Joe Profaci owed his success to a network of so-called “cousins” from the old country.
The social networks of Joseph Profaci
Tommy Lucchese
Tommy Lucchese spent his formative years in a neighborhood dominated by the Morello-Terranova gang of Corleone. At the height of his power, some of the men closest to him were Corleonesi, people who’d worked with Giuseppe Morello, and who Tommy had known and worked with since his teens.
Apalachin, NY: 14 November 1957
On 14 November 1957, state police descended upon Joseph Barbara’s woodland retreat, arresting some sixty men: all of them professional criminals with connections to powerful Mafia Families.
Garbage hauling cartels: the dark matter of organized crime
The waste hauling cartel in New York City is a corruption as old as the industry in which it is embedded.
Three “tells” of Mafia families
The extended family of brothers Ciro and Vincent Terranova and their nephews, Jimmy and Joe “Baker” Catania, have three distinctive “tells” of Mafia families.
Pip the Blind
Joseph Gagliano, who was known by the nickname “Pip the Blind,” was called “the mastermind of one of the biggest opium rings in the country” by the assistant district attorney who prosecuted him for narcotics trafficking in 1946.
Giuseppe Morello and the Macaroni Wars
New Orleans Mafia boss Francesco Genova attempted to take over a macaroni factory in Donaldsonville, in northeastern Louisiana. The legitimate owners, Antonio and Salvadore Luciano, fought back, but were unlucky enough to miss....
Vengeance for the Barrel Murder
Benedetto Madonia was killed for defending his brother-in-law from Giuseppe Morello. While he is known forever as the victim of “the Barrel Murder,” the story of what happened after his death is rarely told.
The detective’s private stenographer
In a letter dated 7 February 1911, James V. Ortelero asks for a favor from the superintendent of the federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia: obtain a murder confession from Giuseppe Morello.
Giuseppe Morello’s counterfeiting gang
In the summer of 1909, detective William Flynn sought the source of counterfeit bills flooding banks and businesses in several cities across the United States. He tied the counterfeiting operation to Giuseppe Morello’s gang by following one of the passers of bad bills, Giuseppe Boscarino.
Mafia Genealogy 