Jimmy Hoffa Disappearance Solved? Teamsters President ‘Killer to be Named’

• Mafia ties and Teamsters funds linked Hoffa to Vegas
• Hoffa vanished in 1975 after mob “peace meeting”
• Experts claim they’ll name killer in July 23 reveal

One of the most enduring mysteries of modern American history may soon be solved. What happened to Jimmy Hoffa, the powerful president of the Teamsters Union who vanished without a trace in 1975?

Crime historian Scott Burnstein, former Detroit Mafia soldier Nove Tocco, and ex-Assistant US Attorney Richard Convertino believe they have the answer, and they’re going for the big reveal on July 23.

Tocco is the cousin of longtime Detroit Mafia boss Jack Tocco whom he helped convict in 2000 when he became a government witness.

Hoffa was widely believed to have been offed by the Mafia, which by the mid-1970s, had begun to see him as a liability.

Previously, the labor boss had been an enabler of Mob expansion in Las Vegas by channeling Teamsters pension funds into casino construction.

Mob Casinos

In the 1950s and 1960s, the Mob used Las Vegas casinos as a means of generating and laundering money. Venues like the Stardust, Desert Inn, and Tropicana were among those that benefited from Teamsters-backed loans. In return for Teamsters capital, Hoffa was paid in kickbacks and political support from organized crime figures.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon commuted the sentence, and Hoffa was released having served around five years. At the time of his death, he was planning to regain control of the Teamsters.

The move was opposed by the Mob, which in his absence, had helped install the even more compliant Frank “Fitz” Fitzsimmons as Teamsters president.

Disappearance

Hoffa disappeared from outside the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Township, Mich., on June 30, 1975. He had gone to the restaurant to meet Mob figures as part of a “peace meeting,” and later called his wife from a payphone to say no one showed up.

It was the last time anyone saw or heard from Jimmy Hoffa. Despite a massive FBI investigation, and the countless books and documentaries that followed, nobody has ever been found and no charges ever filed. Hoffa was declared legally dead in 1982.

But, at a press conference on July 23, “the actual name of the person who killed Jimmy Hoffa,” will be revealed, according to Burnstein.

When The Detroit News asked Burnstein why he hadn’t gone to the FBI with his findings, he replied: “The FBI already knows.”

“They might not come out and say it, but the FBI has come to the same conclusion we have,” Burnstein said.