The union organizer Jimmy Hoffa disappeared almost 50 years ago, on July 30, 1975. The former president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters was last seen heading to a late lunch with a capo of the New Jersey mob and an enforcer in the Detroit mob, reportedly to plot a way to regain the labor power he had lost to a forced resignation while serving a 13-year prison sentence for bribery and fraud. After two final pay-phone calls that afternoon, during which Hoffa complained to his wife and a close friend that the mafiosos had stood him up, Hoffa was never heard from or seen again — except, perhaps, in the back seat of a maroon 1975 Mercury Marquis Brougham, heading to a destination unknown.

Since 1975, the case has been handled by upward of 200 FBI officers and yielded more than 70 volumes of files containing more than 16,000 pages of information pertaining to the investigation. None of it has led investigators to Hoffa’s remains.