Original subtitles

Narrator: This is the story of america...

Seen in color for the first time.

In the 1920s, america is rising.

The country puts on a show,

But there's a dark side to the boom--

Organized crime.

For 40 years, legendary gangsters

Like al capone,

Lucky luciano

And frank costello...

Build illicit empires of vice.

While crusaders push back...

Man: Alright, boys, let's go!

Narrator: The racketeers can't be stopped...

And the body count rises.

Americans must confront the true scale of mob power.

Man: It's a much bigger, more sinister

And a larger operation than we had ever suspected.

Narrator: This is the rise of the american underworld

As you have never seen it before.

♪

♪

♪

Cincinnati, ohio.

Redland field.

It's October 1st:

The opening game of the 1919 world series.

[crowd cheering]

The reds take on the chicago white sox

In the first ever best-of-9 series.

[crowd cheering]

[bugle playing]

[crowd roars]

Sox manager kid gleason is confident.

He calls on knuckleballer eddie cicotte,

Who led the league in wins, to start game one.

Cicotte and other stars,

Like left fielder shoeless joe jackson,

Are expected to power the sox to the title.

Gambling is illegal,

But bookies have the sox as 7 to 5 favorites.

Just hours before the first pitch,

Money pours in, picking the reds to win.

[bat cracks]

[crowd cheers]

Crowds in new york's times square

Follow the game on a mechanical scoreboard...

Updated live by telegraph.

White sox fans are stunned

As cicotte gives up five runs in the 4th,

Including a triple to the reds' pitcher.

[cheering]

Cincinnati takes the game in a laugher, 9 to 1.

[crack]

[cheering]

In a stunning upset,

They go on to win the series 5 games to 3.

[cheering]

Sportswriter hugh fullerton smells a rat.

He suggests in the new york evening world

That white sox players were fixing the world series...

A claim that casts a deep shadow on the national pastime.

Shoeless joe jackson and seven other white sox

Are accused of taking $5,000 each to throw the series.

This chicago grand jury-- the first ever filmed--

Takes statements in September 1920

From the eight players.

Three of them confess to throwing the series.

All eight are charged

With conspiring to defraud the public.

Here, star pitcher claude "lefty" williams--

A surprising 0-3 in the series--

Arrives at the trial.

The players get a mysterious break

When the confessions go missing.

The jury finds them not guilty.

Baseball commissioner kennesaw mountain landis

Is not so lenient.

He punishes all eight with a lifetime ban.

Baseball's shame is an ominous sign.

Nothing in america is safe from its new generation of criminals.

Men like arnold rothstein,

Widely suspected of being involved in the fix.

His bet clears him a profit of $350,000.

But he's never prosecuted.

Rothstein is a new kind of criminal:

Organized, sophisticated.

He's based in new york...

And operates an illegal casino

In manhattan's luxury hotel metropole.

From the plush bar,

He finances bold schemes like a wall street banker...

But in the shadow world of criminals...

That runs from broadway

To the slums of the lower east side.

♪

This is stanton street, where immigrants live packed together.

Its markets teem with young men looking to make it in america.

For some, the quickest way to the american dream is crime.

Two who fall into gang life are italian immigrants

Charles "lucky" luciano

And frank costello.

They will make new york the center of a criminal underworld

That operates in parallel with respectable society.

America in 1920 is a land of criminal opportunity.

With alcohol prohibited, independent racketeers

Are supplying americans of all classes

With the bootleg booze they crave.

It's shipped in through a global network

That spans the oceans.

This is the only known home movie shot of a rum runner.

Canadian richard reed films a smuggling trip

On his boat, the hickey.

It's traveling down the west coast from canada

To the waters off mexico.

Its crew relaxes on the 18-day voyage--

The hard work won't start until they've loaded the booze.

♪

Finally, they reach the canadian schooner malahat,

A notorious floating liquor store

Anchored in international waters.

The u.S. Coast guard is here, too, but won't have jurisdiction

Until the alcohol reaches american waters.

♪

Richard reed and his crew load 1,600 cases of booze

Right under the coast guard's nose...

While other smugglers wait their turn.

$65 for a case of whiskey at sea will bring you 400 on land.

Fully loaded, the hickey makes a break for it...

With a coast guard cutter in hot pursuit.

♪

Reed's crew outruns it...

And heads for the u.S. Mainland

To help quench america's inexhaustible thirst.

♪

Announcer: Barrel after barrel of prized whiskeys

Destroyed by government agents!

