Organized crime wasn't always so organized. In the early 20th century in New York City, what we would call the mafia was rather unorganized. There were competing groups, and while the individual groups had some sort of organization, there was anarchy among them. From 1929 to 1931, there was a war between some of the crime organizations, and when the dust settled,
all of the major mafia groups in New York City had found a way to work together, or at least not openly feud. Learn more about New York's five families and the creation of the commission on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
You know, when I started this podcast, it felt like I had to become 10 people overnight. Producer, editor, marketer, designer. It was a lot. And I kept thinking, I wish I had someone in my corner to help me figure this out. That's why I love... today's sponsor shopify it's like having a built-in business partner
Shopify powers millions of businesses worldwide, from giants like Gymshark to scrappy upstarts just getting going. With Shopify, you can launch your own studio or store using hundreds of stunning templates that match your brand's vibe. Need help with content? Their AI tools help write product descriptions and enhance your photos. Marketing, easy email and social campaigns built right in. Inventory, shipping, returns. Shopify's got your back on all of it. Turn your big business ideas. into...
With Shopify on your side. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.co.uk slash glassbox. Go to shopify.co.uk slash glassbox. Shopify. This episode is sponsored by Planet Money. Tariffs, mean coins, Girl Scout cookies, what do they all have in common? Money.
Economics is everywhere, and everything, fueling our lives, even when we least expect it. If you're a fan of Everything Everywhere Daily and are curious to learn something new and exciting about economics every week, I recommend you listen to the Planet Money podcast from NPR.
What I like about Planet Money is that I can get an update on the week's financial news in about 30 minutes. Stories like the adoption of stablecoins or the price of eggs. From the job market to the stock market to prices at the supermarket, Planet Money is here to help explain it all.
The Planet Money hosts go to great lengths to help explain the economy. They've done things like shot a satellite into space, started a record label, made a comic book, and shorted the entire stock market. All to help you better understand the world around you. Tune in to Planet Money every week for entertaining stories and insights about how money shapes our world. Stories that can't be found anywhere else. Listen now to Planet Money from NPR.
Before we get into the creation of the five families and the events that resulted in the commission, which put the organization into organized crime, it's important to understand how the mafia in New York came to be. The roots of the New York mob can be traced back to Italian immigrants to the United States in the late 19th century. Many immigrants, particularly those from Sicily, Calabria, and Naples, brought their mafia traditions with them.
Sicilian immigrants introduced the Sicilian mafia, a.k.a. Costa Nostra, a secretive criminal network. Neapolitan and Calabrian immigrants brought their own criminal groups such as the Camorra and the Negrangada. These groups engage in extortion, protection rackets, gambling, and loan sharking, primarily preying on fellow Italian immigrants.
By the early 1900s, New York's Italian communities were dominated by small mafia gangs, particularly in neighborhoods like Little Italy, East Harlem, and Brooklyn. Before the mafia became highly structured, Italian gangs engaged in a crude form of extortion known as the Black Hand. The Black Hand was a form of extortion practiced by Italian criminals, primarily targeting fellow Italian immigrants in cities like New York.
It was not an organized crime syndicate, but rather a method used by independent criminals or loosely connected gangs. Black hand extortionists would send anonymous letters threatening violence, arson, or kidnapping unless money was paid, often signing them with a black handprint to instill fear.
Unlike the mafia, which operated as a hierarchical, structured criminal organization with defined leadership, codes of conduct, and long-term business interests, the Black Hand was more chaotic and opportunistic. The mafia, however, particularly the emerging Sicilian-American Costa Nostra, sought control over entire industries and ran extensive rackets, whereas black-hand criminals typically engaged in one-off extortions with little organization.
As the mafia grew in power in the 1910s, it actively eliminated blackhand operations, seeing them as unprofessional and disruptive to more profitable and sophisticated criminal enterprises. Nonetheless, many early mafia bosses had their start in black hand extortion gangs. What really changed for the mafia was prohibition. Prohibition created a massive underground market for alcohol allowing organized crime groups to accumulate wealth and power at an unprecedented rate.
The National Ban on Alcohol provided an opportunity for these groups to evolve in sophisticated criminal enterprises beyond their origins and extortion. Boot lagging became the most lucrative business and Italian mobsters quickly established supply chains, smuggling routes, and distribution networks.
