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Founded by: Salvatore "Toto" D'Aquila and named after Carlo Gambino
In: NYC, New York, U.S.
Years active: 1916–present
Territory: Various neighborhoods over New York City, and other areas including Long Island, Augusta, GA, New Jersey, Tampa, Florida and Sunny Isles Beach, Florida
Ethnicity: Italian, Italian American made men and other ethnicities as "a**ociates"
Membership: 150-200 made members approx, 1,500-2,000 a**ociates approx
Criminal activities: Racketeering, extortion, fraud, illegal gambling, money laundering, union control, robbery, and hijacking
Allies: Genovese, Bonanno, Colombo and Lucchese crime families
Rivals: Westies and various other gangs over NYC
he Gambino crime family is one of the "Five Families" that control organized crime activity in New York City. It is a part of the United States-wide criminal network known as the Mafia. The group is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963 when the structure of organized crime first gained public attention. The group's operations extend from New York and the eastern seaboard to California. Its illicit activities include labor and construction racketeering, gambling, loansharking, extortion, money laundering, prostitution, dumping violations, construction, building and cement violations, fraud and wire fraud, hijacking, pier thefts, and fencing.
The rise of what for a time was the most powerful crime family in America began in 1957, the day Albert Anastasia was a**a**inated while sitting in a barber chair at the Park-Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan. Experts believe Carlo Gambino helped orchestrate the hit to take over the family. Gambino partnered with Meyer Lansky to control gambling interests in Cuba. The family’s fortunes grew through 1976, when Gambino appointed his brother-in-law, Paul Castellano, as boss. Castellano infuriated upstart capo John Gotti, who orchestrated Castellano's murder in 1985. Gotti's downfall came in 1992, when his underboss Sammy Gravano decided to cooperate with the FBI. Gravano's cooperation brought down Gotti, along with most of the top members of the Gambino family. The family is believed to be currently run by street boss John "Jackie" D'Amico.
OriginsThe origins of the Gambino crime family can be traced back to the emergence of Italian mafioso, Salvatore "Toto" D'Aquila upon the New York mafia scene around 1906, which is when D'Aquila's name first appears on police records for running a confidence scam, a racket that requires a great deal of intelligence and patience. D'Aquila had immigrated to the United States as an influential Palermitano mafioso, and quickly used his ties to other mafia leaders across the country to create a network of connections and to gain influence within the Italian-American underworld. By 1910 D'Aquila had become the leader of his own New York–based Sicilian mafia group, one of four that emerged by the mid 1900s.
These four crime families included D'Aquila's own crime family based in East Harlem, Manhattan, which was also the base of the "first family", the Morello crime family. The Morello family was originally led by Giuseppe Morello and his half-brothers, Vincent, Ciro and Nick Terranova, and then by Joe Ma**eria, who became D'Aquila's biggest rival in New York. Two Brooklyn-based crime families emerged: one was the Castellammarese clan, led by Nicola "Cola" Schiro from Roccamena, Sicily (not from Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, where the majority of his Brooklyn crime family members came from), and second was a group led by Alfred Mineo based in Brooklyn. Eventually, two more Mafia groups emerged in New York City during Prohibition: This was a break-away faction from the Morello crime family based in the Bronx and led by Gaetano Reina, who was once aligned with boss Ciro "The Artichoke King" Terranova, and the last group formed in the late 1920s based in Brooklyn and led by Joe Profaci. Profaci became boss of one of the Five Families of New York that soon emerged once power in New York's Italian underworld was consolidated and the factions re-structured into the crime families that ruled organized crime in the city and across the country for the next eight decades.
By the mid 1910s D'Aquila had become the most influential Mafia boss in New York, in part because former New York Mafia "boss of bosses", Giuseppe Morello and his brother-in-law and second-in-command, Ignazio Saietta, had been imprisoned for 30 years in 1909 for counterfeiting. D'Aquila continued to ama** power and influence within New York's Sicilian underworld and across the nation as his crime family grew in numbers and territory.
