Mob Boss: The Life of Little Al D'Arco, the Man Who Brought Down the Mafia

Alfonso "Little Al" D'Arco, the former acting boss of the Luchese organized crime family, was the highest-ranking mobster to ever turn government witness when he flipped in 1991. His decision to cooperate with federal authorities prompted many others to do the same, including John Gotti's top aide Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, and his testimony sent more than fifty mobsters to prison. In Mob Boss, award-winning news reporters Jerry Capeci and Tom Robbins provide an account of D'Arco's life and the New York mob scene he was part of for four decades. Growing up in Brooklyn and operating in Little Italy, D'Arco lived by old-school gangster principles until learning he was marked for death. When he decided to leave the mob, his defection damaged his crime family and revealed mob secrets spanning a hundred years. Based on hundreds of hours of conversations with D'Arco, the authors expose details about New York's organized crime underworld, including a pizza parlor that served as a Mafia center for heroin operations, murders carried out by hit men dressed as women, and the kidnapping of a celebrity newsman's son as retaliation for a satirical novel.