehold on its city, including political corruption, bribery, and intimidation that reached into the mayor’s office and the police department. Rich recounts how Mannarino and his crew maintained a façade of respectability while ruling through violence and fear, leaving a lasting mark on Pittsburgh’s civic life. Drawing on decades of investigative journalism and declassified JFK assassination files, Rich also connects the dots between the Pittsburgh Mafia and broader mob influence in the 1960s. We discuss how figures like Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante emerged in congressional investigations, feeding speculation that the Mafia’s reach extended into Dallas on November 22, 1963. This episode uncovers a forgotten piece of organized crime history where local corruption, mob ambition, and Cold War politics collided. If you want to understand how Pittsburgh’s underworld tied into national events, you won’t want to miss this deep dive with Rich Gazarik. And get his book Gun Smuggling, Castro, and the Pittsburgh Mafia here. Subscribe to Gangland Wire wherever you get your podcasts, and join us each week as we uncover the stories buried beneath the headlines—and the bodies. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here.  To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here [0:00] Well, hey, all you wiretappers out there, this is Gary Jenkins, [0:02] retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective. I’m here in the studio of Gangland Wire, and I have a story that is kind of topical right now because there’s a movie being made about November 1963. And this isn’t exactly about Kennedy assassination, but it’s all around the Kennedy assassination. And it’s about mob guys having connections down in Cuba and with Castro and out of Pittsburgh of all places. Now, go figure that. You know, I always think of Tropicante down in Tampa, and you’ve got Marcello down in New Orleans. You’ve got Ardo up in Chicago, and you always think of them, Giancana, having those connections. Well, there was a Pittsburgh guy named Sam Mannarino who had extensive connections down in Cuba. So welcome, Rich Gazarek. [0:51] Thank you, Gary. Appreciate it. Good to have you. Rich, tell the guys the name of your book. I don’t have to. I’d have to lean over here and read it. It’s a little bit long. So tell the guys the name of your book and a little bit about what it’s about. It’s called Gun Smuggling, Castro, and the Pittsburgh Mafia. And it was a faction of the Pittsburgh Mafia. [1:11] John LaRocco was the godfather of the Pittsburgh Mom. Sam Mannarino was one of his captains. And Mannarino and his brother Kelly had a casino in Cuba, San Suu Kyi, outside of Havana. And they didn’t do very well with it and they eventually sold it. And at the time, Fulgincia Batista was getting a little bit greedy and he was on the outs with some of the mobsters because he wanted a bigger cut. And Sam Mannarino was wondering, what if I helped Castro in his revolution? Do you think he would. [1:51] Benefit? And do you think he would be gracious and maybe reward me with some influence in the gambling industry? And he had a longtime gambler friend who was managing by the name of Norman Rothman. And Rothman said, hey, I think we should go with Castro. Let’s put our chips on Castro. But Sam wasn’t a very right guy. And what he didn’t realize is that Fidel Castro hated the mob as much as he hated Fulgencio Batista, and there was no chance. [2:21] But nevertheless, he wanted to try to ingratiate himself with him. So he came up with this harebrained scheme to provide Castro with guns. Mannarino went around looking for a crew to steal some weapons, so they centered on a National Guard armory in Canton, Ohio. And one night after the armory closed through the day, Somebody simply walked in, opened the door, and walked out with over 300 guns. No force break-in, no evidence of any kind of destruction. They simply must have had a key or an inside man. Put them in a van, drove off, never saw them again. They brought the guns to Kensington, Pennsylvania, which is a mob town just north of Pittsburgh. And they stored in Sam Mannarino’s son-in-law’s beer distributor. [3:19] And then they drove, now I’ll explain to you a little geography here. I was raised in that area and I was 10 years old when this happened, but I wasn’t far from New Kensington. The Allegheny River separates Allegheny County from Westmoreland County. So I lived on the Allegheny County side and I spent my misspent youth in New Kensington in pool halls and gowls. Half-hour’s costs. So let me ask you a question a little bit about this now. John LaRocca, he was like the godfather of this entire area, really, even down in