Mobster Joseph Valachi begins his testimony in an open session before the Senate, sharing insider information about how organized crime works. In September 1963, Joseph Valachi became the first ...

For Joe Valachi, the twelve days of Christmas always turned up 13. “I believed in Santa Claus and hung up my stocking,” he solemnly attests in a recently completed 1,180-page autobiography. “But all I ...

When Hoodlum Joe Valachi appeared before Arkansas Senator John McClellan’s Permanent Investigations Subcommittee last week, he rasped out a 31-hour rhapsody of names, crimes and Cosa Nostra syndicate ...

I’ve been reading “The Valachi Papers,” about Joe Valachi, the mob soldier who ratted out the Cosa Nostra in the ’60s. It seems one of his steadiest and most lucrative operations from the ’30s through ...

is pulp rather than a great film). The narrative is framed by scenes involving an older, imprisoned Valachi, we're yanked back in time to see his rise through the ranks as he earns the trust of older ...

Peter Maas, who wrote convincingly about crooks and incorruptible cops in such best-selling books as “Serpico,” and “The Valachi Papers,” died Thursday. He was 72. Maas died at Mount Sinai Hospital in ...

In 1963, when Joe “Cargo” Valachi, a Genovese family soldier who became the infamous “first rat,” told a Senate subcommittee that the organization he called Cosa Nostra was actually real — not the old ...

Sentenced to 15 years in prison, former mob "button man" Joe Valachi (Charles Bronson) turns informant when he learns top Mafia capo Vito Genovese (Lino Ventura) has put a $100,000 contract out on his ...