From the publisher

In the 1980s, a small group of Israeli nationals set up one of the most lucrative crime syndicates in New York City's history. With rackets ranging from drug dealing to contract killing, the gang's crime spree was so violent that it wasn't long before crime reporters for New York's tabloids had dubbed the crew the “Israeli Mafia.”

Headed by a cold-blooded killer named Johnny Attias, the Israeli mafia butted heads with the Italian mafia, killed Russian gangsters and pulled off the biggest gold heist in the history of Manhattan's Diamond District. Filled with paranoid mobsters, clever scams, and deep betrayals, Blood & Volume: Inside New York's Israeli Mafia, gives an exclusive and never-before revealed look into one of the most successful Israeli gangs ever to operate on American soil.

The book follows Ron Gonen, a likable rogue and hugely successful cocaine dealer who wanted nothing more than to end a three-decade span as a career criminal and focus on caring for his drug-addicted wife and infant daughter. But Attias had other plans for Gonen, and Ron quickly found himself pressured to join the Israeli mafia or become another name on the long list of Attias's victims. Gonen's supposed best friend, Ran Ephraim, complicated the issue, playing the two men against one another as he tried to wrest control of the Israeli mafia for himself.

Copeland has painstakingly reconstructed the gang's short but vicious run through hundreds of hours of interviews with Gonen and other key players, including the investigators who eventually brought the gang down. The result is a nonfiction narrative that reads like a page turning novel.