The Mafia Encyclopedia (18 page)

Read The Mafia Encyclopedia Online

Authors: Carl Sifakis

Tags: #True Crime, #Organized Crime, #test

BOOK: The Mafia Encyclopedia
4.62Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
Page 43
Masseria, had his own thing going with other mobsters, especially with Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky. Together these two envisioned crime operating in peace and the highest possible profitability by "syndicating" or "organizing'' individual crime effort into a national network.
Neither Masseria nor Maranzano, who were closed minded Mustache Petes, wanted to consider working with other gangs, much less with other ethnics. After Maranzano had won the war, he took in Luciano as his number two man, and appointed himself boss of bosses over them all. Neither Luciano nor his followers, including many Young Turks on Maranzano's side whom Luciano secretly courted, cared much for the boss of bosses idea. Luciano vacated the position by having four Lansky gunners assassinate Maranzano less than five months after he'd taken full power.
Luciano kept only the five-family concept and named Bonanno to head up what was originally a large part of Maranzano's Castellammarese crime family. Under Bonanno the crime family's revenues rolled in and he was soon a millionaire. He diversified into a number of businesses and skimmed or covered up the income so adroitly that Internal Revenue could never catch him. Bonanno was into clothing factories and cheese firms and even a funeral parlor. Many police give Bonanno's undertaking activities credit for starting a quaint custom of double-decker coffins, which permitted an extra corpse to be laid under a false bottom to the coffin. It is not known how many missing victims of the Mafia were buried in such communal coffins.
Oddly, although Bonanno was the youngest crime family head in the United States, he was among the most traditional. He took his position as a donhe preferred to call himself the "Father" of his familymost seriously. In his 1983 autobiography,
A Man of Honor
, Bonanno differentiated the attitudes of himself and Luciano, some think amusingly. Luciano, said Bonanno, was so Americanized that he operated on "the most primitive consideration: making money." On the other hand, Bonanno continued, "Men of my Tradition have always considered wealth a by-product of power." Such men of this tradition, Bonanno explained, "were mainly in the people business."
Whatever business Bonanno considered himself in, it became evident over the years that he thought big. To some rival bosses, upset by his moves beyond his traditional territory, he was "planting flags all over the world."
By the 1960s this was very obvious. Bonanno had long since invaded the open Arizona territory and clearly looked to California where the local mafiosi were not considered serious competition. He had had casino investments with Meyer Lansky in pre-Castro Cuba and was working on going it alone in Haiti. He also worked rackets in Canada, which licensed Buffalo's Stefano Magaddino, who considered much of that country his territory.
By the early 1960s Bonanno for the first time faced some internal opposition from his soldiers who complained he was on the road so much checking out these developments elsewhere that he was neglecting family business in New York and that their revenues were suffering. Some New York bosses were also acting tougher with him, especially after Joe Profaci, who had been another longtime crime family boss in Brooklyn, died of cancer in 1962. Profaci had been Bonanno's staunchest ally, but at the same time controlled Bonanno's raging ambitions in the interests of underworld peace.
Without Profaci's restraint, Bonanno decided to make his big move. Profaci had been succeeded as boss by Joe Magliocco who also feared the other New York bosses. Bonanno approached him with a plan to kill off several other bosses, including Carlo Gambino and Tommy Lucchese in New York, Magaddino in Buffalo and Frank DeSimone in Los Angeles. Magliocco agreed to the plot and passed an order to a previously trustworthy hit man, Joe Colombo, to take out the New York chiefs. The plot collapsed when the ambitious Colombo instead revealed it to the intended victims.
Bonanno and Magliocco were ordered to appear before the Mafia commission, of which they themselves were members, to explain their actions. Bonanno refused to appear but Magliocco did and confessed. As punishmentand it was uncommonly lightMagliocco was allowed to retire from his crime family and be replaced as boss by Colombo. The commission had treated him easy because Magliocco was in poor health and likely to die soon (he did within half a year). Also, by showing leniency the commission was hoping to lure Bonanno in.
It didn't work. Bonanno refused to appear. The commission then ordered him stripped of his crime family authority and replaced him with a Bonanno defector, Gaspar DiGregorio. This split the Bonanno family, some members going with the Bonannos, the others with DiGregorio. In October 1964 Joe Bonanno was kidnapped at gunpoint on Park Avenue while in the company of his lawyer. He was to disappear for 19 months during which time war broke out between the DiGregorio forces and Bonanno's son, Bill. Dubbed the Banana War, it produced a goodly number of corpses but no decision.
