Well, hey, all you wiretappers out there back here in the studio of Gangline Wire, another little

shorty, another bonus episode. This is going to be about Tony Acardo, your favorite from Chicago,

the genuine godfather, as Bill Romer once called him, the big tuna, a real Joe batters,

as Al Capone called him.

So speaking of Al Capone, according to the legend, and I'm going to have to look at my cheat sheet, Paul Rika once said of Acardo, this guy has more brains at breakfast than Al Capone had all day long. So Paul Rika had high expectations and a high regard for Tony O'Cardo, who would be his second in command, basically, and would step in for him when Rika went to the penitentiary in 1943, I believe it was.

Now, in the 40s, the outfit sent some guys out to Hollywood, California,

infiltrated the, I believe the stage hands union, and they'd already infiltrated the

projectors union in Chicago and the movie theaters.

So they got out to California,

and then they started extorting money out of the labor unions,

and then from there was the labor unions under their control.

They were extorting money from the studios.

It was like a golden goose laying a golden egg for them.

And I understand that the actor

Robert Montgomery finally spoke up and gave the heads of the studios the courage to go to the

government and to fight back against this extortion. They had a guy named Willie Byoff they'd sent

out who was kind of the main Chicago guy out there.

They'll eventually kill him years later.

You know, he's kind of the origin of one of the stories, how the mob will get you, no matter how far you run and how well you hide.

They blew him and his wife up down in Phoenix, Arizona, years later after he had turned and testified

against him. So in 1943, the government will convict Paul Rika, Charlie Cherry Nose Joey,

Little New York Companion, Johnny Rieseli, and a couple of others who weren't from Chicago, I don't believe, in this extortion.

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