Informer Journal Article:

Profaci steps from obscurity
to Brooklyn mob leadership

"Little information exists on the earliest days of the underworld organization known today as the Colombo Crime Family. In some U.S. histories, the crime family simply (though somewhat ridiculously) springs to life, already fully grown and with Giuseppe Profaci as its boss, in Prohibition Era Brooklyn. While it is impossible at this time to fill in all of the blanks of the crime family history, it appears that the roots of the Profaci-Colombo organization stretch back to a network of influential families in the region of Villabate, Sicily." (INFORMER, January 2012 issue.)

Featured Website Article:

Banana War Informant:
Salvatore "Bill" Bonanno?

During the so-called 'Banana War' of the 1960s, law enforcement benefited from details provided by an informer within the ranks of the Bonanno Crime Family.

Researcher Edmond Valin argues convincingly that the informer could only have been crime boss Joseph Bonanno's son Salvatore "Bill" Bonanno.

(A Bill Bonanno-authored autobiography, The Last Testament of Bill Bonanno, was published posthumously by HarperCollins. Click here to view the book at Barnes and Noble.)

Featured Website Article:

Badges in Little Italy:
Petrosino's Italian Squad

"[Joseph] Petrosino’s assassination was by far the most significant event in the annals of New York’s Italian Squad. It became a historical fulcrum for the squad, serving as the dramatic climax of all that went before and casting a long, dark shadow on all that was to come."

Thomas Hunt looks at the history of the NYPD Italian Squad - its creation in 1905; its leaders, Petrosino, Antonio Vachris and Michael Fiaschetti; its stunning victories over Italian organized crime; and its demise.

Second Edition:

Deep Water: J.P. Macheca & the Birth of the American Mafia

Set in the Gilded Age of New Orleans, this historical biography conveys J.P. Macheca's epic life story, as it sets the record straight on the 1890 assassination of Police Chief David Hennessy and the 1891 Crescent City lynchings.

A longtime street warrior for the corrupt and ruthless New Orleans Democratic machine, Macheca was also the patron of the fledgling American Mafia in southern Louisiana. His underworld connections brought him into conflict with Hennessy and ultimately cost him his life in the largest lynching in American history.

Click for info on: Softcover version. Kindle version.