FBI history: the Detroit Division

The FBI’s history page for its Detroit Division is undated; the date on this page is the year it was read. It is the Bureau’s own summary, not a primary record of any case, and it may be revised.

On Prohibition it says that “Bureau agents in Detroit had their hands full with criminal groups such as the ‘Purple Gang,’ which controlled much of this illicit activity and acted ruthlessly in enforcing its will.” For the 1960s and 1970s: “In July 1966, an FBI Detroit investigation enabled Canadian authorities to arrest Anthony Joseph Giacalone and Dominic Peter Corrado, two prominent members of the mob in Detroit, on a variety of racketeering charges.” It notes that in 1975 James Hoffa disappeared and “has never been located,” and that “In April 1975, Anthony Giardano, head of the St. Louis Syndicate; and two Detroit ‘captains,’ Anthony Zerilli and Michael Pollizzi, were each sentenced to four-year prison terms on gambling charges.” The spelling “Pollizzi” is the page’s.

For the 1990s: “in 1996, the division’s five-year undercover investigation called GAMTAX culminated in the indictment of 17 members of the Detroit mob—nearly its entire hierarchy—on charges of illegal gambling, loan-sharking, extortion, and acts of violence in support of those crimes. By 1998, Detroit boss Jack Tocco and several of his most important assistants had been convicted.” The page spells the case “GAMTAX”; it gives no date for the indictment, which the Sixth Circuit dates to March 14, 1996 in United States v. Tocco.