Post by Admin on Mar 12, 2014 1:37:04 GMT
Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel had been at the helm of the Flamingo for only six months in June 1947 when he was killed in a hail of gunfire at his girlfriend’s Beverly Hills, Calif., home.
Siegel, a hit man and trusted associate of Charles “Lucky” Luciano, who organized the Mafia from New York into a national crime syndicate, had financed the Flamingo with the help of the mob’s money man, Meyer Lansky.
Historians believe the flamboyant Siegel may have been killed because he was stealing money from the casino operations.
Lansky brought in new underworld associates to run the Flamingo after Siegel’s death, and the resort became the model for a string of mob-backed joints, including the Thunderbird and Desert Inn, that later sprang up on the Strip.
The 1950s brought the onslaught of more mob-connected casinos on the Strip — the Sahara, Sands, Dunes, Riviera, Tropicana and Stardust.
Several were financed or refinanced with millions of dollars in loans from the mob-dominated Teamsters Central States Pension Fund.
Moe Dalitz, who was close to Teamsters Union President Jimmy Hoffa at the time, played an instrumental role in helping secure some of these loans and would become a pillar of Las Vegas society until his death in 1989, even once being named humanitarian of the year for his many philanthropic contributions. Dalitz cemented his ties to the community by building Sunrise Hospital and the Desert Inn Country Club. Hoffa’s disappearance in 1975 remains one of the country’s biggest mysteries.
By 1960, with the mob’s rise on the Strip, state gaming regulators created the notorious List of Excluded Persons, more commonly known as the Black Book of “undesirables” banned from casinos, to keep a closer eye on the mob. In the first wave of inductees, regulators placed the names of 11 underworld figures, including then-Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana and Kansas City crime lords Nick and Carl Civella, into the book.
Months later after President John F. Kennedy was elected, his younger brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy went on a crusade against the mob nationwide and sought to rid Las Vegas casinos of its influence.
Little came of Kennedy’s anti-mob campaign, and the casino industry continued to grow with financing from the Teamsters pension fund. Caesars Palace opened with Teamsters money in 1966 under the tutelage of casino visionary Jay Sarno. Two years later, Sarno opened Circus Circus.
In the late 1960s, billionaire recluse Howard Hughes did what Kennedy was unable to. Hughes changed the face of gaming when he bought the Desert Inn from its mob-connected owners and several other casinos on the Strip.
Hughes’ foray into Las Vegas led to corporate America’s push to take control of the casino industry from the mob.
By 1969, the Nevada Legislature passed a law easing the way for corporations to own casinos, and a year later, Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, giving the Justice Department more ammunition to fight the close-knit crime syndicates.
In 1971, the Chicago mob sent Anthony Spilotro to Las Vegas to take over loan-sharking and other street rackets from Marshall Caifano, one of the 11 original Black Book members.
Spilotro was also instructed to keep an eye on Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, a vocal longtime oddsmaker who was in charge of the crime family’s skimming operations at the Stardust and Fremont casinos. Money was being taken directly from count rooms and sent back by courier to mob bosses in Chicago, Kansas City, Milwaukee and Cleveland, right under the noses of Nevada gaming regulators.
The crime syndicates installed San Diego businessman Allen R. Glick at the helm of the Stardust and Fremont as a licensed frontman who secretly answered to Rosenthal and Spilotro. At the Tropicana, Joseph Agosto was given the job of entertainment director to quietly oversee skimming for the Kansas City mob.
Spilotro, a “made member” who rose through the Chicago mob’s ranks as an enforcer and hitman, ran his Las Vegas rackets from the gift shop of Circus Circus until authorities forced him out.
From there, he moved to the Gold Rush jewelry store on West Sahara Avenue near the Strip, where he became adept at fencing stolen jewelry with one of his top lieutenants and childhood chum, Herbie “Fat Herbie” Blitzstein.
