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Recent Examples of button manBest button man in the biz.—Craig Thomas, The New Yorker, 9 Mar. 2021
One of the most innovative gangsters of the 20th century, Frank Lucas earned the title of Harlem drug kingpin in the late-‘60s and early-‘70s by importing high-quality heroin from Southeast Asia and selling it under the street name Blue Magic.
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Kevin Jacobsen,
Entertainment Weekly,
6 June 2026
Sensing this once-great dynasty is in decline, the outback’s most powerful factions — rival cattle barons, desert gangsters, Indigenous elders, and billionaire miners — move in for the kill, with billions of dollars at stake.
In the past decade, the leadership of the Kinahan organization has become rich and cosmopolitan, and their life styles have started to resemble those of international businessmen more than of street hoodlums.
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Ed Caesar,
New Yorker,
30 Apr. 2026
The Knesset recently legalized the death penalty for Arabs who murder Jews, but not for the hoodlum Israeli settlers who have been killing West Bank residents to seize their land.
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Sun Sentinel Editorial Board,
Sun Sentinel,
17 Apr. 2026
Even as mafioso talk took hold on Views and What a Time to Be Alive, romantic melodrama seemed to be the default setting.
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Matthew Ritchie,
Pitchfork,
20 May 2026
Figures who broke omertà Joseph Valachi Joseph Valachi was a member of the Genovese crime family and the first American mafioso to publicly confirm the existence of Cosa Nostra.
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Encyclopedia Britannica,
Encyclopedia Britannica,
13 May 2026