Chronicles of Events and Biographies Related to the American Mafia
Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno was a prominent figure in organized crime, specifically within the Genovese crime family’s Springfield, Massachusetts faction. His rise to power and subsequent fall paint a vivid picture of the deadly intrigue that often defines the Mafia world. Bruno’s life as a crime boss, followed by his brutal assassination in 2003, showcases…
Deceased mobster Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano died in prison over three decades ago and may be forgotten by all but historians and people deeply interested in organized crime. However, Provenzano, like many of the more infamous 20th Century gangsters, played a small but colorful role in American history, albeit an infamous one. Provenzano’s criminal career…
The 1930’s were a prosperous time for Luciano. With control of the commission he was able to increase his reach in illegal gambling, bootlegging, loan-sharking, and labor rackets. His reign was short lived however and in 1936 he was charged with prostitution after special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey led a raid on 80 New York…
The Genovese crime family is one of the “Five Families” of New York and one of the most powerful organized crime families in the nation. Only the Gambino and Chicago Outfit are larger in terms of made men and associates. The family was founded after Charles Lucky Luciano in the 1930’s but was renamed after…
Nicolo Terranova was born in Corleone Italy in 1890. When he was two years old his family, including his brother’s Ciro, Vincenzo and four sisters immigrated to the United States. They arrived in New York on March 8, 1893 joining their step brother Guiseppe Morello who arrived six months earlier. The Terranova family stayed in…
Anthony Strollo, most notably known as Tony Bender, was born June 18, 1899 in New York City. He had two brothers, Emilio and Dominick. His playground as a young man was Manhattan, where he worked as bootlegger and enforcer for Joe Masseria. Early in his mafia career Strollo earned a reputation for switching sides when…
Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria was born on January 17, 1886 in Menfi, Sicily although he lived most of his childhood in Marsala. Masseria had no siblings, and his father was a tailor by trade. Masseria immigrated to the United States in 1903 at the age of 17 to avoid a murder indictment in Italy….
Joseph M. “Joe Cargo” Valachi ranks as one of the most notorious Mafia informants, the first mobster to acknowledge, in public, on television, under oath, that Cosa Nostra is real. Long before Sammy “The Bull” ratted out John Gotti, Valachi’s turncoat testimony gave a face to a Mafia the public knew nothing about. Joseph Valachi,…
Genovese was a ruthless boss who ruled with an iron fist, but his grip began to loosen throughout the 1960s. He was sent to prison for 15 years in 1959 on what were thought to be trumped-up heroin charges, and though he maintained technical control of his family, a panel of three other men made…
Frank Costello was one of the most notorious Italian Mafia bosses in American history, with a reach that covered a vast national racket and extended deeper into politics than any other. He was dubbed the “Prime Minister of the Underworld” and led an organization nicknamed the “Rolls-Royce of organized crime.” Born in 1891 in Lauropoli,…
Vincent Louis Chin Gigante, also known as “The Oddfather” for his largely successful efforts to dodge criminal punishment by faking mental illness, was a one-time boxer who rose from low-level enforcer to become don of one of the infamous “five families” of organized crime in New York City. Unlike most of his predecessors in the…
Vito “Don Vito” Genovese was an early boss and namesake of the Genovese crime family in New York. From Prohibition to Apalachin, he used his wits and reputation for violence to help maintain the organization’s place of infamy among the city’s “five families.” Born in Naples in 1897, Genovese got an early start in crime….
Charles “Lucky” Luciano was born Salvatore Lucania on November 24, 1897 in Lercara Friddi, Sicily. He immigrated to the United States in 1906 where his family settled on the Lower East Side of New York where Lucky promptly integrated himself in the neighborhood as a small time hoodlum. By his 10th birthday, Salvatore Lucania had been…
Born in May 1886 in Corleone Italy, Vincenzo “Vincent” Terranova’s legacy is somewhat overshadowed by his stepbrother Giuseppe Morello who was a successful Italian American mafia boss. Nonetheless Terranova had his own successful run in the mob as the underboss to the Morello family, today known as the Genovese family; the family his stepbrother controlled….
Giuseppe “the Clutch Hand” Morello was born on May 2, 1867 in Corleone, Sicily. His biological father, Calogero Morello died when Giuseppe was just five years old. One year later his mother Angelina remarried to Bernardo Terranova, a member of the Corelonesi Mafia in Corleone. The two had three additional sons and two daughters during…