Tag: mafia

Beatles manager Brian Epstein was murdered by US mafia, Reggie Kray claimed in newly unearthed interview

Reggie Kray has claimed that Brian Epstein was murdered on the orders of the American mafia, according to an unearthed prison interview revealed in a new book.

Epstein, the influential manager of The Beatles, was found dead at his Belgravia home in 1967.

At the time, a pathologist concluded he had accidentally overdosed on Carbrital, a sedative prescribed to treat his insomnia. 

However, Beatles biographer Philip Norman’s new book suggests the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death may not be as straightforward as originally believed.

It raises the possibility that his death could have been connected to a failed US merchandising arrangement, which left several American businesses facing serious financial losses.

In a 1985 interview conducted at Parkhurst prison by Liverpool Echo journalist Peter Trollope, Kray gave a striking account of Epstein’s death. 

‘It’s easy to kill someone and make it look like an overdose,’ he said.

The Kray twins, notorious figures in London’s criminal underworld, also claimed they had planned to blackmail Epstein using compromising photographs taken at parties they hosted in the 1960s.

At the time, homosexuality was illegal in Britain.   

‘We were just going to blackmail Epstein over the photographs, but then he goes and dies,’ Kray said.

He added that organised crime groups could act indirectly through established British criminals: ‘For us, the Mob were always in the background. They knew that if they wanted anything done in England, they could do it through the Krays. But it [Epstein] wasn’t us.’

Norman writes in his book, Mr Moonlight: Brian Epstein and the Making of the Beatles, that Kray appeared to suggest Epstein may have been targeted by the American mafia, rather than his own gang.

‘This ultimate insider in British organised crime seemingly knew for certain that Brian had been murdered, albeit not by his own ‘Firm’… but, he’d hinted, by the American mafia to which the Firm had been fraternally linked,’ Norman wrote.

The book also details how Epstein became embroiled in a controversial US merchandising deal connected to the Beatles band.

According to Norman, Epstein licensed a group of New York entrepreneurs to produce official merchandise, but the agreement was heavily weighted against him and the band, who reportedly received just 10 per cent of profits.

As the arrangement unravelled, Epstein is said to have attempted to renegotiate more favourable deals from London.

The confusion allegedly led major US retailers, including Macy’s and JCPenney, to cancel orders, leaving some small manufacturers financially exposed.

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DNA test uncovers kidnapping, mob, police corruption

A Henderson man named Paul Fronczak had no idea that his entire life would be turned upside down when he bought a home DNA test kit. The results of that test took away his name, his family, and everything he knew about his life to that point.

It also opened up a multi-layered rabbit hole involving an infamous kidnapping, police corruption, the mob, and dark secrets buried for six decades.

8 News Now chief investigator George Knapp has followed this very twisted tale for decades and pushed to get answers to mysteries long thought unsolvable.

Paul Fronczak’s quest started with a single objective: find a kidnapped baby

This then exploded into a Byzantine maze of twists and subplots, too improbable even for a true crime miniseries. In the 14 years since he first contacted us for help, he’s dug up solid answers, but each answer led to more head-spinning questions. He still uses the name Paul Fronczak, but after years of searching, he sometimes feels as if he’s been living someone else’s life.

The initial mystery started at a Chicago hospital in 1964.  One day after the birth of Paul Fronczak, a woman dressed as a nurse kidnapped the baby and vanished. Police, the public, and the FBI conducted a massive manhunt. The story made international headlines, but the baby was gone.

Nearly two years later, an infant found abandoned on a sidewalk in New Jersey was presented by law enforcement to the brokenhearted Fronczak parents, who took one look and said that’s their missing boy.

The child grew up in a loving home but had nagging questions about why he looked so different from the rest of the Fronczak family.  

Fast forward to 2012, the adopted Paul Fronczak was living in Henderson and, almost as a lark, took a DNA test along with his parents. The test showed he was not the Fronczaks’ son and was not the kidnapped baby.

So who was he, and what happened to his namesake? That was the start of his quest, despite the official investigation from the FBI ending decades ago.

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Insane Mafia-Linked NBA Gambling Scandal Erupts; Terry Rozier, Chauncey Billups Arrested Among Dozens Of Alleged Riggers

Over 30 people have been indicted after an FBI investigation uncovered an explosive gambling scandal rocking the NBA. 

Legendary Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former NBA player Damon Jones were all arrested as part of the investigation into illegal gambling operations that included x-ray tables that read cards, special contact lenses, rigged shuffling machines and more – swindling people out of ‘tens of millions of dollars.’

Billups was charged in connection with an illegal poker operation tied to ‘la costa nostra,’ according to the FBI, while Rozier allegedly manipulated his performance during an NBA game to sway betting results. 

According to the NY Post:

Rozier is one of the six defendants in the NBA-related investigation, each of whom was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, per Nocella.

His specific allegations tie back to a March 23, 2023 contest against the Pelicans when Rozier exited after playing the first 9:36 and did not return due to a foot issue in what would be his final tilt of the season.

He tallied five points, four rebounds, two assists and one steal in that time, and one X user posted at the time how they allegedly had been tipped off that Rozier would exit early.

