Partners in Crime
PARTNERS IN CRIME New Republic, July 14 & 21, 1997 China bonds with Hong Kong’s underworld. _______________________ BY FREDRIC DANNEN I was interviewing Hong Kong tycoon Albert Yeung in his office on a recent afternoon when he suddenly changed the subject to ask whether I knew that his forebears had come from Chiu Chow, a region in […]
The G‑Man and the Hit Man
THE G‑MAN AND THE HIT MAN New Yorker, December 12, 1996 A REPORTER AT LARGE Gregory Scarpa, Sr., was a mafioso with a penchant for brutality, extortion, and murder. So what was he doing on the F.B.I.‘s payroll? _______________________ BY FREDRIC DANNEN IN 1991, the Colombo crime family in Brooklyn went to war with itself: a rebel […]
A Complicated Life
A COMPLICATED LIFE New Yorker, March 11, 1996 ANNALS OF LAW F. Lee Bailey has been in trouble before, but this time he may be heading for jail—partly because of the testimony of Robert Shapiro._______________________ BY FREDRIC DANNEN AND IRA SILVERMAN ROBERT Shapiro was smirking at F. Lee Bailey. It was the morning of February 2nd […]
The Supernote
THE SUPERNOTE New Yorker, October 23, 1995 PASSING THE BUCK DEPT. A near-perfect counterfeit hundred-dollar bill is coming out of the Middle East. Is it an act of economic terrorism? And can the Treasury stop it?_______________________ BY FREDRIC DANNEN AND IRA SILVERMAN IN THE SPRING OF 1992, two Lebanese-born drug traffickers found themselves in jail in […]
The Thin White Line
THE THIN WHITE LINE New Yorker, March 11, 1996 ANNALS OF LAW A federal indictment in Miami depicts six defense lawyers as virtual traitors in the war on drugs. Is the government overreaching?_______________________ BY FREDRIC DANNEN MIAMI was a boomtown in the nineteen-eighties, a time when drug money flowed in by the billions, like petrodollars. Joel Hirschhorn […]
Colombian Gold
COLOMBIAN GOLD New Yorker, August 15, 1994 ANNALS OF JUSTICE There are millions of cocaine dollars floating through New York’s Little Colombia, and their trail has led the feds to a new way to fight the drug war._______________________ BY FREDRIC DANNEN JOHN SCACCIA, a New York City police detective with a long ponytail, five earrings, and a […]
Defending the Mafia
DEFENDING THE MAFIA February 21, 1994 ANNALS OF LAW Gerald Shargel is considered one of the most brilliant criminal-defense lawyers in America, but his love of “the action” has drawn him to Mafia cases—and, in the view of the federal prosecutor who put John Gotti away, drawn him in too far. Now Shargel is under investigation as […]
Revenge of the Green Dragons
REVENGE OF THE GREEN DRAGONS New Yorker, November 16, 1992 ANNALS OF CRIME_______________________ BY FREDRIC DANNEN AROUND seven o’clock on the night of July 16, 1989, Anthony Gallivan went out drinking. He was joined by his wife, Christine, and another couple. The Gallivans, who were both in their early thirties, were born in Ireland, but at […]
How Terrible Is Ivan?
HOW TERRIBLE IS IVAN? Vanity Fair, June 1992 John Demjanjuk awaits appeal on the death sentence delivered against him as the notorious Ivan the Terrible—the mass murderer of Treblinka—in an extraordinarily emotional but deeply flawed war-crimes trial in Israel, the first since Adolf Eichmann’s in 1961. Now, as FREDRIC DANNEN reports, evidence unearthed by Demjanjuk’s family suggests […]
Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous
LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND INFAMOUS Vanity Fair, April 1992 Thanks to France’s open-door-to-despots policy, exiled tyrants are turning the Riviera into a new Gold Coast. _______________________ BY FREDRIC DANNEN AND FIAMMETTA ROCCO IT IS NOT MY BUSINESS to judge anyone,” says the headwaiter at the Moulin de Mougins, a three-star restaurant on the French Riviera. He […]