THE HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MAFIA

Paul Ricca whose real name was Felice De Lucia, of Italian descent, was born on November 14, 1897 in Naples , Campania, to Antonio and Maria Annunziata De Lucia.   He was considered an Italian-American mobster with increasing roles within the Cosa Nostra for 40 years, until he became its godfather within the Chicago mafia family, also known as de Outfit. In 1958 according to a Senate crime investigation subcommittee Ricca was called “the most important criminal in the country.”Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

Joe Valachi was the first “pentito” in the history of the Italian-American mafia, he was the first to reveal the name of Cosa Nostra to the world. His collaboration can be considered a turning point for the Department of Justice led by Robert Kennedy. In October 1963 his deposition on live TV was seen by tens of millions of American television viewers. It was a media event that we can define as historic for the activity of the federal government in the fight against organized crime. For the first time, during television broadcasts the American public heard a mafioso talk about commissions and godfathers.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

Between 1963 and 1965, chaired by Democratic Senator John McClellan, the Senate Federal Government of the United States of America established the Senatorial Subcommittee, whose investigations constituted an important turning point in the US government's fight against organized crime. The first hearing was held on September 27, 1963, at the United States Senate, around 10:00 am. The commission was desired by Robert Kennedy. He initially served as consultant to the McClellan Commission, and then as Attorney General. Robert Kennedy, John's younger brother, considered the Mafia an organization that contaminated all the economic and political nodes of the United States.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

Carlos Marcello is much less well known to the public than infamous gangsters like Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, or John Gotti. Yet he wielded far more power than anyone else, and for far longer. He was the undisputed boss of the New Orleans mob.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

Carlos Marcello is much less well known to the public than infamous gangsters like Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, or John Gotti. Yet he wielded far more power than anyone else, and for far longer. He was the undisputed boss of the New Orleans mob.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

Trafficante always wanted to make it big in the Cuban casinos and in 1946 sent his son, Santo Jr., to Havana to run the Mafia casinos. However, even in Cuba, Lansky was the ringleader, maintaining influence at the highest levels of the government, so much so that Trafficante was never more than a junior partner on the island.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

In the Pittsburgh Mafia family, until 1956, the leader of the Mafia family was Frank Amato. He ran it until he was struck by a kidney disease and was forced to resign and become the underboss. His place was taken by Sebastian LaRocca known as "John" LaRocca. It is said that there were family relations between Franck Amato and La Rocca.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

In the city of Pittsburgh, Italian criminals were divided into two factions: the "Sicilians" and the "Neapolitans". The territory within the city was also divided as Sicilian Mafia clans controlled the north and south sides, while Neapolitan Camorra clans controlled the east end.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

Santo Sorge was a powerful Sicilian mafioso residing in the United States. His exact role was never very clear to investigators. For scholars he was one of the great 'unknowns' of the Sicilian and American mafia. He was one of the Sicilian mafia bosses at the top of his time. His opinion was sought and listened to even in important decisions that affected the American mafia. He shuttled between Italy and the United StatesBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

After the summit held in 1956 at the Hotel delle Palme in Palermo, another important meeting took place in 1957. This was the one that will be remembered as the Apalachin summit in the state of New York. It was a milestone in the history of crime in America. Apalachin is an urban aggregate of the United States of America, located in the state of New York, in the county of Tioga.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

THE SUMMIR AT THE HOTEL DELLE PALME -PALERMOBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

Joe Profaci, born Giuseppe Profaci, is considered the first mafia boss of the Colombo mafia family of New York. Giuseppe Profaci was born in Villabate in the province of Palermo on October 2, 1897. He soon became a man of honor of the local clan. Joe Profaci entered the United States in New York clandestinely in 1921 with Vincent Mangano. The two were childhood friends, both took refuge in America to escape the regime and the repression wanted by Mussolini in the twenties against the mafia in Sicily. Profaci had already served a year in prison in Italy for theft. In 1927, he assumed American citizenship. Joe Profaci had six children with his wife Ninfa. One of his granddaughters, in 1956, married Salvatore Vincent Bill Bonanno, son of Joseph Bonanno, while his two daughters married one the son of William Tocco and the other the son of Joseph Zerilli, mafia bosses of Detroit.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

From 1964 to about 1969, the last major war was fought in which a major Mafia crime family attempted to gain a position of supremacy over other organized crime families in America. If the plan had been successful, the attackers could have truly changed the course of the criminal world as Lucky Luciano had done. This new conflict of the 1960s was initiated by an elderly boss, namely, Joseph Bonanno, head of the relatively small but efficient New York Mafia family of the same name, also known by the nickname "Bananas", hence the name of the Mafia conflict, namely BANANA'S WAR.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

In 1962 Bonanno, after the death of Joseph Profaci, one of his most faithful friends and allies, from cancer, together with his successor Joe Magliocco, thought of getting rid of the two most powerful bosses: Gambino and Lucchese, therefore organizing a plot to kill them together with their lieutenants.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

Joseph Bonanno, nicknamed "Joe Bananas" from a newspaper typo of the time, was a nickname he hated because it gave the idea that he was crazy. Bonanno was one of the most important Italian-American mobsters, the head of a powerful family of the New York underworld, known to this day as the Bonanno family.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

