Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was an Sicilian-born
American mobster. Luciano is considered the
father of modern organized crime in the United
States for splitting New York City into five
different Mafia crime families and the establishment
of the first Commission. He was the first
official boss of the modern Genovese crime
family. He was, along with his associate Meyer
Lansky, instrumental in the development of
the National Crime Syndicate in the United
States. Luciano is considered by many to have
been the most powerful American Mafia boss
of all time.
Early life
Salvatore Lucania was born on November 24,
1897 in Lercara Friddi, Sicily. Luciano's
parents, Antonio and Rosalia Lucania, had
four other children: Bartolomeo, Giuseppe,
Filippia, and Concetta. Luciano's father worked
in a sulfur mine in Sicily. When Luciano was
10 years old, the family immigrated to the
United States. They settled in New York City
in the borough of Manhattan on its Lower East
Side, a popular destination for Italian immigrants.
At age 14, Luciano dropped out of school and
started a job delivering hats, earning $7
per week. However, after winning $244 in a
dice game, Luciano quit his job and went to
earning money on the street. That same year,
Luciano's parents sent him to the Brooklyn
Truant School.
While a teenager, Luciano started his own
gang. Unlike other street gangs whose business
was petty crime, Luciano offered protection
to Jewish youngsters from Italian and Irish
gangs for ten cents per week. It was during
this time Luciano met Jewish teenager Meyer
Lansky, his future business partner and close
friend.
It is not clear how Luciano earned the nickname
"Lucky". It may have come from surviving a
severe beating by three men in the 1920s,
as well as a throat slashing. This was because
Luciano refused to work for another mob boss.
From 1916 to 1936, Luciano was arrested 25
times on charges ranging from assault to illegal
gambling to blackmail as well as robbery,
but spent no time in prison. The name "Lucky"
may have also been a mispronunciation of Luciano's
surname "Lucania".
Prohibition
On January 17, 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, and
Prohibition lasted until the amendment was
repealed in 1933. The Amendment prohibited
the manufacture, sale, and transportation
of alcoholic beverages. As there was still
a substantial demand for alcohol, this provided
criminals with an added source of income.
By 1921, Luciano had met many future Mafia
leaders, including Vito Genovese and Frank
Costello, his longtime friend and future business
partner through the Five Points Gang. Also
in 1921, Lower Manhattan gang boss Joe Masseria
recruited Luciano as one of his gunmen.
At some point in the early 1920s, Luciano
left Masseria and started working for gambler
Arnold "the Brain" Rothstein. Rothstein immediately
saw the potential windfall from Prohibition
and educated Luciano on running bootleg alcohol
as a business. Luciano, Costello, and Genovese
started their own bootlegging operation with
financing from Rothstein.
Rothstein served as a mentor for Luciano.
In 1923, after ruining his reputation in the
criminal community with a botched drug deal,
Luciano bought 200 expensive seats to the
Jack Dempsey–Luis Firpo boxing match in
the Bronx and distributed them to top gangsters
and politicians. Rothstein then took Luciano
on a shopping trip to Wanamaker's Department
Store in Manhattan to buy high-end, classy
clothes for the fight. The strategy worked,
and Luciano's reputation was saved. According
to Luciano, Rothstein taught him how to dress
properly.
By 1925, Luciano was grossing over $12 million
a year. He had a net income of around $4 million
each year after the costs of bribing politicians
and police. Luciano and his partners ran the
largest bootlegging operation in New York,
one that also extended into Philadelphia.
He imported Scotch whisky from Scotland, rum
from the Caribbean, and whisky from Canada.
Luciano was also involved in illegal gambling.
On November 2, 1928, a bookkeeper shot and
killed Rothstein over a gambling debt. With
Rothstein's death, Luciano quickly pledged
fealty again to Masseria.
