• Last living New Jersey Hoffa suspect dead at 86
• Genovese associate long linked to Teamsters boss disappearance
• Decades-old investigation into Jimmy Hoffa’s fate remains unsolved

Gabriel “Gabe” Briguglio, a long-sidelined Genovese crime family associate who for decades was named by investigators as a suspect in the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, died last week at age 86.

Gabe Briguglio, foreground, participating in an identity line-up in December 1975 as part of the investigation into the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa earlier that year. Briguglio always denied involvement. (Image: Bettman/Getty)

Journalist Dan E. Moldea, whose Substack has chronicled the case for 50 years, broke the news. He described Briguglio as “the last living named suspect in the New Jersey investigation of the murder of […] Hoffa.”

Briguglio passed away at his home in Toms River, N.J., on November 2, according to an obituary in The Bergen Record, which now appears to have been removed.

The death notice said his hobbies included “crabbing, fishing, cooking for family and friends, going to estate sales, auctions and garage sales looking for ‘the best deal.’”

Murdered by the Mob

Hoffa is widely believed to have been murdered by the Mafia, which by the mid-1970s, had begun to see him as a liability.

Previously, the powerful labor union leader had been an enabler of Mob expansion in Las Vegas by channeling Teamsters pension funds into casino construction.

Briguglio and his older brother, Salvatore “Sally Bugs” Briguglio, belonged to the New Jersey faction of the Genovese family, long overseen by Mafia capo Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano, who doubled as Teamsters president for Local 560 in Union City, N.J.

The Provenzano crew’s main rackets involved labor extortion, kickbacks, and control of trucking contracts through the union. Provenzano and Hoffa had once been allies, but the latter’s attempt to regain the union presidency after his 1971 release from prison on corruption charges created tension.

Within months, FBI sources named Salvatore and Gabriel Briguglio and Thomas Andretta – all from Provenzano’s crew – as possible participants in the abduction and murder.

These names appeared in a December 1975 federal court hearing where an investigator under oath said a witness had identified the three New Jersey men as being involved.

Sally Named as Triger Man

Several FBI informants named Sally Bugs as one of the men who picked Hoffa up outside the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Township, Michigan, on July 30, 1975.

Sally Bugs was murdered in March 1978 outside a Little Italy social club – execution-style, with two gunmen firing several shots into him. This was just weeks before he was scheduled to testify before a federal grand jury about the Hoffa case.

The Last One

Many other suspects have been named by mob sources as being involved in the killing, all now dead. With Gabe Briguglio’s passing, there is no credible, publicly named FBI Hoffa suspect that is still alive.

Briguglio always denied any involvement in Hoffa’s disappearance. In an interview for the Fox Nation documentary “Riddle, The Search for James R. Hoffa” last year, he described the allegations that dogged him for 50 years as “a load of bull.”

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