The expansion of the D'Aquila crime family was aided by the decimation of the Brooklyn Camorra led by Neapolitan mafia boss, Don Pellegrino Morano, when Morano and his second-in-command, Alessandro Vollero were imprisoned for life in 1917, following a war with the Morello crime family, which led to the murder of boss Nick Morello (born Terranova) in 1916, for which Morano and Vollero were convicted.
By the beginning of Prohibition, the remaining Neapolitan Mafia members and the territory once under control of bosses Morano and Vollero were absorbed into the D'Aquila crime family. Soon after the Brooklyn-based Mineo group was also absorbed into Toto D'Aquila's crime family, making it the largest and most influential in New York City. The only remaining rival that D'Aquila needed to fear was the expanding forces and growing influence of boss Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Ma**eria. Ma**eria had taken over the Morello crime family interests and territory by 1920, and quickly began to ama** a great deal of power and influence, enough to rival D'Aquila by the mid 1920s.
By the late 1920s D'Aquila and Ma**eria were headed for a showdown and inevitable war, but Ma**eria struck first and D'Aquila was killed on October 10, 1928 by Ma**eria family gunmen. The crime family D'Aquila had led pa**ed into the hands of his second-in-command or underboss, Alfred Mineo and his top lieutenant Steve Ferrigno, who at the height of the Prohibition era commanded the largest and most influential Sicilian crime family in New York City.
The Castellammarese War, between rival New York bosses Joe Ma**eria and Salvatore Maranzano claimed many victims, including Mineo and Ferrigno who were ambushed and killed on November 5, 1930, outside Ferrigno's home at 759 Pelham Parkway South. It was the latest in a long line of killings on both sides of the war, which ultimately ended with the deaths of both principals - Ma**eria in April 1931 and Maranzano five months later. The main beneficiary (and organizer of both hits) was Charlie "Lucky" Luciano, who rearranged New York's organized crime and established the basis of the "Five Families" of New York, which became known as the Commission of the Cosa Nostra.
After the Castellammarese War
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Vincent ManganoFollowing a brief period under the control of Frank Scalice, the first recognized leader of what became the Gambino family was Vincenzo "Vincent" Mangano, an old-school Mafia don in the style of Ma**eria and Maranzano, but one who was tolerated due to his close ties with Emil Camarda, the vice-president of the International Longshoremen's a**ociation. Through the a**ociation, Mangano and the family controlled the New York and Brooklyn waterfront with activities including extortion, union racketeering, and illegal gambling operations including horse betting, running numbers and lotteries.
Mangano also established the City Democratic Club, ostensibly to promote bedrock American values but in reality as a cover for Murder, Inc., the notorious band of mainly Jewish hitmen who did the bidding of the Italian-American run families, for a price. Phil Mangano was a member, as was Albert Anastasia, known as the "Lord High Executioner". Around this time, Carlo Gambino was promoted within the organization, as was another future boss of the family, Gambino's cousinPaul "Big Paul" Castellano.
Mangano brothers murdered
Anastasia and Mangano never entirely saw eye to eye. Mangano resented that Anastasia had a girl's name, preferred to keep the company of various members of the other families, and on numerous occasions the two almost came to blows. This was only ever going to end badly for Mangano, and in April 1951, Phil Mangano was discovered murdered, while his brother disappeared without a trace. Although it has never been proven, it is generally believed that Vince was murdered by Anastasia.
Called to answer for the crimes of which he was suspected by the other New York bosses, Anastasia never admitted to his involvement in the deaths of the Manganos but did claim that Vince had been planning to have him killed. He had since begun running the family himself, and few in the organization found themselves inclined to depose one of the most feared killers of the age. Carlo Gambino, a wily character with designs on the leadership himself, maneuvered himself into position as underboss to Anastasia
Anastasia eliminated
Albert AnastasiaThe fortunes of the family around this time were closely linked to those of another—that run by Frank Costello, and which is known today as the Genovese crime family. Vito Genovese was the power-hungry Underboss in the family and needed a way to remove the close ties between Costello and Anastasia, which provided solidarity in the National Crime Syndicate for the two bosses.
