Anthony 'Tony Pro' Provenzano

Anthony 'Tony Pro' Provenzano

Anthony Provenzano was born in New York in 1917. By the 1950s, he was president of the Teamsters Local 560, New Jersey, and vice-president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. He was also a made member of the Genovese crime family. Provenzano and Jimmy Hoffa were allies for years, stealing union funds. Provenzano went to prison in 1963 for extortion, and Hoffa went to prison in 1967 for bribery and fraud. The former lost his union pension while Hoffa kept his. They reportedly came across each other by chance at an airport, and Hoffa is said to have broken a bottle over Provenzano’s head, while the mobster told the union boss that he would "rip his guts out with his bare hands and kill his grandchildren." In 1975, Hoffa disappeared. He had been in Detroit for a meeting with Provenzano and mobster Anthony Giacalone, but they never showed up. That crime remains unsolved.

In 1978, he was convicted of ordering the 1961 murder of Anthony Castellito. He was sentenced to 25 years. A month later Provenzano was also sentenced to four years for arranging kickbacks on a $2.3m pension loan. A year after that, he was also convicted on labor racketeering charges, which landed him another 20-year prison term.

Provenzano died of a heart attack at Lompoc Federal Penitentiary, aged 71 in 1988.