Rise to power
Luciano soon became a top aide in the Masseria
organization. In contrast to Arnold Rothstein,
Masseria was an uneducated man with poor manners
and limited management skills. By the late
1920s, Masseria's main rival was boss Salvatore
Maranzano, who had come from Sicily to run
the Castellammarese clan activities. A rivalry
ensued due to Maranzano not wanting to pay
commission to Masseria and eventually escalated
into the infamous Castellammarese War, which
raged from 1928 to 1931 and resulted in 60
mobster deaths including both Maranzano and
Masseria.
Masseria and Maranzano were so-called "Mustache
Petes", older, traditional mafia bosses who
had started their criminal careers in Italy.
They believed in upholding the supposed Old
World Mafia principles of "honor", "tradition",
"respect", and "dignity". These bosses refused
to work with non-Italians, and were even skeptical
of working with non-Sicilians. Some of the
most traditional bosses only worked with men
with roots in their own Sicilian village.
Luciano, in contrast, was willing to work
with Italian, Jewish, and Irish gangsters.
For this reason, he was shocked to hear traditional
Sicilian mafiosi lecture him about his dealings
with close friend Frank Costello, whom they
called "the dirty Calabrian".
Luciano soon began cultivating ties with other
younger mobsters who had been born in Italy,
but began their criminal careers in the United
States. Known as the Young Turks, they chafed
at their bosses' conservatism. Luciano wanted
to use lessons he learned from Rothstein to
turn their gang activities into criminal empires.
As the war progressed, this group came to
include future mob leaders such as Costello,
Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia, Joe Adonis,
Joe Bonanno, Carlo Gambino, Joe Profaci, Tommy
Gagliano, and Tommy Lucchese. The Young Turks
believed that their bosses' greed and conservatism
were keeping them poor while the Irish and
Jewish gangs got rich. Luciano's vision was
to form a national crime syndicate in which
the Italian, Jewish, and Irish gangs could
pool their resources and turn organized crime
into a lucrative business for all.
In October 1929, Luciano was forced into a
limousine at gun point by three men, beaten
and stabbed, and dumped on a beach on Staten
Island. He somehow survived the ordeal but
was forever marked with a scar and droopy
eye. The identity of his abductors was never
established. When picked up by the police
after the beating, Luciano said that he had
no idea who did it. However, in 1953, Luciano
told an interviewer that it was the police
who kidnapped and beat him. Another story
was that Maranzano ordered the attack. The
most important consequence of this episode
was the press coverage it engendered, introducing
Luciano to the New York public.
Power play
In early 1931, Luciano decided to eliminate
Masseria. The war had been going poorly for
Masseria, and Luciano saw an opportunity to
switch allegiance. In a secret deal with Maranzano,
Luciano agreed to engineer Masseria's death
in return for receiving Masseria's rackets
and becoming Maranzano's second-in-command.
On April 15, 1931, Luciano invited Masseria
and two other associates to lunch in a Coney
Island restaurant. After finishing their meal,
the mobsters decided to play cards. At that
point, Luciano went to the bathroom. Four
gunmen – Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, Vito Genovese,
Albert Anastasia, and Joe Adonis – then
walked into the dining room and shot and killed
Masseria and his two men. With Maranzano's
blessing, Luciano took over Masseria's gang
and became Maranzano's lieutenant. The Castellammarese
War was over.
With Masseria gone, Maranzano divided all
the Italian-American gangs in New York City
into Five Families. As per his original deal
with Maranzano, Luciano took over the old
Masseria gang. The other four families were
headed by Maranzano, Profaci, Gagliano, and
Vincent Mangano. Maranzano promised that all
the families would be equal and free to make
money. However, at a meeting of crime bosses
in Upstate New York, Maranzano declared himself
capo di tutti capi, the absolute boss of all
of the crime families. Maranzano also whittled
down the rackets of the rival families in
favor of his own. Luciano appeared to accept
these changes, but was merely biding his time
before removing Maranzano. Although Maranzano
was slightly more forward-thinking than Masseria,
Luciano had come to believe that Maranzano
was even more greedy and hidebound than Masseria
had been.