Genovese thus jumped on the 1952 killing of a Brooklyn man named Arnold Schuster, who Anastasia had killed for the most minor of indiscretions (acting as a prosecution witness against a bank robber Anastasia didn't even know), as evidence that Anastasia was unbalanced and a threat to the syndicate. With Gambino secretly siding with Genovese against his own boss, the wheels were in motion for the removal of Anastasia.
On October 25, 1957, Anastasia was murdered while sitting in a barber's chair at the Park Sheraton Hotel on West 56th Street. For many years, the murder was believed to have been committed by Joseph "Crazy Joe" Gallo. Later, Colombo crime family boss and Gallo foe, Carmine "Junior" Persico claimed credit. Modern historians believe that Carlo Gambino ordered caporegime Joseph "Joe the Blonde" Biondo to kill Anastasia and Biondo gave the contract to soldier Stephen Armone. On the morning of October 25, 1957 Armone, along with Arnold Wittenburg and Stephen Grammauta, murdered Anastasia in the barbershop of the Park Sheraton Hotel. As Anastasia sat in the barber chair the three a**ailants rushed in, shoved the barber out of the way, and started shooting. The wounded Anastasia allegedly lunged at his killers, but only hit their reflections in the wall mirror. Anastasia died at the scene. Anastasia's underboss Carlo Gambino took the reins of the family, which from then on bore his name. Biondo was rewarded with the underboss position, which he kept until being demoted in 1965. Stephen Grammauta eventually became a caporegime in the 1990s.
Former Gambino crime family Boss
Carlo Gambino, taken in the early-to-mid-1970s, shortly before his death.
Gambino promotes the familyGenovese was sent to prison for 15 years, where he died in 1969. The Gambino family soon became the most powerful crime family in the United States, with close ties to Meyer Lansky's offshore gaming houses in Cuba and the Bahamas, a lucrative business for the Mafia. The failure of Joseph "Joe Bananas" Bonanno, the head of the Bonanno crime family and Gambino's top rival, to kill off Gambino and the heads of other New York crime families in the aftermath of the Bonanno War, saw Gambino become the most powerful leader of the "Five Families".
Gambino allegedly stretched his power as far as to organize the shooting of Joseph Colombo, head of the Colombo crime family, on June 28, 1971. More likely,[says who?] Colombo shooter Jerome Johnson was a lone nut attracted to Colombo for his Italian civil rights movement. Or as Michael Franzese, an informer, later said, it may have been set up by rogue law enforcement, or by Carlo Gambino himself. Colombo survived the shooting but remained in a coma until his death in 1978. He was buried next to Joseph Gallo. Johnson was killed by Colombo's bodyguard.
In either case, Gambino's influence stretched into behind-the-scenes control of the Lucchese crime family, led by Carmine "Mr. Gribbs" Tramunti. Gambino also allegedly influenced the selection of Frank "Funzi" Tieri as boss of the Genovese crime family, after the murder of Thomas Eboli, whom Gambino, allegedly, had had killed over money owed. It is also more likely believed Eboli was killed by own crime Family for his erratic ways. On October 15, 1976, Gambino died of a heart attack, and control of the family pa**ed not to the obvious choice, Underboss Aniello "Mr. Neil" Dellacroce, but to Paul Castellano, whose sister was married to Gambino. Allies of Dellacroce were thoroughly unhappy about that move, but Dellacroce himself kept his men in line, and was kept on as Castellano's Underboss.
The FBI closes in on Castellano
Paul CastellanoThe Dellacroce faction remained displeased, believing that Castellano had inherited the role rather than earning it. Castellano did retain a degree of muscle to keep Dellacroce's allies in check, including the notorious crew run by Anthony "Nino" Gaggi and Roy DeMeo, which was believed to have committed over 200 murders during Castellano's regime from the late 1970s and mid 1980s. While Castellano was still in charge, most of the family affairs were run and controlled unofficially by a four-man ruling panel which included powerful Garment District leader Thomas "Tommy" Gambino, bodyguard and later Underboss Thomas "Tommy" Bilotti, and powerful Queens faction-leaders Daniel "Danny" Marino and James "Jimmy Brown" Failla, all top rivals of John Gotti.
