Teamsters' boss Jimmy Hoffa went missing in 1975, since then, there have been many theories about what happened to him and where his body is buried. The FBI’s confirmation last week that it was looking at a spot near a New Jersey landfill is the most recent development in a search that started 46 years ago.
The FBI obtained a search warrant to examine the location as a possible burial site for Hoffa.
Ground Penetrating Radar was used in March 2020 to conduct an underground survey of the location which located large pieces of round metal that could be the 55-gallon drum Hoffa was rumored to have been buried in.
"Last month, the FBI obtained a search warrant to conduct a site survey underneath the Pulaski Skyway," the FBI said in a statement. “On October 25th and 26th, FBI personnel from the Newark and Detroit field offices completed the survey, and that data is currently being analyzed. Because the affidavit in support of the search warrant was sealed by the court, we are unable to provide any additional information."
There have been a number of theories about what might have happened to Hoffa, many of which have been tied to book releases.
Self-proclaimed Mafia murderer Charles Allen, who had served time in prison with Hoffa and had also been in the federal witness protection, told the U.S. Senate committee in 1982 that Hoffa was killed on the orders of alleged New Jersey mob figure Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano. His body was "ground up in little pieces, shipped to Florida and thrown into a swamp.
The FBI never found enough evidence to support the claim and there were questions about Allen trying to sell the story.
"When that information came to our attention we batted it around, but we were all convinced in the end that this guy was not reliable," FBI agent Jim Kossler said then. "We were able to prove to our mind that what he was telling us couldn’t have happened because he either couldn’t have been there or he was in jail at the time.
Former Hoffa aide and strong-arm Joseph Franco alleged in the 1987 book “Hoffa’s Man,” claimed that Hoffa was abducted by ′′either federal marshals or federal agents,′′ driven to a nearby airport and dropped out of a plane, possibly into one of the Great Lakes.
Other than Franco’s allegation, there was nothing to support his claim.
Frank Sheeran, Hoffa’s once upon a time ally, said that he killed Hoffa at a Detroit house. Key parts of the narrative became the basis for the 2019 movie "The Irishman."
Bloomfield Township police ripped up floorboards at the house in 2004, but the FBI crime lab concluded that blood found on them was not Hoffa’s.
Reputed Mafia captain Tony Zerilli was in prison for organized crime at the time of Hoffa’s disappearance, however, he claimed in the online “Hoffa Found,” that he was informed about Hoffa’s whereabouts after his release and that Hoffa was buried in a makeshift grave beneath a concrete slab of a barn in Oakland Township about 25 miles north of Detroit.
In 2013 the FBI and police spent two days digging at the site where the barn had been but found nothing.
Journalist Dan Moldea, who has written extensively about the Hoffa saga, as a result of interviews with Frank Cappola believes Hoffa’s body was delivered to a Jersey City landfill in 1975, placed in a steel drum and buried about 100 yards away on state property that sits below an elevated highway. Cappola, who died in 2020, claimed his father owned the landfill and buried the body.
The FBI obtained a search warrant to do a site survey, which it completed last month and is now analyzing the data. The agency hasn’t disclosed whether it removed anything from the site.
