History of The Mafia & Organized Crime (reference only)

[Muggy]

[align=center]Murder Inc.[/align]
The enforcement arm of the National Crime Syndicate in the US was named Murder Inc. by the American press. It carried out contract killings from the end of Prohibition up until the 1950s. The organization accepted contracts from crime bosses from all over the United States. Murder Inc. employees were recruited from various gangs in the neighbourhoods of Brooklyn, Ocean Hill and East New York. Their idea was to maked sure that the killers were strangers to the city plus also at times their victims, so that it would prove to be harder to trace any evidence. Most of their victims were informants including civilian ones or gang members who had been embezzling mob money. They kill efficiently and quickly, using various methods. Some of those who worked for Murder Inc. were Joe Adonis; Frank Abbandando; Louis Capone; (no relation to Al Capone) Meyer Martin "Buggsy" Goldstein; Seymour Magoon; Harry Maione; Abraham Abe "Kid Twist" Reles; Harry Strauss; Albert Tannebaum; Charlie "The Bug" Workman; Emanuel "Mendy" Weiss; Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro; Albert Anastasia; Vito "Chicken Head" Gurino; Louis "Lepke" Buchalter; Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel; and someone who was called Oscar the Poet, so called because he was arrested while reading poetry in the park.

Established in Brownsville, Brooklyn New York in the late 1920s, Murder Inc. by the gangster Joe Adonis it was controlled by Martin "Buggsy" Goldstein and Abe "Kid Twist" Reles. In later times it was under the leadership of Louis "Lepke" Buchalter and Albert Anastasia. However they were subject to the authority of higher Crime Syndicate bosses. One of their most famous contracts was the gang boss Dutch Schultz ("Beer Baron of the Bronx"), apparently he had defied The Syndicate and was immediately a marked man. He was in a Newark bar called the Palace Chop House when three men came in and shot him and his associates; Otto Berman, Abe Landau and Lulu Rosenkrantz on 23rd October 1935, the killers were Mendy Weiss, Charles Workman, and an unknown gunman called "Piggy." Bulchalter used the organization to kill witnesses and suspected informants when he was being investigated by District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey in the 1930s. One such incident on May 11th 1937 was when four killers hacked loan shark George Rudnick to pieces just for the suspicion of being an informant, they also seriously wounded Max Rubin Buchalter's ex-associate on the 1st of October 1937.

The start of it's downfall began when in the 1940s Murder Inc. employee Harry Rudolph was framed for murder and sentenced to Rikers Island. He made the decision to talk with District Attorney Burton B Turkus, who on hearing what Rudolph had to say, had Abe Reles, Martin Goldstein, and another man Dukey Maffetore arrested. When Abe Reles and Dukey Maffetore discovered that they had become the victims of the organization they had worked for if they talked, hoping that they would get protection they became informants, through the information they gave Allie Tannenbaum was arrested, and he too decided to talk. Having been given the promise of immunity from prosecution, Abe Reles gave information of a large number of killers who worked for Murder Inc. these included Abbandando, Strauss, and Maione, he also gave details of his own murders whilst in court. When the National Crime Syndicate had heard all this they immediately put out a contract on Reles, offering a $100,000 reward for his death. In strange circumstances Reles fell to his death from a room that was guarded in the Half Moon Hotel Coney Island on the 12th of November 1941. Later Lepke Buchalter along with Louis Capone and Mendy Weiss were arrested and executed in Sing Sing, Ossining, New York on the 4th of March 1944. Many of its members had been sent to the electric chair and Murder Inc. was now starting to dwindled, but it wasn't until the exectution of Albert Anastasia in 1957 when it finally was ended. Now that the Syndicate had no enforcement arm they had to do their hit contracts by arrangement between individual mob bosses.

[align=center]Images of some Murder Inc. Members[/align]
[align=center]Louis "Lepke" Buchalter[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Harry Strauss, a.k.a. Pittsburgh Phil, Pep[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Frank Abbandando[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Abraham Abe "Kid Twist" Reles[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Joe Adonis[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Albert Anastasia[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Albert Tannenbaum[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Martin (Meyer) "Buggsy" Goldstein[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Emanuel "Mendy" Weiss[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Harry Maione[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Jacob Shapiro[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Louis Capone (No Relation to Al)[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Seymour Magoon[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Charlie "The Bug" Workman[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]*Profiles to follow at a later date*[/align]
[align=center]The Victims at the Palace Chop House Newark New Jersey[/align]
[align=center]Dutch Schultz[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Otto "Abbadabba" Berman[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Abraham "Abe" Landau[/align][align=center][/align]

[align=center]Unfortunately there are no images of Lulu Rosenkrantz.[/align]

[Muggy]

[align=center]THE INFAMOUS PURPLE GANG OF DETROIT[/align]

The Purple Gang first came to prominence in the 1920s, a mob of predominantly Jewish bootleggers and hijackers who's leader was a man called Abraham (Abe) Bernstein. They operated mostly out of Detroit Michigan in the US, (Michigan was a major port for running cached (hidden from the Authorities) to and thro during the Prohibition, as it was on the border with Canada. They were probably the most ruthless bootleggers of that era and it is reported that over 500 members of rival bootlegging gangs were eliminated during Detroit's bootleg wars.

The gang's roots begin from a group of young impoverished imigrants living in Detroit who started getting into theft and armed robbery on Detroit's Hastings Street, they got their name it is speculated after conversation between two market owners, who had both been victimized by the gang in it's beginnings and one of them was supposed to have made the comment... "They're rotten, purple like the colour of bad meat!". They were a loose collection of predominantly most by no means exclusive, Jewish gangsters, starting out as a group of juvenile deliquents on the lower east side of Detroit; a group of around sixteen to seventeen children all from the same neighbourhood. Most of them were involved in petty crimes ie robbing other juveniles, drunks who were just lying around and also hucksters (peddlers or street mongers). Because of the violent and murderous reputation some of the gang where borrowed by Al Capone for the St Valentine's Day Massacre. These were George Lewis, Harry Keywell and his brother Phil.

Their bootlegging made them millions of dollars, but along with this they also moved into hijacking, jewelry theft and extortion. When Prohibition ended members of The Purple Gang were invited in to the fast growing National Crime Syndicate in the 1930s (The syndicate was replacing the old style mafia.. the "Moustache Petes"). Many Purple Gang members accepted the invitation and soon began running the Crime Syndicate's gambling empire.

The Purples ruled Detroit's criminal underworld for about five years from 1927 to 1932. Eventually through clashing egos inter-gangs arguments and jealousies, brought about the gang's own destruction. At one time an inter-gang dispute ended with the killing of three gang members by their other fellow Purples. Apparently the three who had been murdered had violated an underworld code by operating outside the territory that was permitted to them by the Purple Gang leadership, they were three members of the "Little Jewish Navy" a group of Purples who owned a few boats and started participating in rum-running as well as hijacking and decided they were going to break away from the gang and become their own gang.. In the end the forerunners of Detroit's modern day Mafia family simply stepped in and filled the space that was left once the Purple Gang self-destructed themselves.

[align=center]Here are some images of some of the Purple Gang members[/align]

[align=center]Abe Bernstein[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Joe Bernstein[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Ray Bernstein[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Izzy Bernstein[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Abe Axler[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Sam Axler[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Louis Fleisher[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Harry Fleisher[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Eddie Fletcher[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Sam Garfield[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Sam Goldfarb[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Harry Millman[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Henry Shorr[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Jack Stein[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Sam Kert[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Irving Milberg[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Mike Selik[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Charlie Leiter[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Sam Cohen[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Phil Keywell[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Harry Keywell[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Willie Laks[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Ziggy Selbin[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Abby Zussman[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Sam "Gorilla" Davis[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Irving Shapiro[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]*There was another member called Sam Bernstein, but the quality was in really poor condition so I have not included it.*[/align]

[Muggy]

[align=center]GENNA CRIME FAMILY[/align]
During the Chicago gangland wars in the 1920s one of the major players at that time was the Genna crime family. There were six brothers Angelo "Bloody Angelo" Genna; Antonio "Tony the Gentleman" Genna; Peter "Pete" Genna; Sam Genna; Mike "The Devil" Genna; and Vincenzo "Jim" Genna. Angelo and his five other brothers emmigrated to the United States with his mother and father in 1910 from Sicily. Their reputation for violence was so prominent that they were called the Terrible Gennas. In 1920 when Prohibition became federal law the Gennas like most other criminal elements of that era soon found out that there was a lot of money to be made in bootlegging alcohol. Havin gained a federal license to manufature industrial alcohol, they used a method to re-distill it so that it could be drunk and sold this illegally. As time went on they soon began to control the area in Chicago known as Little Italy this area is situated west of The Loop, a three story warehouse on Taylor Street was where their headquarters was. As soon as demand for the Gennas' cheap gutrot or rotgut booze outgrew its demand, a lawyer called Henry Spignola devised a plan where sills would be placed in all Little Italy households. The family would hire 'sill watchers' who earned $15 a day. Their power in Little Italy soon grew and eventually they backed the area's Republican Party boss, 'Diamond Joe' Esposito, and also had many cops on their payroll.

