The Battle for Las Vegas by Dennis N Griffin

The Battle for Las Vegas by Dennis N Griffin

King of the Strip

From the 1970s through the mid-1980s, the Chicago Outfit dominated organized crime in Las Vegas. Unreported revenue, known as the skim, from Outfit-controlled casinos made its way out of Vegas by the bagful, ending up in the coffers of the Windy City crime bosses and their confederates around the Midwest.

To ensure the smooth flow of cash, the gangsters installed a front man with no criminal background, Allen R. Glick, as the casino owner of record, Frank Lefty Rosenthal as the real boss of casino operations, and Tony Spilotro as the ultimate enforcer, who'd do whatever it took to protect their interests. It wasn't long before Spilotro, also in charge of Vegas street crime, was known as the King of the Strip.

Federal and local law enforcement, recognizing the need to rid the casinos of the mob and shut down Spilotro's rackets, declared war on organized crime.

The Battle for Las Vegas relates the story of the fight between the tough guys on both sides, told in large part by the agents and detectives who knew they had to win.

In 1994, Dennis N. Griffin retired after a 20-year career in investigations and law enforcement in New York and moved to Las Vegas. In 1996 he wrote his first novel, The Morgue, based on an actual case he investigated, and currently has six mystery thrillers in print, in addition to four non-fiction titles for Huntington Press: Policing Las Vegas, The Battle for Las Vegas, Cullotta, and Surviving the Mob. He is an active member of the Mystery Writers of America, Las Vegas Valley Writers Group, Henderson Writers Group, and the Police Writers Association and is a consultant and frequent on-screen contributor to documentaries and films about the history of the Mob.