On a rainy November day in 1957, droves of sleek cars with out-of-state license plates swept through the tiny (pop. 280) upstate New York town of Apalachin (pronounced apple-achin') and converged on the secluded hilltop estate of Joseph Barbara, a beer distributor known to be high up in the underworld. His curiosity pricked by the procession of strange Cadillacs and Imperials, an alert state cop called agents of the Treasury Department's Alcohol Tax Unit in Albany. Surrounding the 53-acre estate, policemen halted 63 carefully tailored men—some at a roadblock, others fleeing...
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