Jukebox Empire

From the biggest bank robbery in the world to the largest money laundering scheme in history, Jukebox Empire follows the many twists and turns in one man’s pursuit of the American dream.

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Jukebox Empire follows the many twists and turns in one man’s pursuit of the American dream, from a self-taught electronics genius to money launderer for the mob. This book exposes how the jukebox industry became the vertically integrated business model for organized crime at a time when there was a jukebox in every restaurant, diner, bar, barracks, arcade, and canteen throughout the country. Anyone can afford a nickel for a song and every week the jukeboxes generate millions of dollars in cash, untaxed income, that needed to be laundered.. Beneath this wholesome veneer lies a seamy underworld of juke joints, operators’ routes, smoke-filled showrooms, and violence. Rabinovitch reveals the details of the mob’s international money-laundering scheme to finance running guns to Cuba. The investigation pieces together an epic puzzle that begins in Chicago with the invention of a jukebox and spans the casinos of Havana and the financial giants of Europe, leading to what the FBI called “the biggest bank robbery in the world.”