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Organized Crime

Crime

My Father, the Hitman

In my naive denial, I had wanted to see him as a hapless ne’er-do-well, a nonconformist with a streak of dishonesty. I liked to think of him as a latter-day Robin Hood. Now I knew that wasn’t true.

James Dolan D Magazine Oct 2021 20min Permalink

Crime Politics

The Murder Chicago Didn’t Want to Solve

In 1963, a Black politician named Ben Lewis was shot to death in Chicago. Clues suggest the murder was a professional hit. Decades later, it remains no accident authorities never solved the crime.

Mick Dumke ProPublica Feb 2021 30min Permalink

Crime Tech

The Network: How a Secretive Phone Company Helped the Crime World Go Dark

Vince Ramos wanted Phantom Secure to be the Uber of privacy-focused, luxury-branded phones—flood the market with devices, and sort out the law later. Then the FBI investigated him.

Joseph Cox Motherboard Oct 2020 35min Permalink

Reprints Crime

History of the Loomis Gang

In 1802, horse rustler George Washington Loomis rode into Oneida County and built a mansion adjacent to an impenetrable swamp perfect for storing thieved goods. It was the beginning of the saga of the largest organized crime family in 19th century America.

Amos Cummings New York Sun Jan 1877 45min Permalink

Best Article World

The Snakehead

Working from a tiny shop in Chinatown, Sister Ping brought in thousands of Chinese immigrants by boat, bringing in over $40 million. Then one of her ships ran aground.

Patrick Radden Keefe New Yorker Apr 2006 30min Permalink

Crime Sports

Name of the Father

His father was a notorious figure in Providence organized crime. Boxing offered a different path for Jarrod Tillinghast—but it didn’t stop him from slipping into his old ways and robbing drug dealers with his neighborhood friends.

Tim Struby Victory Journal Dec 2017 20min Permalink

Crime Sports

The Big League Prospect Who Became a Mob Hit Man

Maurice Lerner missed his shot at the majors and landed in the Rhode Island mafia.

Dan Barry New York Times Oct 2016 20min Permalink

Crime World

All Due Respect

An American reporter takes on the Yakuza.

Peter Hessler New Yorker Jan 2012 30min Permalink

Crime

The Gangsters on England's Doorstep

In bleak farmlands of East Anglia, the first wave of Eastern European migrants learned exploitation and extortion from their own experiences with day labor. Then they began to prey on fellow immigrants, luring in them into debt and then forcing them to commit crimes to pay it off.

Felicity Lawrence The Guardian May 2016 25min Permalink

Crime World

Bloom and Bust

They were florists working in Amsterdam’s largest flower market. They were also members of one of the most powerful arms of the Italian mafia. An investigation into how organized crime has gone global.

Steve Scherer Reuters Apr 2016 Permalink

Best Article Crime World

City of Fear

How PCC, once an inmate soccer team and now Brazil’s most notorious prison gang, coordinated seven days of riots throughout São Paulo using mobile phones.

William Langewiesche Vanity Fair Apr 2007 40min Permalink

Crime

Trial Offers Inside Look at the Fall of the Mafia

They were the New York crew that once pulled off the Lufthansa heist, one of the biggest thefts in American history and the basis for Goodfellas. Nearly 40 years later, most are dead. The survivors are old, broke, and snitching.

Stephanie Clifford New York Times Nov 2015 Permalink

Crime Media

The Selling of the Krays

A tale of British gangsters who were determined to be famous.

Duncan Campbell The Guardian Sep 2015 25min Permalink

Crime Tech

The Mob's IT Department

Two successful tech geeks slip into organized crime.

Jordan Robertson, Michael Riley Bloomberg Businessweek Jul 2015 20min Permalink

Business Crime World

Mastermind

Tracing Europe’s migrant crisis to organized crime.

Alex Perry, Connie Agius Newsweek Europe Jun 2015 25min Permalink

Crime Media

Who Killed the Gangster’s Daughter?

The life and mysterious death of writer Susan Berman.

Lisa DePaulo New York Dec 2001 25min Permalink

Arts Crime

My Life Under Armed Guard

Since exposing the Neapolitan mafia by publishing Gomorrah at age 27, Roberto Saviano has lived for nearly a decade under armed guard, shuttling between anonymous hotels and army barracks.

Roberto Saviano The Guardian Jan 2015 15min Permalink

Crime

Taking Down Armenian Power, California's Modern Mafia

How the feds went after Thick Neck, Guilty, Stomper, Gunner, Lucky, Menace, and the rest of the Amernian mob in Los Angeles.

Hayley Fox LA Weekly Jul 2014 15min Permalink

Crime World

The Ballad of Daniel Wolfe

On the rise of Indian Posse, the largest of Canada’s native gangs, and the fall of its leader.

Joe Friesen The Globe and Mail Jun 2011 45min Permalink

Best Article Reprints Crime

The Pink Panthers

From a Tokyo smash-and-grab to driving a car through the window of a Dubai jewelry shop, how a ragtag band of Balkan thieves set a new bar for audacious heists.

A member of the Pink Panthers, Milan Poparic, escaped from prison yesterday.

David Samuels New Yorker Apr 2010 1h5min Permalink

Crime

James ‘Whitey’ Bulger & Catherine Greig’s Story

From Southie to Santa Monica, a gangster romance on the run.

Kevin Cullen, Shelley Murphy The Boston Globe Feb 2013 20min Permalink

Crime Sports

Match-Fixing in Soccer

How Singaporean mobster Tan Seet Eng, aka Dan Tan, and a global network of fixers influenced as many 680 soccer matches at the highest levels.

Brian Phillips Grantland Feb 2013 10min Permalink

Crime World

In the New Gangland of El Salvador

How LA-style gang life migrated to the slums of San Salvador.

Alma Guillermoprieto New York Review of Books Oct 2011 15min Permalink

Brutal Haqqani Clan Bedevils U.S. in Afghanistan

The Haqqani family, an organized crime militia dubbed the “Sopranos of the Afghanistan war,” will almost surely outlast the U.S. occupation and thus seize tremendous power after the U.S. exits.

Alissa J. Rubin, Mark Mazzetti, Scott Shane New York Times Sep 2011 10min Permalink