Narrator: Trying to stem the tide

Is the federal bureau of prohibition--

But it's chronically understaffed.

It has only 1,500 agents to stop the flow of alcohol in america.

♪

Raids, like this one on a park avenue bar,

Are filmed for propaganda,

But americans know they can easily get around the law.

Prohibition has turned millions of citizens who want to drink

Into criminals.

Law-breaking becomes normalized.

The adams family of brattleboro, vermont,

Film themselves on a trip to canada in 1930.

A bottle of scotch takes center stage at a picnic.

It's a luxury the adams can't enjoy legally in the u.S.

Some americans don't want to part with their whiskey

When they head home.

[splash]

This unknown american bootlegger has crossed the peace bridge

From canada into buffalo, new york.

♪

The agents rip his chevy to pieces

And find what they're looking for.

They're just scratching the surface.

Hundreds of others cross america's borders

Without incident every month.

[ship horn blows]

By the mid-1920s, in new york alone

There are over 30,000 speakeasies.

Bootlegging is big business.

To control it, the american underworld

Will organize and expand like never before...

But its violence will bring it infamy.

♪

It's 1925.

Raucous city nightclubs are fueled by illegal booze.

People openly flaunt the law across the country...

Nowhere more than new york city.

It's election season.

Dashing state senator and former tin pan alley songwriter

Jimmy walker is running for mayor.

♪

His easy-going attitude is captured in a photo op

With the governor of california.

Governor: Well, if there's anything you want in california,

All you have to do is to ring the bell

Or press the button, that's all.

Walker: I do want something in california,

And I have it right alongside of me.

[laughter]

Governor: Well, you're a great character

And you've been a great friend, too,

All these years.

Walker: Can we have the rest of the day to ourselves?

[laughter]

Narrator: Walker is strongly against prohibition--

Just the kind of politician that the gangsters want in charge.

In November 1925, he sweeps to victory.

The stuffy surroundings of city hall don't suit a man

Who will come to be known as the "night mayor."

He uses public funds to renovate a nightclub in central park

Named the casino.

This is where walker's new york is run...

To the sound of an illegal champagne cork popping.

On his many days off,

He can be found on 52nd street in the 21 club.

An elaborate mechanism conceals

The speakeasy's illegal wine cellar,

Stocked with booze, financed by gangster arnold rothstein.

♪

Jimmy walker embodies the connection

Between the underworld's public and private faces.

During his time as mayor,

Crime becomes organized and increasingly mainstream.

Gangsters become front page news...

Never more so than when kingpin arnold rothstein is shot

On November 4, 1928, in the park central hotel...

Over an unpaid bet.

He honors the gangland code of silence

And refuses to name the gunman...

Before dying two days later.

The only person prepared to talk openly

Is irish chambermaid bridget farry.

Reporter:: Who do you think killed rothstein?

Farry: I don't know who killed him.

He had been killed on the street,

Getting into the hotel.

He was in the hotel.

Reporter: You don't think he was killed in the hotel?

Farry: No, he was shot as he was entering the hotel,

He was carried through the kitchen

To the servants entrance.

Narrator: With no willing witnesses,

The accused shooter, george "the hump" mcmanus,

Gets off.

It's this code of silence

That will let the mob thrive for decades to come.

The rising notoriety of the mob spawns a new genre in hollywood,

Seen in this 1927 silent film, "underworld."

A smooth boss named bull weed

And his girlfriend feathers mccoy

Hang out in illegal bars...

And go to war with the cops.

The wealth, style and excitement of celluloid gangsters

Make them appealing.

The mobster mystique is enhanced by punchy nicknames,

Like jake "greasy thumb" guzik,

Abe "kid twist" reles

And tony "joe batters" accardo.

The gangsters' notoriety is amplified

By their weapon of choice:

The tommy gun.

This film shows the michigan state police

Training to fight back in kind.

Announcer: Gangsters war with machine guns.

So, when the emergency arises,

The state trooper must fight fire with fire.

He learns the technique of the fire-spitting tommy gun.

Here again, the rain of lead must be directed effectively.

Narrator: The rapid-firing submachine gun

Becomes the gangster's best friend...

[gunfire]

And can be purchased legally over the counter until 1934.

Armed with their tommy guns...

Mobsters expand their reach and their fame.

During the 1920s, brooklyn-born al "scarface" capone

Takes over the rackets in chicago.

He buys his first three tommy guns

From a hardware store.