By September 1931, Maranzano realized that
Luciano was a threat, and hired Vincent "Mad
Dog" Coll, an Irish gangster, to kill him.
However, Lucchese alerted Luciano that he
was marked for death. On September 10, Maranzano
ordered Luciano and Genovese to come to his
office at 230 Park Avenue in Manhattan. Convinced
that Maranzano planned to murder them, Luciano
decided to act first. He sent to Maranzano's
office four Jewish gangsters whose faces were
unknown to Maranzano's people. They had been
secured with the aid of his Jewish friends
Meyer Lansky and Benjamin Siegel. Disguised
as government agents, two of the gangsters
disarmed Maranzano's bodyguards. The other
two, aided by Tommy Lucchese who was there
to point Maranzano out, stabbed Maranzano
multiple times before shooting him.
This assassination was the first of what would
later be fabled as the "Night of the Sicilian
Vespers." Then on September 13 the corpses
of two other Maranzano allies, Samuel Monaco
and Louis Russo, showing evidence of torture,
were retrieved from Newark Bay. Meanwhile
Joseph Siragusa, leader of the Pittsburgh
crime family, was shot to death in his home.
The October 15 disappearance of Joe Ardizonne,
head of the Los Angeles crime family, would
later be regarded as part of this alleged
organized plan to quickly eliminate the old-world
Sicilian gang bosses. But the idea of an organized
mass purge, directed by Luciano and engineered
by Louis Lepke, is a myth.
Reorganizing Cosa Nostra
With the death of Maranzano, Luciano became
the dominant organized crime boss in the United
States. He had reached the pinnacle of America's
underworld, directing criminal rules, policies,
and activities along with the other family
bosses. Luciano also had his own crime family,
which controlled lucrative criminal rackets
in New York City such as illegal gambling,
bookmaking, loan-sharking, drug trafficking,
and extortion. Luciano became very influential
in labor and union activities and controlled
the Manhattan Waterfront, garbage hauling,
construction, Garment Center businesses, and
trucking.
Luciano abolished the title of Capo Di Tutti
Capi or Boss of All Bosses, insisting that
the position created trouble between the families,
rather than declare himself the most powerful
and make himself a target for other families.
Luciano preferred to quietly maintain control
through unofficial alliances with other family
bosses. Luciano felt that the ceremony of
becoming a "made-man", or an amico nostro,
in a crime family was a Sicilian anachronism
that should be discontinued. However, Meyer
Lansky persuaded Luciano to keep the practice,
arguing that young people needed rituals to
promote obedience to the family. Luciano also
stressed the importance of omertà, the oath
of silence. Finally, Luciano kept the five
crime families that Maranzano had instituted.
Luciano elevated his most trusted Italian
associates to high-level positions in what
was now the Luciano crime family. The feared
Vito Genovese became underboss and Frank Costello
consigliere. Michael "Trigger Mike" Coppola,
Anthony Strollo, Joe Adonis, and Anthony Carfano
all served as caporegimes. Because Meyer Lansky
and Bugsy Siegel were non-Italians, neither
man could hold official positions within any
Cosa Nostra family. However, Lansky was a
top advisor to Luciano and Siegel a trusted
associate.
The Commission
Luciano, under the urging of former Chicago
boss Johnny Torrio, set up the Commission
to serve as the governing body for organized
crime. Designed to settle all disputes and
decide which families controlled which territories,
the Commission has been called Luciano's greatest
innovation. Luciano's goals with the Commission
were to quietly maintain his own power over
all the families, and to prevent future gang
wars.
The Commission was originally composed of
representatives of the Five Families of New
York City, the Philadelphia crime family,
the Buffalo crime family, the Los Angeles
crime family, and the Chicago Outfit of Al
Capone; later, the Detroit crime family and
Kansas City crime family were added. The Commission
also provided representation for the Irish
and Jewish criminal organizations in New York.
All Commission members were supposed to retain
the same power and had one vote, but in reality
some families and bosses were more powerful
than others.
