Sometimes the biggest break in a federal investigation comes from the guy who takes out the trash.
Chicago Outfit boss Sam Giancana wasn’t exactly an easy man to eavesdrop on. His headquarters at the Armory Lounge in Forest Park, Illinois, regularly drew mobsters, associates, and even visiting celebrities. Giancana was also notoriously suspicious of FBI surveillance, sometimes watching a nearby parking lot through binoculars for federal agents.
But the FBI had a plan, and it involved an unlikely accomplice: the night janitor.
Federal agents approached the janitor with a wanted poster featuring a man who looked like him. They asked him to accompany them to FBI headquarters to clear up the apparent case of mistaken identity.
Once there, agents had him empty his pockets, then fingerprinted him. While the unsuspecting janitor was occupied, an FBI locksmith secretly duplicated his Armory Lounge keys.
With their new access, agents slipped into the building before dawn and installed a hidden microphone behind the wall in Giancana’s office. The listening device was nicknamed “Mo,” after Giancana’s own nickname, “Momo.”
Despite the FBI’s sophisticated surveillance equipment, cracking organized crime sometimes came down to a good old-fashioned set of keys.
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