West Virginia. He was into eastern Ohio, all of western Pennsylvania, and northern West Virginia. Yeah, but he was not involved. I just want to make it clear. He was not involved in this. This was one of Sam’s, one of his many harebrained schemes, and he was on his own. Sam and Kelly Montarino, they ran this New Kensington area, which I hear you describe was a little bit like East St. Louis or Kansas. You got the main big city, but then you got the seedy side of town. That’s what I hear you describe, like Cicero to Chicago. Right, exactly. And it was big. I mean, New Kensington in its heyday had gambling casinos throughout the town, houses of prostitution. But one of the things that was interesting was It’s. [4:42] Alcoa was headquartered in New Kensington for a number of decades now. Yeah. And as long as Alcoa prospered, the mafia prospered. They made a ton of money because they had bookies on the shop floor at Alcoa every day up until noon collecting bets. So they were both intertwined a lot. And that’s part of the theme of the book is that the interconnection between the mafia and Alcoa. Because when Alcoa eventually left in the early 70s, the mob died. It just stopped, became the town. The FBI wasn’t even that interested in it anymore. And they had spent a lot of time investigating the Manorinos. So they get this group together and they steal the guns. And then they brought them over across the river, Allegheny River, into Allegheny County. And it’s funny because I lived close when I was a boy. It was 10. I lived close to that airport. I remember reading the papers. It was big news to get this thing to come in. And they make all these arrests, all set for San Mannarino. They got all these people. In the woods was the state police, customs, and border patrol agents. [5:56] They were waiting for the guns to come. So the guns come. They’re loaded on the plane. And just as they’re about to move in on them, the plane takes off. [6:06] Now, it was overweight. didn’t have a full tank of gas. So what they did was the pilot decided he was going to scoot down to Morgantown, West Virginia to refuel. [6:17] Border Patrol called the West Virginia State Police and they were waiting for the plane. And then the Border Patrol commandeered the plane and flew down and helped make the arrest. So everybody thought, well, this is it. It’s done. But it turns out there was a lot more to it. Sam wanted to continue to buy weapons for Castro, but he needed a way to finance it. [6:44] So he turned to his mafia brothers in Canada. They went up to Brockville, Ontario, and got a crew, and they broke into a bank and stole over $12 million. [6:58] Now, part of that haul was over $2 million in bearer bonds. And they thought, you know, we can use this as collateral. So Sam sent one of his colleagues to Switzerland, and he goes to this bank and said, we want to borrow some money, and we’re going to use these bonds as collateral. Well, the bankers got a little suspicious. They looked at the bonds, and the edges of the paper were singed from fire from when these guys broke into the vault and used settling torches to get the boxes open. So, they called the Swiss police, the Swiss police called the Interpol, Interpol called the Mounties in Canada, and the Mounties called the FBI. And we have this international intrigue going on with Mannarino’s people meeting [7:52] Castro’s agents in Italy to pass the bonds to him. Of course, at the end, Sam and all his colleagues got arrested in the United States for possession of those bonds. They didn’t get arrested for breaking into it because they weren’t in Canada at the time, but they did get arrested for possessing those stolen securities. [8:12] So they went to trial in Chicago, and Sam’s luck held out, and all but one guy was acquitted, and he walked on it. By that time, John LaRocca was fed up, and so was Kelly, his brother, who fed up with the publicity that Sam was generating, and it kind of retired and put him on the shelf, so to speak. And Sam started talking to the FBI Having these long conversations. [8:39] And at one point When I was going through these FBI records I started looking

