“One of Manhattan’s most mysterious citizens, aging (66), ailing Frank Costello, commonly termed a gambler and tax-dodger because no more nefarious raps have been officially pinned upon him, has long been ripe for rubbing out. Now free on $25, 000 bail while appealing a tax-evasion conviction (five years), Costello, a charmed-life anachronism from the Prohibition Era, could see signs that he had outlived his right to be known as “prime minister of the U.S. underworld.” The obvious way for upstart mobsters to hasten the crumbling of Kingpin Costello’s dark empire of crime and rackets would begin with the elimination of the Big Boss himself. Costello taxied last week from a quiet on-the-town evening to his apartment house on Manhattan’s Central Park West. In the building’s vestibule an ill-wisher met Costello, plunked on .38 slig into his head at ten-foot range, departed in a black Cadillac. The bullet, a hatband-guided missile, burrowed like a chigger in a short curve underneath Costello’s scalp , and came out at the other side of this head without even nicking his skull. At week’s end 60 detective had poor prospects of finding the bungling gunman before he himself was liquidated by 1) Costello’s boys, or 2) his frustrated employers. Costello, his feeling more wounded than his noggin, professed amazement over the incident: “I don’t have an enemy in the world.” Frankie’s best guess on whodunit: “I got some dry holes – supposed to be oil wells – in Wise County, Texas. Maybe some big oil company thinks whose wells have oil and tried to bump me off!”

Time Magazine – May 13, 2957 – VOL. LXIX NO. 19

Frank Costello Testifies in 1951

Frank Costello Testifies in 1951

Frank Costello Surrenders for Tax Evasion

New York, May 14 – Costello Surrenders — Gambler Frank Costello, center, faces camera as he surrenders at the offices of U.S. Marshal Thomas J. Lunney, right, today to start a five-year term for income tax evasion. Costello had attempted to avoid serving the prison term by claiming that he is suffering from a new outbreak of cancer. He was convicted in 1954 of evading $28,532 in income taxes for 1948 and 1949, and went all the way to U.S. Supreme Court in effort to get the conviction overturned. Man at left is unidentified.

Frank Costello smoking a cigarette (most likely an English Oval) in his New York Penthouse.

Frank Costello On The Witness Stands

Here is a picture of Frank Costello on the Witness Stand.

Frank Costello At The Senate Crime Investigating Committee Hearings

Here is a picture of Frank Costello at the Senate Crime Investigating Committee Hearings.

Frank Costello Relaxing at his Residence in 1950

Here is a picture from 1950 of Frank Costello relaxing at his residence in Sands Point, Long Island, New York.

Frank Costello Ready to Testify for the Senate Commerce Subcommittee About Big Time Wagering

Here is a picture of Frank Costello Ready to testify for the Senate Commerce Subcommittee about big time wagering in 1950.

Frank Costello Putting Out a Cigatette

Here is a picture of Frank Costello putting out a cigarette. He smoked English Ovals.

Frank Costello Prime Minister of the Underworld Paperback

Frank Costello Prime Minister of the Underworld Paperback

This is the paperback version of Frank Costello Prime Minister of the Underworld Paperback that was published in 1976.

The back cover reads:

Frank Costello was the Godfather.

For more than 30 years he helped rule America’s Mafia “families”.

‘He welded them into the most efficient and merciless private-enterprise crime machine the world has seen. He grew rich on the thousands of millions of pounds clawed in from bootleg liqour, gambling, drugs, prostitution, extortion and blackmail…An Amazing story.”
The Sun

Vividly told by the man who was his personal attorney during the whole of his reign, Costello ‘makes for racy reading – the portrait of a hoodlum, but also the vivid profile of an age and a morality.’
Irish Times