It was not a time for the family to be embroiled in inner turmoil and argument, as the Federal Bureau of Investigation had targeted the Gambino family as the easiest of the five families to infiltrate – FBI tapes obtained from a bug planted in a lamp on Castellano's kitchen table caught him discussing illegal deals with his subordinates, and by the early 1980s Castellano was up on a number of charges and faced with conviction. He let it be known that he wanted Carlo Gambino's son Thomas to take over the family should he be sent to jail, with Thomas Bilotti (Castellano's chauffeur and bodyguard) as his underboss, which further enraged the Dellacroce faction, particularly John Gotti.
In 1983, a federal indictment charged 13 members of the Gambino family with drug trafficking. This group included John Gotti's brother, Gene, and his best friend, Angelo "Quack Quack" Ruggiero, who got his nickname for his non-stop talking. The feds had in fact been listening in on his home phone conversations since 1980 – they had Ruggiero on tape discussing family business, making drug deals, and expressing contempt for Castellano. If Castellano knew they were dealing drugs, in violation of his no-drug policy, Ruggiero would be killed. By law, the accused were allowed transcripts of wiretap conversations to aid their defense, and Castellano demanded to be shown them, though Dellacroce did his best to put him off.
Dellacroce was by this time suffering from cancer, but with Ruggiero desperate for help, his friend John Gotti stood up for him. All the same, Castellano maintained that he wanted the transcripts, or he would have Ruggiero and Gotti removed. Gotti realized he had to act fast, and the death of his mentor Dellacroce on December 2, 1985, paved the way for him to take out Castellano.
John Gotti takes over
John GottiOn December 16, 1985, Bilotti and Castellano arrived at the Sparks Steak House in Manhattan for a dinner meeting with capo Frank DeCicco. As the two men were exiting their car, four unidentified men shot them to death. Right after the shootings, John Gotti proclaimed himself the new boss of the Gambino crime family. Gotti appointed DeCicco as underboss and promoted Ruggiero to caporegime. At that time, future underboss Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano was allegedly elevated to caporegime.
Known as the "Dapper Don," Gotti was well-known for his hand-tailored suits and silk ties. Unlike his colleagues, Gotti made little effort to hide his mob connections and was very willing to provide interesting sound bites to the media. Gotti's home in Howard Beach, Queens, was frequently seen on television. Gotti liked to hold meetings with family members while walking in public places so that law enforcement agents could not record the conversations. One of Gotti's neighbors in Howard Beach was his dear friend Joseph "Big Joe" Ma**ino, underboss of the Bonanno crime family. Another of Gotti's neighbors, John Favara, accidentally killed Gotti's 12-year-old son in a traffic crash. Soon after the boy's death, Favara was kidnapped and murdered.
Mob leaders from the other families were enraged at the Castellano murder and disapproved of Gotti's high-profile style. Gotti's strongest enemy was Genovese crime family boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, a former Castellano ally. Ironically, Gigante had participated in the last unsanctioned hit on a Cosa Nostra boss, that of Frank Costello in 1957. Gigante allegedly conspired with Lucchese crime family leaders Vittorio "Vic" Amuso and Anthony "Gaspipe" Ca**o, to put out a contract on Gotti's life. On April 13, 1986, a car bomb meant for Gotti instead killed DeCicco.
Eventually, Gotti's brash demeanor and belief that he was untouchable (he was acquitted on federal charges three times, earning the nickname the "Teflon Don") proved his undoing. The FBI had managed to bug an apartment above the Ravenite Social Club in Little Italy, where an elderly widow let mobsters hold top-level meetings. Gotti was heard planning criminal activities and complaining about his underlings. In particular, he complained about Gravano, portraying him as a "mad dog" killer. Gravano responded by turning state's evidence and testifying against Gotti.
On April 2, 1992, largely on the strength of Gravano's testimony, Gotti and current Consigliere Frank "Frankie Loc" LoCascio were convicted and received a sentence of life without parole.
To be continued...