In this gripping episode of Gangland Wire, retired intelligence detective Gary Jenkins sits down with author Jonathan Dyer to explore one of the most complex and dangerous figures in Mafia history—Greg Scarpa, the Colombo family enforcer known as The Grim Reaper. Dyer, whose career spans military intelligence, law, and education, brings deep insight into Scarpa’s remarkable—and chilling—dual role as both a ruthless mob killer and a prized FBI top echelon informant. Together, Gary and Jonathan unpack the moral ambiguities, betrayals, and calculated violence that defined Scarpa’s career in the turbulent world of organized crime. Listeners will hear: How Scarpa balanced loyalty to the mob with his covert cooperation with the FBI.   The structured, almost corporate way his crew operated—and how he enforced discipline with fear and bloodshed. The darker corners of his personal life, including family ties, marriages, and the impact of his choices on his children. The violent episodes, such as the murder of Mary Bari, underscore his brutality and the Mafia’s code of protection. From Cold War–era law enforcement collusion to the inner workings of New York’s underworld, this episode reveals how Scarpa manipulated both sides of the law to maintain power. Jonathan Dyer’s latest book, Greg Scarpa: Legendary Evil, offers the foundation for a conversation that will leave you questioning where law enforcement ends and organized crime begins. Subscribe to Gangland Wire wherever you get your podcasts, and join us each week as we uncover the stories buried beneath the headlines—and the bodies. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here.  To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here Transcript [0:00] Well, hey, welcome all you wiretappers. Good to be back here in the studio of [0:03] Gangland Wire. This is Gary Jenkins, an entire Kansas City, Missouri police detective. Worked at the Organized Crime Unit or the Intelligence Unit for many years. And now I’ve got a podcast and we’re all about the organized crime. As you guys know, all you regular guys and for new people, it’s all about organized crime, particularly the Italian mafia in the United States. Now, I have an author here today, Jonathan Dyer. And Jonathan, I really am excited about having you on here because you have a different take about a much cussed and discussed subject or person, Gregory the Grim Reaper Scarpa. So welcome, Jonathan. Thanks, Gary. Thanks for having me. So tell the guys a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your background. Where’d you come from other than Marshall? We found out we have similar backgrounds, Marshall, Missouri, rural Missouri, farm life and Kansas City. So tell the guys a little bit about yourself. Well, in 1981, Gary, I joined the Army and spent about a year and a half in Monterey Defense Language Institute learning Russian. [1:10] After that, I went to Goodfellow Air Force Base for some cryptologic training. And then after that, I went to the National Security Agency in Fort Meade for some more training and then shipped overseas to Berlin for three years trying to keep tabs on the Soviet Army during the Cold War. After the Army, I entered law school at UC Davis in California. And after law school, I practiced law for about 10 years as a civil litigator. And then in 1999, I switched careers and became a teacher and taught government and U.S. History and criminal law and retired during the pandemic. And now I live in central Texas. Interesting. [1:52] This is off the subject a little bit, but I’ve always been curious about that language school. FBI agents go to that and military people go to it. I have tried to learn Spanish. You know, I’m a pretty good tourist. I’ve tried to learn French most recently. I haven’t been there yet after I’ve worked on it with Duolingo, the new app to help you learn a language. But it’s so hard to learn a foreign language. It is so hard. Do they have some tricks or techniques? I mean, did you really learn to converse in Russian or were you just like, you know, able to order a pizza or something? Well, the basic course in the Russian, at least back in the early 1980s, was 47 weeks long. And Gary, they’ve been at it for a while. So I think they have a pretty good plan. And it’s intense. You’re in a classroom six hours a day, and then you have about two or three hours of homework at night. So you’re not just like I would do now, just kind of dabbling in it a little bit, looking at the sticks. And then after that first year, and it’s going to sound like I’m patting myself on the back here, but I don’t mean to do that. If you do well, you can take another six months right away. And at the end of that year and a half, I was certainly conversant in Russian. I was reading Russian. It was a good deal of fluency. [3:16] But I haven’t really worked on it since then. So, frankly, it’s mostly disappeared. But I think it’s back in there somewhere. And if I needed to call up on it, I think I could bring it up. It would be if you went into a conversation with somebody who was a Russian speaker only, I guarantee, uh, you would slip back into it pretty shortly if you went to Russia. Now, was that full immersion? Did you like, we’re not allowed to speak English any other time and didn’t, you