The Last Gangster: From Cop to Wiseguy to FBI Informant: Big Ron Previte and the Fall of the American Mob

As a cop Ron Previte was corrupt. As a mobster he was brutal. And in his final role, as a confidential informant to the FBI, Previte was deadly. The Last Gangster is his story — the story of the last days of the Philadelphia mob, and of the clash of generations that brought it down once and for all. For thirty-five years Ron Previte roamed the underworld. A six foot-tall, 300-pound capo in the Philadelphia-South Jersey crime family, he ran every mob scam and gambit from drug trafficking and prostitution to the extortion of millions from Atlantic City. By the 1990s, Previte, an old-school workhorse, found himself answering to younger mob bosses like “Skinny Joey” Merlina. Spoiled, cocky, and careless, the young, up-and-coming gangsters were hungry for the media’s attention and the public’s recognition. Gone were the days of loyalty and discretion. Convinced that the honor of the “business” was over, Previte became the FBI’s secret weapon in an intense and highly personalized war on the Philadelphia mob. Operating with the same guile, wit, and stone-cold bravado that had made him a force in the underworld, and armed with only a wiretap, Previte recorded it the murder, the mayhem, and the betrayal.In The Last Gangster , George Anastasia — the critically acclaimed author of Blood and Honor and The Goodfella Tapes — tells Previte’s story for the first time. Unflinching and enthralling, The Last Gangster is the true story of how the once monolithic, highly organized, powerful, and secretive Cosa Nostra was defeated by its own hand.