The Gennas soon had an excess of booze, due mainly to their successful basement distilleries. So they started marketing it outside of their designated territory. This resulted in a clash with the North Side Gang led by Dion O'Banion, he resented the Gennas' for reducing the price of their booze thus competing with the sales of illegal booze with O'Banion. Now since the Gennas and the North Siders were both members of a much larger Chicagoland bootlegging combine which was orchestrated by the South Side boss Johnny Torrio, so O'Banion complained to Torrio about the Gennas' tactics. Whilst Torrio and the local Unione Siciliane boss Mike Merlo managed to get the Gennas (they were also Torrio's allies) to back off for a bit, Johnny Torrio refused full support to Dion O'Banion. Unphased by this, O'Banion hijacked a shipment of Genna whiskey and later double-crossed Torrio in a North Side brewery acquisition deal. As a result of this double-cross, Torrio and the Gennas made the decision to have Dion O'Banion killed; the hit was executed by the national director of Unione Siciliane Frankie Yale with assassins John Scalise and Albert Anselmi, Mike Genna went as the driver of the getaway car for the three Italian gunsels.

In later times when the Gennas broke away from the Colosimo-Torrio-Capone group in 1924 after the death of peacemaker Unione Siciliane president Mike Merlo. Angelo Genna moved up to take the Unione presidency that same year.

Eventually the Chicago Prohibition-Era power struggle ended the lives of two of the Genna brothers. Angelo was killed in his car on the 24th of May 1924 and his brother Mike lost his life in a gunfight the next month, the surviving Gennas fled the city to save their lives. After all the six brothers' eventual deaths, they were laid to rest at Mount Carmel Cemetery in the Chicago suburb of Hillside, Illinois where other organized crime figures like Al Capone are buried.

The departure of the Gennas allowed Aiello and his gang to rise to dominance and control of the Chicago (Mafia), commonly known as The Outfit

[align=center]Images of the Genna Brothers[/align]
[align=center]Angelo "Bloody Angelo" Genna[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Michael "Mike The Devil" Genna[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Peter "Pete" Genna[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Antonio "Tony the Gentleman" Genna[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Sam Genna[/align][align=center][/align]

*Unfortunately after searching extensively on the internet, I have been unable to obtain pictures of Vincenzo (Jim) Genna.*

[Muggy]

[align=center]'NDRANGHETA[/align]

'Ndrangheta a.k.a "The Honoured Society", Fibbia or Calabrian Mafia is based in Southern Italy as apposed to Cosa Nostra (Sicily) Unlike the US or Sicilian Mafia, 'Ndrangheta do not use the pyramid structure of bosses, but rather it uses families based on blood relationships, inter-marriages or simply being a Godfather. They form groups which are named either after the village they come from or the name of the family leader. It first began as a defense mechanism for impoverished rural peasants to protect them against their aristocratic landlords. Some members of these Calabrian crime groups emigrated to the United States and Canada and started running a "Black Hand" intimidation scheme in some Pennsylvania mining towns circa 1906. In the 1970s into branched out in the drug trade and the organization is now international. Not many police investigations have been successful, since most of its members comprise of actual family members. There are preported to be approximately 155 'Ndrangheta families, with around 6,000 or more members. One of the leading 'Ndrangheta groups is the Siderno Group they are based both in Italy and in North America. Their leader is Comiso "The Quail" Commisso along with other Commisso family members that are deeply involved, some in Canada, the US, Germany and even in Australia.

All members have to go through the 'Ndrangheta cerimony, which comprises of a series fo obscure questions and answers all spoken rapidly in the Calabrian dialect; mostly full of flowery phrases of total loyalty and implied violence.

The Commissos and other 'Ndrangheta clans are supposedly to be involved in narcotics, organized kidnapping, extortion, theft, counterfeiting and construction work which mostly entails bribes and pay-offs. They often live without any outward signs of wealth or power. They have also evolved their interests in money laundering, the arms trade, the illegal disposal of radio active and hazardous waste, political influence and buying into legitimate businesses. The 'Ndrangheta (Calabrian Mafia) according to informant Calogero Marceno, are split into two levels:

1) The "Maggiore" (Senior level)

2) The "Minore" (Junior level)

This places a barrier between low-level common crimes and higher level political and white-collar crimes. It has also been reported that the group has shipped European heroin to the US, where it was traded for cocaine which was then resold in Europe. There was or is also a large-scale marijuana gowing operation in Oz (Australia mate). The 'Ndrangheta also work with other types of Mafia groups as well as the Colombians.

[align=center]Profiles and Images[/align]
[align=center]Giovanni Tegano[/align][align=center][/align]
Giovanni Tegano is reputed to be the boss of the De Stefano-Tegano family from the Archi neighbourhood, Reggio Calabria city. The family fought the violent mafia war against the Condello-Imerti family which started in 1985 which later resulted in the murder of the boss Paulo De Stefano. The war ended in 1991 after the intervention of the Sicilian and Italo-Canadian Cosa Nostra and with no real winner. The war which left about 800 dead would have destoyed the 'Ndrangheta structure in the Reggio Calabria city and also abroad. Tegano has been a fugitive since the year 1993.

[align=center]Giuseppe "Don Peppino" Piromalli[/align][align=center][/align]
Giuseppe Piromalli was the patriarch of the Gioia Tauro family from 1979. He replaced his brother Girolamo "Don Mommo" Piromalli. He led the family until the year 2004 when he died at the age of 84. The Piromallis are a real empire, they control a large international drug and weapons trafficking network through the Gioia Tauro port in Italy, they also run the local millionaire public works. According to the AntiMafia Direction, they are reported to be the largest mafia family in Western Europe with approximately 4oo made members, most of which are related and several thousand associates, known as contrasti onorati (Calabrian dialect). At Giuseppe Piromalli's funeral there were more than 20,000 people that attended, including his nephew Giuseppe Piromalli Jr., who is reputed to be the new boss of the family.

[align=center]Salvatore Pelle[/align][align=center][/align]
Salvatore Pelle, current boss of the San Luca family, the most power and well respected within the 'Ndrangheta. The Pelle-Nirta-Romeos are the nucleus of the locale (a local dialect word which means family). They have branches in the whole of the north Italian regions as well as several other countries around the world. They are at the top of international drug trafficking, mainly due to their connections with Colombian and Turkish dealers. According to the AntiMafia Direction, the entire male population of San Luca village, approximately 4400 inhabitants are all members of the 'Ndrangheta. Pelle has been a fugitive since the year 1991.

[align=center]Giuseppe Morabito[/align][align=center][/align]
Giuseppe Morabito is the boss of the Africo family, based in the Mandamento Jonico area. The Morabito-Bruzzaniti-Palamara group are involved with drug trafficking, weapons, extortions, money laundering and public works. They are considered to be the strongest organized crime group in North Italy and are concentrated mostly in the Lombardia, Liguria and Piermonte regions. Giuseppe Morabito was arrested after 12 years of being a fugitive. The reputed acting-boss is Pietro Criaco who has been a fugitive since 1997.

[align=center]Giuseppe Mancuso[/align][align=center][/align]
Giuseppe Mancuso is the boss of the Limbadi family in the Vibo Valentia province. They are the most powerful 'Ndrangheta family outside the province. Their principle business is international drug trafficking often in a joint-venture with La Cosa Nostra and other Calabrian families. They are also strongly linked with the Colombian Farc. In 1983, Mancuso's father Francesco (who was the old boss of the family) was elected Maor of of Limbadi while he was on the run; the news aroused a national stir. The escalation of the Mancusos began in 1977. Later upon the death of the old boss Antonio Zoccali who came from Vibo; they supported the Fiarè family from San Gregorio d'Ippona viallage during the war against the Pardea family from Vibo. After the war they got the supremacy of the area mainly because of their links with the Piromallis and the Belloccos.

