Coming this July, the untold story of a man who made millions for the New England Mob by counterfeiting casino chips so well made the most sophisticated casino security systems couldn’t detect them!

You Thought it Was More by Louis Colavecchio, Andy Thibault, and Franz Douskey with a history of the Rhode Island Mob written by East Providence Police Captain (Ret.) Joe Broadmeadow.

Among the many infamous individuals associated with the mob in Rhode Island—Patriarca, Ouimette, Tillinghast, and Marrapese—is a name most have never heard of. Coming this July is the story of Louis “The Coin” Colavecchio, the world’s greatest counterfeiter who took casinos in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and Connecticut for millions of dollars with fake casino chips.

Louis crafted his chips to be virtually indistinguishable from the actual chips. In a daring move, he managed to flood several casinos with fake chips, leaving some in denial of his audacious exploits.

Louis Colavecchio wrote the book. You Thought It Was More,  along with reporter and professor Andy Thibault—who teaches basic news writing and investigative reporting at the University of New Haven and served as a consultant to the HBO series Allen V. Farrow—and Professor Franz Douskey—the author of Sinatra and Me: The Very Good Years, with Tony Consiglio, and Elvis is OUT There. In 2011, Douskey was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his book of poems, West of Midnight. His work has appeared in hundreds of publications, including Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Cavalier, The Nation, USA Today, and Yankee Magazine. Douskey is a professor of humanities at Gateway Community College in New Haven.

This virtually unknown story is a mind-boggling view of the reach of the Rhode Island Mob.

The book includes a primer on New England Mob history written by East Providence Captain (Ret.) Joe Broadmeadow, author of Choices: You Make ‘em, You Own ‘em, with Jerry Tillinghast, and It’s Just the Way It Was: Inside the War on the New England Mob, with Colonel (Ret.) Brendan Doherty, former Superintendent of the Rhode Island State Police.

Published by Histria Books, it will be released on July 9, 2024, and can be ordered on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or wherever books are sold.

You Thought It Was More is one story about the Rhode Island Mob that few know. And it goes a long way to explain the mob wasn’t just a bunch of bookies and thugs; they had some talented, if flawed, people generating millions of dollars in revenue.