Description
It''s over. You''d have to be Ray Charles not to see it. —former New Jersey capo Ron Previte, on the mob today As a cop, Ron Previte was corrupt. As a mobster he was brutal. And in his final role, as a confidential informant to the FBI, Previte was deadly. The Last Gangster is his story—the story of the last days of the Philadelphia Mob, and of the clash of generations that brought it down once and for all. For 35 years Ron Previte roamed the underworld. A six-foot, 300-pound capo in the Philadelphia-South Jersey crime family, he ran every mob scam and gambit from drug trafficking and prostitution to the extortion of millions from Atlantic City. In his own words, Every day was a different felony. By the 1990s, Previte, an old-school workhorse, found himself answering to younger mob bosses like Skinny Joe Merlino, who seemed increasingly spoiled, cocky, and careless. Convinced that the honor of the business was gone, he became the FBI''s secret weapon in an intense and hi
