Word: underworlds
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Bellhopping Mad. The casinos are also quiet. To attract customers, El San Juan, El Conquistador and other hotels offer gambling junkets from the mainland, some including free fares or rooms. That practice was formerly frowned on by Puerto Rican government officials fearful of drawing too many professional gamblers and underworld figures...
During Batista's reign, deadly groups of political gangsters flourished under the control of local bosses. Curiously enough, Fidel Castro ran with the roughest of these gangs while he was a law student at the University of Havana in the 1940s. As a result of this underworld experience, Thomas writes, "the future leader of the Cuban socialist revolution learned much about the nature of Cuban political institutions, their susceptibility to violence and their corruption...
...Fuld joined Tom Dewey, then a crime-busting special prosecutor, in his famous probe of New York City rackets. With his appetite for hard work (he still toils 14 hours a day), Fuld became the Dewey team's specialist in deflating the complex legal defenses raised by the underworld's lawyers. In the probe's 2½ years, recalled Dewey, "every indictment was sustained and no convictions were reversed...
...snooping business is not a government monopoly. In this electronic age, the feds, too, can be kept under surveillance. Lawyers for Joseph A. Colombo Sr. proved that with rare candor last week. They called Justice Department officials in New York City to arrange for the surrender of the reputed underworld chieftain (TIME, April 5) on a charge of running a $5-million-a-year gambling operation-before the warrant for his arrest had been issued. How did Colombo's men hear about it? They had a tap, they said, on the phone of the department's Brooklyn office...
...pride, aided by legitimate grievances over discrimination against Italian-Americans, that Joseph Colombo has attracted supporters, opening chapters in New York, Las Vegas and Miami. Most joined the league for its efforts to curb ethnic slurs and stereotypes, and would be appalled at any use of it by the underworld. But the league, inadvertently or not, has benefited the Mafia-serving as a public relations smokescreen for mob activities. Colombo's leadership of the league has made him the most outspoken reputed Mafia leader in the history of organized crime as well as a straight-faced anti-defamation champion...