Detroit Underboss Among Latest to Tell Hoffa's Fate

Hoffa theories abound once again, it seems. I have a feeling they are going to find the guy eventually. Now that the generation of Mafiosi that whacked the former Teamsters boss are dying off someone is going to say something that is not bullshit...

Detroit Free Press: A man the FBI believed was a Detroit mob underboss is the latest to claim he can solve the mystery behind the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa.

Tony Zerilli, 85, told WDIV-TV in Detroit that Hoffa, 62, was temporarily buried in a field in northern Oakland County, Mich., after he was kidnapped on the afternoon of July 30, 1975, from a restaurant parking lot in Oakland County. Hoffa's body has never been found and his disappearance sparked one of the 20th century's biggest mysteries.

Zerilli, who denied during the interview that he was in the mob, said he was in jail at the time, but heard about the incident after he was released. He said he believes Hoffa's body is still buried 30 miles away from the restaurant, and that he's talked to the FBI about it.

"The master plan was, as I understood, they were going to put him in a shallow grave here, and they were going to take him from here to Rogers City, upstate, where there was a hunting lodge," Zerilli said during the interview. "That just fell through."

Simon Shaykhet, spokesman for the FBI's Detroit office, said the agency has no comment on the claims.




Andy Arena, who retired as director of the FBI's Detroit office in May, said he would investigate Zerilli's claims were he still with the agency.

"Anthony Zerilli was reputed to be the underboss of the Detroit organized crime family, so he would have been in the know," said Arena, who now leads the Detroit Crime Commission, a year-old nonprofit group made up of former law enforcement officers and analysts who investigate criminal activity and quality of life issues in metro Detroit. "In my opinion, he would have known what happened."

The FBI has theorized that Hoffa disappeared after going to the restaurant for a reconciliation meeting with Anthony (Tony Pro) Provenzano, a mob-connected New Jersey Teamster official, and Anthony (Tony Jack) Giacalone, a Detroit mafia captain.

The FBI believed that Provenzano and Giacalone had Hoffa killed to prevent him from regaining the Teamsters presidency and ending the mob's influence over the union and easy access to Teamster pension funds. Hoffa ran the union in 1957-71.

Various theories - and numerous books and interviews - surmise that Hoffa's body was either burned in an incinerator or buried....


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Comments

  1. all the defenders of the rights of the weak people of usa and every country in the world, is named as a criminal by de north-america press and government. The funny thing that would be embaressed for me if i were from usa is that the people bought every story they hear, but thats just the history of united states jaja yankis

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