Charles Luciano
Salvatore Lucania (aka)
Charles (Lucky) Luciano was born in 1897 in Sicily.
His family moved to the Lower East Side of New York
in 1906, where he was first arrested in 1907.
By 1915, Luciano trained in the Five Points Gang, a Society crew,
under John Torrio.
In this gang, he became a friend with Al
Capone and other prominent members.
Luciano started his own prostitution racket with Joe
Adonis, in the early 1920's
and was in total control of prostitution in Manhattan by 1925.
By 1927, his enterprise had made him a millionaire, but where Capone
did not bother with taxes,
Luciano filed every year. An amount of $22,500 as income from gambling.
In 1929 he was kidnapped, beaten and stabbed severally with an
ice pick.
He miraculously survived but maintained "omerta",
which is a vow never to reveal any secrets or members under penalty
of death or torture.
Towards the end of the 20's Luciano was ready to start turning
his ideas of a national
syndicate into reality, and with the help of his friends
Lansky and Siegel he was able
to get rid of several big players opposed to his plans.
Luciano wanted power his rival was Masseria and Masseria's rival
was Salvador Maranzano.
Carlo Gambino
joined forces with Lucky Luciano to better serve their enterprises.
Luciano wanted to oust both Masseria and Maranzano to align the
families.
On April 15, 1931, Masseria was murdered while at a meeting with
Luciano at a Coney Island restaurant.
Luciano had lunch with Joe the Boss. During the meal, Luciano went
to the men's room.
While he was in the men's room, Vito Genovese, Albert
Anastasia, Bugsy Siegel, and Joe Adonis killed Masseria and fled the
scene. Maranzano was now the sole leader of the New York underworld.
Luciano joined with Maranzano, as the new bosses.
His first action would be to call a huge meeting of all the families.
They met in May 1931 in the banquet hall of the Grand Concources
in the Bronx.
At the meeting, Maranzano explained how the syndicate would now
(and forever) be organized.
He formed the five families of New York, Giving one of the families
to Vincent Mangano.
Maranzano organized La Cosa Nostra meaning
( Our Thing)
exactly the way the Roman Empire was structured when Ceasar was
its ruler.
The syndicate was setup so that there was many men between Maranzano
and any crime that was committed by a member of a L.C.N. family.
Maranzano also established a few rules to be followed by all members.
The biggest rule was that only men of Italian blood could obtain
membership.
This proved to be a big rule. Maranzano then realized that in order
for him to keep his new found power,
he would have to get rid of some very dangerous men.
The main one being Lucky Luciano.
Luciano soon heard of the bosses' plans to eliminate him from the
picture.
So, instead Lucky (with the help of Genovese and Lucchese) had
Maranzano killed.
Maranzano was shot and stabbed to death in his New York offices
on orders from Luciano.
This left the door open for Luciano to become the top boss.
Lucky Luciano was now the head of L.C.N. and he proceeded to make
many changes.
He created a national crime syndicate that welcomed jewish and
irish mobs as non-member associates.
He also added the position of consigliere to the family structure.
Lucky established the twelve member group called the Commision
to settle the affairs of the entire crime syndicate.
Luciano had his dream. He now had turned the New York turf
and the Society into a business commission,
with each family getting an equal vote.
By 1935, Luciano was known as The Boss of Bosses.
He had previously established Murder
Inc. with Bugsy Siegel and Myer Lansky.
They got Albert Anastasia to run the operation.
This man was perhaps one of the most violent men to ever reign
as a boss.
Luciano's wide spread criminal activities led to his being investigated
by District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey.
Dewey had gathered enough evidence to bring in Luciano on ninety
counts of extortion and prostitution.
He was eventually sentenced to thirty to fifty years.
Luciano was considered to be a powerful Society member with strong
ties to Sicily.
After his conviction, the United States government approached him
with a deal.
In exchange for his assistance in the allied invasion of Sicily,
he was offered deportation to Rome.
Luciano contacted his Society associates in Italy and the deal
was made.
Luciano lived in Rome for a year.
He soon got dissatisfied with the way his affairs were being run
in the US and arranged
a meeting with Lansky, Siegel, and other bosses in Cuba.
At this meeting he got into an argument with Siegel, which resulted
in Siegels murder a few months later.
US authorities got wind of Luciano's presence in Havana,
and forced him back to Italy where he went into forced retirement.
Here he considered writing his memoirs and making a movie of his
life.
In January 1962 he went to the Naples airport to meet an American
movie producer who was interested.
As he walked up, ready to shake hands, he grabbed his chest, collapsed,
and died of a heart attack.
Lucanias body was sent to the U.S. by his family and he
was laid to rest at
Saint John's Cemetery
80-01 Metropolitan Ave.
Queens, New York
with two of his friends close by.
|
Vito Genovese -1969
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Joseph Profaci - 1962
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It is believed by some that the United States would not have been
as successful in their invasion of Italy if it was not for
Charlie Lucky.
His information proved to be very valuable to the U.S.
