Better known as "Tokyo Joe," Ken Eto ran a profitable gambling racket for the Chicago Outfit, but when the mob tried to take him out in 1983, he decided to testify against his former colleagues.
FBIKen Eto testified against his fellow Chicago Outfit mobsters after surviving an assassination attempt in 1983.
It’s not often that a mobster and an FBI agent work together. It’s even rarer when that cooperation leads to genuine mutual respect. But for Ken Eto, known in the Chicago Outfit as “Tokyo Joe,” and FBI Special Agent Elaine Corbitt Smith, that’s exactly what happened.
Smith received Eto’s case in 1980 when she was a fresh face in the force. Eto had been running a gambling ring for the mob for more than two decades by then, but his file, considered an “old dog case,” had been untouched for years. However, when an attempt on Eto’s life was made in 1983, he decided he was ready to talk. The caveat was that he would only talk to Smith.
For Smith, as one of the few young women with the bureau at the time, the Eto case was just what she needed to prove herself. For Eto, cooperating with the FBI was a way to break free from his past and start a new life. Over the course of 17 years, Eto’s information would help put away 15 mobsters and associates of the Chicago Outfit, including corrupt police officers.
Most surprisingly, however, was that Ken Eto developed a real friendship with Elaine Smith.
Inside Tokyo Joe’s Life Of Crime
Ken Eto began his long life of crime at a young age. He dropped out of school around eighth grade and ran away from home to escape his overbearing, religious parents. He left Los Angeles for Portland and spent his teenage years working various jobs and stealing to survive.
In 1942, soon after the United States entered World War II, 22-year-old Eto was sent to a Japanese internment camp. It was there that he had his first real run-in with the law when he was arrested for breaking curfew. It was also there that he learned the gambling skills that would soon earn him a spot as one of the Chicago Outfit’s top associates.
Elaine SmithKen Eto (center) with mob associates Rocky Enfelice and Joe Ferriola.
After the war, Eto moved to Chicago, where he met his future wife, Teresa. She was a gambler herself, and she had connections to mobsters in the city. Ken Eto first became acquainted with Outfit members through Teresa, but his introduction to the mob wasn’t promising: He took a loan from the Outfit and failed to pay it back on time.
Eto was beaten by mob enforcers, but according to an FBI report, he “displayed such stoicism that he impressed the hoodlums and was eventually employed by them.”
Over the next 30 years, Ken Eto became a key associate for the Chicago Outfit. He ran many of the organization’s gambling rackets, including a lottery known as “bolita,” which the FBI described as “a numbers game played among Latin Americans in Chicago. This operation is allegedly a $50,000 a day profit.”
Elaine SmithKen Eto fishing, one of his favorite pastimes.
While Eto certainly caught the attention of the FBI during this time and was questioned about several crimes, it wasn’t until 1980 that agents had enough information to arrest him. Elaine Smith met with Eto a few months later to convince him to cooperate with the agency, but he refused. According to a 2023 article in Chicago Magazine, Eto said, “I understand, Agent Smith, that you have a job to do, and trying to convince me to be a snitch is part of it. But that is not who I am.”
So, Ken Eto was convicted of a numbers scheme in January 1983, and his sentencing hearing was set for Feb. 25.
He wouldn’t make it to the court date.
The Attempted Assassination That Turned Ken Eto Into An FBI Informant
On Feb. 10, 1983, Elaine Smith received a call from her boss in the middle of the night. Ken Eto had just been shot three times in the head.
Earlier that day, Eto had been invited to a dinner meeting with Outfit capo Vincent Solano. He had a feeling he was going to be murdered, so he took a bath, put on his best suit, and told his wife where his insurance policy was before heading out to pick up associates Johnny Gattuso and Jay Campise.
Gattuso and Campise guided Eto to a parking lot in Chicago’s Northwest side before shooting him in the head and fleeing the scene. Tokyo Joe wasn’t dead — but he wasn’t about to let his attackers know it.
Elaine SmithFederal agents escorting Ken Eto out of the hospital following his attempted assassination.
Covered in blood that dripped from his head, he began to shake and convulse, making it seem like he was dying. He threw open the car door and stumbled out into the cold. There was no sign of Gattuso or Campise. When Eto dragged himself into a nearby pharmacy and asked for an ambulance, a police car accompanied it.
When he got to the hospital, the 64-year-old had six holes in his head and a sudden realization that the men he had trusted and worked with for decades had just tried to kill him — and failed. Solano seemingly thought Eto was going to turn on the mob before his sentencing hearing, so he’d decided to take him out.
He didn’t realize that decision was what would ultimately cause Tokyo Joe to flip.
How Elaine Smith And Ken Eto Took Down The Chicago Outfit
“They had their chance, and now I’ve gone to the other side,” Ken Eto told Smith after he recovered from his injuries. “I’m now property of the FBI.”
Elaine Smith/FBIElaine Smith’s FBI credentials.
By some miracle, his wounds had been mostly superficial. In the hospital, still with his wits about him, he would only agree to talk if it meant no charges would be brought against him. Jeremy Margolis, an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, was called in to offer Eto that reassurance — and to give him the last push he needed to squeal.
“There is no more bond,” Margolis told him. “It’s not you that’s breaking it. They broke it. They broke it by trying to kill you — because they didn’t understand that you would’ve gone to your dying day without breathing a word about them. You know that, I know that. They didn’t trust you. You know why? Because you’re Japanese.”
Eto agreed to become an informant, and thanks to the information he provided, the FBI was able to compile a list of dozens of active members and associates of the Chicago Outfit, including their names and roles in the organization. Eto even testified against some of them, landing 15 people behind bars.
FBIVincent Solano, the Chicago Outfit capo who allegedly ordered a hit on Ken Eto in 1983.
True to their word, officials dropped all charges against Ken Eto, and he spent the rest of his life in the Witness Protection Program under the name Joe Tanaka. He died on Jan. 28, 2004, at the age of 84.
Before his death, Elaine Smith visited him in Hawaii, where he lived for several years. There, Eto told her, “I will forever be grateful to you, Elaine, for all you have done for me. For all these years, you have been my friend and one of the few people I ever trusted.”
After learning about Ken Eto, a.k.a. “Tokyo Joe,” read about Mickey Featherstone, the deranged hitman-turned-informant who helped bring down the Westies. Then, learn about Frank Cullotta, the mobster who inspired Casino.