Spilotro also ran a burglary ring, later dubbed the “Hole in the Wall Gang,” because of its practice of drilling holes through the walls and ceilings of the buildings it entered.
For years, Spilotro managed to stay out of prison, both in Las Vegas and Chicago, with the help of his loyal criminal defense lawyer, Oscar Goodman, who courted media relationships and became the outspoken “mouthpiece” for Spilotro and other mob figures in an ongoing war of words with lawmen.
But by 1981, federal authorities began making headway in their intensive investigation of Spilotro, the Chicago mob and other Midwest crime families suspected of skimming money from casinos.
Spilotro’s fencing operation had been broken up, and key members of the Hole in the Wall Gang were arrested by Las Vegas police in an undercover burglary sting at Bertha’s gift shop, then on West Sahara Avenue.
Months later, Frank Cullotta, a childhood Spilotro friend who was arrested with five others in the burglary, decided out of fear for his own life to cooperate with Las Vegas police and FBI agents.
Cullotta’s cooperation marked the decline of Spilotro’s reign on the streets.
In June 1986, as federal authorities kept up the pressure, the battered and bloodied bodies of Spilotro and his younger brother, Michael, were found buried in an Indiana cornfield. Years later, their killers, who acted under orders from mob bosses, would be convicted in Chicago.
By the time of Spilotro’s slaying, federal authorities had convicted a string of Midwest Mafia bosses for skimming money at the Stardust, Fremont and Tropicana casinos. Other mob figures had been convicted in Detroit and Las Vegas of wielding hidden influence at the Aladdin.
In 1997, Blitzstein was murdered in a plot by Buffalo and Los Angeles mobsters to take over his loan-sharking operation.
At the time, although not on the day of his death, FBI agents had been conducting surveillance of Blitzstein and other mobsters in what was regarded as the last big racketeering investigation of the Mafia in Las Vegas.
Cullotta, who is out of federal prison and witness protection, is doing his part these days to keep alive memories of organized crime in Las Vegas. He’s running a business that provides tours around town of old mob haunts.
Law enforcement authorities also have changed their priorities.
Siegel, a hit man and trusted associate of Charles “Lucky” Luciano, who organized the Mafia from New York into a national crime syndicate, had financed the Flamingo with the help of the mob’s money man, Meyer Lansky.
Historians believe the flamboyant Siegel may have been killed because he was stealing money from the casino operations.
Lansky brought in new underworld associates to run the Flamingo after Siegel’s death, and the resort became the model for a string of mob-backed joints, including the Thunderbird and Desert Inn, that later sprang up on the Strip.
The 1950s brought the onslaught of more mob-connected casinos on the Strip — the Sahara, Sands, Dunes, Riviera, Tropicana and Stardust.
Several were financed or refinanced with millions of dollars in loans from the mob-dominated Teamsters Central States Pension Fund.
Moe Dalitz, who was close to Teamsters Union President Jimmy Hoffa at the time, played an instrumental role in helping secure some of these loans and would become a pillar of Las Vegas society until his death in 1989, even once being named humanitarian of the year for his many philanthropic contributions. Dalitz cemented his ties to the community by building Sunrise Hospital and the Desert Inn Country Club. Hoffa’s disappearance in 1975 remains one of the country’s biggest mysteries.
By 1960, with the mob’s rise on the Strip, state gaming regulators created the notorious List of Excluded Persons, more commonly known as the Black Book of “undesirables” banned from casinos, to keep a closer eye on the mob. In the first wave of inductees, regulators placed the names of 11 underworld figures, including then-Chicago Mafia boss Sam Giancana and Kansas City crime lords Nick and Carl Civella, into the book.
Months later after President John F. Kennedy was elected, his younger brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy went on a crusade against the mob nationwide and sought to rid Las Vegas casinos of its influence.
Little came of Kennedy’s anti-mob campaign, and the casino industry continued to grow with financing from the Teamsters pension fund. Caesars Palace opened with Teamsters money in 1966 under the tutelage of casino visionary Jay Sarno. Two years later, Sarno opened Circus Circus.