[align=center]Domenico Libri[/align][align=center][/align]
Domenico Libri is the boss of the Cannavo family from the Reggio Calabria City. He supported the De Stefano-Teganos during the Mafia war. His son Pasquale was murdered in 1988. Libri also survived a bazooka attack which had been instigated by the Condello-Imertis. He was arrested in 1992 in France, having been a fugitive for many years and given a life sentence for murder, his brother Paolo Libri is reputed to be the acting boss of the family.

[align=center]Pasquale "The Supreme" Condello[/align][align=center][/align]
Pasquale Condello is considered to be the most powerful boss in the Reggio Calabria hinterland. The Condello-Imertis are hegemonic in the villages of San Giovanni, Fiumara and Catona, in the mandamento centrale area. After the violent Mafia war from 1985 - 1991 against the De Stefano-Tegano family which left hundreds dead, the two families now work in relative peace with each other in order to run the public works which is worth billions and includes the bridge of the strait public works in a joint-venture with the Sicilian Cosa Nostra.

[Muggy]

[align=center]DUTCH SCHULTZ: THE BEER BARON of the BRONX[/align]

[align=center]Dutch Schultz (Arthur Flegenheimer)[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born August 6th 1902 - Died October 24th 1935[/align]

Dutch Schultz real name was Arthur Flegenheimer, he was born on the 6th of August 1902 in New York City. He came from a family who were Jewish Germans, but his father disappeared when Dutch was 14 years of age. This traumatized Dutch and whenever anyone asked him about his father he would say that he had died from an illness. After his father had left, Dutch had no choice but to drop out of school so that he could earn a living for himself and his mother, eventually he obtained work by helping gangsters at a local night club. Pretty soon he got involved with all kinds of criminal activities in order to make money, these included robbing illegal gambling dens. At one time in 1919, Dutch was caught breaking into a Bronx apartment and thrown in the Blackwell's Island prison. Whilst he was an inmate there, his behaviour was so bad that the guards had him transferred to a work farm. However he managed to escape, but was soon reapprehended and got another two months added to his sentence. Following his eventual release, many of his gangster buddies began to call him Dutch Schultz after a deceased gangster who was known for his underhanded tactics. Dutch used to drive trucks for Arnold Rothstein through this he made more underworld contacts. By the year 1928 he had his own bootlegging business and was supplying alcohol for local speakeasies. He then started to force speakeasies run by competitors into purchasing his alcohol and violently punished those who refused. At one time a tavern owner named Joe Rock, blatantly refused to buy any of Dutch's liquor, he soon lived to regret it when Dutch kidnapped him dragged him back to an abandoned warehouse and hung him by his thumbs from meathooks. Whilst Joe Rock was hanging there, Schultz taped a piece of gauze soaked with discharge from a gonorrhea infection over his eyes, the bacteria infected Rock's eyes causing him to go blind. News of this cruelty struck fear into the hearts of speakeasy owners all over town. Dutch then decided to expand his operations into Manhattan. Now since Manhattan was the territory of Jack Diamond, Dutch hired some new gangsters which included Mad Dog Coll, Abe Weinberg and George Weinberg. Jack Diamond retaliated against Dutch's move by killing a close friend of his named Joey Noey.

News of Joey Noey's death totally devastated Dutch so he decided to seek revenge. When the body of Arnold Rothstein was found, Dutch Schultz was assumed to be the culprit, later Jack Diamond was gunned down by Abe Weinberg which ended the feud.

However despite the fact that they had less competition, the gang that Dutch led was starting to have internal problems. Mad Dog Coll was caught for carrying a concealed weapon, Dutch posted $10,000 bail, but Coll skipped bail which caused Dutch to lose the money..(this was an exorbitant amount in those days). Coll eventually returned to the gang and started making demands that he be made a full partner in the criminal operations. Dutch refused to do this.

On hearing this, Coll left the gang along with his brother Peter to start their own bootlegging operation in Manhattan. Dutch was furious by this move and had Pete Coll shot. "Mad Dog" then stole four shipments of booze from Dutch and also attempted a drive-by shooting on a member of Schultz's gang, but ended up accidentally killing a five year old boy, the incident forced him to go into hiding. However Dutch's crew were one day waiting for Vincent Coll to leave his apartment, and when he was in a phone booth, they surrounded him and gunned him down to the extent that his body was torn in half.

The end of Prohibition came and Dutch had to seek other means of obtaining money illegally. His answer came in two forms, Otto Berman and the Harlem numbers racket. The numbers racket was the forerunner of "Pick 3" lotteries which required players to choose three numbers, which were then derived from the last number before the decimal in the odds at the racetrack. Otto Berman who was nicknamed "Abbadabba" was a middle-aged accounting whiz who had aligned himself with Schultz. He was able to mentally calculate the minimum amount of money Shultz needed to bet at the track at the last minute in order to alter the odds, thus ensuing that he always controlled which numbers won. In 1933 alone, Dutch's numbers racket pulled in a profit of $13M. Later that year Schultz was indicted for tax evasion by the state of New York, he stayed in hiding for over a year, however he eventually turned himself into the authorities in the November of 1934. When the first trial took place in Syracuse, New York and Dutch's lawyers used an unusual strategy. He was placed on the stand and described his bootlegging operations and numbers racket, his lawyer then argued that since Dutch's income was illegal, it could not be legally taxed, therefore he was innocent of the crime of tax evasion. The next trial was to take place in Malone, New York, so Dutch moved into town a month earlier. Every night before the trial, he went into the local bar and paid for everyone's drinks; also he became a close friend of the local mayor and sheriff. At the trial the jury found him not guilty and so he was released, this left the trial judge shocked. Dutch returned to New York City after the last trial, but District Attorney prepared new charges against him. Therefore Dutch decided to go to Murder Inc. and make out a contract for a hit on Dewey. Having scoped out Dewey's apartment, Albert Anastasia who was then the head of Murder Inc. decided against the hit after having talked to Luck Luciano. On hearing that the hit was cancelled, Dutch was furious and declared that he would kill Dewey himself and so made the preparations. On the date of October 23rd 1935, Dutch was in the Palace Chop House, Newark, New Jersey with his associates Otto "Abbadabba" Berman, Abraham "Abe" Landau and Lulu Rosenkrantz. Dutch excused himself and went to the men's room. While he was in there a car pulled up outside. In it were three men, one was Charlie "The Bug" Workman, the others were Mendy Weiss and an unknown gunman called "Piggy". The car sat idling and Workman entered the Chop House and casually strolled into the men's room. Schultz was taking a leak in a urinal and Workman fired two rounds, one of which caught Dutch in the side, dropping him. Workman proceeded back to the restaurant and gunned down Schultz's three associates. Whilst all this was happening, other members of Murder Inc. were running all over Manhattan killing all of Schultz's boys.

Dutch Schultz was taken to a hospital, but died the next day on the 24th October 1935. However before he died he was very talkative mostly due to the morphine and other medication that was administered as part of an attempt to try and help him. The transcript of this, known as the last words of Dutch Schultz can be found at: Feast Of Hate and Fear Archives

[align=center]Pictures of those involved with Dutch Schultz[/align]
[align=center]Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born 20th July 1908 - Died 7th February 1932[/align]
[align=center]Peter Coll[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]D.O.B. unknown - Death circa 1932[/align]
[align=center]Abraham "Abe" Weinberg[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]d.o.b. unknown - death 1935[/align]
[align=center]George Weinberg[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born 1901 - Died 29th January 1939[/align]
[align=center]Jack "Legs" Diamond (Schultz's main rival)[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born 1897 - Died 17th December 1931[/align]

[Muggy]

[align=center]LOUIS "LEPKE" BUCHALTER[/align]

[align=center]Louis "Lepke" Buchalter[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born February 6th 1897 - Died March 4th 1944 (Electric Chair)[/align]

Louis "Lepke" Buchalter was a Jewish American gangster who was born on the 6th of February 1897, he was also the notorious chief of Murder Inc which was the enforcement arm of the Syndicate. Buchalter was also the only well known mob boss to have been executed by the state or federal authorities for the crimes he committed.

