Because family is at the heart of the Mafia
The October 1921 murder of Vincent Terranova’s ally, Giuseppe “Diamond Joe” Viserte, is said to be the opening salvo in the Second Mafia War, but three other murders earlier that year were likely calculated attacks on Morello.
What Fratianno disregarded as damaging bias---nepotism---is a feature of the Mafia, not a bug.
Fifty years before the Rizzuto Family wrested control of Montreal from the Violi brothers, the Rizzuto family patriarch was murdered in an unlikely place. The murder of patriarch Vito Rizzuto and a brief history of the Rizzuto and Renda families, 1925-2025.
West Virginia was the adopted home of thousands of Italian miners and their families... and the Mafia that preyed upon them.
After the Valentine’s Day Massacre, three of Al Capone’s top men were found dead. Legend has it that Capone beat them himself with a baseball bat.
“Black Hand” became the term of art for “Italian crime” in New York City newspapers after a 1903 Brooklyn case of extortion.
Mayor Joseph Alioto's paternal relatives and in-laws were important members of Mafia Families in San Francisco and Dallas. But what about Milwaukee?
Now you can buy the Five Families subway map on a T-shirt or a poster.
According to the legend, Nick Licata’s comfortable position in Detroit was pulled out from under him when he somehow offended Joseph Zerilli, one of the most powerful gangsters in the city.
The Campisi family of Dallas, Texas, famous for a chain of restaurants and friendships with notorious gangsters, has always claimed the rumors are just that.
Mafia Genealogy 