[machine gun fire]

It's used so prolifically in the windy city

It becomes known as the "chicago typewriter."

[gunfire]

Upstanding citizens like the wealthy birch family

See little of the city's dark side,

But there are two sides to chicago.

In 1928, it has the nation's top homicide rate.

As they film themselves on superior street,

They are in the heart of capone's territory...

And when they relax in lincoln park

They are near the site of the gangster's most infamous hit.

In 1929 capone's gang murders seven men

In the st. Valentine's day massacre,

Bringing gang warfare to national attention.

Americans increasingly see crime and corruption

As a threat to their everyday lives.

In new york,

A 5-foot 2-inch congressman named fiorello la guardia

Runs against mayor walker in 1929,

Vowing to clean up the city.

La guardia: New york city, with its 6 million people

And its annual budget of over $600 million

Is entitled to honest, clean municipal government.

Narrator: He rages against the city's biggest problem...

La guardia: Graft! In every department of the city.

Narrator: Jimmy walker responds like the entertainer he is.

Walker: My love for this city, my devotion to it,

I couldn't tell you about.

It's so deep-seated in my heart,

I feel it with every breath I draw.

I feel it in my every emotion.

[telephones ringing]

♪

Narrator: And when the votes are tallied...

Woman: Walker 14,849, la guardia 3,635,

Thomas 1,727, enright 48.

Narrator: An electorate drunk on the excesses of the twenties

Responds.

Man: Mayor walker re-elected!

[cheering]

Narrator: Walker's win appears to mark a victory

For corruption.

But the tide is turning against gangster glamour.

August 1, 1931.

Newsreels film thousands

As they throng new york's italian harlem

For the funeral of 5-year-old michael vengalli.

Michael is killed by crossfire

As he plays on east 107th street,

Outside a gang hangout named the helmar social club.

Four other children are wounded.

The killer, gang leader vincent "mad dog" coll,

Is widely known...

But no one will testify.

As michael's distraught parents lay him to rest,

Another child points out bullet holes in the wall.

It's a signature tommy gun pattern.

Michael's murder coincides with a turning point

In the public perception of the underworld.

Organized crime is thriving in cities across america.

Murder rates are at an all-time high.

Gangsters, once romanticized, play a new role: Public enemies.

It's 1931.

Florida has become a popular vacation spot

For wealthy americans.

The norman family from summit, new jersey, film themselves

At miami's roman pools resort on south beach.

♪

The sunshine state is the perfect getaway

From the north's cold winters.

♪

The normans are not alone in choosing miami for some r&r.

Just over a mile away on palm island,

Far more private gatherings take place at a luxury villa...

Owned by al capone.

These never-before-broadcast images

Are believed to capture lucky luciano with capone,

Alongside new york gangster

Ciro "the artichoke king" terranova.

Photographed on the diving board is frank costello,

Now a mob kingpin dubbed the "prime minister."

Four guys from new york who've made it big,

While the rest of the country

Suffers through the great depression.

[cheering]

In 1932, presidential candidate franklin d. Roosevelt

Promises help and an end to prohibition.

Roosevelt: Your candidate wants repeal.

[cheering]

And I am confident that the united states of america

Wants repeal.

[cheering]

Narrator: Roosevelt senses the public's appetite

To take on organized crime and political corruption.

In September 1930, while still governor of new york,

He creates a committee to examine graft in new york city.

Mayor jimmy walker is accused of profiting from city contracts.

[crowd murmurs]

Walker: Don't push!

Narrator: In 1932 he resigns in disgrace

And heads to europe for three years

With his ziegfeld girl mistress, betty compton.

The feds target chicago's underworld

As crime spills over state lines.

In 1928, while capone is boss, 498 murders are committed--

More than any other city.

But he answers for none.

That year he's suspected of earning $105 million--

Around $1.4 billion today.

But it's all tax-free because it's undeclared.

In 1931, the feds sense an opening

And capone is hauled into court.

Bureau of revenue investigator frank wilson

Uncovers a secret ledger showing huge cash payments

To the mobster.

It proves capone has been cheating the government.

Reporter: Well, here he comes, and there he goes.

It took two years to get him,

But uncle sam has lots of patience.

Narrator: In may 1932, he's sent to prison for 11 years,

First to atlanta and then alcatraz.

Capone's confiscated cadillac is displayed to the public.

Man: I will demonstrate to you. First...

Narrator: It reveals how he evaded capture

On chicago's streets.

