Search results
Joseph Michael Valachi (September 22, 1904 – April 3, 1971) was an American mobster in the Genovese crime family who was the first member of the Italian-American Mafia to acknowledge its existence publicly in 1963. He is credited with the popularization of the term cosa nostra.
Apr 12, 2024 · Joseph Valachi (born Sept. 22, 1903, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died April 3, 1971, La Tuna Federal Correctional Institution, Texas) was an American gangster, a member of Lucky Luciano ’s mob family, who turned informer in 1962. Valachi held a rank in the Mafia equivalent to that of a sergeant, with interests chiefly in the numbers rackets and ...
May 25, 2015 · Joe Valachi – The First Rat. Posted on May 25, 2015 by Mike Dickson. Joseph M. “Joe Cargo” Valachi ranks as one of the most notorious Mafia informants, the first mobster to acknowledge, in public, on television, under oath, that Cosa Nostra is real. Long before Sammy “The Bull” ratted out John Gotti, Valachi’s turncoat testimony ...
Aug 8, 2023 · AP Photo. The Mafia’s early U.S. history has been dramatized in novels and movies but rarely has it been detailed in true first-person accounts. One exception is The Real Thing, an autobiographyby Joseph Valachi, a made member of the Mafia for three decades beginning in 1930.
Jul 8, 2019 · On September 25, 1963, Joe Valachi became the first mafioso to break the mafia’s secret code and publicly admit to its existence. In the 1960s, Valachi publicly disclosed the Mob’s dirtiest secrets heretofore only known by organized crime insiders in a public trial as a witness for the government.
The hearings were initiated by Arkansas Senator John L. McClellan in 1963. Named after the major government witness against the American Mafia, foot soldier and made man Joseph Valachi, the trial exposed American organized crime to the world through Valachi's televised testimony. [1]
Joseph Michael Valachi was an American criminal who was a member of the Genovese crime family. He is most remembered for being the first gangster belonging to the Italian-American Mafia to publicly admit its existence. He was the one who introduced the phrase “Cosa Nostra” to the common vernacular.
