Salvatore Maranzano's Murder

In early 1931, after the Castellammarese War had been going on for eighteen months, Lucky Luciano, who at the time was working for Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria decided to double-cross his boss and join alliances with Salvatore Maranzano, Masseria’s enemy. Luciano and Maranzano came to an understanding, Luciano would dispose of Masseria and take charge of Masseria’s gang and in return Maranzano would call of his hit men and accept Luciano as an equal boss.

On April 15, 1931, Masseria was taken out by Luciano’s gunmen. Luciano kept his part of the deal and then acquired control of Masseria’s gang. Maranzano accepted Luciano as boss and also gave his blessings to leaders of three other smaller families. But later Maranzano reneged on his deal with Luciano. Maranzano summoned Al Capone and other Mafia leaders to a resort in Wappinger Falls for a meeting. At this meeting Maranzano crowned himself the “Capo di tutti Capi”, the boss of all bosses and soon he started changing things in New York, thinking he was the King of the Mafia, this provoked and infuriated Luciano.

Luciano soon got more troubling news from his trusted friend Tommy Lucchese, who had cozied up to Maranzano and his most trusted men. Lucchese learned that Luciano had been marked by Maranzano for a machine gun assassination by Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll, an Irish cutthroat gangster. After finding out that he was marked for death Luciano knew he had to act quickly. 

After naming himself Boss of the Bosses, Maranzano moved his headquarter to a suite of offices at Grand Central. Luciano got wind of some tax troubles Maranzano was having through Lucchese. He found out that he was expecting a visit from the IRS, and for that reason he told his bodyguards to be unarmed. Luciano decided to capitalize on this opportunity.

On September 10, 1931, Lucchese paid Maranzano a surprise visit at his office. Minutes after Lucchese arrived, a group of men came in stating they were IRS agents. The men were actually Luciano’s hit men but none of them were Sicilian or Italian. Neither Maranzano nor his bodyguards had any clue that they were hit men and none of them even suspected that the men were not IRS agents. The hit men pulled their guns out and lined everyone up against the wall. Lucchese identified Maranzano with a head movement and one of the gunmen forced Maranzano into his private office. Sounds which came from the office indicated Maranzano initially put up a struggle, but was ultimately killed with a volley of gun fire. Maranzano’s body was full of bullets and stab wounds.

Salvatore Maranzano

Salvatore Maranzano Dead Body

 

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.

The Younk Turks,The Mustache Pete and the Castellammarese War

Luciano was a very creative criminal since a young age and in the 1920s he became a chief aide to crime boss Giuseppe Masseria who ran the largest crime family in the States. Masseria was at the time involved in a prolonged territorial dispute with rival crime boss Salvatore Marazano.

Masseria was a Mustache Pete, an old-school Mafioso who wanted to preserve the old mafia values of honor, tradition, respect and dignity. The Young Turks, Luciano and his contemporaries who had started their criminal careers in America created a young and motivated group which challenged the established order. Luciano believed that as long as money was being made it doesn’t matter who the family deals with. This went against the beliefs of Masseria and other Mustache Petes, who believed that anyone who was not Sicilian or Sicilian-American could not be trusted. This belief led Luciano to despise Masseria’s way of thinking. The old Mafioso called Luciano’s friend, Frank Costello ‘The Dirty Calabrian’, which quite frankly shocked Luciano.

The Castellammarese War which lasted from 1928 to 1931, resulted in the death of as many as 60 mobsters. The war was supposedly between Maranzano and Masseria, but in reality there was a third, secret faction, made up of Luciano and several other Young Turks from both the Masseria Maranzano factions. This group of Young Turks included along with Luciano, Frank Costello, Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia, Joe Adonis, Joe Bonnano, Carlo Gambino, Joe Profaci, Tommy Gagliano and Tommy Lucchese. Luciano had plans to form a national crime syndicate in which the Italian, Jewish and Irish gangs could pool their resources and turn organized crime into a rewarding business for all. The Mustache Petes’ were an obstacle to his plan so he wanted to get rid of them.