In 1935, in its first big test, the Commission
ordered gang boss Dutch Schultz to drop his
plans to murder Special Prosecutor Thomas
Dewey. Luciano argued that a Dewey assassination
would precipitate a massive law enforcement
crackdown. When Schultz announced that he
was going to kill Dewey, or his Assistant
David Asch, anyway in the next three days,
the Commission quickly arranged Schultz's
murder. On October 24, 1935, Schultz was murdered
in a tavern in Newark, New Jersey.
Prosecution for pandering
During the early 1930s, Luciano's crime family
started taking over small scale prostitution
operations in New York City. In June 1935,
New York Governor Herbert H. Lehman appointed
U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Dewey as a special
prosecutor to combat organized crime in New
York City. Dewey soon realized that he could
attack Luciano, the most powerful gangster
in New York, through this prostitution network
with the assistance of his aide David Asch.
On February 2, 1936, Dewey launched a massive
police raid against 200 brothels in Brooklyn
and Manhattan, earning him nationwide recognition
as a major "gangbuster". Ten men and 100 women
were arrested. However, unlike previous vice
raids, Dewey did not release the arrestees.
Instead, he took them to court where a judge
set bails of $10,000, far beyond their means
to pay. By mid March, several defendants had
implicated Luciano. Three of these prostitutes
implicated Luciano as the ringleader, who
made collections, although David Betillo was
in charge of the prostitution ring in New
York, and any money that Luciano received
was from Betillo. In late March 1936, Luciano
received a tip that he was going to be arrested
and fled to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Unfortunately
for Luciano, a New York detective in Hot Springs
on a different assignment spotted Luciano
and notified Dewey.
On April 1, 1936, Luciano was arrested in
Hot Springs on a criminal warrant from New
York. The next day in New York, Dewey indicted
Luciano and his accomplices on 60 counts of
compulsory prostitution. Luciano's lawyers
in Arkansas then began a fierce legal battle
against extradition. On April 6, someone offered
a $50,000 bribe to Arkansas Attorney General
Carl E. Bailey to facilitate Luciano's case.
However, Bailey refused the bribe and immediately
reported it. On April 17, after all of Luciano's
legal motions had been exhausted, Arkansas
authorities handed Luciano to three New York
City Police Department detectives for transport
by train back to New York for trial. When
the detectives and their prisoner reached
St. Louis, Missouri and changed trains, they
were guarded by 20 local policemen to prevent
a mob rescue attempt. The men arrived in New
York City on April 18, and Luciano was held
without bail.
On May 13, 1936, Luciano's pandering trial
began. He was accused of being part of a massive
prostitution ring known as "the Combination".
During the trial, Dewey exposed Luciano for
lying on the witness stand through direct
quizzing and records of telephone calls; Luciano
also had no explanation for why his federal
income tax records claimed he made only $22,000
a year, while he was obviously a wealthy man.
Dewey ruthlessly pressed Luciano on his long
arrest record and his relationships with well-known
gangsters such as Ciro Terranova, Louis Buchalter,
and Joseph Masseria.
On June 7, 1936, Luciano was convicted on
62 counts of compulsory prostitution. On July
18, 1936, Luciano was sentenced to 30 to 50
years in state prison, along with Betillo
and others.
Many observers questioned the pandering charges
against Luciano. He almost certainly profited
from prostitution and members of his crime
family extorted money from madams and brothel
keepers. However, like most bosses, Luciano
created layers of insulation between himself
and criminal acts. It would have been significantly
out of character for him to be directly involved
in any criminal enterprise, let alone a prostitution
ring. At least two of his contemporaries have
denied that Luciano was ever part of "the
Combination". In her memoirs, New York society
madam Polly Adler said that if Luciano had
been involved with "the Combination", she
would have known about it. Bonanno, the last
surviving contemporary of Luciano's who wasn't
in prison, also denied that Luciano was directly
involved in prostitution in his book, A Man
of Honor.