Man: The fact that this car is equipped

With a regulation police siren.

The siren in this car would enable capone

To get away at any time.

[siren wails]

Narrator: The state-of-the-art vehicle

Allowed capone to monitor police communications.

Man: Capone had equipped in this car

One of the first regulation police pickup radios

That's ever been installed in an automobile.

I'll see if we can demonstrate

By picking up a little of the music from hereabouts.

[beeping, music playing]

Narrator: And the car can withstand attacks from rivals.

Man: Another feature about this car

Is that it is equipped with bulletproof glass throughout.

Narrator: It's an example of capone's

Brazen disrespect for the law.

Man: ...On the doors, it is one inch thick.

♪

Narrator: In November 1932, roosevelt is elected president

And delivers on his promise to repeal prohibition.

♪

Organized crime adapts to the loss

Of its precious income stream by doubling down on gambling.

In harlem, african-american gangsters

Run the numbers racket...

Man: What you want? Man: Give me 500, will you?

Man: You want 500? Man: 3-0-9.

Narrator: An affordable but illegal daily lottery

Played by people from all walks of life.

A 1935 reconstruction tells the public what it already knows.

Players choose three numbers.

The winning combination is pulled randomly from newspapers.

The odds are 999 to 1 in the gangsters' favor.

Illegal street lotteries in harlem

Bring in up to $20 million a year,

And open criminality is still a fixture of day-to-day life.

♪

Fiorello la guardia is convinced

He's the man to clean up new york city.

He charges into the 1933 mayoral race.

La guardia: This is a fight against

A cruel, vicious, greedy political machine.

Narrator: The voters now agree, and he sweeps to victory.

City hall will now fight back against the underworld.

La guardia immediately launches a crusade against gambling,

The city's most visible symbol of rampant crime.

An illegal slot machine business

Run by frank costello and lucky luciano

Is his prime target.

La guardia: These machines have been the source

Of enormous revenue running into millions of dollars

To the pockets of the criminal element.

Narrator: Costello has 25,000 machines

Placed in speakeasies and neighborhood stores.

In 1931 this mechanical empire alone brings him $25 million.

La guardia is determined to rid the city of one-armed bandits.

He publicly swings a sledgehammer

At hundreds of seized machines...

La guardia: Alright, boys, let's go!

Narrator: Before dumping them into the east river.

♪

La guardia: This is routine work of the police department,

Confiscated property taken

From crooks, gangsters and racketeers.

We're giving them no quarter.

Narrator: A huge cache of seized weapons

Follows them into the water.

♪

Pollution is not yet on the political radar.

♪

The display reveals the astonishing scale

Of luciano and costello's operations.

But seizing their equipment is not enough.

The mayor wants the mobsters.

The state appoints ace prosecutor thomas dewey

To bring them down.

Dewey's problem

Is that no gang members will snitch on luciano.

So he convinces several prostitutes

At brothels run by luciano

To turn on him in return for immunity.

In February 1936 luciano's luck runs out

When he's arrested on prostitution charges.

This newsreel footage is a rare glimpse

Of the underworld's leadership.

During the trial,

Luciano's claims of a modest $22,500 income are shredded.

It's more like $10 million from prostitution and other rackets.

The courts slap lucky luciano with a 30- to 50-year sentence.

Dewey: For two years now I have been prosecuting rackets.

Every chieftain of the underworld we have indicted

Is in jail or is a fugitive from justice.

The underworld is afraid for the first time in 20 years.

Narrator: Mayor la guardia even hammers his anti-crime message

Into people's homes

When the comic lover reads "dick tracy" over the radio

To new york's kids.

La guardia: The next picture we see dick tracy,

You know the fine type of dick tracy.

He's been a detective so long

And he still has that slender form.

Lew valentine, why do our detectives get fat, I wonder?

And say, children, what does it all mean?

It means that dirty money never brings any luck.

Narrator: But to the mob, la guardia's crackdown

Is far from a fatal blow.

Even though arrests mount up in new york city...

America is a nation of boundless opportunity...

And far away from the spotlight of the east coast,

Crime will enter a new golden age.

[screaming]

June 1938.

A speedboat enters international waters

Three miles offshore from santa monica, california.

Its passengers board a former fishing barge

Named the ss rex...

Now transformed into a floating casino.

♪

It's commanded by former rum runner

Anthony "tony the hat" cornero, also known as "the admiral."

He's found a gap in the market...