His early life began on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and his birth name was Louis Bookhouse. As a young man he became a member of the Amboy Dukes, which was a street gang in the Brooklyn neighbourhood of Brownsville, the gang was named after Amboy Street. Bulchalter got involved with push cart shoplifting and by the year 1919 he had already served two terms in prison. Along with his friend Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro, he gained ultimate control of the garment industry unions on the lower East Side. Buchalter used the unions to threaten strikes and demand weekly payments from factory owners, whilst at the same time pilfering money from the union bank accounts. Later on Bulchalter's control of the unions evolved into a general protection racket which extended in areas of bakery trucking. He kept an iron grip on the unions as they were very profitable for him, even after he became a big-time player in the mob. Buchalter's protection racket was also used by other gangsters all over New York City, the only difference was his intolerance. Where other gangsters would say break the legs of anyone who didn't pay up, Buchalter would just simply kill them, no questions asked and not only would his henchmen kill shopkeepers, but also loot the business before killing them and then burn the business down. He soon learned the general order of things early on: looting, pillaging and arson. However his eventual achilles heel was when an informant had testified that Buchalter was behind two out of every three incidents of arson in Manhattan. His success with the protection rackets soon launched him to the top of the criminal world; the money he made was being coveted by the old school mafia boss Salvatore Maranzano by the year 1929. On knowledge of this Buchalter sought help by going to his old friend Lucky Luciano who first arranged the whacking of Maranzano's hated rival Joe "The Boss" Masseria, Bugsy Siegel, Joe Adonis, Vito Genovese and Albert Anastasia were the executioners. Later he engineered the rubout of Maranzano.

Buchalter (who had taken on the nickname Lepke which means "Little Louis" in Yiddish), Luciano and Johnny Torrio formed the National Crime Syndicate in the early 1930s. This was an umbrella organization of all the major organized crime groups coast-to-coast. As a founding member and also for his support for the killing of Masseria and Maranzano, Buchalter was given a seat on the Syndicate's "Board of Directors." To care of "problems" Luciano's associates Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky formed Murder Inc. (originally a band of Brooklyn killers mostly of Jewish origin, highly effective and eventually used to fullfill most of the Syndicate contracts). Control of Murder Inc. soon passed on to Buchalter and Anastasia, as Siegel and Lansky had much larger concerns to deal with.

Now Louis "Lepke" Buchalter was probably the bloodiest Jewish gangster of all time. Although he constantly wore wool suits, these couldn't warm the expression of his eyes which were said to be like blocks of ice. He was extremely good at commanding others to do killings for him, order assassinations on the phone from his grandmother's house without so much as batting an eye. As many as up to a hundred corpses have been attributed to Buchalter himself and of those who have been murdered under his command may be around a thousand nationwide.

The end of the line for Buchalter started in the mid-1930s when he went on the run from the FBI who were trying to nail him on a narcotics charge and New York City special prosecutor Thomas E Dewey, who wanted to put Buchalter away for his Syndicate activities. Eventually he was tricked by a childhood friend into surrending to the Feds in exchange for not being turned over to Dewey. Buchalter ended up being incarcerated in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary in Kansas on a fourteen year term for possession and dealing of narcotics, the sentence was later extend to thirty years on account of his involvement in union racketeering. On the 13th of September 1936, Buchalter's men killed a man called Joseph Rosen who was a Brooklyn candy store owner (he was a former garment industry trucker who had been told to shut up and get out of town, but he didn't). The order for the hit was overheard by Abe Reles who had turned informant for the New York State in 1940 and he fingered Buchalter for four murders. Buchalter was brought from Kansas to New York to stand trial for the murder of Rosen, his position was worsened by the testimony of another turncoat, Albert Tannenbaum. After just four hours of being handed the case, the jury arrived at a verdict at 0200hrs. Louis "Lepke" Buchalter was found guilty of murder in the first degree. The penalty at that time for such a crime in the state of New York was death by electrocution.

Buchalter's conviction took place the December of 1941 and the New York State Court of Appeals having reviewed his case upheld the conviction and the death sentence in the October of 1942. During this time, Buchalter was still serving out his racketeering sentence at Leavenworth, New York demanded that he be turned over to them for execution, but Buchalter put up a valiant fighting having called in favours from friends in the Department of Justice and the courts and managed to remain in Kansas, out of New York's hand until the January of 1944. Once Buchalter was turned over to New York, his execution was slated to take place on the 2nd of March 1944, however the state's highest court decided to give the case one final review, forcing Dewey (who was now the governor of New York State) to grant Buchalter, Emmy Weiss, and Louis Capone (no relation to Al) a 48-hour reprieve. Buchalter tried to bargain with Dewey, by giving him information about the criminal wrongdoings of some high-ranking US public officials in exchange for the revocationof his execution (Dewey at the time was running as the GOP candidate against Franklyn D Roosevelt for the presidency in that year's election). Dewey however, to his credit was not willing to compromise his integrity even at the expence of the presidency, and would have none of it; therefore Buchalter had run out of luck. On the 4th of March 1944 Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, arguably one of the most powerful figures in the history of organized crime, was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing.

[Muggy]

[align=center]CHARLES "LUCKY" LUCIANO[/align]

[align=center]Charles "Lucky" Luciano (Salvatore Luciana)[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born December 24th 1897 - Died January 26th 1962[/align]

Charles "Lucky" Luciano was originally born Salvatore Luciano in a small town called Lercara Friddi, outside Palermo in Sicily on the 24th of December 1897. His father was a sulpher miner, who toiled relentlessly to provide for his son, but Luciana did not repay his father's hard work and sacrifice with good behaviour. From an early age Salvatore had the habit of associating himself with some very unsavoury characters and getting up to all sorts of mischief. This sort of behaviour followed him when he along with his parents emmigrated to the US in 1906. They moved to the Lower East Side on Fourteenth Street of Manhattan, where Luciana attended school for a brief time. He then tried his hand at an honest living delivering hats for a Jewish merchant named Max Goodman. But also within a year of having arrived in New York (1907), Luciana was arrested for shoplifting. A year later in 1908 Luciano was running a protection racket for the young Jewish children in his neighbourhood, he confirmed his ambitions on becoming a mobster, when he was arrested with several kilos of heroin in his possession.

Pretty soon Luciano set about to strengthen his credentials. The number of contacts he made in the underworld was increasing rapidly and he forged strong relationships with his friends and partners, Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky. He soon found out that he was adept at pimping and drug peddling, so he offered his services to Joe "The Boss" Masseria. However later on their relationship turned sour, Luciano was very resentful that Masseria insisted on only doing business with Italians, which meant that money was passed up from the Jewish and Irish rackets. Also at the same time, Masseria did not trust Luciano's ambition and so "Lucky" was pulled off the street, stabbed, brutally beaten up and dumped on the beach. With many stab wounds to his face, it was a miracle that he had survived, however he kept to the code of omerta (silence before the authorities), preferring to take justice into his own hands. He aligned himself to Masseria's rival and nemesis Salvatore Maranzano As time went on he successfully managed to kill Masseria in true Sicilian fashion, he ambushed him in a pizzeria in 1931. Because of this act he was made Maranzano's underboss. Also in that same year, Maranzano went on to make fundamental changes to the structure of the mob. It was he who was responsible for restructuring the organization into a cohesive unit, made up of five main families; La Cosa Nostra. This ultimately gave Maranzano complete power over the Mafia, which Luciano himself coveted. Maranzano on sensing this made plans to kill Luciano, but because of Meyer Lansky's quick thinking, Luciano was informed of this and so he made plans to counteract this by having Maranzano killed instead. On the successful rubbing out of Maranzano, Luciano was now undisputably Capo di tutti Capi or the "Boss of Bosses". Later with help from Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky he formed the enforcement arm of The Syndicate, Murder Inc. This allowed Lucianop to keep control of the Mafia, ingeniously he also forbade the murder inc. group from killing anyone who wasn't a mafia member; this meant that Mafia business was kept out of the public eye and allowed for a much safer operation. "Lucky" Luciano decided to celebrate his successes with a suitably opulent lifestyle, however this was soon short lived.

A special prosecutor from New York named Thomas Dewey, had been gathering huge amounts of evidence on Luciano's pimping and so he was arrested and taken to court. Faced with so much evidence, there was no doubt in the court's eye that Luciano was guilty. The court gave Luciano a fifteen to thirty year sentence. However, prison life was not uncomfortable for him, he was permitted to have unregistered visitors which enabled him to carry on with his business. Also he was allowed access to alcohol, good food and women were also in abundance. "Lucky" Luciano however being the shrewd person that he was, struck up a bargain. During the Second World War a perfect opportunity presented itself: In exchange for a commuted sentence, Luciano offered himself to help with the war effort. He had his contacts in Sicily aid the Allied invasion of the island. A year after the end of WWII (1946), Luciano was freed and promptly deported back to Italy.

