LAS VEGAS (KLAS) – With the Chicago Mob firmly in charge of the Las Vegas strip by the 1970s, they appeared bulletproof from both rival organizations and the government at every level.
Their shocking eventual fall from power over the following decades would come from a combination of factors. These included brazen skimming operations forcing state and federal agents to act, along with numerous murders taking out important Mafia leaders regularly.
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These skimming operations were plentiful across all the major casinos, but the organization headed by Allen Glick and Frank ‘Lefty’ Rosenthal was the most outrageous in their schemes. They received a fraudulent loan of $67 million from the Teamsters Union pension fund, made possible because Glick knew the son of mob boss Frank Balistrieri.
Ironically, and as a sign of the Mafia’s power, Glick would be named ‘Las Vegas man of the year’ during this period. Glick eventually died from cancer, but not before turning government informant and helping to convict his former associates…