The Chicago Outfit is that city’s branch of the American Mafia. Its modern organization dates to the beer wars of Prohibition and its most notorious leader, Al Capone. It has a seat, along with the Five Families of New York City, on the Commission that governs the Italian mob in America. The Outfit’s roots reach…
Tag: American mafia
Anthony Strollo – A Reputation for Switching Sides
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…
“Machine Gun” Jack McGurn – St. Valentines Day Massacre
“Machine Gun” Jack McGurn was an Italian-American born in Licata, Sicily population 39,000 on July 2, 1902. His birth name was Vincenzo Gibaldi; however he had other variations such as Vincent Gebardi, and Vincenzo Demory. At four years old he and his mother, Giuseppa Verderame, just 24 years old according to the ships manifest arrived…
Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria – “The Man who could Dodge Bullets”
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….
Meyer Lansky – Money Man to the Mob
Meyer Lansky, one of the great Jewish mobsters, ran gambling in much of the United States and helped build the National Crime Syndicate that ran organized crime in the 1930s and ‘40s. He was known as the “Mob’s accountant,” and he ranks as one of the most powerful gangsters in history. Lansky, a Jewish immigrant,…
Giovanni Papa Johnny Torrio – Chicago Outfit Boss in the 1920’s
Giovanni “Papa Johnny” Torrio ran Chicago’s Mafia in the 1920s, building it from a prostitution racket into an illegal liquor empire. His feud with Irish-American bootleggers led to the worst violence in the history of American organized crime and paved the way for Al Capone. Later in his life, Torrio helped create the Commission that…
Roy Albert DeMeo – Leader of the Gambino Family Murder for Hire
Roy Albert DeMeo was born on September 7, 1942 in Bath Beach Brooklyn to working class Italian immigrants. In 1959 DeMeo graduated from James Madison High School with an accomplished loan shark business bringing in hundreds of dollars each week. After leaving James Madison High School DeMeo married and fathered three children. He also continued…
Vincent Louis “Chin” Gigante – Part II – The Robe
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 – Prime Minister of the Mob Part I
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,…
Louis Lepke Buchalter- CEO of Murder
Louis “Lepke” Buchalter ran Murder Inc., the Mafia’s private hit squad, and became the only major mob boss in American history to die in the electric chair.
Vincent Louis Chin Gigante – Muscle on Both Ends Part I
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…
Paul Castellano – Eighth Grade Drop Out to Gambino Family Boss Part I
Paul Castellano dropped out of school in the eighth grade to become a butcher — then rose to lead the most powerful crime family in America. Read his full biography at AmericanMafiaHistory.com.
Monk Eastman: Last of the Old-Time Gangsters
Monk Eastman ruled New York’s underworld before the Mafia existed — then gave it all up to fight in WWI. Read the remarkable story of the last old-school gangster at AmericanMafiaHistory.com.
Gaetano “Tommy” Lucchese – Lucchese Family Namesake, Part I
Gaetano Lucchese was born on December 1, 1899 in Palermo Sicily and immigrated with his parents Giuseppe and Maria in 1911. They settled in East Harlem, an Italian neighborhood of Manhattan where Lucchese’s father worked as a laborer hauling cement. Lucchese worked in a machine shop to help this family earn money until an accident…
Frankie Yale – Forgotten Boss
Most discussions of Prohibition-era mob bosses focus on Al Capone, Johnny Torrio and Joe Masseria, the kingpins who thrived off booze and blood. Less remembered, but equally important was Frankie Yale, a murderous leader who straddled two underworlds and played a key part in the early Mafia. Francesco Ioele, also known as Frankie Uale and…