The Chicago Mob's Mystery Man Sidney Korshak Exposed

Gus Russo has a new book coming out on the Chicago Mob's mystery man Sidney Korshak.Here's a little bit of news on the book:

One area in which Russo believes the book breaks new ground is in "understanding the movement of money from the Midwest out to the West," he says. Korshak and many of his attorney cronies-most practiced out of a building at 134 N. LaSalle St., Russo says-"ended up in Beverly Hills at the same time, because that was where the gold was. They all moved there and took care of each other."

There, using money from organized crime, they began buying land throughout Southern California, tipped to the best deals by Chicago tax attorney David Bazelon, who was serving as director of the Office of Alien Property in the Truman administration. From that office, he oversaw the disbursement of land seized from Japanese Americans sent to internment camps during World War II.

"It was the real 'Chinatown' scenario," Russo says, referring to the 1974 Roman Polanski film that had a similar theme. "This was where the Chicago Outfit's money really went. For years people were asking, where did it go? How did people from Chicago get such instant power (in California)? They owned the land; they got it from the Japanese."

Sidney Korshak was an FBI informant.