Bonanno crime family
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Bonanno crime family is one of the "Five Families" that controls organized crime activities in New York City, USA, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia (or Cosa Nostra).
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[edit] History of the Bonanno crime family
[edit] The formation of the family
The Castellammarese War between Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano was the catalyst for the creation of the Five Families. Having variously played both sides to further his own aims, Charles "Lucky" Luciano had both men killed within six months of each other in order to restructure the mob, remove the position of the "Boss of Bosses" so coveted by Maranzano and establish The Commission to regulate the affairs of the families. One of the five branches established was headed up by Joe Bonanno.
Bonanno was at the time the youngest of the bosses of the Five Families at 26 years old. He directed the family into the popular organised crime dealings, involving gambling, loan-sharking, and racketeering. The Bonanno Family was considered the closest knit of the Five Families due to the fact that it was made up of mostly Sicilians from the seaside town where Bonanno was born – Castellamare del Golfo, Sicily. Bonnano strongly believed blood relations and a strict Sicilian upbringing could be the only way to hold the traditional values of La Cosa Nostra together.
Bonanno's powerbase was augmented by his close relations with Joseph Profaci, head of one of the other families. Among these connections was the 1956 marriage of Bonanno's son Salvatore ("Bill") to Profaci's niece Rosalie. If members of the other three families exercised thoughts of muscling in on Bonanno enterprises, the close ties to the Profaci family (which later became the Colombo family) made them think twice, but the death of Joe Profaci in 1962 threatened to undermine Bonanno's position.
[edit] The Banana War
Many men in Bonanno's family were growing wary, complaining that he was never around. Eventually, the commission decided that he no longer deserved to be boss, naming Bonanno caporegime Gaspar DiGregorio the new boss. If they had expected Bonanno to take this lying down however, they were wrong.
The skirmishes that then took place between DiGregorio supporters and Bonanno loyalists, led by Frank Labruzzo and Bonanno's son Bill, became known as the Banana War. Matters came to a head in a house in Brooklyn where a peace summit was due to be held between the two sides - DiGregorio's men arrived intending to wipe out the opposition and a large gun battle ensued, though no-one was killed.
Further peace offers from both sides were spurned and the family's troubles continued. The Commission grew tired of the affair and replaced DiGregorio with Paul Sciacca, but the fighting carried on regardless with both sides losing a number of men.
The war was finally brought to a close with Bonanno, still in hiding, suffering a heart attack and announcing his permanent retirement in 1968 (he went on to live to the age of 97, dying in Arizona in 2002).
Both factions came together under Sciacca's leadership, but he was jailed on narcotics charges in 1971 and was replaced by Natale "Joe Diamonds" Evola as boss of the Bonanno family. His leadership was short-lived - his death (from natural causes) in 1973 brought Phillip "Rusty" Rastelli to the throne.
[edit] Spurned by the Commission
Due to the infighting of the Bonanno family, they were stripped of their seat on the Commission, and Rastelli took charge of a seemingly hapless, doomed organisation. Rastelli's former friend Carmine Galante became a powerful and dangerous renegade.
Having prevoiusly acted as a focal point for the importation of heroin to the USA via Montreal, Galante set about refining the family's drug trafficking operations. The incredibly lucrative deals he was able to make, made the family a fortune, but with the other four families being kept out of the arrangements, Galante was making a rod for his own back.
When eight members of the Genovese family were murdered on Galante's orders for trying to muscle in on his drug operation, the other families decided he had outlived his usefulness at the head of the Bonanno family. On July 12, 1979, Galante was shot dead by three masked men at a restaurant in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn.
Rastelli took over once again, but the family's internal strife was far from over. Three renegade capos - Philip "Philly Lucky" Giaccone, Alphonse "Sonny Red" Indelicato and Dominick "Big Trin" Trinchera - began to openly question Rastelli's leadership and apparently to plot to overthrow him. With the blessing of the other families, Rastelli had the three men wiped out in a hit arranged by future boss Joseph "Big Joe" Massino.
The alleged “Boss” of the Mafia in Montreal Vito Rizzuto was extradited from Canada to the USA in August 2006 and will face charges in connection with the murder of three captains of the Bonanno family in 1981.
[edit] Donnie Brasco
Two of the men involved in the murder of the three rogue Bonanno men were Benjamin "Lefty Guns" Ruggiero and his capo Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano. He had become friendly with a man calling himself Donnie Brasco and had proposed him as a full member of the family, but unbeknownst to Napolitano, Brasco was in fact undercover FBI agent Joe Pistone. Numerous charges were aimed at members of the family following the evidence and testimony of Pistone and both Ruggiero and Rastelli received lengthy sentences and would die behind bars during the 1990s (both from cancer). Napolitano faced a worse fate - on August 17, 1981, he was shot in the basement of Ron Filocomo's house by Filocomo and Frank "Curly" Lino.