Prison
Luciano continued to run the Luciano crime
family from prison, relaying his orders through
acting boss, Vito Genovese. However, in 1937
Genovese fled to Naples, Italy to avoid an
impending murder indictment in New York. Luciano
appointed his consigliere, Costello as the
new acting boss and the overseer of Luciano's
interests.
Luciano was first imprisoned at Sing Sing
Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York,
but was moved later in 1936 to Clinton Correctional
Facility in Dannemora, New York, far away
from New York City. At Clinton, co-defendant
Dave Betillo prepared special dishes for Luciano
in a kitchen set aside by authorities. Luciano
was assigned a job in the prison laundry.
Luciano used his influence to help get the
materials to build a church at the prison,
which became famous for being one of the only
freestanding churches in the New York State
correctional system and also for the fact
that on the church's altar are two of the
original doors from the Victoria, the ship
of Ferdinand Magellan.
Legal appeals of Luciano's conviction continued
until October 10, 1938, when the U.S. Supreme
Court refused to review his case. At this
point, Luciano stepped down as boss, and Costello
formally took over the family.
World War II, freedom and deportation
During World War II, the U.S. government struck
a secret deal with the imprisoned Luciano.
In 1942, the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence
was concerned about German and Italian agents
entering the United States through the New
York waterfront. They also worried about sabotage
in these facilities. Knowing that the Cosa
Nostra controlled the waterfront, the Navy
contacted Meyer Lansky about a deal with Luciano.
To facilitate negotiations, the State of New
York transferred Luciano from Clinton prison
to Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Comstock,
New York, which was much closer to New York
City.
The Navy, the State of New York and Luciano
eventually concluded a deal. In exchange for
a commutation of his sentence, Luciano promised
the complete assistance of his organization
in providing intelligence to the Navy. Luciano
ally Albert Anastasia, who controlled the
docks, allegedly promised no dockworker strikes
during war. In preparation for the 1943 allied
invasion of Sicily, Luciano allegedly provided
the U.S. military with mafia contacts in Sicily.
The value of Luciano's contribution to the
war effort is highly debated. In 1947, the
naval officer in charge of Operation Underworld
discounted the value of Luciano's wartime
aid. A 1954 report ordered by Governor Dewey
stated that Luciano provided many valuable
services to Naval Intelligence. The enemy
threat to the docks, Luciano allegedly said,
was manufactured by the sinking of the SS
Normandie in New York harbor, supposedly directed
by Anastasia's brother, Anthony Anastasio.
However, the official investigation of the
ship sinking found no evidence of sabotage.
On January 3, 1946, as a presumed reward for
his alleged wartime cooperation, now Governor
Thomas E. Dewey reluctantly commuted Luciano's
pandering sentence on condition that he did
not resist deportation to Italy. Luciano accepted
the deal, although he still maintained that
he was a U.S. citizen and not subject to deportation.
On February 2, 1946, two federal immigration
agents transported Luciano from Sing Sing
prison to Ellis Island in New York Harbor
for deportation proceedings. On February 9,
the night before his departure, Luciano shared
a spaghetti dinner on his freighter with Anastasia
and five other guests.
On February 10, 1946, Luciano's ship sailed
from Brooklyn harbor for Italy. This was the
last time he would see the United States.
On February 28, after a 17-day voyage, Luciano's
ship arrived in Naples. On arrival, Luciano
told reporters he would probably reside in
Sicily.
Luciano was deeply hurt about having to leave
the United States, a country he had considered
his own ever since his arrival at age ten.
During his exile, Luciano frequently encountered
US military men and American tourists during
train trips in Italy. Luciano enjoyed these
meetings and gladly posed for photographs
and signed autographs.
The Havana Conference
In October 1946, Luciano secretly moved to
Havana, Cuba. Luciano first took a freighter
from Naples to Caracas, Venezuela, then flew
to Rio De Janeiro. He then flew to Mexico
City and doubled back to Caracas, where he
took a private plane to Camaguey, Cuba, finally
arriving on October 29. Luciano was then driven
to Havana, where he moved into an estate in
the Miramar section of the city.