And spent $200,000 to create a tax-free betting haven,

A 12-minute speedboat ride away

From california's anti-gambling laws.

The rex accommodates 2,000 guests and 350 staff.

♪

Roulette tables and card games

Are surrounded by rows of slot machines.

♪

Gamblers can even bet on which hole a mouse will run through.

♪

The casino is open 24 hours,

And rich californians flock to take advantage.

Cornero openly boasts about his business,

Declaring the rex is "operated by courageous,

Open-minded, fearless american citizens."

He takes in over $100,000 a month.

Cornero's in business for a year

When california redefines the three-mile limit.

It brings him within range of the law.

Cornero plays cat and mouse,

But needs to be close to shore for his customers.

Cameras film the coast guard pouncing.

♪

The ship's gambling equipment

Is sent to the bottom of the pacific ocean.

♪

But cornero's operation proves there's money to be made

In crime outside the east coast--

In cities like new orleans.

By the mid-1940s, in louisiana,

Gangsters have established a firm grip.

They got their start

With corrupt senator huey "kingfish" long,

Who harbored presidential ambitions.

Long: We've got to have a candidate

Away from the republican party

And away from the democratic party,

And I for one am perfectly willing

To see that there is another choice

In the united states in 1936,

Or a chance to have a choice.

Narrator: Until he's shot dead in 1935.

♪

The big easy's underworld top contact

Is former bootlegger turned restaurateur diamond jim moran.

His nickname is no mystery-- jim moran loves diamonds.

He often wears a quarter million dollars' worth.

These never-before-broadcast home movies show moran

Entertaining friends at his lake pontchartrain guest house

And yacht...

Including crime boss frank costello.

♪

Moran offers the underworld a chance

To get away from it all in welcoming surroundings.

♪

His guests arrive on speedboats up the mississippi.

A mob vacation in louisiana means shooting fish...

[gunshot]

And dining...

Far from prying eyes.

The underworld booms in the big easy,

With everybody, including diamond jim,

Getting a cut.

The good times are rolling.

No one realizes they'll soon end.

Missing the party is charles "lucky" luciano...

Who's still running criminal operations

From new york's dannemora prison.

In 1946 he's mysteriously released.

He has served just 10 years of his 50-year sentence.

There are whispers that the sicilian-born luciano

Supplied information to the u.S. Military

During its invasion of Italy.

♪

His release requires him to be deported...

And cameras film the famous mobster's arrival in rome.

But lucky is not willing to relinquish his criminal empire.

In 1947, he attempts to return to the u.S.

But is captured in cuba

And deported once again.

Newsreels hound him in Italy...

And his crime partners in america

Are now also feeling the heat...

As the u.S. Senate

Puts frank costello and the underworld

Onto the tv screens of millions.

Man: Well, how could you be going into such details

If you weren't personally familiar

With that slot machine operation in new orleans?

Man: Well, I wouldn't remember the details.

Narrator: And the mob's illegal dealings

Begin to unravel.

Spring 1950.

President harry truman's popularity is sinking

In the face of a post-war recession.

Things get worse when two gangsters

Named charles binaggio and charles "mad dog" gargotta

Are found murdered in a democratic party clubhouse

In kansas city, missouri...

Underneath a portrait of truman, the state's favorite son.

The widely seen images suggest an unholy alliance

Between politicians and the underworld.

The outcry leads to a senate investigation--

The first of its kind-- into american organized crime.

Ambitious tennessee senator estes kefauver

Plans to take it national.

The hearings become america's first great television event.

In March 1951, some 30 million are watching.

Senator kefauver subpoenas hundreds of people

With possible connections to the mob.

Americans are gripped--

They have never seen anything like it before.

Man: What was your business prior to being convicted?

Narrator: Mobsters like cleveland's

Alfred "the owl" polizzi

Are quizzed about their underworld connections.

Polizzi: They've accused me of being

In the mayfield road gang,

And I absolutely deny it, it's not true!

Narrator: The star attraction

Is frank "the prime minister" costello,

Ordered to appear by subpoena.

His business interests range across the nation

From illegal gambling to legitimate real estate,

And he even has investments in two tv companies.

Man: You are frank costello? Costello: Yes, sir.

Narrator: His net worth is a mystery.

Man: ...The testimony you give this committee

Shall be the truth, the whole truth

And nothing but the truth, so help you god?

Costello: Yes, sir.

Narrator: Costello is tight-lipped.

