FBI Searches For Hoffa Outside Detroit

(CBS/AP)  The FBI on Wednesday searched property northwest of Detroit for clues to the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, officials said.

The Teamsters leader was last seen in July 1975 at a restaurant in Oakland County's Bloomfield Township.

Agent Dawn Clenney, a spokeswoman for the FBI in Detroit, said the bureau was executing a search warrant in Milford Township, about 35 miles west of Detroit.

Investigators are looking for "evidence of criminal activity that may have occurred under previous ownership" on the property, Clenney said. Asked if they were looking for Hoffa's remains, she said, "Could be," but declined to comment further.

The search warrant is based on "one of numerous leads received through the years" since Hoffa was last seen leaving the Machus Red Fox Restaurant in Bloomfield Township, Mich., on July 30, 1975, reports CBS News' Beverley Lumpkin.

At the time he vanished, Hoffa, who took charge of the Teamsters in 1957, was on his way to a meeting with Anthony Provenzano, a New Jersey Teamsters boss, and Anthony Giacalone, a Detroit Mafia captain.

Investigators believe Provenzano and Giacalone had Hoffa killed to prevent him from regaining the union presidency after he served time in federal prison for jury tampering.

Theories about where he is buried are varied and include reports he is entombed under Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

Reporters were not allowed on the property, described by local media as a horse farm. Images shot from news helicopters showed about a dozen people, some with shovels, standing by an area of newly turned dirt about 10 feet by 15 feet.

Clenney said the bureau receives numerous leads about Hoffa and "this was one we felt we needed to follow up on."

In May 2004, authorities ripped up the floorboards of a Detroit home where Frank Sheeran, a one-time Hoffa ally, had claimed he shot Hoffa to death. But no evidence of Hoffa was found.

The claim related to the infamous, unsolved killing was included in a book published months after Sheeran died in 2003 at age 83.

A New Jersey mob hit man who died in March reportedly made a similar deathbed claim.

Richard "The Iceman" Kuklinski gave author Philip Carlo what he claimed were graphic details of Hoffa's killing, The Record of Bergen County, N.J., reported. "The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer" is scheduled for release in July.

Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca said Bloomfield Township police were offering assistance but that he knew little about the latest search.