That knowledge would affect prop betting, where gamblers bet on a player’s statistics for a game.

An “unexpected” amount of bets came in on Rozier’s Under for that game, per ESPN, which resulted in some sportsbooks preventing further wagers on his prop lines.

The NBA investigated the issue and did not punish Rozier.

In a Thursday statement, the NBA announced that Rozier and Billups were being place on immediate leave.

“We are in the process of reviewing the federal indictments announced today.  Terry Rozier and Chauncey Billups are being placed on immediate leave from their teams, and we will continue to cooperate with the relevant authorities.  We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority.”

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Italy’s anti-Mafia police investigate after a journalist’s car explodes

A car belonging to one of Italy’s leading investigative journalists exploded outside his home overnight, prompting an investigation by Italy’s anti-Mafia authorities and condemnation Friday from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and others. No one was injured.

The explosion late Thursday targeting Sigfrido Ranucci, lead anchor of state-run RAI3’s Report investigative series, occurred on the eighth anniversary of the car bomb slaying of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.

The investigative program said the explosion was so powerful that it could have killed anyone passing by. Ranucci had just returned home at the time and his daughter had walked by a half-hour before, Report said in a statement. The blast destroyed the car, damaged another family car next to it, as well as the front gate of Ranucci’s home in Pomezia, south of Rome.

Police, firefighters and forensic crews reported to the scene and magistrates from the Rome district of the anti-Mafia police were investigating, Report said. Video shot by Ranucci, who has been under police protection since 2021 because of his hard-hitting investigations, showed the mangled remains of the cars and gate.

Meloni expressed her solidarity with Ranucci and condemned what she called “the serious act of intimidation he has suffered.”

“Freedom and independence of information are essential values of our democracies, which we will continue to defend,” she said in a statement.

In comments to journalists outside the offices of RAI, Ranucci said the explosion was an “escalation” of what he said were two years of threats that he believed were related to Report’s investigations into the links between the Cosa Nostra, ‘ndrangheta and far-right crime groups and notable past Mafia hits.

Asked if the explosion would have a chilling effect on Report’s work, he said his colleagues were used to working under difficult conditions.

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Slain Journalist Was on Threshold of Exposing Large-Scale CIA-Mafia Drug-Smuggling Operation Using Australian Bank Founded by Special Forces Veteran

n August 10, 1991, Danny Casolaro was found lying dead in a tub of bloody water in a hotel room in Martinsburg, West Virginia.

The cause of death was ruled a suicide, the view presented in a recent Emmy winning Netflix series. However, the crime scene evidence makes clear that Casolaro was murdered.

Prior to his death, Casolaro had been investigating the nefarious activities of a corrupt cabal in the CIA linked to then-President George H.W. Bush and was planning to publish a tell-all book called “The Octopus.”

One of the key chapters was going to focus on a drug and arms-smuggling operation using the Australian-based Nugan Hand Bank, which was founded in 1973 and staffed by people with military backgrounds and who had links at a high level with American intelligence operations.[1]

Nugan Hand made its money by charging high fees for performing illegal and shady services (including moving money overseas, flouting Australia’s and other countries’ laws, and tax avoidance schemes) and from the fraudulent procurement and subsequent misappropriation of investments from the public.[2]

CIA whistleblower Victor Marchetti wrote that Nugan Hand’s favors for the CIA included providing cover for operators, laundering money, and establishing cutouts for clandestine activity the Agency did not want to be publicly identified with—including gun running to apartheid South Africa and Southern Rhodesia in violation of arms embargos.[3]

Casolaro had been planning a trip to Australia to interview key figures associated with the bank, including Bernie Houghton, a top CIA man from Texas who joined Nugan Hand’s staff in 1978 and established its Saudi Arabian branch.[4]

An Air Force cadet in World War II who flew opium out of the Golden Triangle in C-47 cargo planes during the Vietnam War, Houghton had established the Bourbon & Beefsteak, a gathering place for U.S. soldiers on R&R from Vietnam, whose private guests included Sydney mob boss Abe Saffron and John D. Walker, the CIA’s Australian Station Chief from 1973 to 1975.[5]

Besides Houghton, Casolaro hoped to interview members of an Australian parliamentary commission that had investigated the Nugan Hand Bank and helped expose its criminal activities. Casolaro further intended to interview Nugan Hand Bank co-founder Michael Jon Hand, a decorated Green Beret in Vietnam and CIA contract agent who trained hill tribesmen in Vietnam and Laos and fled Australia after the Nugan Hand Bank’s collapse in January 1980.[6]

Already, Casolaro had amassed significant evidence of Nugan Hand’s function as a beachhead for drug and money-laundering operations run by Mafia-connected CIA operatives who were part of President George H.W. Bush’s “secret team.”

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FBI digs up two upstate NY horse farms for bodies possibly buried by Gambino crime family members – one week after huge extortion ring linked to garbage trucks was exposed

The FBI is digging up two horse farms in upstate New York as it searches for bodies potentially buried by the notorious Gambino mob crime family.

Federal authorities have turned their attention to the properties in Orange County amid an ongoing investigation into the crime syndicate.

