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  • Updated
    2
    days
    ago

    Jimmy Hoffa's rumored resting places, from the Everglades to the end zone

    Rebecca Cook / Reuters file

    Yellow crime tape surrounds a field which investigators are prepared to dig up for the remains of former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa in Oakland Township, Mich., on June 17.

    By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News

    For a guy who's been dead since 1975, Jimmy Hoffa really gets around.

    Through the years, tipsters have insisted the Teamsters boss — who vanished from a suburban Detroit restaurant — was laid to rest in the swamps of Florida, under the artificial turf of Giants Stadium and more than a dozen other spots.

    Monday, the feds were digging up a field in Oakland Township, Mich., with new designs on finding Hoffa's remains and solving the mystery of his disappearance.

    Here are some of the places where the labor leader has been rumored to be spending eternity:

    Giants Stadium: A mob informant told the FBI in 1986 that Hoffa was killed by an Irish gangster in a Detroit suburb and buried in an end zone near section 107 of the football field. Stadium officials said they they dug four feet down while replacing artificial turf and didn't find any trace of Hoffa. The stadium was demolished in 2010.

    Mark Lennihan / AP file

    Urban legend has it that Jimmy Hoffa is buried beneath section 107 at Giants Stadium.

    General Motors' headquarters: Hoffa's onetime driver, Marvin Elkind, told a Canadian journalist that a Detroit mobster revealed the final resting place in 1985 when he walked past the GM building, known as the Renaissance Center, nodded toward the massive foundation and said, "Say good morning to Jimmy Hoffa, boys."

    Driveway in Roseville, Mich.: Acting on a tip, authorities used radar last September to inspect the driveway of a private home and saw something that made them want a closer look. Police drilled for soil samples but experts found no sign of human decomposition in the dirt.

    Sheraton Hotel on Wilmington Island, Ga.: A Teamsters pension fund owned this property near Savannah when Hoffa vanished, so it's been dogged by rumors that he was laid to rest under the helipad. "It's had a colorful past," a developer who converted it into condos once said.

    A dump in Jersey City, N.J.: Authorities spent several days in 1975 digging up a mob-linked waste facility after a tipster claimed Hoffa could be found there, a 55-gallon drum serving as a his coffin. They didn't find anything but animal bones.

    The owner of a tavern in Cleveland's Old Brooklyn neighborhood says he thinks the remains of Jimmy Hoffa could be inside the walls of his establishment. WKYC's Lynna Lai reports.

    Wexler's Tavern in Cleveland: The owner of the watering hole was doing some renovation work last month when he made an intriguing find: bone fragments and a matchbook from the Palm Desert Lodge in California, which had strong ties to Hoffa. But pathologists determined the remains were not human.

    Florida Everglades: An ex-hitman who said he was Hoffa's bodyguard told a Senate committee in 1982 that Hoffa's body was ground up and stuffed in a steel drum that was then dumped in the Sunshine State's gator-infested wetlands.

    A Japanese-made car: A 2006 book claimed that a convicted hitman confessed before his death that he knifed Hoffa to death, took the body to New Jersey, burned it in a steel barrel, dumped the remains in a car that was compressed into a hunk of metal and sent to Japan to be used in new vehicles, the Detroit News reported. 

    Incinerator in Hamtramck, Mich.: A Pennsylvania Teamsters official purportedly confessed on his deathbed that he flew to Pontiac, Mich., to collect Hoffa's body from his killers and then had it burned. The same source, Frank Sheeran, supposedly also told an author he shot Hoffa at a Detroit home, but blood found there in 2004 was not a match.

    Pool in Hampton Township, Mich.: A convicted murderer who had already led cops to one body in his home claimed they could find Hoffa under an above-ground pool there. So in July 2003, a backhoe dug up the yard while the tipster watched in shackles, but nothing was found.

    Gary Malerba / AP file

    Excavation crews converged on a Michigan horse farm in Milford, Mich., on 2006 to look for Hoffa's remains.

    Tire-shredding plant in Hamtramck, Mich.: A 1978 book posited that Hoffa's corpse was disposed of at Central Sanitation Services, once owned by organized crime figures. The FBI said at the time they looked into that theory and discounted it.

    Horse farm in Milford, Mich.: The FBI spent 14 days looking for Hoffa at the 89-acre Hidden Dreams Farm after a 75-year-old prison inmate who once worked there claimed he witnessed the burial. That story, like so many others, turned out to be a pile of manure.

     

     

     

    This story was originally published on Mon Jun 17, 2013 3:55 PM EDT

    105 comments

    Who Cares?

