New Bedford Gangster Featured Prominently in Las Vegas Mob Museum

There is a lot more to see in Las Vegas, Nevada than The Strip, Fremont Street and The Sphere. There is the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, the Pinball Hall of Fame and the Mob Museum, to name a few.

Las Vegas was founded and controlled by the mob for many years, so it's only fitting that the Mob Museum is there.

However, the Mob Museum is about more than Las Vegas mobsters. It bills itself as a "national museum of organized crime and law enforcement." The museum is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization with a mission to "advance the public understanding of organized crime's history and impact on American society."

Featured prominently in the halls of the Mob Museum is a New Bedford man: Joe "The Animal" Barboza.

Joseph Barboza, Jr. was born to Portuguese immigrant parents in New Bedford, Massachusetts, on September 20, 1932. Nicknamed "The Animal," Barboza was a notorious mobster and hitman for the Patriarca Crime Family of New England during the 1960s.

Barboza legally changed his name to Baron in 1964.

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Barboza became an FBI informant in 1967 and entered the federal witness protection program. He was gunned down in a mob hit in San Francisco on February 11, 1976.

Barboza, who used the FBI-assigned name Joe Denati, was shot at close range by a pair of hitmen from New England as he left the home of another former mobster.

A Mob Museum feature on Barboza titled "Joe The Animal Barboza: No. 4 On List Of Top Five Most Notorious Mob Hitmen," says Barboza earned the nickname for "vicious acts."

I always got a kick out of some of the nicknames used by mobsters and criminals in New England.