Meanwhile Bonanno was being held prisoner by Buffalo's Magaddino who was Bonanno's cousin. Magaddino was clearly acting for the commission and tried to get Bonanno to agree to quit the Mafia and go into retirement. While under constant threat of death, Bonanno reasoned that the commission did not feel on
Page 44
safe ground but was worried that really bloody warfare could break out. It also did not wish to establish the precedent of the commission dethroning a boss since members might find themselves in the same position in the future.
Finally, Bonanno offered a compromise. He would retire to Arizona and his son would succeed him. The commission would not buy that one, realizing it would still leave Bonanno in effective control. Stalemated, Bonanno at last agreed to quit and accept the commission's decision on his successor.
Bonanno was released; but forcing an agreement out of Bonanno and making him live up to that agreement were two different things. Bonanno threw himself into the Banana War. The commission had in the meantime replaced the ineffective DiGregorio with a tougher man, Paul Sciacca, but he was no match against the wily elder Bonanno. In the ensuing killings the Bonanno forces inflicted more damage than they received. It is doubtful the commission could ever have won the Banana War, but in 1968 Bonanno suffered a heart attack and was forced into real retirement.
This time an effective compromise was worked out. Bonanno went to Arizona and was allowed to maintain his western interests while giving up the Bonanno holdings in New York. It marked the end of an era. Bonanno was the last of the five original bosses of the 1931 American Mafia still living, but he was now out of action as well.
Bonanno nevertheless remained in the news. He was prosecuted and convicted on some criminal charges and in the mid-1980s the federal government sought to make use of his autobiography to prove that there was a Mafia commission and that its present members were part of a criminal conspiracy and thus could be sent to prison. When the aging and ailing Bonanno refused to answer questions to a grand jury about the revelations in his book, he was jailed.
See also:
Banana War
.
Bonanno, Salvatore "Bill" (1932-): Son of Mafia boss
The son of crime boss Joseph Bonanno (Joe Bananas), Bill Bonanno embodies one of the few examples of nepotism in the Mafiathe theme of
The Godfather
notwithstanding. Long dreaming that his son would take over his leadership of the crime family, the elder Bonanno provoked the so-called Banana War, which littered the streets of Brooklyn with corpses. When Bonanno disappeared from the scene for an extended period of time, execution of the conflict was placed in the inexperienced hands of son Bill.
The younger Bonanno was the cooperative subject of a book,
Honor Thy Father
by Gay Talese, which attempts, almost heroically, to counter the general mob belief that Bill was an incompetent. The effort was not wholly convincing to some.
The majority underworld opinion was perhaps best typified by the sentiments revealed in the celebrated "DeCavalcante tapes"based on an FBI eavesdropping campaign that for almost four years recorded conversations in the offices of New Jersey crime leader Simone Rizzo DeCavalcante (Sam the Plumber). At the height of the troubles between the elder Bonanno and the rest of the members of the commission, the so-called overseers of Mafia affairs, DeCavalcante tried to act as a mediator and met with the younger Bonanno. He was later recorded discussing the meeting with his underboss, Frank Majuri. DeCavalcante said, "His son [Bill] is a bedbug. I'm not afraid of him [Joe Bonanno] so much as I am of his son...."
Despite the elder Bonanno's naming his son consigliere (adviser) of the crime family, young Bill never achieved a position of undisputed leadership. He was convicted on such charges as loan-sharking, perjury, mail fraud and conspiracy but was never accused of having carried out any of these activities with finesse.
See also:
Banana War; Bonanno, Joseph
.
Bonanno Crime Family
Although Joe Bonanno has been out of power since the mid-1960s, the family he ran for some three and a half decades is still known by his name, not because of a patrilineal succession, but rather because of inept successors.
Bonanno was put in charge of his Brooklyn family on the assassination of Salvatore Maranzano in 1931. He was at the time only 26 years old, the youngest crime family boss in the country. Traditionally his was one of the smaller of the New York families, but it was for a number of years very tight-knit and extremely profitable under Bonanno. Because of its limited manpower, Bonanno over the years sought consistently to ally himself with another crime boss or two to cement his position. Until they fell out much later, he could rely on support from his cousin Stefano Magaddino, the head of the Buffalo crime family, and in Brooklyn from Joe Profaci, with whom he remained very tight until Profaci's death in 1962. Under Bonanno the major sources of crime revenue derived from numbers, the Italian lottery, bookmaking, loan-sharking and, although he always denied it, narcotics. But when Bonanno underboss Carmine Galante went to prison in the early 1960s, it was for his involvement in drug trafficking, and to this very day the Bonanno family is regarded as one of the major suppliers of drugs to New York City.
Page 45
