• Todd Maisel/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images
    1 of 10

    Omerta. Mafia. La Cosa Nostra. The story of the mob is in our culture. We’re familiar with the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Bugsy Seigel, Al Capone and his infamous use of a baseball bat, but those events seem like old photos from newspapers of yesteryear. With headlines dominated today by terrorism and war, is the mob even around anymore? Like herpes, the mob may fade, but never goes away. Here are a few real-life goodfellas (and those who crossed their path) who are now proverbially sleeping with the fishes.

    John Favara

    Sometimes it’s not so good to live next door to the Godfather. John Favara was John Gotti's neighbor, but in March of 1980, Favara killed Gotti’s 12-year-old son in a tragic traffic accident. Police found Favara was not to blame, and no charges were filed.

    Favara found the word “murderer” scrawled on his car, and was attacked with a bat by Gotti’s wife, Victoria. There are conflicting reports that he didn’t heed the warnings to move out of the area or that he had decided to move, but didn’t in time.

    Several weeks later, John Favara left for work and was never seen again. In 2009, an informant said Favara was killed and dissolved in a barrel of acid.
  • Evelyn Straus/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images
    2 of 10

    Jimmy Hoffa

    Rumored to be buried in the end zone of Giants Stadium, Jimmy Hoffa was a labor-union boss who wanted to retake control of the Teamsters after his release from prison due to jury tampering. When his mob pals tried to talk him out of it, Hoffa threatened to tell authorities about the mob’s involvement with the unions. He was last seen in a restaurant outside of Detroit on July 30, 1975. He was supposedly killed by Frank Sheeran, a mafia contract killer known as “The Irishman,” on orders from the Westies, a New York Irish gang. He was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the film “Hoffa.” As for Giants Stadium, people have searched the site and found nothing.
  • Wikimedia Commons
    3 of 10

    Giovanni Falcone

    Don’t mess with the Sicilian mob. Judge Giovanni Falcone was an Italian prosecuting magistrate. He spent much of his career trying to overthrow the Mafia. With Falcone's security detail, no ordinary assassination would do. On May 23, 1992, mob hit men detonated a roadside bomb that killed him, his wife and his three bodyguards. “My life is mapped out; it is my destiny to take a bullet by the Mafia some day. The only thing I don’t know is when.”
  • Wikimedia Commons
    4 of 10

    Paolo Borsellino

    Yet another Italian magistrate who spent his life trying to take down the Sicilian Mafia and met his end because of it. 57 days after the death of his colleague, Giovanni Falcone, Paolo Borsellino met the same fate on July 19, 1992, when a car bomb exploded at his home in Palermo and killed him and five policemen. 
  • Mike Lipack/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images
    5 of 10

    Paul “Big Paul” Castellano

    What goes around comes around. During his career as the head of the Gambino crime family, Castellano, aka the Howard Hughes of the Mob, ordered hits, only to wind up the victim of one. On Dec. 15, 1985, Castellano and his bodyguard, Thomas Bilotti, were killed in Manhattan in front of Sparks Steak House. They weren’t even armed. Most bosses didn’t mind Castellano’s death; Castellano had allowed his mansion to be bugged by the FBI. There was also concern that 70-year-old Castellano would talk to save himself from prison. He was succeeded by John Gotti. 
  • ROGERIO BARBOSA/AFP/Getty Images
    6 of 10

    Nicolo Rizzuto

    In Montreal, the city’s crime families battle for supremacy as violently as their southern neighbor, New York City. In November 2010, Nicolo (Nick) Rizzuto, one of the most powerful figureheads of the Mafia, was killed in his mansion in Montreal by a sniper’s bullet. Said Andre Noel, co-author of “Mafia, Inc.,” “What’s stunning is that Nick had already let it be known he was no longer interested … in playing a role. It’s stunning to see them get rid of someone who was pretty much inactive.”
  • Wikimedia Commons
    7 of 10

    Philip “The Chicken Man” Testa

    A long-time underboss of Angelo Bruno, and a boss after Bruno’s death, Testa was killed by his own consiglieri when a nail bomb exploded on his front porch. Neighbors said pieces of his body were scattered for blocks. He got his nickname for his involvement in the poultry business. Even Bruce Springsteen in his song “Atlantic City” sang about Testa, “Well, they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night/now they blew up his house too”

    via The Sixth Wall
  • Wikimedia Commons
    8 of 10

    Angelo “The Gentle Don” Bruno

    Earning his nickname because he preferred conciliation to violence, Bruno ran the Philadelphia mob for nearly 20 years. He was killed in March of 1980 by a shotgun blast in the back of the heard as he sat in his car. Antonio “Tony Bananas” Caponigro supposedly ordered the hit, but he, too, was later killed when the Commission (the governing body of the American Mafia) determined he didn’t have permission.
  • Javier Das Blogspot
    9 of 10

    Dominick “Sonny Black” Napolitano

    If you’ve seen the film “Donnie Brasco,” you know how this story ends. Napolitano allowed FBI agent Joseph Pistone to infiltrate the Bonanno crime family. Pistone spent six years undercover, and his testimony helped convict more than 100 mobsters from across the country. For allowing such a breach, Napolitano was shot. Supposedly, his mutilated corpse was left at the corner of South Avenue and Bridge Street, but in 2000, the FBI revealed doubts about whether the corpse was correctly identified.
  • Los Angeles Police Department
    10 of 10
    Next: Today's Funniest Internet Photos

    Anthony DiLapi

    Listed on his death certificate as a used-car salesman, Anthony DiLapi was really a member of the New York Lucchese crime family and a former Teamsters union leader in New York’s garment district. He fled to the West Coast after a falling out with his bosses. But in February 1990, he was found shot to death in the garage of his apartment building outside Los Angeles.

    Never mind that New York cops, Lou Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, known as the “Mafia Cops,” helped track DiLapi down, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.