Finally, the committee asks him to justify himself.

Man: You must have in your mind

Some things you've done that you can speak of

To your credit as an american citizen.

If so, what are they?

Costello: Paid my tax.

[laughter]

Narrator: But costello's wisecrack

Can't hide his fear of the investigation.

He draws a line in the sand.

Costello: Mr. Halley, all due respect to the senate,

Which I have an awful lot of respect for,

I'm not going to answer another question.

Narrator: Twice he leaves the witness table.

Man: Just a minute, mr. Costello.

Man: You don't mean that, uh...

Narrator: He becomes the arrogant face

Of american gangsterism.

Next up is the glamorous alabama native

Virginia "the flamingo" hill.

She rises from waiting tables in one of al capone's favorite bars

To become the brains behind a drug trafficking ring

Linking mexico and chicago.

Wearing a $5,000 mink coat, she credits her wealth

To her good luck at the racetrack.

Hill: Sometimes I bet a hundreds,

Two hundreds, five hundred.

It depends on the horse.

Man: Do you still bet the horse races?

Hill: That's the only thing... Now?

Man: Uh-huh.

Hill: I don't bet anything now.

I'm afraid I'll win,

And then they'll say I made more money than I did.

[laughter]

Narrator: She avoids incriminating herself...

But doesn't enjoy the attention.

She flees to europe under pressure from the irs

And dies in austria in 1965.

Gangland figures like frank erickson and joe adonis

Invoke their constitutional right

To avoid self-incrimination.

The fifth amendment becomes the mob's escape hatch.

Man: Can you state any legitimate occupation

In which you ever participated?

Erickson: I refuse to answer on the grounds

That it might intend to incriminate me.

Adonis: I decline to answer on the same grounds.

Man: Or with any other person?

Adonis: I decline to answer on the same grounds.

Narrator: The phrase "taking the fifth"

Enters the american lexicon.

After interviewing 600 people over nearly two years,

Senator kefauver draws a frightening conclusion.

Kefauver: Our committee has found that organized crime

Does operate on a syndicated basis

Across state lines in the united states,

That it's a much bigger, more sinister

And a larger operation than we had ever suspected

That is having very devastating and bad influences

Upon our economy, upon the morals of our people

And upon politics and government.

Narrator: Costello's reign as prime minister

Soon comes to an end.

He's convicted on contempt charges

For walking out of the kefauver hearing

And spends five years in and out of jail.

On may 2, 1957, he's shot in the head

In an attempted assassination...

But survives.

Reporter: Would you tell us about your health now?

We've heard reports that it isn't good.

Costello: I'm making no comments right at present.

Narrator: The would-be killer

Is a man named vincent "the chin" gigante,

Who's working for costello's long-time rival,

Vito "don vitone" genovese.

Gigante gets off when costello remains true

To the underworld code of silence

And refuses to testify.

In January 1962, lucky luciano dies of a heart attack.

His funeral in naples is a grand affair...

Covered by cameras from all over the world...

And attended by a host of men in trademark gangster attire.

Luciano takes his secrets to the grave.

But the following year the code of silence

Is sensationally broken.

A low-level mobster under vito genovese

Named joseph "joe cargo" valachi

Murders a man in prison.

He faces the electric chair.

To save himself, he strikes an unprecedented deal.

In return for a life sentence,

He will break the mob's vow of silence.

Man: We have as our first witness today

Joseph valachi.

Narrator: For the first time,

The secret name of america's crime syndicate

Is publicly revealed.

Valachi: Cosa nostra, in italian.

Man: Cosa nostra, in italian.

Valachi: "our thing" and "our family" in english.

Narrator: The truth about organized crime is laid bare.

Valachi: As you all understand, once you're in, you're in.

You can't get out.

You try, but that don't mean that you're going to stay out.

Man: You don't get out and live? Valachi: They'll hunt you.

Man: I see. Valachi: Okay?

Narrator: The mob puts a price of $100,000 on valachi's head,

But it's never collected.

In 1971, he dies in prison of natural causes...

Followed two years later by frank costello,

Who's buried in queens, in new york city.

[people shouting]

Valachi's testimony kicks off a 40-year war by law enforcement

Against the american mafia.

Big names like carlos "the little man" marcello,

Joseph "joe" colombo

And john "the teflon don" gotti

Are marched into courtrooms.

♪

By the end of the century,

The fbi has broken the back of the american mob...

And the underworld's golden age finally comes to an end.

♪