By the time of Profaci's death in 1962 Bonanno had become convinced that some of the other family chiefsespecially Carlo Gambino, Tommy Lucchese and even his cousin Magaddinowere plotting his downfall. Feeling isolated, Bonanno developed a counterplot to kill those three and apparently a few other crime leaders around the country. It was viewed as an effort by Bonanno to become a new "Boss of Bosses." Allied with Bonanno was the ailing Joseph Magliocco, the successor to Profaci, and the uncle of Bonanno's eldest son's wife. The plot blew up when Magliocco passed the contract for the hits on Gambino and Lucchese to one of his most proficient hit men, Joe Colombo, who in turn sold out to the other side.
Called before the national commission Magliocco confessed and was allowed to retire from his crime family. (He was in extremely poor health and sure to die shortly.) Bonanno however admitted nothing and refused to appear. Instead, he disappeared and seemed to be concentrating his efforts on expanding the crime family's interests in Arizona, Canada and elsewhere.
Advancing in age himself, Bonanno had already started boosting his son Bill to become the active head of the family, a move that brought stiff resistance within the Bonanno organization, many of whose members felt Bill was incapable of the task. By that time many of the mobsters had become disenchanted with Bonanno's rule in general, feeling his interest in expanding elsewhere was adversely affecting their bread-and-butterthe Brooklyn operations.
Backed by the national commission or, perhaps more accurately, rammed in as family head was Gaspar DiGregorio. The commission ruled that Bonanno by his treachery had lost all rights. As a result a split developed within the family, about half the members going with DiGregorio and the rest with Bill Bonanno. In October 1964 the elder Bonanno was kidnapped at gunpoint in front of a luxury apartment house on Park Avenue. It was unclear whether it was an arranged disappearance by Bonanno, who was due to go before a federal grand jury, or the work of the rival crime families. In any event, Bill Bonanno was on his own. The result was the Banana War, "Banana" being a pet journalistic corruption of the Bonanno name.
In January 1966 the DiGregorio forces lured Bill Bonanno and some of his supporters with the promise of a peace meeting into an ambush and then bungled the attempted assassination. Although well over 100 shots were fired nobody was so much as scratched. Dissatisfied by DiGregorio's inability to handle the war, the commission forced him out in favor of Paul Sciacca, a tougher man and a close friend of Gambino.
In May, however, Joe Bonanno reappeared, refusing to say where he had been the past 19 months. It appeared he had been held by the commission and had only been released on his promise he would leave the crime family permanently and retire to Arizona. Bonanno did no such thing, instead prosecuting the Banana War. The Sciacca forces did not give anywhere near as good as they got, many more falling to Bonanno gunners than the other way around. A heart attack in 1968 finally slowed Bonanno and he shifted back to Arizona while the Banana War petered out. Bonanno held on to his western interests while the Brooklyn holdings shifted to Sciacca, later to Natale Evola and finally to Phil Rastelli.
The national commission's dream, or at least Gambino's dream, of a subservient Bonanno crime family was shattered by the return of Carmine Galante, who quickly took over affairs. If the commission was upset with Bonanno, it was especially unhappy with Galanteall the more so after Gambino died in 1976. Newspaper talk settled on Galante becoming the new boss of bosses, but he was assassinated by the combined agreement not only of all the New York crime families but also of many key dons around the country. It was said that even the hated Bonanno was consulted before Galante was eliminated.
Returning as ruler after Galante was Philip "Rusty" Rastelli. Under him the organization's principal activities were described as home video pornography, pizza parlors (regarded as an excellent business in which to hide illegal aliens), espresso cafes, restaurants and a very large narcotics operation. But Rastelli seemed by the mid-1980s to be in less than total control as one segment of the family pushed it deeper into drug trafficking. With Rastelli facing a long prison term in 1986, he was said by law officials to have placed Joseph Massino in charge of family affairs.
By 1998, under Massino, the Bonanno family was thriving. While the overall strength of the five New York families was said to have been declining, there was no doubt that, much to the chagrin of law enforcement, the Bonannos were clearly gaining strength. The crime family that had been in much disgrace following the Galante period and had even been booted off the National Commission made a remarkable recovery with about 100 active wise guys and was fast approaching the Gambinos under the imprisoned John Gotti as the country's second-most-dangerous Mafia faction.
See also:
Banana War
.
Bones, Making Your: Supposed requirement for being made
There is a popular myth that before someone can become a wise guy, he has to carry out a hit, or professional killing. Actually this is not true. Men get made

Other books

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Touch to Surrender by Cara Dee
100 Unfortunate Days by Crowe, Penelope