Mobology in 2024: Our readers’ top 20 pick hits and whack jobs
A crime wave of capers, subjects, and targets
In 2024, I published 76 mostly true-crime columns on Mobology—which today boasts 81 consecutive weeks of service to our subscribers since June 12, 2023, our opening day.
The high command at Substack reports that, according to our readers, below is the list of the top 20 stories in 2024. . . .
Moving forward, be safe and well in 2025, which will likely usher in a very dark and dangerous era for America and the world.
Please be assured that Mobology and other independent operations—such as the popular and respected SpyTalk—will do everything possible to bring light into the darkness for our subscribers.
As always, thank you for your continued and much-appreciated support.
(DEM)
1. Teamsters boss Sean O'Brien's big losing bet: The high cost of kissing Donald Trump's ring (9-22-2004)
2. Veterans Day 2024: Honoring my father and his colleagues in the 357th Fighter Group during WWII (11-10-2024)
3. Steve Van Zandt loves books and movies about the Mafia: But, like Robert De Niro, he still got conned by The Irishman (10-6-2024)
4. “The enemy within”: The conflicting views of Senator Robert Kennedy and Donald Trump (10-14-2024)
5. The $1,500 contract on my life: I was more upset by the price than the threat (9-29-2024)
6. The CIA-Mafia plots against Fidel Castro, Part 1: The pre-Maheu, pre-Rosselli period (8-25-2024)
7. The unexpected but historic friendship between a CIA officer and a KGB agent: The 2018 book party at the Spy Museum for Best of Enemies (10-13-2024)
8. Paying homage to my late “writing coach” on her 100th birthday: In a review of one of my books, the New York Times threw her a well-deserved bouquet (10-31-204)
9. Edward J. DeBartolo Sr., the San Francisco 49ers, and the Mafia.: The NFL permits a DOJ-identified mobster to buy the 49ers (1-28-2024)
10. Is the end finally near for Alex Jones?: The radio talk-show host falsely claimed that I was involved in the murder of the D.C. Madam (8-4-2024)
12. Legal sports gambling supercharges illegal gambling and organized-crime activities (4-4-2024)
13. The Kansas City Chiefs, The Mafia, and the 1970 Super Bowl: An NFL team that routinely went “off the boards” (2-2-2024)
14. Remembering bookmaker Don Dawson who admitted to me that he had fixed "at least 32 NFL games”: The NFL still insists that no game has ever been fixed (11-24-2024)
15. An existential dilemma: Owing the IRS and a Mafia guy: Who gets paid first? (4-28-2024)
16. 30 years ago, LAPD Detective Tom Lange helped save the life of O.J. Simpson (4-11-2024)
17. My search for Jimmy Hoffa: July 30 is the 49th anniversary of the Hoffa disappearance (7-28-2024)
18. A popular delusion: America was better off under Donald Trump: The ex-president has created an alternative universe and a paranoid's paradise (10-20-2024)
19. Is America on the verge of salvation or assisted suicide? A proposed tough-love solution for a country in distress (10-27-2024)
20. Intermezzo: On the NFL and legalizing sports gambling: Watching a disaster happen in real-time (9-8-2024)
* Also see: Mobology on Election Day 2024: "Yes, we have no omerta": A catalog of Mobology columns related to the 2024 election (11-3-2024)
* And, in a new offering, we featured a legendary whistleblower on December 22, 2024: Jon Oberg is the world’s expert on corruption in the student loan program: Today, he is Mobology’s first guest columnist: "On Eliminating the U.S. Department of Education"