Manhattan Mafia Guide (18 page)

Not long after serving his sentence, Mari and two of his closest associates simply, and suspiciously, disappeared. No bodies were ever found, missing persons’ reports were not immediately filed and no funeral was ever arranged, leading many to believe the men went into hiding. Another theory is that Mari flipped and went into witness protection to ensure his safety, though those who knew him would probably find that hard to believe.

M
ASSERIA
, G
IUSEPPE

80 Second Avenue, 1920s

Alias: the Boss

Born: 1887, Trapani, Sicily

Died: April 15, 1931, New York City

Association: Morello, Masseria crime families

This address was the home of one of the Prohibition era’s most pivotal crime figures, Giuseppe Masseria, whose ambition to dominate the Italian underworld earned him the ultimate pink slip in 1931.

80 and 82 Second Avenue today.
Courtesy of Shirley Dluginski
.

With Giuseppe Morello sentenced to prison in 1909 and his replacement, Nicolas Terranova, gunned down in 1916, the fate of the deteriorating and splintered Morello gang eventually fell into the hands of the rotund, abrasive, thirty-something-year-old veteran criminal who went on to assemble an impressive stable of up-and-coming gangsters and reclaim much of the gang’s clout. It was Masseria who introduced Charlie Luciano to the Mafia in the early 1920s, and it was Masseria’s war with Salvatore Maranzano that inadvertently led to the restructuring of the Mafia in 1931.

Giuseppe Morello mug shot.

Charlie Luciano took over the organization in 1931, with Vito Genovese as his underboss and Frank Costello as consigliere. The Masseria/Luciano outfit would forever become known as the Genovese family after the testimony of Joe Valachi in the early 1960s.

M
ATRANGA
, P
ASQUALE

125 East Fourth Street, 1940s

Alias: Patsy, Matranca

Born: November 1, 1887, Monreale, Sicily

Died: [?]

Association: [?]

This influential yet low-profile mobster left little trace of his activities and is somewhat of a mystery. Though no criminal record exists in the United States or Italy, the FBN alleged Matranga was a major narcotics smuggler with Mexican and European criminal ties, and historians suggest he was one of Charlie Luciano’s closest associates.

There is an SS
Laconia
passenger list record dated May 18, 1914 with a Pasquale Matranga that fits the gangster’s description, but it is difficult to confirm that this is him. The FBN claims he was naturalized in the Bronx on March 23, 1928. We do know Mantranga was a partner in something called the Garden State Lathe Company in Palisades, New Jersey, and also operated a small olive oil and cheese store in Brooklyn at 8733 Twenty-third Avenue. Beyond that, most of what can be found about this enigmatic figure comes from an incident where Matranga personally delivered an American automobile to an exiled Charlie Luciano in 1948.

On June 26, 1951, Matranga testified before a Senate committee investigating the underworld narcotics trade. Translated through daughter Maria de Auria, the mobster was questioned about the 1948 white Oldsmobile sedan in question (with New Jersey license plates RUX-37), explaining that he was planning a visit back to his homeland to see family when a mutual friend named Tony Sabio asked him to transport the car as a favor. According to Matranga, Sabio had given him enough money for the car (which cost $2,783) and expenses to ship it to Italy. Once overseas, Luciano drove it from the port and registered it in his name the same day. Both Luciano and Matranga were indicted for importing a car without a license.

M
AURO
, V
INCENT

22 King Street; 155 East Fifty-seventh Street, 1962

Alias: Vinny Bruno, Morrow Morrio, Murio, Maurio

Born: February 26, 1916, New York City (b. Mauro, Vincenzo Francesco Angelo)

Died: [?]

Association: Genovese crime family

Described as a “high-ranking” member of a Genovese crew led by Anthony Strollo, the authorities believed Mauro to be a “merciless and vicious killer” with interests in various rackets like nightclubs, loan-sharking, labor racketeering and drug trafficking.

Mauro grew up at 691 East 230
^th
Street in the Bronx, where his first arrest came in 1933 at the tender age of seventeen. Next came a string of arrests for robbery, burglary, tax evasion, narcotics violations, homicide and a few stints behind bars.

While living at 3824 Bronx Boulevard in 1934, Mauro was arrested for the killing of a twenty-eight-year-old petty gambler and “known hoodlum” named Rocco Loscalzo of 312 West Twentieth Street. Loscalzo, who was out on bail for stealing a truck filled with $20,000 worth of merchandise from a Brooklyn warehouse, was shot five times in the head and five times in the back on October 24 after leaving a place called DeMartino’s Bar at 171 Bleecker Street. Mauro was picked up soon after the shooting by two detectives while sitting in his car on West Sixty-fifth Street between Central Park West and Broadway. He denied involvement, despite the fact that his clothing was stained with blood.

