Byron James Vlahakis (August 9, 1932 – December 5, 2015) was an American mobster who was a member of the Winter Hill Gang in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Vlahakis was the leader of a $10 million-a-year gaming syndicate that dominated organized crime in Lowell, Merrimack Valley and spanned throughout Eastern Massachusetts that had direct ties to the Providence, Rhode Island–based Patriarca Mafia family.

“Apostolos” Vlahakis a bootlegger in the prohibition days was one of the earliest organized crime figures in New England history, who immigrated from Sparta Greece as a boy settling with his family in Lowell’s Acer.

[5] Unlike other celebrity gangsters, like the flamboyant James “Whitey” Bulger or Joseph "the Animal" Barboza, Vlahakis kept a low profile.

In 1993, Vlahakis was found guilty of running a $10 million-a-year gambling syndicate, and faced a maximum sentence of 15 years in state prison.