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This book Is based on my research for Crime Inc., the award-winning ITV documentary history of organized crime in America, which I originated, produced, wrote and narrated. An immense ratings success, this seven-hour film series was syndicated throughout the world and has just been released on DVD.

As nearly twenty-five years have passed since the series was first shown in 1984, we have re-named this work The Rise of the Mafia, This title also recalls the syndicate of killers, both Italian and Jewish, credited with as many as 1,000 gangland murders in the 1930s and early 1940s.

My thanks are due to literally thousands of Americans and scores of American law enforcement agencies for allowing me to take up their valuable time, pillage their memories and their files, and ask them questions which may often have struck them as naive.

This book could not have been written, nor could the television series have been made, without the help and support of the FBI, the DEA and the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the Department of Justice. Within these agencies I especially thank the FBI’s offices in Cleveland, Las Vegas and New York and its public affairs unit in Washington; the DEA in Miami; the Strike Forces in Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City and Newark; and the US Attorneys’ offices in the Southern and Eastern districts of New York. I also thank the US Customs and Coastguard in Miami and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

For help in relation to Federal witnesses in the care of the Witness Security Program, I thank the US Marshals’ Service and Howard Safir (the future Commissioner of the NYPD). I also thank the US Bureau of Prisons.

Among numerous state and city forces, I was greatly aided by the New York Police Department, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Dade County Public Safety (Homicide), the Broward County Strike Force and the Essex County (New Jersey) Narcotics Squad. On gambling issues, the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement was particularly helpful.

In the conception and execution of this entire project I owe my deepest debt to the New Jersey State Police, through the goodwill and endless co-operation of Colonel Justin Dintino and Lieutenant Freddie Martens.

The work of the Pennsylvania Crime Commission was an inspiration, personified by one of its investigators, Gino Lazzari. The same is true of that unique group of concerned citizens, the Chicago Crime Commission, under its past and present directors, Virgil Peterson and Pat Healy.

I thank all those people who consented to being interviewed on film (over 100 in all). Those whose help went beyond the call of public service and courtesy to foreign inquisitors included Edgar Croswell (the man who proved that the Mafia did exist in 1957), John Cusack, Pete Donohue, Remo Franceschini, Louis Freeh (the future Director of the FBI), Jack Key, Aaron Kohn, Bob Kortenhaus, Vincent Piersante, Bill Roemer and Joe Yablonsky.

For academic perspectives and overviews I thank Professors Robert Blakey, Charles Rogovin, Francis Ianni and Elizabeth Reuss-Ianni.

Other experts who helped me greatly were Nick Akerman, Christopher Andreoff, Judge Charles Breitel, Thomas Coon, Steve del Corso, Denny Debbaudt, Mike Defeo, Orange Dickey, Donald Gray, Bill Lambie, Paul Kelly, Bill Lambie, John Olszewski, Joe Quarequio, Max Renner, Ray Shryock, John Sopko, Lou Spalla, Ed Stier, Geoffrey L. Thomas and my dear friend John Bassett

I have relied greatly on the work and support of many authors, reporters and writers, notably Ed Barries, Ned Day, Ovid Demaris, Ron Koziol, Jon Kwitny, Ron Labreque, Bruce Locklin, Mike Mallowe, Paul Meskil, Dan Moldea, John O’Brien, Nic Pileggi, Tom Renner, Allen Richardson and Tony DeStefano, Sandy Smith, Ned Whelan, Clyde Weiss and Maire-Jane Woge. Among television reporters and producers, my greatest debt is to John Drummond and J. P. Stadius of CBS In Chicago.

There are many more people in law enforcement who helped me despite the rules of their organizations and whose identities must therefore remain confidential. For even more obvious reasons, I cannot publicly thank those people within the Mafia, including several crime family bosses, who talked to me in confidence.

Much of this book is based on the testimony of the federal witnesses who agreed to go face-to-camera and name names. Wherever they may be now, I offer my deepest gratitude, my best wishes and my prayers.

Among archive sources I thank the Chicago Historical Society Henry Scheafer of Chicago, the Historic New Orleans Collection, the Louisiana Historical Centre, the New York Municipal Archives (Ken Cobb) and the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem, for access to the records of the Bureau of Social Morals (Hadassah Assouline).

I thank Thames Television for backing the idea which I brought to its documentaries department in 1980. My thanks are due to the production team that worked on the series: ace researchers Helen Dickinson and Dai Richards, film researcher extraordinaire Adrian Wood and the directors Ken Craig and Ian Stuttard. Credited on the series as ‘consultant’ was Frank Pulley This ill describes the Scotland Yard detective who quit the Metropolitan Police after twenty-seven years’ service for the turbulent waters of the television industry. As compare and consighere, Frank has remained a tireless ally and, I trust, a friend of mine, if not a friend of ours!

For more than two years, my wife and children tolerated my prolonged absences in America. They then had to put up with my mental absence for another year at home as I worked seven days and nights a week on the series. I hope they thought it was all worthwhile.