Oct 15, 2009
Frankie and the Boys 1976 - Left to right: Paul Castellano, Gregory DePalma, Sinatra, Tommy Marson, Carlo Gambino, Aladena Fratianno, Salvatore Spatola, Seated: Joseph Gambino, Richard Fusco
The recent release of Sinatra's extensive FBI file exposes his mob connections in...
Oct 15, 2009
James Capone
Imagine having the most notorious gangster in U.S. history for a brother. James, the oldest of the seven Capone brothers, did everything he could, including changing his name and becoming a Prohibition agent, to distance himself. He didn't quite make it. The...
Oct 15, 2009
Wilfred "Willie Boy" Johnson
For 15 years "Willie Boy" Johnson ratted out his mentor John Gotti and other major New York crime family figures to save his own skin and got away with it. And then an assistant U.S. attorney, in a turf battle with the FBI, deliberately blew his...
Oct 14, 2009
Anthony D'Andrea
The political feud between Anthony D'Andrea, the head of Unione Siciliana, and John Powers, the entrenched alderman of Chicago's 19th Ward, was a fight to the death.
by Allan May
The Unione Siciliana was as mysterious an organization as the Mafia, the...
Oct 14, 2009
Mike Merlo
As president of Unione Siciliana, Mike Merlo was able to keep the peace among Chicago's various underworld factions during the early years of Prohibition. When he died of cancer in 1924, Al Capone set his sights on taking over control of the Unione and its...
Oct 14, 2009
Antonio "Tony" Lombardo
Being the president of Chicago's Unione Siciliana was a ticket to the morgue, but that didn't stop Tony Lombardo, Capone's man, and Joe Aiello from wanting that job more than any other. by Allan May
With the death of Samoots Amatuna in November,...
Oct 14, 2009
Joseph Aiello
Joseph Aiello was Al Capone's most bitter rival. Each wanted control of Chicago's Unione Siciliana and the enormous profits its "alky cookers" generated during Prohibition. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, plus the rise and fall of Aiello play out in this...
Oct 14, 2009
Charles "Vannie" Higgins and William Bailey
Prohibition spawned greed, and greed in turn spawned mayhem and murder throughout the underworld. Bootlegger Vannie Higgins ran booze by seaplane, speedboat, a fleet of trucks and by taxi to his Brooklyn customers. When he...
Oct 14, 2009
Herbert Blitzstein
At 300 pounds, Chicago mobster Herbert Blitzstein looked like a heart attack waiting to happen. Instead it was three bullets to his head that stopped his heart. As his profits from loan sharking and auto insurance fraud were piling up in Las Vegas, crime...
Oct 14, 2009
Raymond Salvatore Loreda Patriarca
The 1984 death of Raymond Salvatore Loreda Patriarca – who had ruled the well-oiled New England Crime Family from Providence for the last 30 years – sent Mafia operations in Boston into a bloody and prolonged free fall.
by Allan...
