True Organized Crime

In Harlem’s tumultuous history, there are many tragedies. For those growing up in this part of New York City, a young man known simply as Fritz from West 112th Street became an urban legend in Harlem. In the 1970s, Richard “Fritz” Simmons is introduced to the drug trade by an associate of the Lucchese crime family, one of the five families of La Cosa Nostra (the Mafia). After negotiating a deal with the Medellín Cartel, Fritz becomes New York’s Cocaine Consignment King. Harlem Holiday brings her inside scoop after almost three decades of silence.

For fans of the Netflix show Narcos and readers of true crime, Kilo is a deeply reported account of life inside Colombia’s drug cartels, using unprecedented access in the cartels to trace a kilo of cocaine - from the fields where it is farmed, to the hit men who protect it, to the smuggling ships that bring it to American shores.

Carlos Lehder es mundialmente famoso por haber sido uno de los fundadores y principales capos del cartel de Medellín, tal vez el más singular del grupo, y el primero de ellos en ser extraditado a los Estados Unidos, en 1987, luego de ser traicionado por Pablo Escobar Gaviria, su socio y cabecilla indiscutible del cartel. Lehder fue sentenciado a cadena perpetua y 135 años adicionales, que logró reducir por su colaboración en el juicio de Estados Unidos contra el dictador panameño Manuel Antonio Noriega.

Nicknamed "The Squirrel" for his elusiveness, Thrasher was a daredevil pilot who made millions flying marijuana and cocaine from South America into the US in the '70s and '80s. With his beautiful Portuguese-born wife, Olga, he lived in a mountain estate near Virginia's New River Valley. He owned oceanfront homes and yachts in Florida, spent weekends in the Caribbean, and laundered money in Las Vegas, where he partied with Frank Sinatra's entourage.

¿Qué tiene que ver el asesinato de tres mujeres y seis niños, a mitad del desierto, con la disputa por la riqueza minera de un país? En apariencia nada, si eso no hubiese ocurrido en México… La riqueza minera mexicana se encuentra intrínsecamente ligada a la violencia. En las últimas décadas, cientos de mineras han aplicado un modelo de despojo de tierras y desplazamiento de poblaciones donde existen altos intereses extractivos, muchas veces apoyadas por el crimen organizado.

Conducted under the umbrella of Project Gunrunner, intended to stem the flow of firearms to Mexico, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) ran a series of “gun walking” sting operations, including Operations Wide Receiver and Operation Fast & Furious. The government allowed licensed gun dealers to sell weapons to illegal straw buyers so that they could continue to track the firearms as they were transferred to higher-level traffickers and key figures in Mexican cartels.

Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was a devoted family man and a psychopathic killer; a terrible enemy, yet a wonderful friend. While donating millions to the poor, he bombed and tortured his enemies - some had their eyeballs removed with hot spoons. Through ruthless cunning and America's insatiable appetite for cocaine, he became a multi-billionaire, who lived in a $100-million house with its own zoo.

In a bid to take down MS-13's criminal network in the Mission District of San Francisco, Michael Santini, a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations, recruits a pair of hardened gang members and convinces them to risk their lives as criminal informants. Set in a city with one of the strictest sanctuary policies protecting illegal immigrants in America, Operation Devil Horns illustrates how politically correct ideology impacts life-or-death crime fighting on the streets.

Baltimore, 2015. Riots are erupting across the city as citizens demand justice for Freddie Gray, a twenty-five-year-old Black man who has died under suspicious circumstances while in police custody. In this urgent book, award-winning investigative journalist Justin Fenton distills hundreds of interviews, thousands of court documents, and countless hours of video footage to present the definitive account of the entire scandal.

Packed with shocking revelations, untold stories, and behind-the-scenes details, this six-book collection is a must-listen for anyone captivated by the dark and dangerous world of organized crime. For decades, the Mafia ruled the East Coast, shaping cities, corrupting politicians, and controlling vast criminal enterprises. The Six Families of East Coast pulls back the curtain on these powerful crime syndicates, revealing their history, key figures, and the bloody battles that defined them.

"Johnny Boy" Gotti burst onto the national scene after a double murder catapulted him to the top of the Gambino family, the largest and most feared Mafia family in the USA. Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci reveal the man behind the headlines.

At 33, Virginia Vallejo was part of the media elite. A renowned anchorwoman and socialite, and a model who appeared on magazine covers worldwide, Vallejo was the darling of Colombia's most powerful politicians and billionaires. Meeting Pablo Escobar in 1983, then becoming his mistress for many years, she witnessed the rise of a drug empire that was characterized by Escobar's far-reaching political corruption, his extraordinary wealth, and a network of violent crime that lasted until his death in 1993.

A rich biography of the legendary figure at the center of the century’s darkest secrets: an untold story of Golden Age Hollywood, modern Las Vegas, JFK-era scandal, and international intrigue from Lee Server, the New York Times best-selling author of Ava Gardner: Love Is Nothing....

As an old man suffering from cancer that would soon kill him, Frank Sheeran shared his story with his attorney. He told him of the things that were already known, but he shared much, much more. This audiobook explores Frank Sheeran’s confessions as a lifelong criminal with ties to some of the biggest crimes of the 20th century.

On May 5, 1981, three rebellious members of New York's Bonanno crime family were gunned down in a Brooklyn social club. One of the gunmen was Vito Rizzuto, a man who would rise to the top of the underworld in Canada and then expand his reign across continents to become a global superboss. The Sixth Family, now revised and updated, reveals the hidden history of the rise of the Rizzuto clan, the alliances it forged around the world, and the bloody events that led to charges against Vito Rizzuto in the United States and Italy for racketeering and corruption.

Alfonso "Little Al" D'Arco, the former acting boss of the Luchese crime family, was the highest-ranking mobster to ever turn government witness when he flipped in 1991. His decision to flip prompted many others to make the same choice, including John Gotti's top aide, Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, and his testimony sent more than fifty mobsters to prison. In Mob Boss, award-winning news reporters Jerry Capeci and Tom Robbins team up for this unparalleled account of D'Arco's life.

In Asia’s narcotics-producing heartland, the Wa reign supreme. They dominate the Golden Triangle, a mountainous stretch of Burma between Thailand and China. Their 30,000-strong army, wielding missiles and attack drones, makes Mexican cartels look like street gangs.

Author and historian Michael Esslinger spent seven years conducting interviews with Whitey Bulger following his capture in 2011. Their conversations captured Bulger's memories of an early life in crime, his years as a prisoner on Alcatraz, and his life as one of the FBI's Most Wanted fugitives. The Last Interviews is a collection of Bulger's own memories, transcribed directly from personal interviews that chronicle a lifetime spent in crime. It is a scrapbook weaved together from prison documents, personal letters, and candid conversations that offer intimate details about his life.

This is my account of life as a hitman from someone who has been doing it for years. Hitmen commit heinous crimes virtually every day of the week and, in most instances, we don't even realise. I've been a killer for hire for more than 20 years now, but life as a fulltime professional assassin has never been easy. There have been close calls, failed attempts and a lot of looking over my shoulder. And now, I've decided to come clean and seek atonement for my life as a murderer and one of the most covertly dangerous men alive.

Blow is the unlikely story of George Jung's roller-coaster ride from middle-class high school football hero to the heart of Pablo Escobar's Medellín cartel - the largest importer of the United States cocaine supply in the 1980s. Jung's early business of flying marijuana into the United States from the mountains of Mexico took a dramatic turn when he met Carlos Lehder, a young Colombian car thief with connections to the then newly-born cocaine operation in his native land. Together they created a new model for selling cocaine.