He lived in Naples and soon was able to rekindle old business interests, despite the stringent limits imposed upon him by the Italian government. He even managed to run his own gambling establishments in Cuba. One day (being always eager to go into new enterprises), he was on his way to meet a film producer on the 26th of January 1962 when he just simply keeled over and died from a heart attack. Being lucky to the end, he possessed enough wealth and respect to be interred in New York, in a lavish mausoleum at St Johns Cemetery, Middle Village, Queens County, NY, USA.

[Muggy]

[align=center]MEYER LANSKY: MASTERMIND OF THE MOB[/align]

[align=center]Meyer Lansky (Majer Suchowlinski)[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born July 4th 1902 - Died January 15th 1983[/align]

Meyer Lansky was born in Grodno, Poland on the 4th of July 1902, his real name was Majer Shuchowlinski. Both his parents were Jewish and the family emmigrated to America in 1911, where they settled in New York City. Whilst Meyer was at school, he met a boy called Charles "Lucky" Luciano, who tried to physically force Meyer for some protection money, but he refused. A fight broke out and Lansky put up a good fight, which impressed Luciano. "Lucky" was so impressed with Meyer's fighting skills, that they soon became firm friends.

Meyer Lansky met another man named Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel in 1920, who joined up with both Meyer and Luciano to form the Five Points Gang. In Meyer, Luciano found the perfect crime partner; Lansky provided the brains and Luciano the audacity. In the 1920s they worked with each other in activities of stealing alcohol from other bootleggers and then selling it for 100% profit. And when they weren't stealing booze, they were hired to protect shipments, which they did for exorbitant fees.

Later in 1931, Meyer Lansky assisted Luciano in the wiping out of his old boss Joe "The Boss" Masseria, which gave the top position to Luciano in the Masseria Crime Family. Sometime later, Meyer found out that another top mafia figure named Salvatore Maranzano was plotting to have Luciano murdered, so between them both they decided to take counter measures by killing Maranzano first. With these obstacles out of the way this paved the path for Luciano to form the National Crime Syndicate which had a board of directors, Meyer Lansky being one of them. Whilst Meyer was a director of The Syndicate, he made many friends and was excellent as a negotiator who always could swing decisions his way. Even though Luciano had the top position in the Crime Syndicate, Lansky did not become jealous. Instead he chose to keep a lower profile, having assumed that if he had taken the top spot this would create a lot of negative reaction from rival criminals and the government, plus it was necessary to maintain good relations with other Italian gangs who would not tolerate a Jewish boss.

Meyer Lansky also set up a lot of gambling operations in Florida, New Orleans, and Cuba. Many other criminals tried to muscle in on Meyer's territory, but he was always successful in crushing their attempts by using his strong connections that he had all over the United States.

At one time "Bugsy" Siegel approached Lansky to ask for money to build a casino in Las Vegas. Meyer agreed and invested huge amounts of cash in the project, also persuading other wealthy criminals to do the same. However, when the the casino went well over budget, meetings were called to debate the rubbing out of Siegel, but Meyer managed to hold them off for a few years. But he could not hold them off for long and so unfortunately he was forced to step back and allow the killing of "Bugsy" Siegel to go ahead in 1947, although Siegel's projects actually ended up being a huge success over the rest of the 20th century.

During the 1950s and 60s, Lansky got heavily involved in drug smuggling and prostitution, but he also invested money in legitimate projects such as golf courses and hotels. By the year 1970 , the IRS eventually began catching up with Lansky and started preparing tax evasion charges against him. When Meyer found out that he was going to be prosecuted, he fled to Israel. There he tried every attempt to gain public support to enable him to stay in Israel even dumping millions of dollars into the Israeli economy. However he was eventually forced to return to the United States after a long battle in court in 1972.

By the year 1973, Meyer had to go to hospital for open heart surgery; (this all happened before he was put on trial for tax evasion). However the government-appointed prosecution failed to make the charges stick and Lansky was acquitted of all charges. After Meyer was acquitted, the government decided to turn its attention elsewhere. For the next ten years, Meyer Lansky continued with his position in the mafia, amassing a fortune of somewhere in the region of $400M. But he was also suffering with lung cancer due to the heavy smoking and on the 15th of January 1983, he passed away.

Next: *Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel*

[Muggy]

[align=center]Benjamin "Bugsy" Hymen Siegel[/align]

[align=center]"Bugsy" Siegel[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born Wednesday February 28th 1906 - Died Friday June 20th 1947[/align]

Benjamin Hymen Siegelbaum was born on February 28th 1906 in Brooklyn, New York. He came from a poor Austrian Jewish family and was one of five children. Whereas his other siblings decided to do the right thing by studying and getting worthwhile employment, Benjamin went entirely the other way. From an early age he had worked out that crime was the only lucrative life for him.
(he had often watched both his parents scrape for every cent they could get to survive and he had sworn to himself that he was not going to end up the same way.)

He had a friend called Moey Sedway, who was easily influenced and between them they were running protection rackets on the local street vendors and would threaten to burn down their produce carts should they refuse to pay up. Because of his tendency to flare up and go what was termed 'bugs' when he got into fights; (probably because his eyes popped out or bulged when he was extremely angry) he got dubbed with the nickname "Bugsy", but he hated this moniker and if anyone should dare refer to him as Bugsy to his face would end up getting seriously hurt.

Later he met two other young hoodlums named Meyer Lansky and "Lucky" Luciano, Meyer and Siegel became close friends and formed an unstoppable crime partnership. There was one time when Luciano was arrested because of one man's testimony and so Bugsy killed the man, but he was spotted by woman who demanded money for her silence. Siegel dragged her into an alley, treated her very badly and threatened to burn her face if she said anything; she never did.

Between them both Siegel and Lansky[/b] gradually gained power and eventually they controlled the East Side of Manhattan with approximately forty other gangsters. Later when another chief mafia figure Joe Masseria started intruding on their territory, Siegel and Lansky started stealing his illegal shipments of alcohol and sold them to businesses. As time went by, Luciano convinced Masseria to join him in a restaurant, until Bugsy Vito Genovese, Joe Adonis and Albert Anastasia turned up and gunned Masseria down. Siegel along with these three other mobsters formed Murder Inc., a professional hit squad; they killed for payment. The organization was very profitable and very soon they were gaining power and money. Also round about that time Meyer Lansky and "Lucky" Luciano started the National Crime Syndicate which was an umbrella organization for the crime families that brought unprecedented power to the criminal underworld. Siegel was later hired by Dutch Schultz at one time, to kill Bo Weinburg, a well known gangster. Bugsy killed Weinburg, and in a cruel twist of fate had Schultz killed for the Crime Syndicate.

Bugsy moved west to Hollywood in 1933 to mingle with the stars and meet women, (he was a renowned womaniser). Later he met George Raft and through him got into some powerful social circles. Bugsy soon became very popular among Beverly Hills' celebrities and socialites. Whilst he was at a party one night, he received a call from Murder Inc giving him a contract to kill "Big Greenie" Greenbaum who was a snitch. Bugsy. Bugsy left the party and did the job, but got arrested for the murder the next day. The story of this murder and court case was in all the newspapers and Siegel was extremely angry that the stories had referred to him as "Bugsy". It is rumoured that when he first saw a newsboy selling a newspaper containing this story, that he killed him in a fit of rage.

As time went by Bugsy was invited to a party in Italy (when he was on one of his trips) by a lady named Dorothy DiFrasso, an Italian Countess; there he met Hermann Goering and Joseph Goebbels. Now being Jewish, he became extremely enraged and wanted to kill them there and then. However the Countess begged him to leave them alone and eventually he calmed down and decided not to kill them.

When he was back in Hollywood, Siegel worked with the Crime Syndicate to start forming unprecendented rackets. He started to take over local unions and would stage strikes to force movie studios to pay him so that the unions would start working again. There were also many occasions when he would borrow large sums of money from celebrities and refused to pay the loans back, knowing full well that they would not dare to threaten him. He also developed a system whereby horse racing gamblers in the east were alerted of the race results. The system was mostly wired communication and Siegel made the gamblers pay a fee for the right to use it. The Crime Syndicate made millions of dollars from this system and although Bugsy himself didn't received much of the profits, he did however receive some for his next big idea.

