Yeast was of vital importance to organized crime during Prohibition, since it was an essential ingredient for the commercial production of alcohol.
Yeast baron Antonio Cecala
When was Tommy Reina born?
New York City Mafia boss Gaetano "Tommy" Reina was born in Corleone in 1888, the son of an unwed mother. Originally, he wasn’t named Gaetano Reina....
How the Second NYC Mafia War began
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.
Morello gangster Giovanni Pecoraro
Giovanni Pecoraro seemed to know everyone Morello knew, and was a suspect in the most notorious Mafia conspiracy of his age. So why haven’t we heard of him?
How did Lucia Terranova’s first Mafia marriage end?
For years, I assumed Lucia Terranova’s first marriage ended with her husband's murder in 1903. Then I saw this census record.
Giuseppe Morello and the Macaroni Wars
New Orleans Mafia boss Francesco Genova attempted to take over a macaroni factory in Donaldsonville, in northeastern Louisiana. The legitimate owners, Antonio and Salvadore Luciano, fought back, but were unlucky enough to miss....
Giuseppe Morello’s counterfeiting gang
In the summer of 1909, detective William Flynn sought the source of counterfeit bills flooding banks and businesses in several cities across the United States. He tied the counterfeiting operation to Giuseppe Morello’s gang by following one of the passers of bad bills, Giuseppe Boscarino.
The Castellammarese War
The Castellammarese War of 1930 in New York was a colonial war. On one side was Joe Masseria, the most powerful figure in organized crime, with a coalition of allies including the Corleonesi Giuseppe Morello, Lucky Luciano (from Lercara Friddi), and Al Capone (born in New York of Italian mainland parents). On the other side were Salvatore Maranzano and the Castellammarese, backed by Don Vito Cascio Ferro, one of the most powerful men in Sicily....
Looking for Steve LaSalle
There are three first cousins from Corleone who immigrated to New York around the same time, and had the same name: Stefano la Sala. One would become known as Steve LaSalle, a high-ranking member of the Lucchese crime family for half a century.
Legacy of the Rapanzino gang
While most of Rapanzino’s gang was exterminated by the police in the mid-1830s, their legacy continues, with a clear line of descent, all the way to the Five Families of New York and the Mafia in Corleone today. The Rapanzino gang of cattle thieves, active in the early 1830s in Palermo province, were closely related... Continue Reading →
Mafia Genealogy 