Salvatore D’Aquila was born in November 1877 Palermo, Sicily and immigrated to America in 1906 at the age of 29. Before leaving Sicily, D’Aquila was already heavily involved with organized crime. He’s known as a “Mustache Pete”, which unlike the younger Sicilian-Americans known as the “Young Turks”, the Mustache Pete’s’ had usually committed their first…
Philip Rusty Rastelli – 1981 Bonanno War
Phillip “Rusty” Rastelli was a former boss of the Bonanno crime family, taking over the rein in the early 1970s, following the retirement of Joseph Bonanno. Rastelli, who listed his occupation as a radio dispatcher for a taxi company, was eventually convicted of antitrust violations and sentenced to a 10-year prison term. He reportedly directed…
Frank “Frankie Shots” Abbatemarco – The Precurser to the Profaci-Gallo War
Frank “Frankie Shots” Abbatemarco had no idea when he left his favorite watering hole at 8 p.m. on Nov 4, 1959 that he was walking into an ambush. Frankie Shots was born in 1899 and grew up in Red Hook Brooklyn with the Gallo family. Not much is known about his early childhood, but by…
Salvatore Maranzano, and the Castellamarese War
The great Salvatore Maranzano was born on July 31, 1886 in Sicily. Little is known about Maranzano while he lived in Italy; however he was once rumored to have wanted to become a priest as a young kid, and even studied to become one; he became associated with the mob instead. Maranzano built a following…
Jimmy Burke – A Goodfella with a Mean Streak
James “Jimmy the Gent” Burke was one of the most notorious Irish-American gangsters of all time, a violent, ruthless criminal responsible for countless murders and one of the largest cash robberies in American history. He was also one of the real-life goodfellas. Burke was never an official member of the mafia. His Irish blood excluded…
Frank Costello – Luciano Crime Family Boss Part II
Like Masseria, Maranzano was an old-school mob boss, a “Mustache Pete,” as they were known. Costello, Luciano and the other “Young Turks” had had enough of the old ways, and they decided Maranzano, like Masseria, needed to go. In late 1931, less than six months into his reign as “boss of all bosses,” Maranzano called…
Willie Moretti – “What do you mean, like do I carry a membership card that says “Mafia” on it?”
Willie Moretti, birth name Guarino Moretti was born in Bari Puglia, Italy on February 24, 1894, and immigrated to the United States with his family in the early 1890s. The family settled in New Jersey where Moretti met brothers Frank and Eddie Costello where the three youth would eventually form a gang on the streets…
Goodfella, Henry Hill
Henry Hill was born June 11, 1943 in Brownsville Brooklyn. He is most famous for being portrayed by actor Ray Liotta in the 1990 blockbuster movie, Goodfellas as a Lucchese family associate involved in several high profile robberies, murders, scandals, and finally as an FBI informant. Henry grew up in a working class family in…
The Powerful Lucchese Family – Home of Goodfellas
The Lucchese crime family is an organized crime family based out of New York that is a part of the Mafia or Cosa Nostra. They are one of the “Five Families” and have a seat on the mafia’s Commission. They originated in the early 1920’s and beside the Castellammarese War, maintained a low profile under…
Carlo Gambino – A Low Profile Rise to Power Part 2 of 4
Vincent Mangano had a 20 year reign as the Mangano crime family boss. Until that point in history no other crime boss controlled a family for as long as he did. He was successful, feared, and envied by gangsters all across the country. If Mangano was the brains of the family, his underboss, Albert Anastasia…