The Mafia Encyclopedia (20 page)

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Authors: Carl Sifakis

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Page 49
leader of the Italian island, Don Vito Cascio Ferro, to organize the American underworld so that it would follow the orders of Don Vito. After Maranzano arrived in America, Don Vito was imprisoned by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and would never see freedom again. This left Maranzano free, he thought, to pick up the boss of bosses mantle himself.
At a celebrated meeting shortly after Joe the Boss's demise, informer Joe Valachi later reported, Maranzano outlined the new organization of the Mafia in New York. There would be five families, under five capos (that grand sentimentalist of the Mafia, Joe Bonanno, called them five Fathers): Luciano, Tom Gagliano, Joe Profaci, Vince Mangano and Maranzano. Maranzano was, in addition, establishing an added post for himself, that of boss of bosses. This produced some gasps from the crowd of gangsters. The man who had led the fight to end boss rule was turning about and making himself the new boss.
Chances are if Maranzano had not been so insistent, Luciano and the others would have let him live somewhat longer. As it was Maranzano was murdered on September 10, 1931. With him died the title of boss of bosses.
The first thing Luciano did on his ascendancy was cancel the position. Luciano knew that Maranzano had aims on the rest of the country and besides having Luciano on his death list, he planned to kill Al Capone, Frank Costello, Joey Adonis, Vito Genovese, Dutch Schultz and Willie Moretti, among others. Luciano knew that the new underworld would not be a strictly Italian setup as Maranzano visualized it, and he most certainly was not about to challenge Capone, although Capone for his part had no nationwide ambitions; he was having trouble enough conquering the Chicago North Side, among other districts, to think any bigger.
Luciano and Meyer Lansky became the most important syndicate criminals of the 1930s. Within the Italian segment of their multiethnic national crime syndicate, important to Luciano as his power base, some of Maranzano's innovations were continued, such as the five-family arrangement in New York, with Joe Bonanno inheriting the essential elements of the Maranzano family.
It could be said quite accurately that Luciano did rule as the de facto boss of bosses in part precisely because he refused the title. When he went to prison on a 30-to 50 year sentence on prostitution charges, Luciano left the affairs of his own family under the control of Frank Costello, with Joe Adonis assigned the nominal custody of syndicate matterswhich were more or less under the control of a National Commission of the five family heads and a few other crime bosses from other cities. However, Luciano told Adonis to "listen to Meyer." For all intents and purposes, then, organized crime had a Jewish boss of bosses in Lansky. However, Lansky's influence derived not from any bequeath of power but rather from general recognition of his "smarts."
The constant search for a boss of bosses by the press nevertheless concentrated on Italians and settled for a while on Costello and, later, after his return from Italy, on Genovese. Genovese clearly wanted the title and from 1950 on he started a steady campaign to achieve it, first by convincing everyone that Willie Moretti, a Luciano-Costello loyalist, had to be killed because he was "going off his rocker." In 1957 Genovese tried but failed to have Costello murdered and then succeeded in having Albert Anastasia put down. It fact, some have asserted that the Apalachin Conference of 1957 was called to crown Genovese as the new boss of bosses, but this is untrue or, in any event, never came to pass. A police raid broke up the meeting, and strong evidence later showed the conference was sabotaged by an alliance of Lansky, Luciano (from exile in Italy) and Frank Costelloall three not present at the meetingand Carlo Gambino, who succeeded to head of the Anastasia family. According to statements attributed to Luciano, Gambino had gone there in case the meeting somehow proceeded, planning to denounce Genovese's ambitions and to refuse to hand him any envelope of money as a symbol of his authority.
This did not stop the press from calling Genovese the boss of bosses, but if he was, his reign was to prove even less enduring than that of the unfortunate Maranzano. He was arrested and convicted on a narcotics chargewidely believed to have been arranged by the same quartet who stopped Apalachin. With Genovese tucked away, the press turned to Gambino as the new boss of bosses, and there is little doubt he became the most powerful crime leader not only in New York but also across the country. Certainly, his influence extended over some of the other crime families. He dominated the old Profaci family through Joe Colombo and eventually placed his favorite, "Funzi" Tieri, at the head of the Genovese family after Tommy Eboli, who inherited the throne on Genovese's death, was conveniently murdered.
Law enforcement agencies have a keen interest in establishing a boss of bosses, especially if they figure they can bust him, so that they can take credit for dealing organized crime a mighty blow. That was what federal narcotics men claimed when they nailed Genovese; law enforcement officials figured they could do the same to Gambino but he died in 1976.
