Angelo J. "The Hook" LaPietra (October 30, 1920– March 28, 1999) was a Chicago mobster and member of the Chicago Outfit, involved in extensive loansharking operations in the city's First Ward during the 1970s and 1980s. He earned his nickname "The Hook" due to the way he murdered his victims—those that did not, or could not pay up. He would take his victim—bound and gagged—and hang him on a meat hook, (piercing the victim's rib cage with the meat hook) and then torture him to death with a blow-torch. The torch would not actually be the cause of death. The victims most often died from suffocation.