They called him "Jimmy Blue Eyes". Alo was a key figure in New York's post-Prohibition Genovese Mafia family. He served as a liaison between the Sicilian-Italian mafia and Meyer Lansky's criminal organization. In fact, as we will say below, he was Meyer Lansky's partner in the construction of various casinos in Florida and Cuba.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

The Gambino mafia family was certainly among the most powerful of Cosa Nostra. The great success of the gang is due precisely to the charismatic Carlo Gambino who directed the criminal activity for almost twenty years, and exactly from the mid-1950s until his death, which occurred due to natural causes, in 1976.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

According to FBI files, Anthony Strollo, also known as Tony Bender, was Vito Genovese's right-hand man. Strollo was one of the great protagonists of the history of the Mafia in New York City and New Jersey in the late 1940s and early 1960s. He also pulled the strings in a lucrative drug trafficking and gambling operation for the Genovese crime family.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

Gaetano Lucchese known as Tommy Gunn or Tommy Three Fingers Brown was a leading exponent of the American mafia. It is no coincidence that one of the five New York mafia families still bears his surname.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

Vito Genovese was considered one of the most treacherous, double-dealing and ruthless mafia bosses of the American Mafia.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

Tommaso Gagliano was certainly the godfather of the Bronx. We can define him as an inconspicuous if not even reserved character. He was also little known outside mafia circles.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

Gaetano Reina, known as Tom or Tommy, is considered one of the most powerful Mafia Bosses in New York. He worked in the 1910s and 1920s. It can be said that he was the first boss of what is still remembered today as the Lucchese mafia family.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

Giuseppe A. "Socks" Lanza. He was a mobster who controlled New York's syndicate rackets and a member of the Genovese crime family. He controlled the general seafood market in Lower Manhattan through the United Seafood Worker's Union local 359 from 1923 to 1968.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-history-of-the-american-mafia--4722947/support.

Lucky Luciano, the man who changed the mafia into the criminal organization we know today. This is part 5 of a 5 part series about Lucky, listen to all 5 and learn all about his story.

Lucky Luciano, the man who changed the mafia into the criminal organization we know today. This is part 4 of a 5 part series about Lucky, listen to all 5 and learn all about his story.

Lucky Luciano, the man who changed the mafia into the criminal organization we know today. This is part 3 of a 5 part series about Lucky, listen to all 5 and learn all about his story.

Lucky Luciano, the man who changed the mafia into the criminal organization we know today. This is part 2 of a 5 part series about Lucky, listen to all 5 and learn all about his story.

Charles “Lucky” Luciano can be called the one who brought the Mafia to a far-reaching level of influence. He was considered by Time Magazine among the 20 most influential men of the twentieth century. He can undoubtedly be considered the father of modern organized crime in the United States. He helped form the American Mafia's governing body called the Commission that continues to wield power in the world of crime today.

Diamond's gang began working for Rothstein in various capacities as bodyguards and ensuring, with the use of firearms, that agreements were kept. Rothstein was not a gangster; rather he was a forward-thinking businessman who appreciated and utilized the skills that only gangsters could provide. With the advent of Prohibition, Diamond and his gang turned to smuggling alcohol.

Arthur Simon Flegenheimer was born on August 6, 1902 in the Bronx, a populous neighborhood of New York. Known as Schultz the Dutch. He is the son of two poor German immigrants of Jewish origin. His father abandoned him and the rest of the family when he was still a child. This traumatized little Arthur greatly. It was during this critical period that the little boy dropped out of school and joined the juvenile petty crime gangs in the Bronx

Virginia Hill, the Alabama farm girl who became the queen of the mafia. She was born in Lipscomb, Alabama, on August 26, 1916. As a child, she and her parents and nine siblings moved to Georgia. Tired of the abuse and brutal beatings that she and her brothers and mother suffered from her alcoholic father, at the age of seven, she burned her father with sausage fat. In November 1931, when she was 15, she married 16-year-old George Randell and ran away from home with him to Chicago. There she very quickly found herself immersed in the violent world of some of the most infamous gangsters.

Meyer Lansky is one of the legendary figures of American organized crime. Lansky was a man of small stature: as a mature adult he measured 162 cm tall and weighed 61 kg. Perhaps it was because of his short stature that he was forced to use his intellectual abilities to succeed in the world. What Lansky lacked in brawn he made up for in brains. Although he was a member of the Jewish Mafia, Lansky undoubtedly had a strong influence with the Italian-American Mafia and played an important role in the consolidation of the criminal underworld.

Meyer Lansky is one of the legendary figures of American organized crime. Lansky was a man of small stature: as a mature adult he measured 162 cm tall and weighed 61 kg. Perhaps it was because of his short stature that he was forced to use his intellectual abilities to succeed in the world. What Lansky lacked in brawn he made up for in brains. Although he was a member of the Jewish Mafia, Lansky undoubtedly had a strong influence with the Italian-American Mafia and played an important role in the consolidation of the criminal underworld.