In 1929 Luciano suffered a terrible ordeal, he was kidnaped by three men, stabbed by an icepick, beaten, had his throat cut and then was dumped on Staten Island beach. He Miraculously survived the ordeal, but was forever marked with a scar and a droopy eye. His survival plus his luck in avoiding the police in younger days permanently marked him with the name Charlie “Lucky” Luciano. After his abduction Meyer Lansky found out and told Luciano that Masseria’s enemy, Salvatore Maranzano was the one who ordered the attack. Ironically Luciano later struck a secret deal with Maranzano in which he agreed to orchestrate Masseria’s death in return for being made Maranzano’s number two. This agreement would end The Castellammarese War.

On April 15, 1931, Luciano invited Masseria and two other associates to have lunch in a Coney Island restaurant. After they completed their lunch, they decided to play a game of cards. Whilst they were playing cards Luciano stepped into the men’s restroom. When Luciano was in the lavatory, four gunmen, Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel, Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia and Joe Adonis came into the restaurant and opened fire on Masseria and the two other associates and killed them. At this point Luciano had kept up his part of the deal and so as Masseria was gone Luciano took charge of Masseria’s crime family.

Maranzano then made Luciano his second-in-command, and set up the Five Families of New York. The freshly formed families were headed by Maranzano, Luciano, Profaci, gagliano and Vincent Mangano. The five Families were promised by Maranzano that they would all be equal and free to make money. Although Maranzano was slightly more open minded then Masseria, at heart he was still a Mustache Pete. His true colors were shown at a later meeting of the crime bosses in New York, when he declared himself Capo Di Tutti Capi( Boss of all Bosses). He also, in order to strengthen his own family whittled down the rackets of the other families. At the time Luciano seemed to accept this, but he was just playing along until he could get rid of Maranzano, something he had planned all along.

Maranzano, after coming to the realization that Luciano was a threat, hired Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll, a notoriously violent Irish Gangster, to kill him. However, Luciano was warned by Lucchese that he was marked for death. When Luciano and Genovese were ordered by Maranzano to come to his office, Luciano doubted that they would come out alive. Luciano then had four Jewish gangsters pose as government agents and show up at Maranzano’s office to take him out. Two of the fake agents disarmed Maranzano’s bodyguards and the other two shot Maranzano, after stabbing him multiple times.

On the Day of Maranzano’s death, several other lieutenants of Maranzano were killed by unidentified gunmen. Samuel Monaco’s and Louis Russo’s bodies, which showed signs of torture, were later discovered on Newark bay. Both of them were allies of Maranzano. Throughout the rest of the year, several Mustache Petes were taken out throughout the country, thus ending the Castellammarese War. In Mafia dialect this series of hits came to be known as “Night of the Sicilian Vespers”

Bootlegging During The Prohibition Era

The Prohibition era which started on 17 January 1919, when the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S Constitution was ratified and ended in 1933 when the amendment was repealed, provided an extra source of income for criminals. The Amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcoholic beverages, but as there was still demand for alcoholic beverages so bootleggers fulfilled this demand. Around this time Luciano, worked for Arnold Rothstein.

Luciano wanted to collaborate with other gangsters to cut down the cost of political protection and reducing the likelihood of hijacked shipments, thus increasing his profits and territory. However Giuseppe “Joe The Boss” Masseria prevented Luciano from taking the path.

In 1921 Luciano began a bootlegging operation with Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, his longtime friend, business partner and eventually Underboss. He first met with them and many other mafia leaders through his involvement in the Five Points Gang.

Luciano and his partners ran the largest bootlegging operation in New York, one that also extended into Philadelphia. He imported scotch directly from Scotland, rum from the Caribbean, and whiskey from Canada. Luciano was also involved in gambling. By 1925 Lucky Luciano was grossing over $12 million a year; however he was netting much less due to the high costs of political protection.

Arnold Rothstein

Charles "Lucky" Luciano

Charles "Lucky" Luciano was born on 24 November 1987 in Lercardia Friddi, Italy and died on 26 january 1962 of a heart attack at Naples international airport. He was one of the most famous gangsters of the 20th century and is considered the father of modern organized crime for splitting New York into five mafia crime families and for establishing the first ever commission. He was the first official boss of the modern day Geonevese family and was best known as Italian-American gangster with businessman like approach. Meyer Lansky his friend and associate helped him in developing the 'National Crime Syndicate'.