Jimmy Hoffa Vanishes: The Mob's Greatest Mystery

Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa walked into the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in suburban Detroit for a meeting and was never seen again. His disappearance spawned decades of FBI investigations, mob informant testimonies, and excavation of suspected burial sites, none of which produced his remains. The case became America's most famous unsolved disappearance and a permanent fixture of organized crime mythology. Hoffa was 62 years old on July 30, 1975, and had been out of prison for four years. President Nixon had commuted his 13-year sentence for jury tampering, fraud, and conspiracy in 1971, with the stipulation that Hoffa could not engage in union activities until 1980. Hoffa, who had led the International Brotherhood of Teamsters from 1957 to 1971 and built it into the nation's largest and most powerful union, was attempting to regain control from Frank Fitzsimmons, who had replaced him and developed his own relationships with organized crime. The meeting at the Machus Red Fox was ostensibly with Anthony Giacalone and Anthony Provenzano, mob figures with Teamster connections. Neither man appeared at the restaurant. Hoffa made a phone call from a payphone at the restaurant at approximately 2:30 PM, complaining that the men had stood him up. He was never seen again. The FBI investigated for decades, interviewing hundreds of witnesses and excavating sites across Michigan, New Jersey, and Florida. Multiple theories emerged: his body was disposed of in a New Jersey landfill, dissolved in acid, or mixed into the concrete of Giants Stadium. In 2006, the FBI dug up a farm in Michigan. Nothing. A 2013 search under a concrete slab in a suburban Detroit driveway also came up empty. He was declared legally dead in 1982. The case remains officially open.