True Organized Crime

In this unprecedented deep dive into inner-city gang life, Mark Bowden takes listeners inside a Baltimore gang, offers an in-depth portrait of its notorious leader, and chronicles the 2016 FBI investigation that landed eight gang members in prison.

More than any other sport, boxing has a history of being easy to rig. There are only two athletes and one or both may be induced to accept a bribe; if not the fighters, then the judges or referee might be swayed. In such inviting circumstances, the mob moved into boxing in the 1930s and profited by corrupting a sport ripe for exploitation. In Boxing and the Mob: The Notorious History of the Sweet Science, Jeffrey Sussman tells the story of the coercive and criminal underside of boxing, covering nearly the entire 20th century.

Revenge killings, gangland shootouts, brutal executions and drownings - there was no escape from the Mob's hitmen. Mafia Murders details the bloody ends of these infamous gangsters. Since the late 19th century, the Mafia has used intimidation and worse to exert its control over organized crime. Mafia Murders recalls the 100 most important executions by the Mob. In a world where family, turf wars and crime were big business, the relentless murders of rival bosses, stool pigeons, snitches, good cops, and dirty cops became part of everyday life.

Cocaine Cowboys tells the story of Ireland's love affair with cocaine since it first washed ashore on Cork's rugged coast to the billion-euro trade it has become. From Ireland's first cocaine lord and his attempts to establish a direct route from Miami to Dublin, to the modern-day violence that led to the brutal dismemberment of teenager Keane Mulready Woods, the book will follow the stories and the increasing chaos that has engulfed those desperate for a slice of this modern day gold rush.

Pablo Escobar was a mama’s boy who cherished his family and sang in the shower, yet he bombed a passenger plane and formed a death squad that used genital electrocution. Most Escobar biographies only provide a few pieces of the puzzle, but this action-packed audiobook reveals everything about the king of cocaine.

As co-founder and CEO of Dark Watch, author Noel Thomas has led United States law enforcement and the judicial system into the new battleground, where high-tech data analysis is changing how criminals are caught and prosecuted. Dark Traffic arrives on a new wave of media attention and actions at the federal, state, and local government levels, and informs listeners how they can play a role in identifying and helping stop trafficking that occurs in their own neighborhood. Noel’s story of how he became aware of the issue is proof.

Hello, Shadowlands takes a deep plunge into crime rings both large and small. It also examines how China’s rise and America’s decline are creating new opportunities for transnational syndicates to thrive. Focusing on human stories on both sides of this crime wave, the acclaimed Bangkok-based broadcaster and journalist Patrick Winn intimately profiles the men and women of the region who are forced to make agonizing choices in the absence of law.

John Gilligan is no altar boy, by his own admission. One of Ireland's most infamous criminals and drug lords, and widely believed in the court of public opinion to have ordered the cold-blooded murder of crime reporter Veronica Guerin, he remains a defiant figure. In this remarkable book—the first of its kind—journalist Jason O'Toole distills hours of sensational face-to-face, no-holds-barred interviews with the feared criminal into a fast-paced and jaw-dropping account of the Irish gangland scene.

Irish mafia from the streets of Dublin to the highest echelons of global organised crime and right into the heart of professional boxing. When a weigh-in turns into a gangland bloodbath, the tables begin to turn on the powerful Kinahan Organised Crime Group. But is it too late to tame the beast or can the law finally catch up with the mob? With a unique insight into the rise of mob and its reach into boxing through a tapestry of confidential informants and some too-close-for-comfort experiences, Tallant brings to life one of the most extraordinary stories in modern organised crime.

Brought up in the East End of London, son of a policeman, John was already dabbling in crime by his early teens, ending up in a young offenders institute and then a borstal. He'd left home at 15, and the only occupation he knew was theft. He landed a job doing security at concerts for stars such as Simply Red, Queen, and Bruce Springsteen, and was lured deeper into the world of drugs and crime. By his 20s, he was well-acquainted with the capitals criminal underworld.

