Test yourself
Know Your Wiseguy
Eight questions dealt at random from a larger file. Reload the page, or deal again at the end, for a different set.
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What interrupted the 1957 meeting at Apalachin?
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A state trooper who noticed the cars
Edgar Croswell was watching the house for other reasons and counted too many out-of-state plates. Roughly sixty men were identified.
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What does a consigliere do?
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Counsels the boss and mediates disputes
The role traditionally went to an older member with standing but no ambition for the top job.
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Why could Henry Hill never become a made member?
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His father was Irish
Sicilian descent on the father's side was the rule. He worked for the Lucchese family for twenty-five years and was ineligible for the whole of it.
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How long did Tony Accardo spend in prison across fifty years at the top of the Chicago Outfit?
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None that survived appeal
He was convicted once, on tax charges in 1960. The conviction was overturned and he was acquitted at the retrial in 1962.
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What did an FBI recording capture two DeCavalcante members doing on 3 March 1999?
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Discussing whether The Sopranos was about them
Eight weeks after the premiere. One asked whether it was supposed to be them; the other told him his name had been mentioned on the show.
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Where did John Riggi's power in the DeCavalcante family actually come from?
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A construction union local
He was business agent of Laborers Local 394 in Elizabeth for twenty-five years. Control of who works on a site is what the family sold.
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Sam DeCavalcante was known as Sam the Plumber because of what?
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A plumbing and heating supply firm he owned
Kenworth Heating and Air Conditioning in Kenilworth was a real company and also where the family did its business. The FBI put a microphone in the office.
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How many people were convicted of the 1978 Lufthansa robbery?
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One
Louis Werner, the cargo agent who supplied the tip. A Bonanno capo was charged in 2014 and acquitted in 2015.