Whilst driving around Nevada, he found a place called Las Vegas, which then was a small dumpy type of town and Bugsy had this vision of a large hotel resort with legal gambling that would bring in thousands of people and rake in huge profits, he had this idea that if he could control the town he could also control the state and help the Syndicate have some legit business. So he started developing plans for a hotel which was to be called "The Flamingo" and received funding from his fellow gangsters in New York. The construction started in 1946, Bugsy worked closely with his then mistress, Virginia Hill in designing the operation. Now Virginia Hill was a blackmail expert who worked in Hollywood by finding wealthy people of a certain orientation and blackmailing them. Bugsy was hopelessly infatuated with her aggresive attitude and devious mind, but he was so blinded by love that he did not realize that in fact she was spying on him for some people in Chicago. Eventually The Flamingo finally opened after long periods of delays, but was immediately closed down, the whole thing was a complete failure. No one turned up at the opening ceremony, even though approximately $5M was spent on its construction. One day during Christmas "Lucky" Luciano contacted Siegel to find out what exactly was going on, but Bugsy just hurled abuse and insults at Luciano down the phone. This was immediately brought before the directors of the Syndicate. Meyer Lansky, although he managed to hold them off for a short whiled could not do so for long and so a contract was out on Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.

On Sunday the 8th of June 1947, Bugsy's mistress Virginia, on instructions from her associates in the Chicago Outfit went to France. Twelve days later on Friday the 20th of June, Bugsy was relaxing in the lounge of Virginia's house where he was living in Beverly Hills. A hitman named Frankie Carranzo came by the house and emptied a full magazine of bullets through the window at the side of the house. Two bullets hit Bugsy full in the face, one of which forced one of his eyes out of its socket about nine feet away from him, the rest hammered into his body, some of course missed; however the result was that he died instantly.

At his funeral there were only two people that attended: his own brother and a rabbi. Virginia Hill took her own life with mercury poisoning in 1966.

Although The Flamingo had been an utter failure, it however became a template by which other similar casinos were built and the whole of Las Vegas grew from this netting in billions of dollars for the next few decades. If it had not been for "Bugsy" Siegel's vision Las Vegas may still be a small insignificant town today.

[Muggy]

[align=center]JOSEPH "THE OLD MAN" PROFACI[/align]

[align=center]Joseph Profaci[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born Saturday, October 2nd 1897 - Died Thursday June 7th 1962[/align]

Joseph Profaci was born in Palermo, Sicily on Saturday 2nd of October 1897 and moved to New York by 1922. Arriving in America with the Gaetanos (Father and son), also Vincent Mangano, Profaci soon met with Salvatore Maranzano. Soon he made a name for himself as top hitman for Maranzano and was also a very capable earner for the mob, from activities such as loansharking, numbers rackets and prostitution. After a while he was given control over Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn. After the murder of Maranzano Joseph Profaci was placed as boss of his own family by "Lucky" Luciano, along with his father who was to be consigliere and his brother-in-law, Joe Magliocco as his underboss. He made his home in Besonhurst, Brooklyn and was whilst he was there that he connected with the up and coming gangster Carmine Persico, much later he was to build ties with the future capo John "Johnny Bath Beach" Oddo of Brooklyn.

He was considered a greedy boss by his subordinates and many despised him. He made millions from various rackets, but also introduced a levy which he charged his own men called the "Slush Fund" this was implemented whereby members of the family would pay him $25 per month that was supposedly to go to supporting mobster's families if the mobster was sent to prison; those who refused to pay were usually whacked, as also was anyone who did not agree with Profaci on any matters he was concerned with. However, Profaci had other ideas for the money and just added it to the other vast sums of wealth he obtained through the various rackets and criminal enterprise he had built up. Profaci lived a life of luxury; at the height of his power his home was set in a 328 acre estate with its own private airport in New Jersey, he also built ties with the Trafficante LCN Family of Tampa, Florida.

A few years later in 1946 he attended a Syndicate summit which was held in Havana, Cuba. This was the meeting held to talk about the killing of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.. Another six years later in 1952 a crown was stolen form his local church, St Bernadette's. Profaci was not known to be a regular attender but soon the crown was returned and the supposed thieves were killed, allegedly by orders of Profaci. Later in 1956 his niece (who's father was a made member of the Profaci Crime Family) married crime boss Joseph Bonanno's son Salvatore, this provided a blood tie and leverage when Profaci was dealing with fellow commission members.

Like most mobsters, Joseph Profaci had lots of legitimate businesses, like olive oil imports which led to him being referred to as the "Olive Oil King" but most of his wealth was through tradition Mafia activities such as protection rackets and extortion.

In 1957 on October the 25th the Gallo brothers earned their button or formal induction into the Profaci Crime Family with the rubbing out of Brooklyn boss Umberto "Albert Anastasia" Anastasio. Profaci was arrested whilst attending the big summit in Apalachin, at the house of Joseph Barbara, November.

After the raid on Apalachin, the Gallo brothers came back to haunt Profaci, by attempting to kill him to gain control of the family. The gun war which was particularly fueled by Carmine Persico, would culminate with the kidnapping of several key crime family members and held for ransom in 1961. By this time Persico, the Gallo brothers and other members like John "Sonny" Franzese persuaded the majority of soldiers to switch the allegiance from Profaci. Joseph Profaci was now fighting a losing battle, but not as much as the battle for his own health. For on Thursday 7th of June 1962 he died of cancer.

[align=center]Joey Gallo[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]The thorn in Profaci's side for a long time. Born Sunday April 7th 1929 - Died Friday April 7th 1972[/align]

[Muggy]

[align=center]Patriarca Crime Family[/align]

[align=center]Boss
Gaspare Messina(1916-1924) - Retired
Frank "Butsey" Morelli(1924-1947) - Retired
Filippo "Philip Buccola" Bruccola(1947-1952) - Retired
Raymond "El Padrone" Patriarca(1952-1984) - Died
Gennaro "Jerry" Angiulo(1984) - Imprisoned(Release:05/15/2010)
Raymond "Junior" Patriarca, Jr.(1984-1991) - Retired
Nicholas "Little Nicky" Bianco(1991) - Imprisoned/Died
Francis "Cadillac Frank" Salemme(1991-2000) - Defected
Luigi "Baby Shacks" Mannochio(2000-Present)

Acting Boss
Gennaro "Jerry" Angiulo(1969-1975)
John "Jackie" Salemme(1995-1998) - Imprisoned/Released(05/24/2004)

Underboss
Enrico "the Referee" Tameleo(19??-1968) - Imprisoned
Illario "Larry Baiona" Zannino(1968-1976) - Imprisoned/Died
Gennaro "Jerry" Anguilo(1976-1983) - Imprisoned(Release:05/15/2010)
Francesco "Paul" Intiso(1983-1985) - Murdered
Nicholas "Little Nicky" Bianco(1989-1991) - Promoted
Francis "Cadillac Frank" Salemme(1991) - Promoted
John "Jackie" Salemme(1991-1998) - Imprisoned/Released(05/24/2004)
Luigi "Baby Shacks" Mannochio(1998-2000) - Promoted

Consigliere
Larry Zannino(1983-198?) Imprisoned
Joseph "J.R." Russo(198?-1991) - Imprisoned(life)/Died

Caporegime
Samuel Granito – Imprisoned/Died
Vincent “Vinny the Animal” Ferrara – Imprisoned/Released(05/26/2005)
Vincent "the Fat Man" Teresa - Defected

Soldato
Robert “Bobby” Daddieco – Defected
Joseph “Joe” Barboza – Defected
Frederico Simone
John Cincotti – Imprisoned/Released(04/16/1997)
Alexander “Sonny Boy” Rizzo – Imprisoned/Released(06/12/1998)
Charles “Cueball” Quintana
Cono Frizzi – Died
Domenick Isabella
Ralph “Ralphie Chong” Lamattina – Imprisoned/Released(06/01/2000)
Richard Gambale – Imprisoned/Released(11/25/2003)
Anthony Spagnolo
Carmen Tortora – Imprisoned/Released(08/02/2001)
Anthony “Fat Tony” Ciulla – Defected
Vito DeLuca - Deported
Alfredo "the Blind Pig" Rossi
John Rossi
Thomas "Tommy" Rossi
Ricard "Dickie" Callei - Murdered

Associate
Patsy Fabiano(Italian) – Murdered
Robert Carrozza(Italian) - Imprisoned/Released(2003)
George Kattar(German)
Francis "Frannie" White(Irish) - Imprisoned(Release:06/05/2007)
John "Mad Dog" Nazarian - He was the top enforcer/assasin for Raymond Patriarca, he was murdered in 1961 by Raymond LS Patriarca for threatening to "take over" after Nazarian did the hit on Albert Anastasia of Murder Inc with Joey Gallo. Patriarca feared for his life so he had him shot.[/align]

[align=center]I will be doing a full history of the Boston Mafia on a later date, meanwhile here are just a few images as a starter.[/align]

