Chronicles of Events and Biographies Related to the American Mafia
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, 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…
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…
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…
Tommaso “Tommy” Gagliano was an early leader of the Lucchese crime family in New York City, a low-key don who believed in secrets and knew how to keep them. Little is known about his reign at the top of one of the nation’s most powerful criminal organizations, and that’s exactly the way he would have…
Joe Bonanno, Sr. was a self-described “venture capitalist” and denied any involvement with drug trafficking or prostitution. As the head of one of New York City’s five original mafia families, Bonanno led the Brooklyn-based crime family for more than three decades before losing power in the 1960s. Bonanno was born Giuseppe Carlo Bonanno on January…
Paul “Big Paulie” Vario was born on July 9, 1914 and lived in Brooklyn New York. He had four brothers, Vito, Salvatore, Thomas, and Leonard. As a youngster, Vario was in trouble with law enforcement often. In 1925 at the age of 12 he was sent away for seven months for truancy. He had several…
Benedetto “Benny” Aloi was born on October 6, 1935 and had one sibling, a brother named Vincenzo “Vinnie” Aloi. His father, Sebastian “Buster” Aloi was a soldier in the Profaci crime family and is responsible for bringing his sons into the La Cosa Nostra. Aloi spent much of his childhood like any other child hanging around his…
Anthony Spero was the consigliere and two time acting boss of the Bonanno crime family of New York. He was born in 1929 and became involved with organized crime on the streets of Brooklyn in his early twenties. Early on his closest confidant was Bonanno underboss Carmine Galante who showed Spero the ways of the…