Meyer Lansky is one of the legendary figures of American organized crime. Lansky was a man of small stature: as a mature adult he measured 162 cm tall and weighed 61 kg. Perhaps it was because of his short stature that he was forced to use his intellectual abilities to succeed in the world. What Lansky lacked in brawn he made up for in brains. Although he was a member of the Jewish Mafia, Lansky undoubtedly had a strong influence with the Italian-American Mafia and played an important role in the consolidation of the criminal underworld.

Benjamin Bugsy Siegel had a formidable intuition. He thought of transforming Las Vegas, a desolate city in the middle of the desert, into a gambling mecca. For Siegel that idea became an obsession. He thought of building a casino with an adjoining hotel.

The star of American mobsters who inspired characters on the big screen, a refined man welcomed in the inner circles of the stars who were proud to present him as a friend, that was who Bugsy Siegel was and so much more. Listen to his story and many more in the History of the American mafia

THE FIVE POINTS GANG: Considered the foundation of the American criminal organization known as Cosa Nostra, The Five Points Gang included some of those who would become the big names in the criminal organization such as Paul Kelly, Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Joe Torrio, Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. It became one of the most prominent street gangs in US history and changed the way gangs operated in the US.

The boss who inspired a character in 'The Great Gatsby' and was portrayed in the 'Boardwalk Empire' series. Who was Arnold Rothstein and what was his role in the History of the American Mafia? Listen to this new episode of the series to find out.

In 1931, after the deaths of Masseria and Maranzano, Lucky Luciano became the boss of what would become his own crime family. Vito Genovese became his deputy and Costello became his advisers, an important function within the Mafia clan. Costello was a prominent figure in the criminal underworld, earning large sums of money by becoming the head of the gambling industry. In 1936 Lucky Luciano was arrested for exploiting and aiding and abetting prostitution and sentenced to serve a prison sentence of at least thirty years. At first he tried to run his mafia family directly from prison. He later promoted his deputy Vito Genovese to the role of boss. In 1937 Vito Genovese was suspected of a murder and therefore was forced to return to Italy and take refuge in Naples. At that point Luciano named Costello as the new boss of his crime family.

The turning point in the criminal career of Frank Costello but also of many criminals was dated January 17, 1920. This date coincides with the beginning of the period that will be remembered to this day as prohibition. With the introduction of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the production and sale, but not the consumption, of alcoholic beverages was prohibited.

If there was ever a mobster who looked like a politician it is surely Frank Costello. It is no coincidence that he was nicknamed the minister of the underworld. We can, without a doubt, state that Costello must be classified in a class apart among the many mobsters who gave birth to American organized crime. The peculiarity of Frank Costello is that his criminal power was not linked exclusively to the violence exercised but to his ability to earn illicit money with prohibition, slot machines and other gambling operations. He effectively controlled much of the gambling industry in New York, Florida, Louisiana and other states and the casinos in Las Vegas. He was very influential in the organization that determined New York politics in those years, namely Tammany Hall which collected the votes for the Democratic party.

Michael Coppola aka "Trigger Mike" Trigger Mike was a prominent criminal of the New York Mafia, with a reputation as a sadistic and violent killer. Upon Joe Masseria's death in April 1931, he received control of many rackets in the Bronx and East Harlem. He took charge of the lucrative lottery racket that illegally invoiced about 1,000,000 dollars a year, and monopolized the fruit and vegetable market of artichokes and other vegetables previously controlled by Ciro Terranova, after the latter had retired.

His majesty the executioner was just one of his nick names. Who was one of the most ruthless and feared members of cosa nostra? listen all about it in Albert Anastasia , a podcast from the series The History of the American Mafia

During the commission wanted by Lucky Luciano, VINCENT MANGANO was the representative of one of the five mafia families of New York, and he was from 1931 until 1951, as well as one of the co-founders of the Commission.

Nicola Gentile maintained the relationships and contacts between the various American mafia families, traveling from one end of America to the other. He built a reputation for mediating disagreements between rival Mafia families, regularly traveling interstate as a peacemaker. For this reason he earned respect and credibility by contributing to the creation of strategic alliances.

Who were the big seven group? And who do gansters of the period have to thank for being saved by this genious organization. Listen to “The big 7” , a new episode from the popular series “The History of the American Mafia” by Fabio Fabiano and Grace Carlisi on spotify, spreaker, itunes and everywhere else.

Among the most important collaborators of Lucky Luciano, the Italian-American Joe Adonis must undoubtedly be mentioned. Giuseppe Antonio Doto this is his real name, then Americanized, during the 1920s, in Joe Adonis, referring to the "beautiful" par excellence of Greek mythology, or Adonis

Guarino Moretti, known as Willie, was born on February 24, 1894 in Bari, Puglia, Italy, and projected to the US state of New Jersey with his family. Moretti, having arrived in America, immediately began his criminal activity, so much so that in 1913 he was convicted of robbery. In the mid-1920s it became part of the Masseria family. During the war Castellammarese distinguished himself as a ruthless killer and as a soldier in the dozen of Lucky Luciano.

When did the mafia criminal organization start calling themselves “cosa nostra” ? and who were the new leaders post prohibition ? listen to the new episode of The History of the American mafia to find out.