Events
- October 8 - Albert Agueci, French Connection heroin smuggler for the Buffalo crime family, is severely tortured and murdered. He threatened to inform on crime boss Stefano Magaddino because Magaddino did not provide bail money and assistance to his family. When his remains were found in a field near Rochester, N.Y. on November 23, he was naked, his hands were bound behind his back, his front teeth were knocked out and 30 lbs. of flesh were cut from his body, all while he was alive, a clear message from Don Stefano. His death would cause his brother Vito Agueci to label Albert's friend and heroin customer Joe Valachi a government informant. Vito Aguecci's rumors are what prompted Vito Genovese to put a contract on Valachi and Valachi agreeing to become a government informant and be the first Cosa Nostra Rat. He testified in the 1963 Senate Hearings.
- May 4 - A federal investigation reveals decades long corruption as a grand jury finds evidence of Kansas City, Missouri police officials cooperating with organized crime figures allowing criminal activity.
- June 29 - After serving nearly a year, Frank Costello is released from prison and retires to his gambling and legitimate business interests.
- October 31 - Bernard McLaughlin, leader of the Charlestown Mob, is killed by members of the Winter Hill Gang (however other sources claim gunman of the Patriarca crime family responsible), an early victim of the Boston Irish Mob Wars which would continue throughout the decade.
- November - Albert Testa, a counterfeiter and burglar as well as an associate of tortured and murdered Chicago Outfit member William "Action" Jackson, is murdered.
Read more about this topic: 1961 In Organized Crime
Famous quotes containing the word events:
“All the events which make the annals of the nations are but the shadows of our private experiences.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“By many a legendary tale of violence and wrong, as well as by events which have passed before their eyes, these people have been taught to look upon white men with abhorrence.... I can sympathize with the spirit which prompts the Typee warrior to guard all the passes to his valley with the point of his levelled spear, and, standing upon the beach, with his back turned upon his green home, to hold at bay the intruding European.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“The return of the asymmetrical Saturday was one of those small events that were interior, local, almost civic and which, in tranquil lives and closed societies, create a sort of national bond and become the favorite theme of conversation, of jokes and of stories exaggerated with pleasure: it would have been a ready- made seed for a legendary cycle, had any of us leanings toward the epic.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)