After some casting about, Carmine Galante, the underboss to Joe Bonanno before doing a long stretch for narcotics smuggling, was next elected to become the
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boss of bosses. Indeed, the
New York Times
, among others, so dubbed him. Galante was then rearrested for parole violation and the government looked very good again, knocking off yet another boss of bosses.
Next in line for the mythical crown was Tieri, which meant that he too would soon face a serious conviction. He was sentenced to 10 years for violating the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970 but died shortly thereafter in 1981.
After that came Paul Castellano, the head of the Gambino family. The fact that he headed a powerful family may not have been enough to dub him the boss of bosses, especially when one considers that he was taken down so easily by gangster elements within his own family headed by John Gotti. Clearly, Gotti then became the press's leading candidate for the title boss of bosses. The fact that under Gotti the Gambinos went into deep decline so that the Genovese family once more gained the distinction of becoming more powerful and prosperous was a clear fly in the ointment. Still the press was not ready to name that mob's leader, Chin Gigante, to the grandiose position. When both Gotti and Gigante went to prison, the mythical title remained vacant.
Boss's Annual Income: No limit for the man at the top
It would be hard to estimate accurately the annual income of a Mafia don. In Chicago Tony Accardo's take was known to be enormous, as was that of his associate Sam Giancana. New York's Paul Castellano (and Carlo Gambino before him) and Tough Tony Salerno garnered fortunes, and it was said their annual payola could not be reckoned on just their 10 fingers, each one representing a millionand maybe not even if their 10 toes were counted as well.
Only in the recent case of John Gotti can some ballpark figures be established, thanks to informer Sammy ''the Bull" Gravano. Sammy disclosed his own income to show what size slice Gotti took. Rigged construction deals set up by the Bull with the Teamsters and other unions topped $1.2 million a year. The Bull also garnered a number of so-called legit construction contracts, and he and his wife paid $800,000 in taxes. After taxes at least $200,000 went to Gotti. Sammy's operations in nightclubs, discos, and after-hours joints produced another $600,000 a year and again Gotti took his share. The Bull insisted this made him Gotti's biggest producer, which might or might not have been true, as Gotti had numerous sources of money. Tommy Gambino's garment industry operations netted Gotti huge sums. Then there were cuts from hijackings, the carting industry, pier rackets and other rackets. And of course there was also drug money. One mob heroin dealer was good for handing Gotti $100,000 a payment. Officially there was a ban on drug activities, but Gotti took the money and asked no questions.
In
Underboss
, the Bull estimated that Gotti on the very low side was getting $5 million a year"and probably more like ten or twelve."
It would take time to join the ranks of the wealthiest mob bosses, boasting at least a few hundred million as some dons had done, but Gotti never made it. He was cut off at the very prime of his money-making years.
Bourg, Frank (18901955):"Wrong man" Mafia victim
In April 1955, 64-year-old New Orleans bank teller Frank Bourg suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized. One night as he lay in bed a visitor walked into his room and proceeded to smash his skull with a cleaver. It clearly appeared to be a gang hit although Bourg, evidently an innocent teller for some 30 years, had no record of any sort of criminal involvement.
Later it was concluded that Bourg had been the mistaken victim of a Mafia assassination attempt. It appeared the real target was Sheriff Frank Clancy who had occupied the next hospital room. According to a police report, "from the time Clancy ... entered the hospital, he ... had a guard outside of his door but the guard was removedon the morning of the attackby somebody representing themselves as the sheriff's wife."
Clancy, an old-style political boss, had been a reluctant witness at the Kefauver Hearings in 19501951. He revealed that he had allowed the underworld to place 5,000 slot machines in his parish. In addition, acting New Orleans boss Carlos Marcello opened three gambling casinos on the New Orleans side of the river; it was said that Clancy had a share in the profits. Clancy also maintained the right to hire all personnel below the management level. Clancy's testimony proved embarrassing to Marcello but had little effect on gambling operations.
There was some reason to believe that Clancy was talking to federal agents about Louisiana gambling right up to the time of the Bourg murder. Nothing bad came out of the Bourg murder for the Marcello family. A nurse's aide who had seen the killer and provided police with a detailed description three days later suddenly recalled she had no idea what the man looked like. And as David Leon Chandler noted in
Brothers in Blood
, "As for Sheriff Clancy, he ceased giving information to federal agents."
