US government Mafia file discovered on taxi seat goes up for auction

A UNITED States government file discovered on the back seat of a New York City taxi, its pages containing mugshots, criminal associates and favourite hangouts of more than 800 Mafia members during the 1950s and early 1960s, has gone up for auction in New York.

Such notorious figures as Carlo "Don Carlo" Gambino, Meyer Lansky and Salvatore "Lucky Luciano" Lucania each had their own entries.

Nearly 20 years after it was found inside the yellow cab by a passenger, the three-inch-thick, three-ring binder stamped "Mafia" and "United States Treasury Department Bureau of Narcotics" is being offered for sale at auction house Bonhams.

The file was compiled some time between 1957 and 1962 by the Bureau of Narcotics, an early iteration of the US Drug Enforcement Administration.

Only 50 copies of the file were believed to have been printed.

Christina Geiger, director of Bonhams New York fine books & manuscripts, said the passenger found the binder inside a black bag on the seat of the cab on a snowy night in the early 1990s.

"He basically just kept it to himself until contacting HarperCollins in 2006," said Ms Geiger. The owner did not wish to be identified.

HarperCollins published a facsimile of the book a year later.

"Anyone interested in the movies, The Godfather and The Sopranos will find the files fascinating," Ms Geiger said.

"It really gives the flavour of organised crime in the middle of the century. From a book-collecting perspective, this is the first time that the Mafia is acknowledged by the federal government, and probably the first time that the word was used in that context."

The entry for Lansky says he is "one of the top non-Italian associates of the Mafia" who "controls gambling in partnership with leading Mafiosi and finances large-scale narcotic smuggling and other illicit ventures".

Lucky Luciano is described as "one of the highest ranking Mafia both in Italy & the US. From Italy he participates in directing of American rackets & regularly receives his share of the profits through Mafia couriers."