Anthony M. DeStefano – författare

A vain man of good looks but no family ties to the Mob, Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano worked his way up to acting boss of the Bonanno crime family, becoming its leader when official boss Joseph Massino went to prison in 2003. When the Mafia was crawling with secret operatives and informants caving to government pressure to flip, Basciano steadfastly obeyed the code of La Cosa Nostra. “I got faith in one guy,” he said during a secretly taped meeting. That man was Massino, head of the Bonanno borgata. But for all his loyalty, Basciano was still a hot-headed, cold-blooded killer, which ultimately led to his arrest and downfall.Then in a remarkable betrayal that rocked the Five Families to their foundations, Massino secretly cooperated with the FBI—the first head bossever to roll over. As a result, Basciano faced the death penalty, but a federal jury, disturbed by the prosecution’s use of deadly criminal informants, reached a surprising verdict. Here from veteran crime author Anthony M. DeStefano comes the riveting story of the last true believer in the Mob’s cult of brotherhood and his betrayal at the hands of the only man he ever trusted.

BOTH FRANK COSTELLO AND VITO GENOVESE FEATURE AS MAIN CHARACTERS PLAYED BY ROBERT DE NIRO IN THE 2025 FILM THE ALTO KNIGHTS, WRITTEN BY NICHOLAS PILEGGI AND DIRECTED BY BARRY LEVINSON From Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Anthony DeStefano, Top Hoodlum is the definitive book on the man who defined the Mafia as we know it: Frank "The Prime Minister" Costello. From a dirt poor childhood in southern Italy, Costello rose through the ranks of New York's Mafia and became its most public face, even becoming the inspiration for The Godfather's Don Corleone. Now with new FBI revelations, eyewitness accounts, family mementos, and never-before-published material, Top Hoodlum takes readers inside the life of the preeminent mob boss of the 20th Century.

The press nicknamed him "The Prime Minister of the Underworld." The U.S. Treasury's Bureau of Narcotics described him as "one of the most powerful and influential Mafia leaders in the U.S." But to friends and associates, he was simply "Uncle Frank." Who was Frank Costello really? That's the question Pulitzer Prizewinning reporter Anthony M. DeStefano sets out to answer--in his definitive portrait of one of the most fascinating figures in the annals of American crime . . . Using newly released FBI files, eyewitness accounts, and family mementos, Top Hoodlum takes you inside the Mafia that Frank Costello helped build from the ground up, from small time bootlegging and gambling to a nationwide racketeering empire.

BOTH FRANK COSTELLO AND VITO GENOVESE FEATURE AS MAIN CHARACTERS PLAYED BY ROBERT DE NIRO IN THE 2025 FILM THE ALTO KNIGHTS, WRITTEN BY NICHOLAS PILEGGI AND DIRECTED BY BARRY LEVINSONPulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and author Anthony M. DeStefano presents the definitive book on Vito Genovese, the namesake of a crime family which is still considered one of the most viable and dangerous in the U.S. today. From enforcer to Godfather, Vito Genovese rose through the ranks of La Cosa Nostra to head of one of the wealthiest and most dangerous crime families in American history.

THE BOSS OF BOSSES The first comprehensive biography of the legendary Mafioso Vito Genovese —from his childhood in Naples, Italy, and the beginnings of his bullet-ridden criminal career on lower Manhattan’s mean streets, through his self-exile in the mid-1930s back to his homeland where he ran a black market operation under the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini, and his return to New York where Genovese made a fortune as the head of an illegal narcotics empire. As a member of Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria’s gang in New York City, Genovese ran rackets before joining forces with Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, Meyer Lansky, and Bugsy Siegel as bootleggers during Prohibition. He helped orchestrate Masseria’s slaughter on behalf of Brooklyn crime lord Salvatore Maranzano, consolidating his position and power before ensuring Maranzano, too, was knocked off. For the next three decades, Vito Genovese—shrewd, merciless, and utterly savage—killed countless gangsters in his bid to become the capo di tutti i capi—boss of bosses—in the American Mafia. Don Vito would betray some of the mafia’s most notorious bosses, including Albert Anastasia and Frank Costello, to eventually seize control of the Luciano crime family, one that still bears the Genovese name today.

The crime that inspired the movie Goodfellas. The story that couldn’t be told—until now.

One of the biggest scores in Mafia history, the Lufthansa Airlines heist of 1978 has become the stuff of Mafia legend—and a decades-long investigation that continues to this day. Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Anthony DeStefano sheds new light on this legendary unsolved case using recent evidence from the 2015 trial of eighty-year-old Mafia don Vincent Asaro, who for the first time speaks out on his role in the fateful Lufthansa heist. This blistering you-are-there account takes you behind the headlines and inside the ranks of America’s infamous crime families—with never-before-told stories, late-breaking news, and bombshell revelations:

An invaluable addition to any crime library, this is the most complete, thorough, and up-to-date account of the Lufthansa heist currently available. Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony DeStefano draws from his years of experience reporting on the mob for New York Newsday—as well as his firsthand coverage of the Asaro indictment and attendance at the trial—to expose the all-too-human heart of organized crime in America. The Big Heist is thrilling, shocking, and impossible to put down.