[edit] The family regroups
Rastelli's death in 1991, following a period where he ruled the family from inside prison, saw the promotion of Massino to the top spot. Finally, the family had found a man who could reverse its fortunes. By promoting a far more secretive way of doing business, Massino not only concentrated on the narcotics trade as had become mandatory for a mob boss, but also in other areas less likely to draw the attention of the authorities than drugs, such as the Mafia's stock trades of racketeering, money laundering and loan sharking.
As a result, while the other families were finding their bosses targeted by the police for drug offences, Massino managed to keep his nose clean until the killing of Napolitano came back to haunt him. He and his underboss, Salvatore Vitale, were charged with the crime in 2003 following two of their capos turning themselves over as witnesses for the government. Vitale, who had until that point been utterly loyal to his boss, also faced a further murder charge and decided to switch sides himself, condemning Massino to life imprisonment. Capital punishment had been a possibility for Massino, but in 2004 he became the first serving boss to turn informant, sparing himself the ultimate penalty.
Massino is believed to be the man who pointed the FBI towards a spot in Ozone Park, Queens, called "The Hole", where the body of Alphonse Indelicato had been found in 1981. Told to dig a little deeper, authorities duly uncovered the remains of Dominick Trinchera and Philip Giaccone, as well as a body suspected to be that of John Favara, a neighbor of Gambino family boss John Gotti who had killed the mobster's son in a car/minibike accident, and paid with his life.
[edit] The current position of the family
Massino is also believed to have provided the police with information on Vincent Basciano, the alleged current boss of the Bonanno family. Before Massino became an informant himself, his acting boss on the outside was Anthony "Tony Green" Urso, but his tenure was short-lived as he too was imprisoned on numerous charges, leading to Basciano taking control.
The authorities continue to plague the family, with acting boss Michael Mancuso facing murder charges and Basciano himself recently convicted on charges of conspiracy to murder, attempted murder and illegal gambling.
In July 2004, the New York Times reported that federal prosecutors in Brooklyn "say that over all, in the last four years, they have won convictions against roughly 75 mobsters or associates in a crime clan with fewer than 150 made members."[1]
[edit] Bosses of the Bonanno crime family
- 1931–1964 — Joseph Bonanno
- 1964–1965 — Salvatore Bonanno (acting boss)
- 1965–1968 — Joseph Bonanno
- 1968 — Paul Sciacca
- 1968–1971 — Natale Evola
- 1973–1975 — Phillip Rastelli
- 1975–1979 — Carmine Galante
- 1979–1991 — Phillip Rastelli
- 1991–2004 — Joe Massino
- 2003–2004 — Anthony Urso (acting boss)
- 2004–2006 — Vincent Basciano
- 2006 — Michael Mancuso (acting boss)
[edit] Other members
- Anthony Indelicato
- Salvatore Bonanno
- Albert Embarrato
- Costabile Farace
- Sonny Red Indelicato
- Sonny Black Napolitano
- Joseph D. Pistone (proposed for induction, but never "made")
- Benjamin Ruggiero
- Salvatore Vitale
[edit] Further reading
- Alexander, Shana. The Pizza Connection: Lawyers, Drugs, Money, Mafia. New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988.
- Blumenthal, Ralph. Last Days of the Sicilians. New York: Simon & Schuster (Pocket Books), 1988.
- Sterling, Claire. Octopus: How the Long Reach of the Sicilian Mafia Controls The global Narcotics Trade. New York: Simon & Schuster (Touchstone), 1990.
- Stille, Alexander. Exellent Cadavers: The Mafia & the Death of the First Italian Republic. New York: Random House, 1995.
- Nicaso, Antonio & Lamothe, Lee. Bloodlines: The Rise & Fall of the Mafia's Royal Family. Canada: Harper Collins, 2001.
- Raab, Selwyn. The Five Families: The Rise, Decline & Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empire. New York: St. Martins Press, 2005.
- Edwards, Peter. The Northern Connection: Inside Canada's Deadliest Mafia Family. Canada: Optimum International, 2006.
- Humphreys, Adrian & Lamothe, Lee. The Sixth Family: The Collapse of the New York Mafia & the Rise of Vito Rizzuto. Canada: Wiley, 2006.
- Crittle, Simon. The Last Godfather: The Rise & Fall of Joey Massino. New York: Berkley Books, 2006.
- DeStefano, Anthony. The Last Godfather: Joey Massino & the Fall of the Bonanno Crime Family. California: Citadel, 2006.