In the late 1960s, billionaire recluse Howard Hughes did what Kennedy was unable to. Hughes changed the face of gaming when he bought the Desert Inn from its mob-connected owners and several other casinos on the Strip.
Hughes’ foray into Las Vegas led to corporate America’s push to take control of the casino industry from the mob.
By 1969, the Nevada Legislature passed a law easing the way for corporations to own casinos, and a year later, Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, giving the Justice Department more ammunition to fight the close-knit crime syndicates.
In 1971, the Chicago mob sent Anthony Spilotro to Las Vegas to take over loan-sharking and other street rackets from Marshall Caifano, one of the 11 original Black Book members.
Spilotro was also instructed to keep an eye on Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, a vocal longtime oddsmaker who was in charge of the crime family’s skimming operations at the Stardust and Fremont casinos. Money was being taken directly from count rooms and sent back by courier to mob bosses in Chicago, Kansas City, Milwaukee and Cleveland, right under the noses of Nevada gaming regulators.
The crime syndicates installed San Diego businessman Allen R. Glick at the helm of the Stardust and Fremont as a licensed frontman who secretly answered to Rosenthal and Spilotro. At the Tropicana, Joseph Agosto was given the job of entertainment director to quietly oversee skimming for the Kansas City mob.
Spilotro, a “made member” who rose through the Chicago mob’s ranks as an enforcer and hitman, ran his Las Vegas rackets from the gift shop of Circus Circus until authorities forced him out.
From there, he moved to the Gold Rush jewelry store on West Sahara Avenue near the Strip, where he became adept at fencing stolen jewelry with one of his top lieutenants and childhood chum, Herbie “Fat Herbie” Blitzstein.
Spilotro also ran a burglary ring, later dubbed the “Hole in the Wall Gang,” because of its practice of drilling holes through the walls and ceilings of the buildings it entered.
For years, Spilotro managed to stay out of prison, both in Las Vegas and Chicago, with the help of his loyal criminal defense lawyer, Oscar Goodman, who courted media relationships and became the outspoken “mouthpiece” for Spilotro and other mob figures in an ongoing war of words with lawmen.
But by 1981, federal authorities began making headway in their intensive investigation of Spilotro, the Chicago mob and other Midwest crime families suspected of skimming money from casinos.
Spilotro’s fencing operation had been broken up, and key members of the Hole in the Wall Gang were arrested by Las Vegas police in an undercover burglary sting at Bertha’s gift shop, then on West Sahara Avenue.
Months later, Frank Cullotta, a childhood Spilotro friend who was arrested with five others in the burglary, decided out of fear for his own life to cooperate with Las Vegas police and FBI agents.
Cullotta’s cooperation marked the decline of Spilotro’s reign on the streets.
In June 1986, as federal authorities kept up the pressure, the battered and bloodied bodies of Spilotro and his younger brother, Michael, were found buried in an Indiana cornfield. Years later, their killers, who acted under orders from mob bosses, would be convicted in Chicago.
By the time of Spilotro’s slaying, federal authorities had convicted a string of Midwest Mafia bosses for skimming money at the Stardust, Fremont and Tropicana casinos. Other mob figures had been convicted in Detroit and Las Vegas of wielding hidden influence at the Aladdin.
In 1997, Blitzstein was murdered in a plot by Buffalo and Los Angeles mobsters to take over his loan-sharking operation.
At the time, although not on the day of his death, FBI agents had been conducting surveillance of Blitzstein and other mobsters in what was regarded as the last big racketeering investigation of the Mafia in Las Vegas.
Cullotta, who is out of federal prison and witness protection, is doing his part these days to keep alive memories of organized crime in Las Vegas. He’s running a business that provides tours around town of old mob haunts.
Law enforcement authorities also have changed their priorities.