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    Explore related topics: organized-crime, mafia, jimmy-hoffa, teamsters, updated
  • 2
    days
    ago

    Feds digging in Michigan field for Hoffa's remains

    Hank Walker / Time Life Pictures / Getty Images file

    President of Teamsters union Jimmy Hoffa makes a phone call.

    By Sophia Rosenbaum, Staff Writer, NBC News

    The search for Jimmy Hoffa has stretched far and wide for nearly 40 years. Now, federal agents are digging in a field 30 miles north of Detroit in hopes of solving the mystery of his disappearance.

    A team of agents descended on a field in northern Oakland Township, Mich., on Monday after a former Mafia underboss said Hoffa's remains were buried there, NBC affiliate WDIV reported.

    Hoffa, a former president of the Teamsters labor union, was last seen in suburban Detroit in July 1975. He was declared legally dead on July 30, 1982. His body has never found.

    But that may change in the next few days if Tony Zerilli is to be believed. Zerilli, who spoke publically about Hoffa in January, is considered one of a handful of people who may know what happened to Hoffa because his father, Joseph Zerilli, was the Detroit mob boss when Hoffa disappeared.

    The property where authorities are searching Monday was formerly owned by Jack Tocco, Zerilli’s cousin. The FBI reportedly believes Hoffa was killed by organized crime because of a power struggle within the labor union.

     

    443 comments

    "What difference does it make now?" The guy was a union thug and died a union thug. Don't worry, he is still voting democrat.

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    Explore related topics: detroit, mafia, jimmy-hoffa, tony-zerilli
  • 16
    Jan
    2013
    9:34am, EST

    FBI rounds up more than two dozen alleged N.Y. mobsters

    By Vignesh Ramachandran, Staff Writer, NBC News

    An investigation of the extortion of trash haulers has resulted in charges against 32 people in the New York area, federal authorities said Wednesday.

    Thirty of the suspects were arrested Wednesday, and two others were expected to surrender later in the week, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the southern district of New York said in a press release.

    Suspected members or associates from three different organized crime families in the New York area were among the arrested, the statement said.


    Follow @NBCNewsUS

    The main indictment alleges 12 members of "an organized criminal enterprise" were connected to a waste disposal business that was involved with loansharking, mail and wire fraud, extortion and stolen property offenses. These 12 were charged with racketeering conspiracy charges.


    Among the dozen is Carmine Franco, also known as "Papa Smurf" and "Uncle Sonny," who authorities also accuse of extortion and the interstate transportation of stolen property. The attorney's office said 77-year-old Franco is an associate of the Genovese crime family.

    Seventeen others were charged with individual acts of extortion, loansharking and other crimes, the attorney's office said.

    Court documents claim the suspects controlled several waste disposal businesses, including those based in New York's Westchester, Rockland and Nassau counties, and in New Jersey's Bergen and Passaic counties. The men allegedly threatened the businesses by demanding extortion payments for protection and telling them which trash pick-up stops they could use, the attorney's office said. Officials say many of the charged had avoided having any sort of official connection to the trash collection businesses they controlled.

    "...While these accused mobsters may have hidden themselves behind seemingly legitimate owners of waste disposal businesses, law enforcement was able to pierce that veil through its painstaking, multi-year investigation," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.

    "In addition to the violence that often accompanies their schemes, the economic impact amounts to a mob tax on goods and services," George C. Venizelos, assistant director-in-charge of the FBI's New York office, said in a statement.

    The thirty arrested suspects, who are all residents of either New York or New Jersey, were expected to appear and be arraigned in a Manhattan federal court Wednesday.

    The Genovese, Gambino and Luchese organized crime families have a long history of extorting trash collection companies, The Associated Press reported.

    From the archives, Jan. 2011: More than 120 alleged mobsters arrested on East Coast

    186 comments

    The Italian mafia is like a raindrop in the ocean, relative to the corporate mafia and the federal mafia in DC.

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    Explore related topics: crime, new-york, fbi, mafia, trash, mob, nbcnewyork
  • 2
    Oct
    2012
    12:52pm, EDT

    No human remains found at Michigan site of Jimmy Hoffa tests

    Jerry Siskind / AFP - Getty Images file

    Jimmy Hoffa and his son, James P. Hoffa, who later also became president of the Teamsters, in a 1971 photo.

    By M. Alex Johnson, NBC News

    Updated at 3:40 p.m. ET: Soil tests indicate that no human remains are buried beneath a shed in Roseville, Mich., where authorities were investigating the possibility that the late Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa might have been buried, officials said.

    Hank Winchester and Shawn Ley of NBC station WDIV of Detroit contributed to this report by M. Alex Johnson of NBC News. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

    Scientists at Michigan State University tested two samples from a home in Roseville, a suburb of Detroit, after an unidentified tipster told authorities that he witnessed a body being buried there the day after Hoffa disappeared in July 1975. 

