Inside the Chippendales Hit: Steve Banerjee, Nick DeNoia and the Zurich Sting

A nightclub empire, a murdered partner, and an international sting. This is the Chippendales hit. On April 7, 1987, five-time Emmy-winning producer Nick DeNoia was shot dead inside Unicorn Productions on West 40th Street in Manhattan. NYPD recovered a 9mm shell casing and a witness saw a dark-haired man flee via the stairwell toward 8th Avenue, but the trail went cold. DeNoia’s fraught partnership with Chippendales founder Steve Banerjee loomed over the case, yet no proof surfaced—until a Las Vegas call in 1991 blew it open. FBI Special Agent Dan West fielded a tip: a would-be hitman said he’d been hired by Ray Colon to kill two managers of a rival male dance troupe in England using a cyanide injection smuggled in a hydrogen peroxide bottle. Recorded calls captured Colon coolly coaching the poison plot. A search found cyanide—and an address book linking Colon to Steve Banerjee. As British police protected the intended victims, the FBI looped in NYPD Detective Michael Gettys, sensing the DeNoia murder and the new conspiracy shared a mastermind. Facing charges, Colon flipped. He detailed arsons for Banerjee, the 1987 hit fee of $25,000, and a gunman he knew only as “Louis.” Undercover work led agents to Louis Rivera, who confessed on tape Christmas Eve 1992: he entered DeNoia’s 15th-floor office posing as a messenger, waited for a bathroom break, then fired from three feet away with a 9mm. Getting Banerjee’s own words took a globe-spanning play. After failed whispers, bathroom note-passing, and cash drops of $14,000 and $30,000 in Los Angeles, agents staged an overseas meet. In a Zurich hotel room wired by Swiss police, Banerjee finally relaxed—discussing the $25,000 “deed,” the England plot, and past arsons. The confession sealed the case. Arrested outside Chippendales in 1993, Banerjee later pled guilty; he was found hanged in his cell on his sentencing day in 1994. Justice brought long-awaited peace to DeNoia’s family—and closed one of showbiz’s darkest chapters. #FBIFiles #Chippendales #NickDeNoia #SteveBanerjee #TrueCrime #FBI #MurderForHire