weren’t with any other English speakers or were they that rigorous? [3:45] No, it wasn’t. I mean, particularly in the beginning, there’s no way to exist or survive without being able to speak English. And there was the classroom work in that second six months that I talked about was entirely in Russian, except for the military portion of it. We had some military senior NCOs who were also our instructors and they would flip back and forth between English and Russian. But our teachers in general were native Russian speakers. And again, during that last six months of the year and a half of training, it was, at least in the classroom, exclusively in Russian. Yeah. Wow. In order to pick up the nuances, if you’re doing an overhear or looking at documents or whatever, in order to pick up the nuances of the country, if you will, that’s another thing. You really have to know the language well. [4:48] Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I’ve heard that indicates fluency is if you understand the sense of humor of a foreign language. And I think I got to that point. Oh, we’re good. And certainly the Russian sense of humor is different from the American sense of humor, but, um, again, um, not really doing much with it since my discharge from the army. Uh, even that I think is probably, uh. [5:14] Difficult to access at this point to be fine. Yeah. Interesting. Well, I just, uh, sorry to digress guys, but I just always found this fascinating learning a foreign language. I’ve always found that fascinating as hell. I went to Mexico and I spent two weeks living with a family down there. And that was the, that’s why I asked that question. That was a rule. You were not supposed to speak English and they were not supposed to speak English with you. Although we, we had to cheat a little bit, but it was true. It’s hard boy, but that full immersion, uh, that, That’ll really amp up your ability to speak. Yeah, there’s a very steep learning curve, and that’ll do it. Jonathan Dyer is the author of 12 books, including six on Cold War espionage, a thriller series, The Nick Temple Files, which sounds interesting as hell. So, guys, I’ll have a link to his author page on Amazon in order to find some of these other books that he’s written. And it sounds like you’ve got a little inside track on the espionage thriller genre for what you did for a living, kind of like Ian Fleming and his James Bond series. Right. [6:22] But what we’re here today to talk about is organized crime in the mafia. Jonathan wrote a book called Greg Scarpa, Legendary Evil. Now, a lot of you guys know Greg Scarpa. Greg Scarpa. There’s our man himself, the many faces of mafia killer. And I guess my first question would be, he’s been covered quite a little bit. And I was reading your book and you really have some interesting takes on this guy. But what got you interested in Greg Scarpa? Well, a writing partner and I were working on some scripts for a possible streaming series. And it was about the Brooklyn Mafia during the late 1970s and into the 1980s. And of course, Scarpa was the main character in that whole drama. And so my writing partner suggested I write a Scarpa biography. And at first I said, no, thanks. I’ve written fiction and I hadn’t written a book-length piece of nonfiction. You know, in graduate school, law school, you write nonfiction, but nothing like this. And he kept pushing, gently but pushing, and finally I relented and said, okay, I’ll do it, and started researching it. And that’s how I got to writing a biography of Scarlett. [7:46] What did you find about Scarpa that, you know, why would his story be of interest in 2025? [7:55] Yeah, I think the duality of Scarpa’s nature, the fact that he was both a mafia good fellow and at times a capo and also an FBI informant is just absolutely fascinating. You know, the stories about law enforcement and the mafia sometimes are very, they’re intertwined as law enforcement attempts to get a handle on the mafia. And sometimes there’s a closeness between them that is fascinating. And that’s certainly the case with Scarpa and his 25 out of 30 years being a top echelon criminal informant to the FBI. So I think that’s fascinating for people. And his personal life is fascinating, too. Yeah, it is. It is really fascinating. And there’s been so much that’s come out about him. It’s amazing. You know, another thing I found re

