Last days of the Sicilians: at war with the Mafia : the FBI assault on the Pizza connection
Description
July 12, 1979: The fearsome Bonanno family boss, Carmine Galante, is gunned down in a gruesome ambush at a Brooklyn restaurant. The hit launches an FBI investigation that soon becomes the largest in the bureau's history, as agents uncover a trail leading to a clandestine arm of the Sicilian Mafia. Evidence points to an all but unknown criminal franchise at work in the U.S. within the strife-torn Cosa Nostra.
The mystery deepens. Surveillance photos snapped secretly from FBI vans and lookouts in Queens and Brooklyn show a cast of characters the bureau's mob experts cannot identify. What is in the cartons these Sicilians are loading into the trunks of their Mercedes? Who is trying to spirit $60 million out of the country and why? And where is the mountain of money coming from?
The FBI has stumbled across a billion-dollar drug pipeline that is funneling tons of Turkish morphoine base to Sicilian labs and heroin into the United States through pizza parlors, cafes, and boutiques. Where the French Connection ends, the Pizza Connection begins.
This is the dramatic inside story of that historic case and the struggle of the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Customs Service, and New York Police Department to deal the Mafia a crippling blow. The early 1980s are a crucial time for the FBI. It is emerging from the debacles of J. Edgar Hoover's administration, which long refused to acknowledge traditional organized crime, and is about to take on a new assignment policing anti-drug laws alongside the DEA.
The exploding case is assigned to an unlikely pair of agents: the intense, Sicilian-born Carmine Russo and the laid-back Charlie Rooney. Together with an expanding army of investigators in the U.S. and abroad, they follow a trail that leads from sidewalk pizzerias and pay phones in Long Island, New Jersey, and rural Illinois, to bank vaults and hideouts in Miami, the Bahamas, Zurich, Palermo, Rio, Madrid, Turkey, and Bulgaria. Thousands of hours of wiretapped conversations and surveillance photos reveal a deadly, shadowy world of coded messages, midnight dropoffs of heroin packed in paper bags and shirt boxes, and vast fortunes laundered through some of America's biggest brokerage firms.
But the crimelords Russo and Rooney stalk are not their only nemesis; they must also fend off jealous and impatient bureaucrats, and more than once crooked cops come close to blowing the case.
The mystery deepens. Surveillance photos snapped secretly from FBI vans and lookouts in Queens and Brooklyn show a cast of characters the bureau's mob experts cannot identify. What is in the cartons these Sicilians are loading into the trunks of their Mercedes? Who is trying to spirit $60 million out of the country and why? And where is the mountain of money coming from?
The FBI has stumbled across a billion-dollar drug pipeline that is funneling tons of Turkish morphoine base to Sicilian labs and heroin into the United States through pizza parlors, cafes, and boutiques. Where the French Connection ends, the Pizza Connection begins.
This is the dramatic inside story of that historic case and the struggle of the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Customs Service, and New York Police Department to deal the Mafia a crippling blow. The early 1980s are a crucial time for the FBI. It is emerging from the debacles of J. Edgar Hoover's administration, which long refused to acknowledge traditional organized crime, and is about to take on a new assignment policing anti-drug laws alongside the DEA.
The exploding case is assigned to an unlikely pair of agents: the intense, Sicilian-born Carmine Russo and the laid-back Charlie Rooney. Together with an expanding army of investigators in the U.S. and abroad, they follow a trail that leads from sidewalk pizzerias and pay phones in Long Island, New Jersey, and rural Illinois, to bank vaults and hideouts in Miami, the Bahamas, Zurich, Palermo, Rio, Madrid, Turkey, and Bulgaria. Thousands of hours of wiretapped conversations and surveillance photos reveal a deadly, shadowy world of coded messages, midnight dropoffs of heroin packed in paper bags and shirt boxes, and vast fortunes laundered through some of America's biggest brokerage firms.
But the crimelords Russo and Rooney stalk are not their only nemesis; they must also fend off jealous and impatient bureaucrats, and more than once crooked cops come close to blowing the case.
