Early Life

Charlie "Lucky" Luciano was born as Saolvatore Lucania on 24 November 1897in Lercara Friddi, Sicily to Antonio and Rosalia Lucania. He had four siblings Bartolomeo (born 1890), Giuseppe (born 1898), Filippia (born 1901), and Concetta. In 1906  Luciano and his family migrated to the United States. They settled in New York City, on the Lower East Side at 265 East 10th Street. The neighborhood was a popular destination for Italian immigrants at the time. Soon after migrating to the States Luciano was involved in crime. In 1907 at the age of 10, Luciano started his first racket he would provide protection to Jewish kids to and from school from their Irish and Italian counterparts for ten cents a week. If they didn't pay he would beat them up. One of the Jewish kids, Meyer Lansky refused to pay protection money, so Luciano attempted to beat him up without much success. After Luciano's failure to beat Lansky they joined forces in Luciano's protection racket and also became life long friends. By 1915, Luciano trained in the Five Points Gang, a Society crew, under John Torrio. It was I this gang Luciano became friends with al Capone and other prominent members.  In 1916, Luciano became a leader of the Five Points Gang, after getting out of reform school for peddling narcotics. Although never prosecuted, he was a suspect in several local murders.

Reorganization and Modernization of the Cosa Nostra and the Commision

Once Luciano got rid of the Mustache Petes, who were an obstacle in his plans, the main one being Maranzano, the Boss of Bosses, the door was wide open for him to become the top boss and break ethnic barriers, as he had always wanted.

Now, being the head of the La Nova Costra, Luciano had reached the top of America’s Underworld, and he proceeded to fulfill his dream of creating a National Crime Syndicate without any ethnic barriers which would be extremely lucrative for all involved. He started directing criminal rules, policies and activities along with other family bosses. Luciano made some amendments to the National crime Syndicate, which was setup by Maranzano. He now welcomed Jewish and Irish mobsters to be part of the Syndicate as non-member associates, something that Maranzano did not allow. He also inserted the position of consigliere(advisor) to the family structure. Meyer Lansky served as his consigliere.

Luciano’s crime family which now bore his name controlled lucrative criminal rackets such as bootlegging, prostitution, gambling, bookmaking, drug trafficking, loan-sharking  and extortion. Luciano was also very influential in labor and union activities and controlled the Manhattan waterfront, garbage hauling, construction, Garment Center businesses and trucking.

While Luciano stressed the importance of some old school mafia traditions like the omerta, the oath of silence, there were other traditions such as the ceremony of being “made a soldier”, which he wanted to abolish. However, Meyer Lansky advised him against it, arguing that young people needed rituals to cling to. The position of Capo Di Tutti I Capi, which was previously held by Maranzano, was abolished by Luciano. He insisted that the position created tension and trouble between the families. As a replacement for the title Capo di Tutti Capi, he built the commission.

The Commission, the Mafia’s governing body, was set up, under the urging of Johnny Torrio, by Lucky Luciano. The Commission has been called Luciano’s most significant invention. It was established, in a meeting of the Mafia families in Chicago, which took place after Maranzano’s murder in 1931. The idea was to replace the old Sicilian Mafia regime, which the Mustache Petes put in place, with a board of directors of Mafia members, who would control all Mafia activities and resolve conflict between families by a notion of consensus.

The commission originally, comprised of representatives of 9 families, the Five Families of New York, the Buffalo Crime Family, the Philadelphia Crime Family, Los Angeles Crime Family and the Chicago Outfit of Al Capone. Later representatives of the Detroit Crime family and Kansas City Crime Family were added. Charles “Lucky” Luciano was appointed the chairman and all members were given one vote and supposedly had the same power, but, in reality some families and bosses were more powerful than others. The Commission decided to hold meetings every 5 years or when they needed to resolve family problems.

Among the Commission’s duties were to settle all disputes between families, decide which families control which territories and in order for an individual to become a “made man”, his boss had to first go in front of the Commission and receive their approval. The Commission also had to approve a new boss before he could officially take over.

Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, Dutch Schultz and Abner "Longie" Zwillman, who were Jewish mobsters, were permitted to work along with the Commission and participate in meetings. The commission had a lot of power and when their authority was questioned in 1935 by David Schultz, when he wanted to have prosecutor Thomas Dewey assassinated, he instead was killed. The Commission used Murder Inc to carry out the hit. Murder Inc was often used by the Commission to discard their anyone opposed tho their authority.