In May 1957, Mauro and three associates pleaded guilty to “possessing liquor with intent to sell without a license” from their “high-class speakeasy,” the Gold Key Club at 26 West Fifty-sixth Street.
⁹⁹

In May 1961, Mauro and sixteen others were rounded up and arrested, accused of running a multimillion-dollar narcotics ring responsible for smuggling over two hundred pounds of heroin into North America from Italy by allegedly using unsuspecting immigrants as mules.

The ring, headed by Mauro, was said to have moved over $50 million in heroin in just a one-year period. Rather than face trial, Mauro and partners Frank Caruso and Salvatore Maneri fled to Europe, where U.S. narcotics agents tracked them to Barcelona, Spain, and arrested the trio in January 1962.

Soon after the arrest, it came to light that authorities had been building a case against Charlie Luciano for his alleged role in the international narcotics ring. American agents tied Luciano to Mauro, Caruso and Maneri through a man named Henry Rubino, Mauro’s partner in New York and Miami nightclubs. Rubino was observed making several trips between Luciano’s home in Naples, Italy, and Mauro’s Barcelona hideout.

The entire case was triggered by the October 1960 arrest of four men in Westchester County, New York, who were in possession of twenty-three and a half pounds of heroin, with a street value of $3 million.

M
IRRA
, A
NTHONY

106 Madison Street, 1930; 115 Madison Street, 1957

Alias: Mirro

Born: July 18, 1927, New York City

Died: February 18, 1982, New York City

Association: Bonanno crime family

Anthony Mirra was a notoriously hot-tempered hit man for the mob with a record dating back to 1948 for a variety of charges, including assault, weapons and narcotics violations and contempt of court for throwing a wooden chair at a prosecutor during a federal trial in 1962.

In a great example of how Mafia legends snowball, several contemporary sources such as Wikipedia (as of this writing) cite Mirra as “6’3” and 230 pounds” with “sixty murders” under his belt. The FBN lists him at “6’0” and 210 pounds,” while articles in the 1960s describe him as having a “stocky, 5’10” frame.” The truth about his stature is probably somewhere in the middle; however, “sixty murders” is quite farfetched and highly unlikely.

Mirra’s father, Albert, emigrated from Benevento, Italy, to New York City in 1912 at about fifteen years old. Here, he became friendly with the family of neighbor and future mobster Alfred Embarrato and ended up marrying Embarrato’s sister, Carmella (known as “Millie”). Anthony was born in 1927 and raised at 106 Madison Street in the heart of the Fourth Ward on the Lower East Side.

It is said that Mirra was distant and reclusive as a child and had very few close, personal friends. Random mood swings, unprovoked outbursts and unpredictable violence kept family and fellow mobsters at arm’s length throughout Mirra’s life and earned him many enemies.

One thing that kept Mirra in good light with the Mafia was the fact that he was a dedicated and interminable earner. His icy personality, said to be void of any resemblance of empathy or compassion, helped Mirra become one of the most feared and successful extortionists and racketeers of the 1970s, though he hit a few major speed bumps along the way.

In September 1957, Mirra was one of forty-six defendants and sixteen co-conspirators indicted for allegedly operating a massive $20 million-a-year heroin and cocaine syndicate that smuggled up to fifty pounds of narcotics into the United States from France at a time. The multiethnic ring established several distribution points across North America, including Massachusetts; Washington, D.C.; Maryland; Pennsylvania; Louisiana; Texas; California; Florida; and Montreal. It was funded by gambler and racketeer Harry “Nig Rosen” Stromberg, a close associate of Frank Costello and Meyer Lansky and a veteran labor slugger who earned his criminal stripes as a hired gun for the notorious Lepke-Gurrah outfit of the 1920s and ’30s.

Knickerbocker Village, the corner of Madison and Market Streets today.
Courtesy of Sachiko Akama
.

Stromberg was sentenced to five years in April 1958. Mirra, while free on bail awaiting an appeal, was spotted having dinner at Marino’s Restaurant (716 Lexington Avenue) with Anthony Strollo, Vincent Mauro and Luciano gunman Anthony “Little Augie Pisano” Carfano just forty-five minutes before Carfano was gunned down on a Forest Hills, Queens street. Mirra was questioned, but no charges were filed.

Mirra was eventually convicted for his part in the Stromberg narcotics ring and began serving a three-and-a-half-year sentence at the end of 1958. While incarcerated on those charges, Mirra was named in another narcotics violations indictment, along with Carmine Galante, Carli Di Pietro and several others. The ring was allegedly led by Giovanni “Big John” Ormento, a powerful Lucchese capo and brother-in-law of John Dioguardi.

This trial began on November 21, 1960, and lasted six months, ending in a mistrial after the jury foreman “broke his back in an unexplained fall down a flight of stairs in an abandoned building in the middle of the night.”
¹⁰⁰
At least one government witness claimed to receive death threats during the trial, and several jury members were dismissed for various unverifiable reasons, like illness or prejudice. The judge refused to set bail while prosecutors prepared an appeal, announcing that the defendants “would be a danger to the public, to the witnesses, to the jurors and to court personnel.”
¹⁰¹