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An aspiring tycoon partners with a racketeer to build a jukebox that makes millions, then takes the fall for the largest money laundering scheme in history.
Caught between the Mob and the feds in a plot to save the casinos in Havana from Castro's revolution, Wolfe Rabin pulls the biggest money-laundering scheme in history, but his hubris leads to the conspiracy unraveling in a sensational trial. At a time when there was a jukebox in every restaurant, diner, bar, barracks, arcade, and canteen, Rabin's trajectory from inventor to promoter to outlaw is set against the Mob's growing infiltration of the jukebox industry. In a world of music, machines, and money, popular culture and organized crime collide in an epic drama of invention and greed. David Rabinovitch's investigation into his own family history pieces together an epic puzzle that begins in Chicago with the invention of a jukebox and spans the casinos of Havana and the financial giants of Europe, leading to what the FBI called “the biggest bank robbery in the world.”
Published | Oct 15 2023 |
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Format | Hardback |
Edition | 1st |
Extent | 248 |
ISBN | 9781538172599 |
Imprint | Rowman & Littlefield Publishers |
Illustrations | 18 b/w photos |
Dimensions | 9 x 6 inches |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
Award-winning filmmaker Rabinovitch, who has an investigative-journalism background, looked into his own family's history and learned that his uncle Wolfe Rabin was involved in the jukebox empire, in which it was easy to falsify how many songs were actually sold. This book, full of research, shows that the Mafia understood that and tapped into it as a way to evade taxes as well, and Rabin worked with them in this money-laundering business….He describes how the jukebox was invented and how it became a staple throughout the United States but devotes most of the book's pages to the story of the famous robbery-the FBI called it the biggest of its kind at the time-in which millions of dollars in bonds were stolen….A well-researched book[.] and Rabin worked with them in this money-laundering business….He describes how the jukebox was invented and how it became a staple throughout the United States but devotes most of the book's pages to the story of the famous robbery-the FBI called it the biggest of its kind at the time-in which millions of dollars in bonds were stolen….A well-researched book[.]
Library Journal
This is a brilliant depiction, in evocative prose, of the corrupt juke box industry as controlled by the mob. Anyone interested in how the mob can launder money through a seemingly innocent American past time should read Jukebox Empire.
Jeffrey Sussman, author of Tinseltown Gangsters, Sin City Gangsters, Boxing and the Mob, and Big Apple Gangsters
It reads like a novel but the characters and events described by David Rabinovitch are real and chilling. Fans of The Untouchables and Godfather II will thank me for recommending Jukebox Empire.
Peter Edwards, co-author of Bad Blood and The Encyclopedia of Canadian Organized Crime
Jukebox Empire is the engrossing story of William Rabin, a key figure in the development of the jukebox industry in America who rubbed shoulders with major Mafioso from the US and Canada. Author David Rabinovitch, the nephew of William Rabin, weaves together a compelling story of family and crime that even touches on key events of US history in the 1950s and 60s. Rabin was a character who, before this book, was missing from the US Mafia historical timeline, but is here rightfully placed in the canon as one of the many key figures in the story of organized crime in the 20th century.
Scott M. Deitche, author of Garden State Gangland: The Rise of the Mob in New Jersey, Hitmen: The Mafia, Drugs, and the East Harlem Purple Gang and other crime books
It is a compelling book from beginning to end. David Rabinovitch takes us into the dark meanders of the American underworld and tells the story of a man who, thanks to jukeboxes, managed to create an empire. It is an eye-opening, informative, and fascinating book. Jukebox Empire is must-read.
Antonio Nicaso, author of Business or Blood, Global Mafia, and Made Men
Jukebox Empire is part family journey, part mob story, as Rabinovitch vividly retraces his uncle's life of crime from Canada to Chicago to Cuba. The personal story of Wolfe Rabin helps illuminate misunderstood aspects of organized crime in the twentieth century. A delightfully entertaining story of jukeboxes, money laundering, and stolen bonds.
Alex Hortis, author of The Mob and the City: The Hidden History of How the Mafia Captured New York
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