Luciano's objective in going to Cuba was to
be closer to the United States so that he
could resume control over American Cosa Nostra
operations and eventually return to the United
States. Lansky was already established as
a major investor in Cuban gambling and hotel
projects.
In 1946, Lansky called a meeting of the heads
of the major crime families in Havana that
December. The ostensible reason was to see
singer Frank Sinatra perform. However, the
real reason was to discuss mob business with
Luciano in attendance. The three topics to
discuss: the heroin trade, Cuban gambling,
and what to do about Bugsy Siegel and the
floundering Flamingo Hotel project in Las
Vegas. The Conference took place at the Hotel
Nacional de Cuba and lasted a little more
than a week.
On December 20, during the conference, Luciano
had a private meeting with Genovese in Luciano's
hotel suite. In 1945, Genovese had been returned
from Italy to New York to face trial on his
1934 murder charge. However, in June 1946,
the charges were dismissed and Genovese was
free to return to mob business. Unlike Costello,
Luciano never trusted Genovese. In the meeting,
Genovese tried to convince Luciano to become
a titular boss of bosses and let Genovese
run everything. Luciano calmly rejected Genovese's
suggestion:
"There is no Boss of Bosses. I turned it down
in front of everybody. If I ever change my
mind, I will take the title. But it won't
be up to you. Right now you work for me and
I ain't in the mood to retire. Don't you ever
let me hear this again, or I'll lose my temper."
Soon after the Havana Conference began, the
U.S. government learned about Luciano in Cuba.
Luciano had been publicly fraternizing with
Sinatra as well as visiting numerous nightclubs,
so his presence was no secret in Havana. The
U.S. started putting pressure on the Cuban
government to expel him. On February 21, 1947,
U.S. Narcotics Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger
notified the Cuban government that the United
States would block all shipment of narcotic
prescription drugs to Cuba while Luciano was
there. Two days later, the Cuban government
announced that Luciano was in custody and
would be deported to Italy within 48 hours.
Luciano was placed on a Turkish freighter
that was sailing to Genoa, Italy.Deported
with him would be an early childhood friend.
Later he would serve as his personal hit man.
Operating in Italy
After Luciano's secret trip to Cuba, he spent
the rest of his life in Italy under tight
police surveillance.
When Luciano arrived in Genoa from Cuba on
April 11, 1947, he was arrested and sent to
a jail in Palermo. On May 11, a regional commission
in Palermo warned Luciano to stay out of trouble
and released him from jail.
In early July 1949, police in Rome arrested
Luciano on suspicion of involvement in the
shipping of narcotics to New York. On July
15, after a week in jail, police released
Luciano without filing any charges. He was
also permanently banned from visiting Rome.
On June 9, 1951, Luciano was questioned by
police in Naples on suspicion of illegally
bringing $57,000 in cash and a new American
car into Italy. After 20 hours of questioning,
police released Luciano without any charges.
In 1952, the Italian government revoked Luciano's
Italian passport after complaints from U.S.
and Canadian law enforcement officials.
On November 19, 1954, an Italian judicial
commission in Naples applied strict limits
on Luciano for two years. He was required
to report to the police every Sunday, to stay
home every night, and to not leave Naples
without police permission. The commission
cited Luciano's alleged involvement in the
narcotics trade as the reason for these restrictions.
Despite the law enforcement surveillance,
Luciano was able to greatly expand narcotics
trafficking to the United States by Cosa Nostra,
making it one of organized crime's most lucrative
ventures. Between October 10 and October 14,
1957, Luciano oversaw a parley of more than
thirty Sicilian and American Mafia leaders
to draw up plans for the smuggling and distribution
of heroin into the United States. According
to Selwyn Raab, an investigative reporter
for The New York Times, it was at the Luciano
meeting, held in the Grand Hotel et des Palmes
in Palermo, Sicily, that a plan was put into
place through which Sicilians were responsible
for distributing heroin in the U.S., while
the American mobsters collected a share of
the income as "franchise fees". Luciano's
plan included a scheme to expand the tiny
heroin and cocaine market in the U.S. by reducing
the price and focusing on working class white
and black urban neighborhoods.