In this episode of Gangland Wire, I sit down with Keith Grounsell, a veteran lawman whose career spanned patrol, specialized units, and high-stakes undercover work with the DEA. Keith takes us inside the hidden world of narcotics investigations, sharing stories that reveal both the danger and the human toll of living a double life. We talk about how Keith’s upbringing as the son of a Marine pushed him toward public service, and how his path eventually led him into the shadowy world of drug traffickers. He recalls the adrenaline of undercover drug deals, the razor’s-edge risks, and the constant challenge of protecting his cover while keeping his integrity as a cop intact. Keith also reflects on the strain this life put on his family and the psychological pressure of staying in character for months at a time. His advice to new officers is candid and practical—emphasizing the need for physical fitness, community ties, and strong mental health to survive the demands of the job. Our conversation widens to the broader impact of drug trafficking on crime and communities, and the need for law enforcement to adapt to ever-changing threats. Keith also shares his writing journey, a four-book series titled Narc’s Tale, which chronicles his undercover assignments and the lessons he carried forward. This episode offers both gripping stories from the field and a rare inside look at the toll—and the nobility—of narcotics enforcement. Subscribe to Gangland Wire wherever you get your podcasts, and join us each week as we uncover the stories buried beneath the headlines—and the bodies. Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast app. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent Brothers against Brothers, the documentary, click here.  To rent Gangland Wire, the documentary, click here 0:04 Welcome to Gangland Wire 1:07 Becoming a Police Officer 3:33 Life as an Undercover Agent 6:08 Tales from the Trenches 8:41 The Depths of Undercover Work 12:39 Surviving Dangerous Encounters 16:29 The Art of Blending In 21:06 The Challenges of Undercover Props 25:58 Navigating the Drug Underworld 28:14 Building Trust in Dangerous Situations 33:58 The High Stakes of Undercover Operations 36:58 Major Drug Busts in Kansas 42:08 Lessons from the Cartel 45:27 Advice for Young Law Enforcement 48:29 Writing and Reflection in Law Enforcement [0:00] Well, hey, all you wiretappers, good to be back here in the studio at Gangland [0:02] Wire. This is Gary Jenkins. I am a retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Detective, as most of you know, because I’ve got a lot of regular listeners. And those that don’t know, that’s who I am. And I have another copper here with me today. I’ve got Keith Grounsel. Keith, welcome. Hey, Gary. Thanks for having me on the show. I’ll tell you what, Keith. I love talking to and interviewing, but then our conversations before and after talking to these other coppers that have worked around the country. It’s always fun. We talk the same language, I’ve noticed. And that’s around the world, too. I haven’t worked internationally. We’re a universal group of people that always collaborate together and get along in different environments. Yeah. And then we start telling stories and it really gets good. [0:49] That’s right. But we can’t record all those stories. So we don’t want to record some. We don’t want to record. All right, Keith. Now you became a cop, you know, where are you from originally? [1:04] And then what, what, what made you think that you wanted to be a police officer? Me, I wanted to be a cowboy. [1:10] And so that was a close job to being a cowboy. So how about you? Yes. It’s kind of funny. My dad was a United States Marine, 22 years. So I was raised by a career Marine. I was actually born in Beaufort, South Carolina at Parris Island at the Beaufort Naval Hospital there. And so I always knew I wanted to do some sort of service. I didn’t want to sit behind a desk. I either wanted to go in the military, in the United States Marines, or do something else. And then I saw law enforcement probably around middle school when I really got interested in law enforcement and ended up going to college on a soccer scholarship, majored in sociology and criminal justice and got a job in law enforcement just in my local town right there and just fell in love with it and kind of found a knack in my career for going after drug traffickers. That was kind of my thing. More local level, not traffickers as a rookie cop, more just local bust and some occasional dealers and users and things like that. I really found it was giving me a natural high chasing them. It’s like hunting humans. And I was like, man, this is what I want to do right here. So I emphasized that and I studied my tail off. I learned a lot about drug dealers, drug trafficking, drug users. And I led the department for a couple of two of the last three years in the first department in drug arrest. [2:29] So I went from there and transferred to a much larger agency, one of the top largest agencies in the state of South