During this period, several powerful mafia bosses emerged, the most dominant being Giuseppe Joe the Boss Masseria, who controlled much of the New York underworld, and his eventual rival, Salvatore Maranzano. a Sicilian boss from the Sicilian town of Castellamare del Golfo, Sicily. Masseria and Maranzano are two key figures in this story.
Masseria was the most powerful Italian crime boss in New York at the time, running a criminal empire involving bootlegging, extortion, and gambling. He followed the traditional mafia customs and expected total loyalty from those underneath him. Maranzano came from Castellamare del Golfo, Sicily, along with many other New York mobsters, and the head of the mafia there mentored him, Don Vito Faro.
Don Ferro sent Maranzano to New York to attempt to take control of the criminal underworld so that the mafia factions in Castellamare del Golfo would ultimately control it. Maranzano quickly grew his criminal empire and found himself in confrontation with Masseria. By 1929, this had erupted into an all-out war between the two factions, which became known as the Castellamare War. The war had several different causes. The most obvious were ethnic and regional divisions.
Masseria's faction consisted mostly of Sicilians and Neapolitans, while Merizano's faction was almost entirely Sicilian, particularly from the town of Castellamare del Golfo. Messeria adhered to a more rigid old-school approach to mafia leadership, while Marizano sought to introduce a structured hierarchy inspired by ancient Roman military ranks. However, the biggest reason came down to money.
Both men wanted to control the highly lucrative bootlegging trade in New York City. The war began as both sides assassinated each other's associates, bootleggers, and enforcers. Messer reordered a hit on a key Maranzano ally. Catano Rainia, who controlled the ice distribution business in the Bronx, and this move escalated the tensions. The fighting became increasingly violent, with both sides using hitmen to carry out assassinations.
Several prominent mobsters were killed, including Joseph Perino, a Masseria ally, and Vito Bonventre, a Manzaro ally. Now entrenched in the picture, the man who is perhaps the most important character in this entire story, Salvador Lucky Luciano. Luciano was born in Sicily, and in 1906, at the age of nine, his family emigrated to the United States, settling in New York's Lower East Side, a rough, crime-ridden neighborhood where many Italian immigrants lived in poverty.
As a teenager, Luciano quickly became involved in criminal activities forming his own street gang. Unlike many Italian immigrants who only associated with their own kind, Luciano built connections with Jewish and Irish gangsters, including Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. In his late teens and early 20s, Luciano worked for Joe Masseria and became involved in prostitution, narcotics trafficking, and bootlegging during Prohibition.
By the mid-1920s, Luciano was a rising star in the mafia, making millions from bootlegging while maintaining strong alliances with non-Italian criminals, including the likes of Lansky and Siegel. In 1929, he was kidnapped, beaten, and stabbed multiple times before being dumped on Staten Island. Miraculously, he survived, earning him the nickname Lucky.
When the Castellamare war broke out, Luciano initially sided with Masseria, but became frustrated with the old-school mustache Pete mentality, which resisted working with non-Italians and limited opportunities for younger gangsters. Mustache Pete was a name given to old-school mobsters from Sicily. Seeing an opportunity to modernize the mafia, Luciano secretly aligned with Maranzano.
On April 15, 1931, he set up Masseria's assassination at a Coney Island restaurant where Hitman, allegedly including Bugsy Siegel and Albert Anastasia, gunned down Masseria while Luciano excused himself to the restroom. In exchange for the execution of Masseria, Luciano would get his business and be the number two guy under Maranzano. With Masseria dead, the war was now over.
and Maranzano found himself at the top of Italian organized crime in New York City. One of the first things that Maranzano did was to create a new organizational system which he based on Roman military hierarchy. He created five families, with each family to be headed by a boss. The first five bosses were Lucky Luciano, Vincent Mangano, Tommy Gagliano, Joe Bonanno, and Maranzano himself.
Each family would then have underneath the boss, an underboss, a consigliere, several capos, and many soldiers. At a meeting in upstate New York, Maranzano declared himself to be Capo di Tutti Capi, or... boss of all bosses. While these changes to the structure and organization of the mafia were well-received, Maranzano was fundamentally paranoid. He soon turned against Luciano, plotting to eliminate him and his allies.
Word of the pending assassination made its way to Luciano. Before Maranzano could act, Luciano struck first. On September 10, 1931, Luciano ordered Maranzano's assassination inside his office. The hit was carried out by Jewish gunmen, a move that broke mafia tradition. Maranzano had been the top boss for less than six months, and now the guy on top was Lucky Luciano.