Personal life
In 1929, Luciano met Gay Orlova, a featured
dancer in one of Broadway's leading nightclubs,
Hollywood. They were inseparable, but never
married up until he went to prison.
In early 1948, Luciano met Igea Lissoni, an
Italian nightclub dancer 20 years his junior,
whom he later described as the love of his
life. In the summer, Lissoni moved in with
him. Although some reports said the couple
married in 1949, others state that they only
exchanged rings. Luciano and Lissoni lived
together in Luciano's house in Naples. Although
Luciano adored Lissoni, he continued to have
affairs with other women. This led to numerous
arguments with Lissoni, with Luciano striking
her on several occasions. In 1959, Lissoni
died of breast cancer.
Luciano never had any children. He once provided
his reasons for that:
I didn't want no son of mine to go through
life as the son of Luciano, the gangster.
That's one thing I still hate Dewey for, making
me a gangster in the eyes of the world.
American power struggle
By 1957, Genovese felt strong enough to move
against Luciano and his acting boss in New
York, Frank Costello. He was aided in this
move by Anastasia crime family underboss Carlo
Gambino. On May 2, 1957, Costello was shot
and slightly wounded by a gunman outside of
his apartment building. Soon after this attack,
Costello conceded control of what is called
today the Genovese crime family to Genovese.
Luciano was powerless to stop it. On October
26, 1957, Genovese and Gambino arranged the
murder of Albert Anastasia, another Luciano
ally. Gambino took over what is now called
the Gambino crime family. Genovese now believed
himself to be the top boss in the Cosa Nostra.
In November 1957, Genovese called a meeting
of Cosa Nostra bosses in Apalachin, New York
to approve his takeover of the Luciano family
and to establish his national power. Instead,
the Apalachin Meeting turned into a terrible
fiasco when law enforcement raided the meeting.
Over 65 high ranking mobsters were arrested
and the Cosa Nostra was subjected to publicity
and numerous grand jury summons. The enraged
mobsters blamed Genovese for this disaster,
opening a window of opportunity for Genovese's
opponents.
Costello, Luciano, and Gambino met in a hotel
in Palermo, Sicily, to discuss their plan
of action. In his own power move, Gambino
had deserted Genovese. After their meeting,
Luciano allegedly paid an American drug seller
$100,000 to falsely implicate Genovese in
a drug deal.
On April 4, 1959, Genovese was convicted in
New York of conspiracy to violate federal
narcotics laws. Sent to prison for 15 years,
Genovese tried to run his crime family from
prison until his death in 1969. Meanwhile,
Gambino now became the most powerful man in
the Cosa Nostra.
Death and legacy
On January 26, 1962, Luciano died of a heart
attack at Naples International Airport. Luciano
had gone to the airport to meet with American
producer Martin Gosch about a film biography.
To avoid antagonizing other Cosa Nostra members,
Luciano had previously refused to authorize
a film, but reportedly relented after Lissoni's
death. After the meeting with Gosch, Luciano
was stricken with a heart attack and died.
Luciano was unaware that Italian drug agents
had followed him to the airport in anticipation
of arresting him on drug smuggling charges.
Three days later, 300 people attended a funeral
service for Luciano in Naples. Luciano's body
was conveyed along the streets of Naples in
a horse-drawn black hearse. With the permission
of the U.S. government, Luciano's relatives
took his body back to New York for burial.
He was buried in St. John's Cemetery in Middle
Village, Queens. More than 2,000 mourners
attended his funeral. Luciano's longtime friend,
Gambino crime family boss Carlo Gambino, eulogized
him at the funeral.