Carolina in Greenville, South Carolina. And it was pretty much day one orientation. They yanked me out of orientation. I take me to the captain’s office, say, from now on, you’re not allowed to associate with police officers. Now, granted, I’ve been a cop three years at this time. [2:51] And you need to work in the vice narcotics unit. You’re going to report it this time. This is your sergeant. This is who your supervisor is and just go with them. And I had some older gentlemen in there that kind of took me under his wing and a female that worked undercover and another undercover. And they taught me the ropes, man. It was trial by fire. I really didn’t know what I was doing. I made a lot of mistakes to tell you the truth. And thank God, didn’t get indicted, didn’t get in any big trouble and left there after a year, went to the sheriff’s office, much larger agency, did three years undercover there. Then I wanted to reach that pinnacle in my career, I felt, in drug enforcement. [3:30] And I worked really hard and was hired on as a special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and did that. Man, I spent about a total of six years deep undercover. And that’s taxing on a family is taxing on you as an individual. And I had an opportunity to, I tried to actually. [3:49] Transfer from out where I was in Kansas with the DEA back to South Carolina, where I had a support system for my family and I couldn’t get a transfer. So I had an opportunity to do some Department of State contracting and I left the DEA and went to Afghanistan for a few years. That’s where I got into contracting. I did that for a few years, got injured in Afghanistan, came back, worked my way back up, became a chief investigator, became a chief of police, I quickly learned the political realm and fighting corruption as a chief is very tough in a small town. [4:23] I lost my job early on getting in for 14 months, came back, indicted the mayor for public corruption. He got convicted in a three day trial of two or three crimes against moral turpitude and invited invited the head of investigations for a rape and murder cover up. And he pled guilty in that and then indicted the chief of police before me for extortion and his charges were dismissed on technicality. So I went through a gamut of different things and I came back, lasted about four years total and two more years after that. And we went from number 28, number one, safest city in the entire state. We went after the drug traffickers. I trained my whole entire department in drug enforcement and community policing. And it drastically helped the community and made it a safer place. But politics rared its ugly head again and the people that weren’t indicted, they brought some people in to run to oust me as a chief and I had to go and that’s why I got back into contracting. I went to Haiti for two years I went to West Africa for a couple years. I went to India Jordan, different places like that doing contract work and then I came back became a chief again. I was glutton for that punishment. [5:33] I probably shouldn’t have done it a second time to be honest with you because I feel like i ran into the same thing i i helped the city drop 100 safety rankings in about a year period things were going really good until i uncovered some some corruption uh involving some police officers and went to deal with it and they dealt with me and it was time to go so so since that’s been about a year now now about to get go back overseas so my career has been you know a crazy career, to say the least, and I feel like I’ve lived 10 lives. [6:08] So you had a four-book series called Narc’s Tale. I do. So tell us, tell us, you know, some of your stories as an undercover. I can’t think. Absolutely. Garden City, Kansas with DEA or, or maybe you have something like, well, your early cases there when you were. Oh, absolutely. There had to be some stuff that, that, that your hair back on the back of your head standing out and, and your shit your neck for a little bit. Give it, give us some of those stories out of your book. So I felt like I was kind of blessed as a, as an undercover, especially a deep undercover. Not many deep undercovers have worked at the city level, then the county level, then the federal level. So I got to experience all of it. And I will say this as a tribute really to the local narcs. Some of the most dangerous stuff that I ever did was dealing with a drug addict who was selling drugs. I mean, somebody like that that is high will shoot you in the face just to get enough money to buy a crap rock. So when I was working undercover at the street level, I ended up buying from two cop killers. and I didn’t even know they were cop killers in drug h