They used shovels and diggers to comb the farm in Campbell Hall on Tuesday and one in Goshen on Wednesday.

It comes after ten people with connections to the Gambino organization were arrested on a slew of racketeering charges last week.

No bodies were found during the search on Wednesday, a source confirmed to NBC New York, however it is scheduled to resume on Thursday.

The FBI declined to reveal who they believe could be buried at the farms, which list a Giovanni DiLorenzo as the property owner, the outlet reports.

Salvatore DiLorenzo was named as among the ten alleged Gambino members on an explosive 16-page indictment which claimed the Sicilian syndicate used violence and intimidation to try and dominate New York’s garbage hauling and demolition businesses.

Others charged were Vito Rappa, 46, and Francesco Vicari, 46 – who is known as ‘Uncle Ciccio.’ 

Vincent Minsquero, 36, known as ‘Vinny Slick,’ Kyle Johnson, 46, known as ‘Twin,’ and Angelo Gradilone, 57, known as ‘Fifi,’ were also arrested. 

The alleged captain of the Gambino crime ring – 52-year-old Joseph Lanni – was also charged with the slew of federal crimes. He is known by nicknames ‘Joe Brooklyn,’ and ‘Mommino.’

Diego ‘Danny’ Tantillo, James LaForte and Robert Brooke were also charged.

The infamous Italian-American crime syndicate made up one of the ‘Five Families’ known for their racketeering, gambling and loansharking. 

The defendants now variously face maximum sentences between 20 and 180 years’ imprisonment if convicted. 

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Democrat Senator Bob Menendez and his wife are indicted for ‘accepting $400,000 in gold bars from mob-linked New Jersey developer in return for favors – and giving Egyptian businessman highly sensitive U.S. information’

Democratic Senator Bob Menendez and his wife Nadine Arslanian have been indicted by a federal grand jury over corruption allegations in an investigation that focused on a luxury car, $400,000 in gold bars and an apartment allegedly received by Menendez and his wife.

The indictment claims the couple had an improper relationship with three New Jersey businessmen: Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes, who allegedly paid the couple in exchange for Menendez to use his influence in Washington D.C. to their benefit.

The probe also looked at other bribes allegedly paid to the couple. A June 2022 raid on their home found ‘over $480,000 in cash – much of it stuffed into envelopes and hidden in clothing, closets, and a safe,’ the indictment notes, adding Nadine had over $70,000 in a safe deposit box. 

The indictment accuses Menendez and his wife of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes in exchange for using the senator’s influence to protect and enrich the businessmen.

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Bodies surfacing in Lake Mead recall mob’s time in Las Vegas

Las Vegas is being flooded with lore about organized crime after a second set of human remains emerged within a week from the depths of a drought-stricken Colorado River reservoir just a 30-minute drive from the notoriously mob-founded Strip.

“There’s no telling what we’ll find in Lake Mead,” former Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said Monday. “It’s not a bad place to dump a body.”

Goodman, as a lawyer, represented mob figures including the ill-fated Anthony “Tony the Ant” Spilotro before serving three terms as a martini-toting mayor making public appearances with a showgirl on each arm.

He declined to name names about who might turn up in the vast reservoir formed by Hoover Dam between Nevada and Arizona.

“I’m relatively sure it was not Jimmy Hoffa,” he laughed. But he added that a lot of his former clients seemed interested in “climate control” — mob speak for keeping the lake level up and bodies down in their watery graves.

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A 17-Year-Old Was Kidnapped In 1966 And Never Seen Again. His Friends Solved The Crime.

Today, the story of 17-year-old Danny Goldman’s disappearance sounds like the farfetched plot of a movie, but in 1966, it really happened.

On March 28, 1966, a large man with a limp broke into Aaron and Sally Goldman’s home in Surfside, Florida, using an unlocked sliding glass door, People reported. The man wore a hat and pointed a gun at the family, demanding $10,000 in cash and using the couples’ first names. As People noted, $10,000 in 1966 is equivalent to nearly $90,000 today, and the Goldman’s said they didn’t have that much lying around.

The intruder said he’d take a hostage – their son Danny.

“I’m going to hold Danny for security,” he allegedly told the family before increasing his demand to $25,000. He allegedly told them he would call that day at 6 p.m. with more instructions, but he never did. And Danny was never seen again.

Danny’s childhood friend David Graubart told People that at the time he and others “thought he’d be back in two or three days somehow, with this crazy story to tell.”

But that didn’t happen.

Aaron Goldman died in 2010. Sally died two years later. They never found out what happened to their son.

Graubart, his younger brother Joe, and several other friends including Paul Novack soon began spending their own time and resources to find out what happened to their childhood friend – and the truth is wild.

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JFK’s ties to the mob fueled conspiracy theories about his assassination

November 22, 2020 marks one of the darkest anniversaries in American history – the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Among the many conspiracy theories surrounding the murder, only one suspect was ever prosecuted, an act that destroyed many lives.

In the 57 years since that day in Dallas, the ties between JFK and the American mob have been well documented. Along with Dallas, Miami and Las Vegas played roles in the storyline that has emerged over the years.

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