Description
Book SynopsisJukebox Empire follows the many twists and turns in one man’s pursuit of the American dream, from a self-taught electronics genius to money launderer for the mob. This book exposes how the jukebox industry became the vertically integrated business model for organized crime at a time when there was a jukebox in every restaurant, diner, bar, barracks, arcade, and canteen throughout the country. Anyone can afford a nickel for a song and every week the jukeboxes generate millions of dollars in cash, untaxed income, that needed to be laundered.. Beneath this wholesome veneer lies a seamy underworld of juke joints, operators’ routes, smoke-filled showrooms, and violence. Rabinovitch reveals the details of the mob’s international money-laundering scheme to finance running guns to Cuba. The investigation pieces together an epic puzzle that begins in Chicago with the invention of a jukebox and spans the casinos of Havana and the financial giants of Europe, leading to what the FBI called “the biggest bank robbery in the world.”
Trade ReviewThis is a brilliant depiction, in evocative prose, of the corrupt juke box industry as controlled by the mob. Anyone interested in how the mob can launder money through a seemingly innocent American past time should read Jukebox Empire.
-- Jeffrey Sussman, author of Sin City Gangsters, Boxing and the Mob, and Big Apple Gangsters
Table of ContentsIllustrations
Cast of Characters
Preface
Introduction
Chapter One – Origins
Chapter Two – Pay to Play
Chapter Three – Coin Men
Chapter Four – Crimebusters
Chapter Five – Biggest Bank Robbery in the World
Chapter Six – Dollye
Chapter Seven – Air Chase
Chapter Eight – Front Page
Chapter Nine – Biggest Burglary Solved
Chapter Ten – Wheels of Justice
Chapter Eleven – Scheme and Artifice
Chapter Twelve – Shoot the Moon
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Bibliography
About the Author
