Frank Costello, the Prime Minister of the Underworld, once loaned Gene Pope $75,000 so he could purchase the failing New York Enquirer in 1952 and started anew as a tabloid magazine, under the name The National Enquirer. Uncle Frank was always there to help Gene pay the bills but the favor came with a price – Gene had to publish the lottery numbers when the mob was running its lucrative numbers racket. At the end of every week, the debt would be repaid to Costello by dropping off an envelope full of cash from his bag-man, at the barber shop in the Waldorf-Astoria.