[align=center]Philip Buccola[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Profile to follow:[/align]
[align=center]Francesco "Skyball" Scibelli[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]More information to follow[/align]
[align=center]Carmen Gagliardi (Mafia Hitman)[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]More to follow[/align]
[align=center]Joseph "Angie" DeMarco[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Profile to follow, when I get more info.[/align]

These are just a small number of mugshots and photos I managed to hunt down, more will follow with a much larger indepth history of Organized Crime in Boston Massachusets (or is that with two t's)

[Muggy]

[align=center]THE DETROIT PARTNERSHIP/OUTFIT[/align]

The Detroit Partnership didn't really start until around 1920 after the end of the Giannola/Vitale Feud. More than a hundred lives were lost in that mob war including the two leaders themselves. It was from the ashes of the aftermath of this conflict that Detroit's first underworld boss came to prominence, namely Salvatore "Sam" Catalanotte. Catalanotte was originally a Giannola gunman, who had a reputation for being a fair and impartial arbitrator of disputes. His rule lasted for 10 years and peace reigned under his leadership until he died of pneumonia in February of 1930. His position as Detroit's peacekeeper was taken over by Gaspar "Gaspar Sciblia" Milazzo. A powerful mobster from Brooklyn NY, Milazzo/Sciblia had been the leader of Brooklyn's Castellamarese family until he was forced to flee the city after a retaliatory strike against members of the rival Bucellato Family in 1921. Milazzo/Sciblia came down to Detroit with some loyal members of the Castellamarese mafia clan and they combined with the former Giannola gang in 1921 and formed the Westside Mob. He fell victim to a devious plot which was orchestrated by Chester LaMare, when he was gunned down whilst attending a peace conference as a representative of the Eastside Mob, at the Vernor Highway Fish Market on May 31st 1930.

After Milazzo's murder, New York mafia boss as was then Salvatore Maranzano, expressed his support for Chester LaMare to succeed as Detroit's Sicilian Mafia representative. LaMare was a former chief lieutenant to Sam Giannola during the Giannola/Vitale War, but had been passed over as leader in favor of Sam Catalonotte. The bosses of the Eastside Mob (then under the direction of Angelo Meli) saw LaMare's ambitious nature as a threat to their safety and security and so they made arrangements with members of LaMare's own gang to have him rubbed out. Chester LaMare didn't have a chance against Meli and the Eastside Mob, who finally eliminated "Big Chet" as he was known from contention in the race for supremacy in Detroit's criminal underworld on the 6th of February 1931. The death of LaMare ended the age of the two organizations in Detroit. The Giannola/Westside and Vitale/Eastside Mobs merged together with the River Gang to form one united organization with a ruling council of 4 to arbitrate and plan out the activities of the mob. This then became known as the Combination/Partnership or Outfit (not to be confused with the Chicago Outfit). The Detroit Partnership was under the joint direction of Joe Zerilli, William Tocco, Angelo Meli and Pete Licavoli with help and influence from Joe Massei. It remained a peaceful outfit from 1931 to recent times. After the formation of the Detroit Partnership, William Tocco became the dominant force in the Outfit until in 1936, when an income tax case forced him to concede control of the organization to his brother-in-law and cousin, Joseph Zerilli. Zerilli went on to head the family until his semi-retirement in 1970. At that time Joe Zerilli's son, Anthony became the third boss of the Partnership. Joe Zerilli however returned as boss when his son was convicted for concealing his ownership of the Las Vegas Frontier Hotel and Casino in 1974. Zerilli's second reign as boss of the Detroit Outfit lasted until 1979 when on October 30th 1977 he died at the age of 79. Two years would normally pass before another official boss would be instigated to lead the Partnership, however on June 11th 1979 Jack William Tocco who was the son of Vito "Black Bill" William Tocco was elected the fourth boss of Detroit's crime organization, in a ceremony which was held at the Timberland Game Ranch in Dextertownship. In 2000 21 years after his election Jack Tocco was the longest serving boss in Detroit. His reign is currently the longest of any known Mafia boss in the US. He was indicted in 1999 on racketeering charges, information of this will be included with his biog at a later date.

[align=center]Some pictures of those who were in Detroit's Underworld[/align]
[align=center]Salvatore "Sam" Giannola[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born 1889 Sicilia, Italy - Died October 2nd 1919[/align]
[align=center]Giovanni Vitale[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born June 24th 1876 - Died September 28th 1920[/align]
[align=center]Salvatore "Sam Sings in the Night" Catalanotte[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born February 15th 1894, Italy - Died February 14th 1930, Detroit[/align]
[align=center]Antonino Giannola[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born 1880, Italy - Died January 3rd 1919, Detroit[/align]
[align=center]Gaspar (Sciblia-Lombardo) Milazzo[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born 1887 - Died May 31st 1930[/align]
[align=center]Chester LaMare[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born 1884, Chicago - Died February 6th 1931, Detroit[/align]
[align=center]Joseph Zerilli[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born December 30th 1897, Terrasina Sicilia - Died October 31st 1979, Detroit[/align]
[align=center]Anthony Joseph Zerilli[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born October 24th 1927[/align]
[align=center]Guglielmo Vito William "Black Bill" Tocco[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born February 12th 1897, Terrasina Sicilia - Died May 28th 1972, Michigan[/align]
[align=center]Jack William Tocco[/align][align=center][/align][align=center]Born 1927[/align]
[align=center]I will be doing individual biographies at a later time[/align]

[Muggy]

[align=center]EARLY GANGS OF DETROIT: THE EASTSIDE MOB[/align]

The Eastside Mob was first started by Giovanni Vitale who was a former lieutenant for the Giannola Brothers. Being outraged by the murder of Peter Bosco who was another Giannola lieutenant and a partner of Antonino Giannola in a bakery on Congress Street, Vitale got together and organized a gang of men who previously had been loyal to Bosco, also along with other former Giannola leaders, Sam Cipriano and Joseph Stefano, they formed the Vitale/Eastside Gang in 1918. Giovanni Vitale secured his position as one of the strongest bosses of the Italian Underworld, along with the Giannola Gang and also forging a loose alliance with the Purple Gang. Also they courted several Giannola gunmen and lieutenants such as Chester LaMare who later switched to become an open supporter of Vitale following Antonino and Salvatore Giannola's murders in 1919. The battle for Vitale to control Detroit was spurned on by the desire to get control of all the lucrative liquor trade, which was created once prohibition set in. not longer after the first gun shots were fired in the Vitale/Giannola Feud. The outcome of the war was to cost the lives of over 100 men and included those of both leaders.

After the deaths of Vitale and the Giannola brothers, the war settled down slowly, with the introduction of Salvatore "Sam Sings in the Night" Catalanotte who was a leader in the powerful Unione Siciliana. He became the most dominant figure in Detroit's Italian underworld, however he opted to bring in members of each gang (East and West side) as his chief aides, whilst dispensing much needed wisdom as the occasion warranted. Salvatore Catalanotte handed over control of Vitale's former gang to Giuseppe Manzello, it later went to Angelo Meli (who became a partner with Leo Cellura who was associated with Westside Mob leader Chester LaMare in several Hamtrammck night spots and liquor deals). Meli with help from the other young, up and coming team of gangsters, chose Vito William Tocco and Joseph Zerilli as his chief aides. A similar form of this arrangement continued to exist for around the next 50 years. Meli, Tocco and Zerilli continued to follow Catalanotte's Pascuzzi combine pact around the time of his death in 1930. Later the trio joined forces with the Licavoli brother's Down River Gang, which completed the circle of power that was to direct organized crime in Detroit Michigan for the remainder of the century. The first acts the new combine agreed upon was the elimination of Chester LaMare after his vicious murder of two former allies to Catalanotte in the Vernor Fish Market, after the two had been attending a meeting on behalf of the Eastside Mob to try and come to a resolution to settle their differences.

[align=center]Images of members not already seen in previous posts about Detroit's Underworld[/align]
[align=center]Angelo Meli[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Giuseppe Manzello[/align][align=center][/align]

[Muggy]

[align=center]EARLY DETROIT GANGS: THE RIVER GANG[/align]

The River Gang can be traced back to the mixed ghettos of the turn of the century St. Louis. It was originally known as the Licavoli Mob and was comprised of close knit group of young St. Louis toughs who had committed virtually every conceivable violent crime imaginable before they were 16 years of age. The gang comprised principally of Thomas "Yonnie" Licavoli, Frank Cammarata, Peter Joseph Licavoli, cousins James "Blackie" Licavoli and Leo Morceri, with advice and very often physical assistance from St. Louis gangsters, Joseph Massei, Leo Cellura and members of the feared and respected Moceri and Bommarito clans. The Licavoli Mob had been active in the Detroit area since 1921. It was at this time that Yonnie and Frank Cammarata were picked up in Windsor Ontario, Canada where they had been arrested and charged with possession of illegal weapons, which they had attempted to smuggle back to their Riverside base of operations. This conviction removed two of the gang's most important members for about two years. During this time came the emergence of Peter Joseph Licavoli as the leader in the Motor City mob. Peter perfected and expanded the gang's liquor smuggling operation to the point that they became the top bootlegging operation in Detroit.