Subjects
Subjects
Case studies
Drug traffic
Drug traffic -- United States -- Case studies
Mafia
Mafia -- United States -- Case studies
Organized crime
Organized crime -- United States -- Case studies
Organized crime investigation
Organized crime investigation -- United States -- Case studies
United States. -- Federal Bureau of Investigation
Drug traffic
Drug traffic -- United States -- Case studies
Mafia
Mafia -- United States -- Case studies
Organized crime
Organized crime -- United States -- Case studies
Organized crime investigation
Organized crime investigation -- United States -- Case studies
United States. -- Federal Bureau of Investigation
More Details
ISBN:
9780812915945
Staff View
Grouping Information
Grouped Work ID | 8f0d90f1-9cf5-de1a-da86-bf13c6a4421a |
---|---|
Grouping Title | last days of the sicilians at war with the mafia the fbi assault on the pizza connection |
Grouping Author | ralph blumenthal |
Grouping Category | book |
Grouping Language | English (eng) |
Last Grouping Update | 2023-02-01 03:53:11AM |
Last Indexed | 2023-02-08 05:04:22AM |
Solr Fields
accelerated_reader_point_value
0
accelerated_reader_reading_level
0
author
Blumenthal, Ralph
author_display
Blumenthal, Ralph
available_at_eagleriver
Eagle River Olson Library
detailed_location_eagleriver
Eagle River Adult Nonfiction
display_description
format_category_eagleriver
Books
format_eagleriver
Book
id
8f0d90f1-9cf5-de1a-da86-bf13c6a4421a
isbn
9780812915945
itype_eagleriver
BOOK - HARDCOVER
last_indexed
2023-02-08T11:04:22.630Z
lexile_score
-1
literary_form
Non Fiction
literary_form_full
Non Fiction
local_callnumber_eagleriver
364.15 BLU
owning_library_eagleriver
Eagle River Olson Library
owning_location_eagleriver
Eagle River Olson Library
primary_isbn
9780812915945
publishDate
1988
publisher
Times Books
recordtype
grouped_work
subject_facet
Case studies
Drug traffic -- United States -- Case studies
Mafia -- United States -- Case studies
Organized crime -- United States -- Case studies
Organized crime investigation -- United States -- Case studies
United States. -- Federal Bureau of Investigation
Drug traffic -- United States -- Case studies
Mafia -- United States -- Case studies
Organized crime -- United States -- Case studies
Organized crime investigation -- United States -- Case studies
United States. -- Federal Bureau of Investigation
title_display
Last days of the Sicilians : at war with the Mafia : the FBI assault on the Pizza connection
title_full
Last days of the Sicilians : at war with the Mafia : the FBI assault on the Pizza connection / Ralph Blumenthal
title_short
Last days of the Sicilians
title_sub
at war with the Mafia : the FBI assault on the Pizza connection
topic_facet
Drug traffic
Mafia
Organized crime
Organized crime investigation
Mafia
Organized crime
Organized crime investigation
Solr Details Tables
item_details
Bib Id | Item Id | Shelf Loc | Call Num | Format | Format Category | Num Copies | Is Order Item | Is eContent | eContent Source | eContent URL | Detailed Status | Last Checkin | Location |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ils:.b10166932 | .i10230610 | Eagle River Adult Nonfiction | 364.15 BLU | 1 | false | false | Available | Jun 22, 2018 | eranf |
record_details
Bib Id | Format | Format Category | Edition | Language | Publisher | Publication Date | Physical Description | Abridged |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ils:.b10166932 | Book | Books | 1st ed | English | Times Books | [1988] | xiv, 354 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm |
scoping_details_eagleriver
Bib Id | Item Id | Grouped Status | Status | Locally Owned | Available | Holdable | Bookable | In Library Use Only | Library Owned | Holdable PTypes | Bookable PTypes | Local Url |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ils:.b10166932 | .i10230610 | On Shelf | Available | false | true | true | false | false | true | 9999 |