    Those tests came up negative for human remains, Roseville police said Tuesday.


    The lead appears to be yet another dead end in the search for Hoffa, who ran the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the country's biggest labor union, from 1957 to 1971. It joins a long line of false leads that have fueled conspiracy theories for years.

    Investigators searching for the remains of notorious Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa have come up dry after pursuing a lead in suburban Detroit. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    Watch US News videos on NBCNews.com

    Investigators and other experts had said that they doubted that Hoffa was at the site.


    Follow @NBCNewsUS

    Andy Arena, the former FBI special agent in charge for Detroit, said that while his "gut feeling is that this person saw something," it defies common sense to believe that the Mafia would have buried the body in broad daylight in a busy suburban area.

    "If this guy was standing there watching this, and it was Jimmy Hoffa, he would have been in the hole with him," Arena said.

    1976 FBI memo on Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance (.pdf)

    Dan Moldea, author of "The Hoffa Wars" and numerous other books on organized crime, also said he "never thought that Hoffa was here, ever."

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    305 comments

    Geez, give it rest already. He's gone and the body well hidden. Who is paying for this continued senseless search?

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    Explore related topics: featured, fbi, detroit, mafia, teamsters, m-alex-johnson, jimmy-hoffa, commentid-fbi, roseville-mi, tony-giacalone, tony-provenzano
  • 26
    Sep
    2012
    5:16pm, EDT

    FBI to look for Jimmy Hoffa's body at Detroit-area home

    By M. Alex Johnson, NBC News

    Jerry Siskind / AFP - Getty Images file

    Jimmy Hoffa and his son, James P. Hoffa, who later also became president of the Teamsters, in a 1971 photo.

    The FBI and local police in Michigan plan to take soil samples from the backyard of a house in the Detroit suburb of Roseville on Friday, acting on a dying man's tip that the body of former Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa might be buried there.

    M. Alex Johnson M. Alex Johnson is a reporter for NBC News. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

    Authorities have chased down hundreds of would-be leads since Hoffa disappeared 37 years ago after he met with two top Mafia operatives at a restaurant in Bloomfield Township, another Detroit suburb, in July 1975. All have led to dead ends, but authorities said this lead could be different.

    NBC station WDIV-TV of Detroit reported that an unidentified man who is dying from cancer told Roseville police that he saw men moving a black bag at the garage of the house just hours after Hoffa went missing. Acting on the tip, authorities ran radar tests last week that picked up an image of something buried beneath a cement slab in the backyard.

    Roseville Police Chief James Berlin confirmed that investigators had received the tip, telling the Detroit Free Press that "the information seemed credible, so we decided to follow up on it."


    The newspaper reported that the house is in the 18700 block of Florida Street in northern Roseville, about 20 miles northeast of Detroit.

    Watch US News videos on NBCNews.com

    The disappearance of Hoffa — who ran the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the country's biggest labor union, from 1957 to 1971 — has long fueled conspiracy theories. At various times, his body was posited to have been buried under Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.; beneath General Motors headquarters at Detroit's Renaissance Center; on a farm in Hartland Township, Mich.; in a field in Milford, Mich.; and even on the grounds of the White House. 


    Follow @NBCNewsUS

    What is known is that Hoffa, who was then 62, was chafing at restrictions on his activity in the Teamsters that President Richard Nixon imposed when he commuted Hoffa's 1967 federal prison sentence for fraud and jury tampering in 1971 (he continued to run the union from his prison cell). On July 30, 1975, Hoffa was scheduled to meet with Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone, capo of the Detroit Mafia, and Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano, a former Teamsters vice president who was also a captain in the Genovese crime family, at a restaurant called the Machus Red Fox in Bloomfield Township.

    In a 1976 "here we stand" memo published several years later, the FBI speculated that Hoffa reluctantly agreed to the meeting to try to smooth over differences with Provenzano and Giacalone, who were reportedly perturbed that Hoffa was trying to get back into the Teamsters' leadership, That, presumably, would have lessened the mob's control over the union.

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    "It is believed that the hit, if there was one, would have been approved at very highest levels within the Organized Crime structure," the FBI concluded. "If this be the case, it would tend to lend credence to the evidence that PROVENZANO or certainly someone at his level, both within the Teamsters Union and (Mafia), was responsible."

    Read the 1976 FBI memo (.pdf)

    Hoffa's body has never been found. Provenzano was later convicted of an unrelated murder and died in 1988; Giacalone, who was imprisoned for tax fraud, died in 2001.

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    430 comments

    And if you think the unions and organized crime have miraculously ceased their affiliations go live in Chicago for a while. Who do you think put...well that is a different story.

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