The FBI found no evidence in the disappearance of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa during a search of land under a New Jersey bridge, a spokesman said Thursday. The Pulaski Skyway now becomes another dead end in a decades-long mystery that stretches from a Michigan horse farm to the East Coast: Where are the remains of one of America’s most powerful labor leaders? The 47-year-old enigma was converted last year and landed next to a former dump under the bridge in Jersey City. The FBI conducted an investigation there in early June. “Nothing of evidentiary value was discovered during this investigation,” said Mara Snyder, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Detroit. “While we do not currently anticipate any additional activity at the scene, the FBI will continue to pursue any viable leads in our efforts to locate Mr. Hoffa,” he said. Schneider declined to comment further when asked for details about the dig. Authorities believe Hoffa disappeared in suburban Detroit in 1975 while meeting with notorious mobsters. Dan Moldea, a journalist who has written extensively about the Hoffa saga, said he was personally briefed by the FBI on a conference call Thursday. He said the FBI and its contractors did not dig exactly where he had recommended. “I’m not thrilled with the result. … My impression today was that they gave me the bad news: Thanks for the advice but it’s over. That’s my interpretation,” Moldea told The Associated Press. “They dug holes very, very deep,” he said. The FBI contacted Moldea last year after it released a detailed report from Frank Cappola, who was a teenager in the 1970s when he worked at the old PJP landfill near the bridge. Cappola said his father, Paul Cappola, who also worked at the dump, explained how Hoffa’s body was delivered there in 1975, placed in a steel drum and buried with other barrels, bricks and soil. Paul Cappola, worried that police might be watching, dug a hole on New Jersey state property about 100 meters from the dump and then moved the unmarked barrel there, according to Moldea. Frank Cappola spoke to Fox Nation and Moldea before he died in 2020 and signed a document attesting to his late father’s story. Moldea said the FBI told him he didn’t dig exactly where he had recommended because the radar didn’t show anything suspicious underground. “I think they missed that point,” he said. “I think the body is there. We just can’t find it.” Hoffa was president of the 2.1 million-member Teamsters union from 1957-71, even retaining the title while in prison for trying to bribe jurors during an earlier trial. He was released in 1971 when President Richard Nixon commuted his sentence. It has long been speculated that Hoffa, who was 62, was killed by enemies because he was plotting a Teamsters comeback. He was declared legally dead in 1982.
