CRIME: Pay the Piranha

For eight weeks, the Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee has held hearings on organized crime. A parade of witnesses, many of them for- mer mobsters, testifying with immunity, have sketched the outlines of gambling, theft and corruption on which crime empires are built. Last week big Vinnie Teresa, a rotund (300 Ibs.) loan shark now serving concurrent prison terms for stealing securities and car theft, provided a Runyonesque retrospective of his life and crimes:

> I was an officer in the Piranha Co. [a Boston loan-shark operation]. The name Piranha Co. was taken from the...

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