Cosa Nostra News

Since the dawn of organized crime in the US, gangsters have been making fortunes by capitalizing on our love of betting; whether by taking a piece of the winnings or lending the dough to place the bet, they have numerous ways to earn off our vice. John Alite, legitimate businessman Now former Gambino associate John Alite is attempting a first with Alite Sports, his new sports consulting firm , which offers guidance on sports betting, among other things. It's also one of several things John Alite has going on in 2020. His new book, Darkest Hour 2: Through the Eyes of the Barrel, will be out in March, and he'll appear in a new Netflix series to break this winter. And a couple of other things we're holding back for separate stories. Launched via a partnership between John and Peter Black, Alite Sports offers intelligence on who to bet on and how. The firm also offer tips on managing your money to minimize your losses. Unlike other websites offering similar services...

In 1988, years before his wife became (something of) a household name and his father's first cousin became the mayor of New York City, Lee D'Avanzo was part of a crew of wannabe wiseguys who raked in the cash via drug dealing, loansharking, money laundering, home invasions, and up to 30 attempted or successful bank burglaries. Members of one of Staten Island's many gangs in the 1980s. By December 2001, when 11 members of the New Springville Boys were indicted for terrorizing Staten Island and committing crimes up and down the East Coast, the indictment identified D'Avanzo as the head of the ragtag crew. Some other names identified in the indictment: Neat (Ned the Head) Bilali, Robert Catanese, Francis Costanzo, William (Big Billy) Fauci, and Edward Shamah. Between 1988 and 2000, crew members schemed to burglarize over 30 night-deposit boxes at banks in seven states: One string of heists in Washington state in 1998 netted the gang $240,000, court papers say. T...

In a New York Times editorial, the stepson of Chuckie O'Brien — the foster son of Jimmy Hoffa — calls The Irishman "by far the greatest depiction of the false charge against my stepfather." ... "My 86-year-old stepfather ... for more than half his life, 44 years ... has watched himself portrayed in news articles, books and motion pictures — most recently, in Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” — as someone he is not. The effect on his life has been devastating." If you haven't watched The Irishman , watch it... What’s that? Did Frank Sheeran really kill Jimmy Hoffa (and Joe Gallo, etc.)? How about we put that aside for a sec -- this interest in solving murders. Let's take our Sherlock Holmes hats-- the deerstalkers -- off. If you want to learn about the Hoffa murder, we'll send you a list of books. Here's a secret: Martin Scorsese doesn't give a rat's ass who killed James Riddle Hoffa. And Crazy Joey Gallo (and JFK, m...

Tough Guys Don't Dance, Norman Mailer's 1984 homage to the hard-boiled artwork of authors like Dashiell Hammett and Mickey Spillane, gets its title from an anecdote about mob boss Frank Costello that someone once told the legendary American author. One of our favorites, the novel also is one of the more accessible works by Mailer, which doesn't necessarily mean it's easy reading. Tough Guys Don't Dance is a brilliant, stunning, hypnotic work that gets deeply inside your head. It grows even more astonishing when you learn how quickly Mailer banged the novel out, and for what reasons. Mailer, who died in 2007, supposedly wrote the book because "economic problems were pressing." He needed to either come up with a book for his publisher in sixty days, or he'd need to repay a huge amount of money that he didn't have. Set in Provincetown on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, Tough Guys Don't Dance tells the story of Timothy Madden, a frustrated w...