January 10, 2017 Tuesday
I listened to a most interesting talk this evening by author
Gary Jenkins. He described how the F.B.I. brought down the huge Las Vegas Strip
casino skim operations that were directed by multiple Mafia gangs, and which were
fictionalized in the movie Casino (1995).
Gary joined the F.B.I.’s surveillance teams in the initial stages of their
“Strawman” skimming investigation. At that time, Gary was a Kansas City Police
Detective, where he served for twenty-five years, and he now produces the
true-crime podcast Gangland Wire Crime
Stories.
Gary worked diligently to obtain the FBI’s recordings from their
legal telephone wiretaps and bugs of conversations by Kansas City Mafia boss Nick
Civella with his lieutenant Carl “Tuffy” DeLuna and other cohorts, and with his
Las Vegas casino operators. Tonight, Gary played many of these taped conversations
for his audience at the Clark County Library in Las Vegas. His new book Leaving Vegas: The True Story of How the
F.B.I. Wiretaps Ended Mob Domination of Las Vegas Casinos is filled with
the FBI’s transcripts.
These recorded conversations are very important to my research
of organized-crime as it bears on the Nevada casino industry. Not only are the
topics these mobsters discussed very relevant to me, but also how these gangsters
discussed them. These recordings illustrate how gangsters really talk in
private conversations with their cohorts and with the people they do business.
While Hollywood movies and TV shows invariably present these
gangsters as bullying, threatening, and intimidating in virtually every scene, in
these recordings, every underworld leader talked exactly like a normal person.
Even though these hoods were deeply concerned about, and frustrated by, the
actions of others, they did not make a single threat, never mentioned the use
of violence, and did not even express any anger. As I listened to the FBI’s
recordings, I focused on the tonality of the speakers as much as their subject
matter. Their tenor and attitude was always casual and informative, identical
to the way normal businessmen and friends talk.
In my research, I found every major gang leader from the
1920s through the 1980s talked normally and usually politely. Almost all of
these top gangsters were in power before the advent of primary elections, when
each political party selected a single candidate for each office privately
behind closed doors. Many of the top gangsters in this era were powerful
political leaders in their districts, and they always dealt with their voters and
their problems helpfully and with understanding. Besides, what politician, law
enforcer, prosecutor, judge, businessman, or union leader would seek out and
make a business arrangement with a gang leader who constantly threatened and
bullied them like a stereotypical Hollywood gangster? The dark, evil side of
these criminals surfaced for the world to see only when they were threatened,
or when those who exploited or took advantage of innocent victims, or attacked
gangland competitors, were carrying out their terrible crimes.
Gary Jenkins responded to this Blog post. This former
long-time Detective, who spent his career fighting organized crime, agreed with
my point above but with very different and such effective imagery. “That is
exactly what I want folks to understand, the skillful mob bosses are not
cartoon figures. They are real people who talk and react like most of us. They
make thoughtful decisions after careful consideration.” Wow! I had never
thought about Hollywood’s presentation of gangsters as cartoon characters, but
unfortunately that is really the way our film industry, during its first
century of existence, has depicted the horrible exploitation and brutality of
our worst criminal element.