Peter Licavoli enjoyed the protection of Sam Catalanotte's Unione Sciliana organization, due to his close association with Joe Massei and the Bommarito Family, who had travelled east with the Licavoli boys to secure new territory for themselves under the auspices (guidance) of the Unione. Catalanotte recognized the strength and potential of the upstart organization and so he extended an invitation to Peter Licavoli to have his gang participate in the Pascuzzi Combine. Licavoli accepted the invitation whilst still continuing to expand his gang's influence and wealth as a member of the Combine. Later the Licavoli Mob became known as the River Gang also known as

The Purple Gang

They formed a very important faction of the Detroit Partnership, with factions in Toledo; headed by Pete Corrado, Youngstown; headed by Tony Delsanter and other parts of the US. The Licavoli penchant for crossing ethnic barriers in pursuit of business profits in addition to employing a capable steady crew of gunmen such as Angelo Livecchi to enforce their control of gamling circles; broke new ground in Detroit's organized crime circles.

[align=center]Images of gang members[/align]

[align=center]Thomas "Yonnie" Licavoli[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Francesco "Frank" Cammarata[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Peter Joseph Licavoli[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]James Licavoli[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Leonardo Cellura[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Antonio Anthony "Tony Dope" DelSanter[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Angelo Livecchi[/align][align=center][/align]
[align=center]Peter Corrado[/align][align=center][/align]

[Muggy]

[align=center]A MEGA DETROIT PACK: THE WESTSIDE MOB/PICCIOTTERIA|N'DRANGHETA/UNIONE SCILIANA/BOSCO GANG[/align]

[align=center]Westside Mob[/align]
The Westside Mob was made up of three separate criminal underworld gangs, and was under the direction and leadership of Salvatore Catalanotte. When the Vitale/Giannola war had ended with the elimination of the feudist, Gianolla, Bosco and Vitale gangs in 1920, Catalanotte who had been a key lieutenant of Antonino and Salvatore Giannola emerged as the undisputed king of Michigan's Italian Underworld.

He (Catalanotte) designated specific areas of operations for the surviving members of the Giannola Gang and gave Chester LaMare the operational rights to Hamtramck. Joseph Tocco the notorious downriver beer baron, was given responsibility in Wyandotte with Catalanotte's blessing; Sam Catalanotte himself was overseer of the whole organization from Detroit.

He conveyed the need for co-operation from the various factions of the Italian Underworld and he did this so well that he soon became known as the king of Detroit's Little Sicily, throughout the whole of Michigan. He led Detroit's secret society into a new era with the forming of the Pascuzzi Combine (This was the name that all Detroit's bootlegging gangs worked under, as a cohesive unit instead of seperate splinter groups fighting each other for control of gambling, prostitution, narcotics, bootlegging and other rackets).

Salvatore "Sam sings in the Night" Catalanotte guided and led his Westside Mob into a profitable and lasting partnership with the River Gang, who had already formed an alliance with the Eastside Mob which was under the direction and leadership of Angelo Meli, and Vito William Tocco.

The Westside Mob's decline was the result of several events which began with a sweeping Grand Jury indictment, which charged several members of the Pascuzzi Combine with bribing Customs Border Patrol Inspectors in 1928. This was also hastened with the death of Salvatore Catalanotte in the February of 1930 and concluded with the murder of Chester LaMare, in his home in the February of 1931.

[align=center]Picciotteria|N'Drangheta 1900-1920[/align]
This is an Italian criminal organization which is native to the Calabria region in Italy. The Picciotteria which was the original name for the N'Drangheta in it's early days, was first discovered in an official government document dated May 15th 1888. This historic article as noted by the two authors Antonio Nicasso and Peter Edwards in their 1993 book which was titled Deadly Silence, they wrote complaining of the presence of Iatrinoli or the "sect that fears nothing" from the Reggio Calabria area.

The early picciotti were usually the village tough guys who made their living as bandits and outlaws. Their appearance was not hard to recognize as they carried their demeanor in a very distinctive fashion and exhumed an air of arrogance that came from within themselves. One of the earliest known picciotti to visit the Detroit area was Giuseppe Mussolini, who was a man of great influence, much of which was due to his relationship to another Joe Mussolini also from Calabria. Mussolini became a reknowned underworld figure where he was north of the border from his base of operations which was located in the rear of his restaurant/boarding house at 160 York Street Toronto, Cananda. Giuseppe Mussolini used Detroit as a landing point for immigrants and other black market items he smuggled into Canada from overseas.

He remained a very influential man both in Detroit and in Canada until he was forced to return to Italy after having narrowly escaped a murder conviction in 1911. Giuseppe Mussolini was later replaced at the helm of the N'Drangheta by a man who had just started in the Italian Underworld at the time of Mussolini's fall, but would be more successful than him in wealth power and notoriety and that was Rocco Perri. His success came through the supplying of good booze to the local Sicilian mobs to then sold to the United States during Prohibition.

[align=center]Unione Siciliana[/align]
The Unione was established in the late 1880's by Italian immigrants to give aide to new arrivals in the US. This consisted of basic needs like finding accomodation, jobs and also providing insurance for a small monthly fee. The New York chapter of the Unione fell to the influence of blackhand extortionists, Frank Yale and Ignazio Saietta. This happened around the time when Prohibition started to take effect.

The Detroit chapter of the Unione Siciliana fell under the control of Salvatore "Sam Sings in the Night" Catalanotte in the year 1920. The Unione in Detroit forged close working relationships with their brothers in Chicago, which was under the direction of Michele Merlo; Buffalo, which was run by Joe DiCarlo until his death in 1921 and Brooklyn where a large contingent of Sicilian immigrants from the Castelammare del Golfo region made up a large portion of the Unione's membership.

This setup was ended when Milazzo/Scibila and his aide and bodyguard Sam Parrina were murdered in the Vernor Fish Market on May 31st 1930, by men who were under the employ of Chester LaMare The two men had been attending a meeting to arbitrate a dispute between LaMare and members of the Eastside Mob which was under the leadership of Angelo Meli. Giuseppe "Joe Cockeyed" Catalanotte the brother of the late Salvatore Catalanotte was the next in line to succeed his sibling, but he ran into trouble and was deported back to Sicily in 1931.

The Detroit chapter of the Unione then came under the influence of Joe Massei who entered into an agreement with the leaders of the River Gang, the liquor baron Joe Morceri and also the East and Westside mobs. This formed the Criminal Partnership which still stands to this day. The Unione had long since ceased to provide aide to new Sicilian immigrants and faded into oblivion as the great depression swept over the nation of America.

[align=center]The Bosco Gang[/align]
The Bosco Gang was ruled by Detroit grocer Peter Bosco. The volatile feudist gang engaged the Giannola brothers for control of the Italian quarter. They were initially allied in their quest to bring down the Adamo brothers, but the alliance soon suffered a disolution, which was brought on by a business dispute between Antonino Giannola and Pietro Bosco. Sides were soon taken and lines drawn, further blurring loyalty boundaries.

Peter Bosco who was joined by John Vitale, Peter Mirabile and an assortment of malcontents, fortified Detroit's Fort Street and prepared for war. Drive-by shootings, kidnappings and bombings were common occurences as the feud heated up. The first major blow was struck when Pietro Bosco was ambushed and shot in this Ash Street garage. John Vitale now took control of the gang, his ties also stretched into Buffalo, New York. He retaliated by ordering the murder of Antonino Giannola. His order was carried out by a team of gunmen, who stepped out from the shadows as Antonino arrived at the home of Giuseppe Braziola, to pay a visit of condolence after Braziola had fallen victim in a dispute with his father-in-law. Many others also fell before order was restored by the capable hand of Salvatore Catalanotte in 1920. Before peace could be established fully, Catalanotte realized that John Vitale who had steadily grown in power and influence would have to be taken out (whacked). Vitale's violent death ended the feud which had paralized Detroit for just over two years and led to a ten year period of relative peace and vast prosperity.