In the early 2000s, Dave Gunn and his brother Colin built the Bestwood Cartel, a multi-million-pound empire based on drugs, extortion and violent crime during a time when Nottingham was labelled Britain's gun crime capital. Much has been written about the Gunn Brothers in the media and books such as Hoods, but no gang leader has ever detailed the real-life warfare in Nottingham in the early 2000s. In Bestwood Boss, Dave Gunn sets the record straight with the first ever insider’s account of what led to the blood-soaked ganglands.

As head of the Bonanno clan, Joey Massino was the last don, and ran his world with an iron hand - until he got hit with a murder rap, and turned on his own people. Here, for the first time, is his shocking true story - a glimpse inside the world of organized crime that we may never see again.

In 2003, local Genovese family captain "Big Al" Bruno got shot five times with a .45 caliber handgun as he walked out of the Our Lady of Mount Carmel social club in Springfield, Massachusetts. Since Vito Genovese took his empire north from New York City, a string of mobsters dating back a hundred years have operated in the Greater Springfield area. With this migration came murders, mayhem, treachery, criminal trials, and constant corruption.

In September 2011, Erik Weissman and two friends were murdered in a brutal triple homicide in Waltham, Massachusetts. The case went unsolved for months and then years, with no discernible leads. Erik’s friend Susan Zalkind, an investigative journalist, needed closure and knew that finding it would be up to her. As Susan began digging, and as the Boston Marathon bombing exposed startling new leads, the case led her down a tangled and sometimes dangerous path to the truth.

Joe Barboza knew that there were two requirements for getting inducted into the Mafia. You had to be Sicilian. And you had to commit a contract killing. The New Bedford-born mobster was a proud Portuguese, not Sicilian, but his dream to be part of La Cosa Nostra proved so strong that he thought he could create a loophole. Barboza’s legacy, buried for years thanks to the murders or deaths of its participants, is finally coming to light and being told in its unvarnished brutality by one of America’s most respected true crime writers.

Considered by Ty Cobb as the "finest natural hitter in the history of the game," "Shoeless Joe" Jackson is ranked with the greatest players to ever step onto a baseball diamond. With a career .356 batting average - which is still ranked third all-time - the man from Pickens County, South Carolina, was on his way to becoming one of the greatest players in the sport's history. That is until the "Black Sox" scandal of 1919, which shook baseball to its core.

The Mafia at War reconstructs the relationships between the Mafia and Allied intelligence organizations.

Discover how Jewish gangsters clashed with Nazis on the streets of New York; how Mafiosi nearly issued contracts to kill top Nazis, including Hitler; how Mafia-backed bandits conducted a guerrilla war for Sicilian independence; and how Eisenhower was happy to arm the Mafia during the Allied invasion of Sicily.

Widely known in the criminal underworld as the 'Black Widow', Linda Calvey spent the first half of her life running with the UK's top gangsters, robbing banks and rubbing shoulders with the Kray twins. That is, until, in 1990, her lover Robbie Cook was murdered at point-blank, and she found herself falsely convicted. Linda was sent away for decades, and would go on to become Britain's longest-serving female prisoner. This is her story of life inside, and how she learnt to survive the many years she spent behind bars.

Buffalo has housed its fair share of thugs and mobsters. Besides common criminals and bank robbers, a powerful crime family headed by local boss Stefano Magaddino emerged in the 1920s. Close to Canada, Niagara Falls and Buffalo were perfect avenues through which to transport booze, and Magaddino and his Mafiosi maintained a stranglehold on the city until his death in 1974. Local mob expert Michael Rizzo takes a tour of Buffalo's mafia exploits everything from these brutal gangsters' favorite hangouts to secret underground tunnels to murder.

June 20, 1991. A five-man hit team waited in a car outside the Long Island home of Victor Orena, the acting crime boss of the Colombo crime family. Orena recognized the vehicle—and managed to escape with his life. Over the next year, more shots would be fired in what would become the last major mob war in New York's crime-soaked history—and one of the bloodiest. The war ended with Orena's 1992 arrest and conviction for racketeering.