Carlo Gambino was the only other boss besides
Luciano to have complete control of the Commission
and virtually every Mafia family in the United
States. In popular culture, proponents of
the Mafia and its history often debate as
to who was the greater between Luciano and
his contemporary, Al Capone. The much publicized
exploits of Capone with the Chicago Outfit
made him the most famous mobster in American
history, but he did not exert influence over
other Mafia families as Luciano did in creating
and running The Commission. For being the
Mafia hegemon in the era of landmark mobsters
like Albert Anastasia, Frank Costello, Meyer
Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Tommy Lucchese, Carlo
Gambino, and Vito Genovese, all of whom he
led, Luciano is considered by many to have
been the most powerful American Mafia boss
of all time.
In 1998, Time magazine characterized Luciano
as the "criminal mastermind" among the top
20 most influential builders and titans of
the 20th century.
Media portrayals
Films
The Valachi Papers – Luciano was portrayed
by Angelo Infanti
Lucky Luciano – Luciano was portrayed by
Gian Maria Volonté
The Cotton Club – Luciano was portrayed
by Joe Dallesandro
Mobsters – Luciano was portrayed by Christian
Slater
Bugsy – Luciano was portrayed by Bill Graham
Billy Bathgate – Luciano was portrayed by
Stanley Tucci
White Hot: The Mysterious Murder of Thelma
Todd – Luciano was portrayed by Robert Davi
The Outfit – Luciano was portrayed by Billy
Drago
Hoodlum – Luciano was portrayed by Andy
García
Bonanno: A Godfather's Story – Luciano was
portrayed by Vince Corazza
Lansky – Luciano was portrayed by Anthony
LaPaglia
The Real Untouchables – Luciano was portrayed
by David Viggiano
TV series
The Witness – Luciano was portrayed by Telly
Savalas
The Gangster Chronicles – Luciano was portrayed
by Michael Nouri
Boardwalk Empire – Luciano is portrayed
by Vincent Piazza
Documentary series
Mafia's Greatest Hits – Luciano features
in the second episode of UK history TV channel
Yesterday's documentary series.
Books
Luciano's Luck, Jack Higgins. Fictional based
on the Luciano's WWII supposed war efforts.
See also
Black Hand
Cesare Mori
References
Further reading
Gosch, Martin A.; Hammer, Richard. The Last
Testament of Lucky Luciano. Boston: Little
Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-32140-0. 
Raab, Selwyn. Five Families: The Rise, Decline,
and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful
Mafia Empires. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-36181-5. 
Klerks, Cat. Lucky Luciano: The Father of
Organized Crime. Altitude Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN 1-55265-102-9. 
Powell, Hickman. Lucky Luciano, his amazing
trial and wild witnesses. Barricade Books,
Incorporated. ISBN 0-8065-0493-5. 
Feder, Sid; Joesten, Joachim. Luciano Story.
Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80592-8. Retrieved
2013-04-21. 
Newark, Tim. Lucky Luciano: the real and the
fake gangster. New York: Thomas Dunne Books.
ISBN 978-0-312-60182-9. Retrieved 2013-04-21. 
Stolberg, Mary M.. Fighting organized crime:
politics, justice, and the legacy of Thomas
E. Dewey. Boston: Northeastern University
Press. ISBN 1-55553-245-4. Retrieved 2013-04-21. 
Sifakis, Carl. The Mafia Encyclopedia. New
York, NY: Facts On File. ISBN 0-8160-6989-1.
Retrieved 2013-04-21. 
English, T. J.. Havana nocturne: how the mob
owned Cuba – and then lost it to the revolution.
New York: Harper. ISBN 0061712744. Retrieved
2013-04-21. 
External links
Lucky Luciano Biography
Lucky Luciano at Find a Grave
'Havana' Revisited: An American Gangster in
Cuba NPR, June 5, 2009
Photograph of Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano,
and others at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel from
the Lloyd Sealy Library Digital Collections
