On this day‬ in 1938 Tony Spilotro was born. The Ant was an enforcer for the Chicago Outfit during the 1970’s and 1980’s, and his main priority was to oversee and protect the Chicago Outfits operations in Las Vegas at that time. At the age of 48 he and his brother Michael were driven to a mob home in Bensenville, Illinois and were beaten to death in the basement. They were later transported to the cornfield in Enos, Indiana.

It was some 26 years after his death that James Marcello (a Chicago Outfit front-man) was sentenced to life in prison, for the Spilotro murders.

On this day in 1938, Anthony John Spilotro was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of an Italian immigrant family that would have little idea their boy would one day become one of the most feared and notorious figures in American organised crime. Known throughout the underworld by his chilling nickname "The Ant," Spilotro rose through the ranks of the Chicago Outfit to become its primary enforcer during the 1970s and 1980s, a period when the Outfit still wielded enormous power despite the gradual erosion of the old-world mob structures first cemented under Al Capone decades earlier.

Spilotro's principal assignment was to travel west and serve as the Chicago Outfit's eyes, ears, and iron fist in Las Vegas, where the organisation had significant financial interests tied to several major casinos. His job was to protect those operations, collect money, and ensure that nobody skimmed from the Outfit's share before it could be quietly funnelled back to Chicago. He was ruthless in carrying out that mandate, and his violent methods — including his association with the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, a crew of burglars operating out of Las Vegas — drew intense scrutiny from the FBI and ultimately embarrassed the Outfit's leadership at the worst possible time.

By the mid-1980s, Spilotro had become more of a liability than an asset. His increasingly erratic behaviour, his high public profile, and his affair with the wife of fellow Outfit associate Frank Rosenthal had enraged the Chicago bosses. The decision was made to remove him permanently. In June 1986, Tony and his younger brother Michael were lured to a home in Bensenville, Illinois, under the pretence of a meeting. What awaited them was a brutal beating at the hands of Outfit members in the basement of the property. Both men were killed and their bodies transported to a cornfield near Enos, Indiana, where they were discovered buried in shallow graves shortly thereafter. Tony Spilotro was 48 years old.

Justice, when it finally arrived, came slowly. It was not until 2007 — some 26 years after the murders — that James Marcello, a senior Chicago Outfit figure, was sentenced to life in prison in connection with the Spilotro killings, a conviction that formed part of the landmark Family Secrets trial that exposed decades of Outfit crimes. Tony Spilotro's violent life and death remain one of the most compelling and cautionary chapters in the history of American organised crime, later fictionalised memorably in Martin Scorsese's 1995 film Casino.