Organized Crime
Al Capone ran Chicago's bootlegging empire from 1925 to 1931, generating $60 million a year — and was ultimately brought down not by murder charges but by five counts of tax evasion.
Organized Crime
From Prohibition bootleggers to Mexican cartels generating $39 billion annually — 24 articles across four series covering how organized crime became a permanent feature of American life from 1920 to the present.
Organized Crime
Irish mobs Jewish gangsters motorcycle clubs and Mexican cartels each represent a distinct criminal model operating alongside or outside the Italian-American Mafia's framework. This series covers them all.
Organized Crime
By 2010 Mexican cartels controlled drug distribution in 230 American cities. The Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG now generate revenue that dwarfs everything the Italian-American Mafia achieved at its peak — and fentanyl deaths hit 74000 in 2023.
Organized Crime
The Hells Angels grew from a 1948 California riding club into a RICO defendant with chapters in 27 countries. The Bandidos fought a shooting war in Scandinavia. How motorcycle clubs became criminal empires.
Organized Crime
Murder Inc. executed an estimated 500 contract killings for the national crime syndicate. Meyer Lansky built the financial architecture that laundered their revenue through Las Vegas the Bahamas and Swiss banks.
Organized Crime
The Westies controlled Hell's Kitchen through dismemberment and fear. Winter Hill ran Boston for three decades under FBI protection. Irish-American organized crime dominated its territories without the national structure the Italian families had.
Organized Crime
The Chicago Outfit Philadelphia mob Detroit Partnership Kansas City mob and Winter Hill Gang operated for decades as nodes in a national criminal network. This series covers organized crime as a national system.
Organized Crime
The Kansas City mob controlled the Tropicana counting room and skimmed casino revenue for Chicago Cleveland and Milwaukee — until FBI surveillance ended the mob's entire Las Vegas era in the 1980s.
Organized Crime
The Detroit mob called itself the Partnership — a deliberate joint venture between Italian and Jewish-American crime families that ran Detroit's criminal economy for fifty years without attracting national attention.
Organized Crime
Nicky Scarfo ran the Philadelphia mob in the 1980s and ordered more murders per year than any comparable crime family — violence that ultimately generated the cooperating witnesses who destroyed the organization.
Organized Crime
Whitey Bulger ran Boston's Winter Hill Gang while serving as an FBI informant — and used classified informant identities to have rivals murdered. The FBI paid $100 million to settle wrongful death suits.