Maranzano had been dubbed Little Caesar because of his obsession with Roman history. If Maranzano was Caesar, then in a very real sense, Luciano became Augustus.
Lugiano did not take the title boss of bosses for himself, as he knew it would only draw the ire of the other bosses. Instead, he created a new system called the Commission. Instead of a single supreme leader, the commission acted as a board of directors, allowing mafia families to resolve disputes, regulate criminal activities, and maintain order within the underworld.
The commission consisted of the heads of the five families established by Maranzano, as well as the head of the Chicago mob, who was Al Capone at the time, and also the head of the Buffalo, New York mob. Every member of the commission would have a single vote, and no boss would have total control. The commission had several purposes. The first was preventing internal conflicts. By resolving disputes between mafia families peacefully, it reduced unnecessary wars.
The second was regulating criminal activities. The commission set rules and guidelines for how families operated, ensuring cooperation instead of competition. The third was approving murders. Any high-profile assassination, such as a boss or high-ranking member, required commission approval. The fourth was managing territories and profits. The commission determined which families controlled certain cities and industries.
Finally, the commission allowed for national coordination. It allowed organized crime to expand beyond New York City, maintaining its influence and control across the entire United States. The goal of all of these reforms was to avoid another Castellamare war, as mob wars were very bad for business. The commission didn't meet frequently. In fact, the original agreement was that they would meet only once every five years.
or if there was a need to resolve an important issue. One of the issues that they would adjudicate would be who would take over a family after a boss died or retired. The commission approved their successor to prevent power struggles. They also served as a sort of Supreme Court, being the last word on any disagreements or disputes between families so they wouldn't break out in violence.
The commission system developed by Lucky Luciano worked quite well at reducing violence and improving profits for all of the families involved. However, the commission itself became the weak point in the entire system. While the commission didn't meet that often, when they did, it became a potential single point of failure for the entire mafia. And this exact scenario happened in 1957 when the commission held a major meeting in Appalachian, New York, attended by over 60 top mafia bosses.
The meeting was raided by police, leading to multiple arrests and exposing the mafia structure to the FBI, which, under J. Edgar Hoover, had previously denied the mafia's existence. The Appalachian raid led to increased government surveillance and legal pressure on the mafia for years. Nonetheless, the commission and the five-family system survived.
Now, if you know even a bit about the New York Mafia, you probably didn't recognize the names I gave as the first bosses of the families. And that's because most of the families became known by other bosses who came after them. In particular, the modern names of the families were named after who the bosses were during the 1963 McClellan hearings in the United States Senate. Joseph Bonanno's family remained the Bonanno family.
Lucky Luciano's family became known as the Genovese family, named after Vito Genovese. Vincent Magano's family became known as the Gambino family, named after Carlo Gambino. Tommy Galliano's family became known as the Lucchese family, named after Tommy Lucchese, and Joseph Profacki's family became known as the Colombo family, named after Joseph Colombo.
As for Lucky Luciano, despite his power, Luciano's empire drew the attention of law enforcement. In 1936, Special Prosecutor Thomas Dewey launched an investigation into Luciano's prostitution operations. Luciano was arrested, tried, and convicted of running brothels. In June 1936, he was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison, marking the biggest blow to organized crime at that time.
However, the U.S. government struck a deal with Luciano during World War II to help protect the New York docks. And in 1946, as a reward for his assistance, the now governor of New York State, Thomas Dewey, commuted his sentence. and Luciano was deported to Italy, permanently barred from returning to the United States. Luciano suffered a fatal heart attack on January 26, 1962 at the age of 64, after meeting with a film producer who wanted to make a film based on his life story.
Although the Mafia still exists, the Commission is no longer as powerful as it once was. Several high-profile bosses were imprisoned, murdered, or turned informant, and the Mafia's influence over industries like labor unions and casinos has significantly declined. However, the five families of New York still operate.
albeit in a much more low-profile and decentralized manner. Lucky Luciano is considered to be the father of the American Mafia for his role in resolving the Castellammare War and for taking the steps to actually put some organization into organized crime. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Benji Long and Cameron Kiever.
I want to give a big shout out to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon, including the show's producers. Your support helps me put out a show every single day. And also, Patreon is currently the only place where Everything Everywhere Daily merchandise is available to the top tier of supporters. If you'd like to talk to other listeners of the show and members of the Completionist Club, you can join the Everything Everywhere Daily Facebook group.
or Discord server. Links to everything are in the show notes.