News and notes relating to the American Mafia History website
Salvatore Lucania, widely known as Charlie “Lucky” Luciano, late in 1931 became the most powerful crime boss in the U.S. He personally commanded a sprawling New York-based Mafia organization, held one of seven seats on the Mafia’s ruling Commission and maintained valuable alliances with non-Italian racketeering organizations across the country. Less than five years after …
In his book on The Barrel Mystery, legendary crime-fighter William Flynn discussed what he viewed as the two great organized outlaw elements in American society: violent political radicals or “Reds” and a growing Sicilian underworld organization he knew as “The Black Hand.” Flynn feared that the Red and the Black might someday combine to form …
A biography of Vincent “Jimmy Blue Eyes” Alo has been added to the website’s Who Was Who section. Alo, a longtime pal of Meyer Lansky, was the inspiration for a number of fictional underworld characters, including “Johnny Ola” of the movie, The Godfather Part II. In real life, Alo was born in Harlem and became …
After his retirement, former NYPD Homicide Bureau leader Arthur A. Carey penned an autobiographical book called, Memoirs of a Murder Man. A chapter in that book looked back at the 1903 Barrel Murder and police efforts to put the early Mafia organization of Giuseppe Morello out of business. Carey’s account is noticeably different from the …
Several biographies have been added to the Who Was Who section of the website (click on a name to jump to the bio): Antonio “Tony Bender” Strollo (1899-1962) – longtime leader in the Genovese Crime Family. Tomasso “the Ox” Petto (1879-1905) – Enforcer for the early New York Mafia organization of Giuseppe Morello. Salvatore “Charlie …
A brief biography of early New York Mafia boss and U.S. Mafia boss of bosses Giuseppe Morello has been added to the website. Entitled, “Sinistro: The Underworld Career of Giuseppe Morello (1867-1930),” the article includes more than 40 endnotes containing references to numerous sources.
About one hundred pages of The Barrel Mystery by William J. Flynn can now be accessed on the American Mafia history website. The Barrel Mystery, published in 1919 (copyright has expired), is the story of U.S. Secret Service efforts to help solve the “barrel murder” of 1903 and to dismantle Mafia counterfeiting operations supervised by …
A project begun four years ago is today significantly closer to completion. Additional chapters of the New York State Assembly report Organized Crime’s Involvement in the Waste Hauling Industry have been brought online. The report is now available through Chapter 9 and includes a large chart illustrating the complex web of connections among waste disposal …
Just added to the website: J. Dugard’s profile of little-known but influential Bonanno Crime Family member Frank Bonomo.
I’m very pleased to announce that Edmond Valin has provided the American Mafia history website with a short article discussing a 1960s-era informer within the Bonanno Crime Family of New York. That informer provided law enforcement with a good deal of background information on crime family members during the period of the so-called “Banana War.” …
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