Brasco, Donnie (1939-): FBI agent who infiltrated the Mafia
He was the greatest Mafia informer, far more productive than such informers as Sammy "the Bull" Gravano,
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Joe Valachi or Abe Reles, the Murder, Inc., canary. He was Donnie Brasco, an informer with a difference. He was an undercover FBI agent who infiltrated the Mafia. His real name was Joe Pistone, and unlike the usual informer, his box score was of record proportions, his exposures sending more than 100 mobsters to prison.
To carry off his dangerous masquerade, Pistone played the Brasco tough-guy role to the hilt. Trusted more and more by key mafiosi, he provided insights into the mob never offered before by others. He took part in potential linkups between crime families in different parts of the country, from the Bonanno crime family in New York to the Trafficante family in Florida and the Balistrieri family in Milwaukee, a group tied closely to the Chicago Outfit.
Brasco worked his way up as an associate of such lower echelon wise guys as Tony Mirra and Lefty Ruggiero. Neither were mental geniuses, but they were vicious and deadly when aroused. In the movie,
Donnie Brasco
(1997), Al Pacino played not the dapper, collegeeducated Michael Corleone of
The Godfather
(1972) but the ignorant, erratic and frequently homicidal Ruggiero, an average soldier of the mob. Even though Brasco developed a certain affinity for Ruggiero and his superior, Sonny Black, he later explained the difference between
The Godfather
and the real-world Mafia was that the movie gave the hoodlums too much credit. The reality of Mafia life was grubby, petty and venal. Unseen was the infighting, the lying to one another, the scheming against each other to achieve power. Clearly Donnie Brasco found no "Honored Society." As capo Sonny Black, who was finally murdered by his fellow mafiosi, said, "Every day somebody's looking to dispose of you and take your position. You always got to be on your toes. Every fucking day is a scum day to keep your power and position."
Brasco soon learned the Mafia law of the jungle, under which how strong a man is and how much power he can assemble and how mean he can be determines how far he can rise in the mobright up to the mythical title of "godfather."
For six years starting in 1976 Donnie Brasco worked his way into the higher reaches of the mob. Only when the internal struggles worsened and the FBI feared Brasco would either be found out and killed as a snitch or become a victim of intrafamily warfare did they pull him out. But there was another reason. Brasco, who was up for membership, had been given a contract to murder an enemy of Sonny Black's. The government could not allow this and would not agree with Brasco that he could dodge and weave until the FBI found the murder target and snatched him away.
Once Brasco became Pistone again he spent more than five years in various Mafia trials around the country, aiding in the conviction of wise guys. Some of those imprisoned died in jail, and some have now gotten out, but most remain behind bars.
In retaliation, the mob bosses put out an open-ended contract on Pistoneopen to anyonefor $500,000. The bosses generally abide by the rule against killing lawmen, but in Pistone's case they made an exception. Lefty Ruggiero survived because the FBI found him before the mob did and put him in prison for a long term. He was released a few years later suffering from cancer and died in 1989 at the age of 67.
Pistone retired from the FBI in 1997 after 27 years as an agent. For a while he and his family were in the witness protection program, but not in recent years. He does not let his photograph be taken, but he no longer has guards around him. But he remains cautious: "What I do is take proper precautions. What you worry about is some cowboy who recognizes you and wants to make a name for himself."
What Joe Pistone did was make a name for Donnie Brasco, one that scores of mafiosi behind bars still curse.
Bribery and the Mafia
In California it is called "juice," in Florida "ice," in New York "grease." It could as well be called a rose or any other name, but what it stands for is bribery. The Mafia bribes in wholesale lots, and it does not stint on the amount.
In
The American Mafia: Genesis of a Legend
, Joseph L. Albini of Wayne State University tells of a former police official who was offered $12,500 cash and $1,000 a week not to interfere with the operation of a single gambling establishment. Some years later he got another offer of $50,000 cash and $5,000 a week to allow two clubs to operate.
Early in his career Lucky Luciano found himself and his partners, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel and Joe Adonis, with an income one year of $12 million from bootlegging alone. They had a payroll of about 100 menmuscle men, guards, drivers, bookkeepers, messengers, fingermen, etc.who cost them about $1 million. By contrast their "grease"protection to police and politicianstotaled about $100,000 a week or about $5 million a year. This left them a profit of $6 million a year. The bribed, one might say, were almost equal partners with the mobsters.
In California, one major gambling racket broken up was the so-called Guarantee Finance Company, which although posing as a loan agency was actually a front for a $6 million bookmaking combine. When Guarantee's books were seized, they disclosed that $108,000 was paid for juice. Since Guarantee was a "50-50 book," meaning that participating bookies had to share equally

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