Mafia Miami

No other investigation across his entire FBI career would ever match the level of intensity, excitement, suspense, and drama of operation “Paesan Blues”—this book is the inside look at that undercover investigation centered on an Italian mafioso and his associates in Miami and Italy.

Ron Chepesiuk presents a comprehensive and engrossing chronicle of gang and gangster history in Miami, also known as the Magic City. The book traces gangsters that include the notorious smugglers of the Prohibition era, famous mobsters like Al Capone and Meyer Lansky, the Cuban Mafia, the Colombian cartels, the Russian Mafia and the current street gangs that have come to plague Miami since the advent of crack cocaine.

While other cities are credited for birthing and honing the legendary crime figures who inevitably influenced and shaped their susceptible surroundings and culture, Miami is where the Mob, like many American citizens, often turned when seeking vacation, vice, or a new beginning. Dating back to the first quarter of the 20th century, resourceful gangsters from across the nation recognized the profitable business opportunities Miami could provide with its booming population, perfect year-round climate, cooperative law enforcement, and mutual understanding among otherwise rival gangs. The promise of an open city, free from familiar encumbrances and restrictions, prompted eager mobsters from around the country to migrate south and trade in their suits and fedoras for swim trunks and flip-flops. Organized Crime in Miami examines the considerable yet heavily underpublicized involvement of the American Mafia in South Florida and its lasting impact on the community through their business activities, both illegal and within the confines of the law.

Everyone knows stories about the American Mafia and its varied forms of crime, from racketeering to stock manipulation to murder. American Mafia: Chicago explores the Windy City, strolling through its neighborhoods and imagining scenes from the past—telling the stories of the men, women, and families and revealing the events behind the legends and the history of the families' beginnings and founding members. Featuring the most fascinating stories from the early days, when loosely-organized, incredibly secretive gangs terrorized neighborhoods with names like Little Hell, through the mob’s headiest years, when Al Capone and his men pretty well controlled the city, American Mafia: Chicago offers tantalizing glimpses into the era when Chicago was ruled by gangs with their ever-twisting allegiances and tangled webs of relationships. Most of the buildings are gone now. But the stories are still there, if you know where to look.

FROM CYNICISM TO HEROISM Xavier Thorn, his wife killed, stripped his life down to the essentials he needed to strike at the Mafia an angry cynicism that he yearned to turn to heroism and courage, along with an arsenal of weapons and explosives and the vision of a one-man crusade for justice that he saw nowhere in a thoroughly corrupt society. But he didnt reckon on confronting two mysterious women,profane Chelsea and angelic Columbine. The trio embarks on a stormy and erotic on-the-road adventure with plot twists and turns that keep the reader guessing. After a surprising and outrageously comic attack on a New Orleans Mafia Don, ensuing confrontations with Mafioso enforcers and a vicious motorcycle gang dispatched to kill them all test their mettle and their commitments to one another.

With trenchant observations and witty prose, T. D. Allman takes readers on a tour of Miami's people, cultures, politics, and neighborhoods. In doing so he lays out a portrait of the profound changes overtaking American life everywhere. This twenty-fifth-anniversary edition remains a classic guide to a city teeming with money, exotic cargo, illegal drugs, and immigrants from all corners of the globe. As readers of this long-time bestseller have always appreciated, this also is a prophetic book--describing an emerging new America that, today, is all around us, whatever city or suburb or gated community we call home.

Read Along or Enhanced eBook: Each Origins: Whodunnit: Organized Crime eShort is a single chapter from the full Origins: Whodunnit: Organized Crime title, packaged as a mini eBook. Origins: Whodunnit: Organized Crime eShorts include The Red Mafia, Triads, The Japanese Yakuza, and The Italian Mafia.

“The authors reveal how the Cuban success story has transformed the character of Miami while delineating more sharply the identity of other ethnic communities.” —New York Times Book Review “Makes a case for the importance of political capital . . . in building ethnic solidarity.”—Contemporary Sociology