Chronicles of Events and Biographies Related to the American Mafia
The youngest of the “Five Families” and the creation of Joseph Profaci in 1928 is the Colombo crime family. Profaci was one of the longest serving mafia bosses in history and ruled virtually unchallenged from 1928 until the late 1950’s. Beginning in 1959 the Colombo family started an internal strife that lasted through three wars…
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…
The Gambino crime family is the most publicized family of the American Mafia. It’s one of “Five Families” based out of New York that dominates organized crime in the United States. The Gambino family got its name from previous boss Carlo Gambino who controlled the family from 1959 until his death in October 1976. The…
Thomas Anthony DeSimone was born on May 24, 1950. He was an Italian- American mobster that worked as an associate of the Lucchese crime family of New York and was one of the real-life goodfellas. Tommy or “Two-Gun Tommy” because he always had two guns, had three siblings, a sister named Delores and two brothers,…
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….
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…
Giuseppe “Joe” Magliocco was born in Castellammare del Golfo in Sicily in 1898. Magliocco was related by marriage to consigliere and underboss Salvatore Mussachio, Buffalo crime family boss Stefano Magaddino, Bonanno crime family founder Joseph Bonanno, and his closest confidant, Profaci family founder, Joseph Profaci. When he arrived in the United States he quickly took…
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…
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…
In the 1980’s and 90’s two NYPD Police detectives were involved in murder for hire and various other illegal activities on behalf of the Lucchese crime family in New York. After their reign was over, several men were dead, and Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Louis Eppolito…
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…