Operation Underworld was the United States government's code name for the cooperation of Italian and

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

organized crime Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...

figures from 1942 to 1945 to counter

Axis An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to: Mathematics * Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis * Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinat ...

spies and saboteurs along the U.S. northeastern seaboard ports, avoid wartime labor union strikes, and limit theft by black-marketeers of vital war supplies and equipment. In the first three months after the

Attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii ...

on December 7, 1941, the U.S. lost 120 merchant ships to German U-boats and surface raiders in the Battle of the Atlantic, and in February 1942 the ocean liner '' SS Normandie'' – a captured French ship that was being refitted as a troop ship in New York harbor – was allegedly sabotaged and sunk by arson in the Port of New York. The

Mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...

boss

Albert Anastasia Umberto "Albert" Anastasia (, ; ; September 26, 1902 – October 25, 1957) was an Italian-American mobster, hitman, and crime boss. One of the founders of the modern American Mafia, and a co-founder and later boss of the Murder, Inc. organizat ...

claimed responsibility for the sabotage.Newark, ''Mafia Allies'', pp. 83-98 Although the United States government claimed the loss of the ''Normandie'' was an accident, many Americans were skeptical and thought the destruction was planned by the Nazis. Several Axis spies and saboteurs were arrested and hanged, but no evidence was ever produced linking Axis spies to the loss of the ''Normandie''. After the war, Axis records claimed no sabotage operation had existed and no evidence has ever been produced on the Allied side to indicate there had been underworld sabotage.Campbell, ''The Luciano Project'', p. 29 Nevertheless, fears about possible sabotage or disruption of the waterfront led Commander Charles R. Haffenden of the U.S. Navy

Office of Naval Intelligence The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) is the military intelligence agency of the United States Navy. Established in 1882 primarily to advance the Navy's modernization efforts, it is the oldest member of the U.S. Intelligence Community and serve ...

(ONI) Third Naval District in New York to set up a special security unit. He sought the help of

Joseph Lanza Joseph A. "Socks" Lanza (1904 – October 11, 1968) was a New York labor racketeer and a member of the Genovese crime family, who controlled the Fulton Fish Market in Lower Manhattan through the United Seafood Worker's Union local 359 from 1923 ...

, who ran the

Fulton Fish Market The Fulton Fish Market is a fish market in Hunts Point, a section of the New York City borough of the Bronx, in New York, United States. It was originally a wing of the Fulton Market, established in 1822 to sell a variety of foodstuffs and p ...

, to get intelligence about the New York waterfront, control the labor unions, and identify possible refueling and resupply operations for German submarines with the help of the fishing industry along the Atlantic Coast. To cover Lanza’s activities, he approached

Meyer Lansky Meyer Lansky (born Maier Suchowljansky; July 4, 1902 – January 15, 1983), known as the "Mob's Accountant", was an American organized crime figure who, along with his associate Charles "Lucky" Luciano, was instrumental in the development of the ...

and solicited his help in reaching

Charles Luciano Charles "Lucky" Luciano (, ; born Salvatore Lucania ; November 24, 1897 – January 26, 1962) was an Italian-born gangster who operated mainly in the United States. Luciano started his criminal career in the Five Points gang and was instrument ...

who was an important boss of the five New York Mafia crime families. Luciano agreed to cooperate with authorities in hopes of consideration for early release from prison.Newark, ''Mafia Allies'', pp. 99-111 In 1936, Luciano had been tried and convicted for compulsory prostitution and running a prostitution racket after years of investigation by District Attorney

Thomas E. Dewey Thomas Edmund Dewey (March 24, 1902 – March 16, 1971) was an American lawyer, prosecutor, and politician who served as the 47th governor of New York from 1943 to 1954. He was the Republican candidate for president in 1944 and 1948: although ...

. He was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison, but during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

an agreement was struck with the Department of the Navy through his associate

to provide naval

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. More generally, it can be des ...

. In 1946, for his alleged wartime cooperation, Luciano's sentence was commuted on the condition that he be deported to Italy. Luciano’s contacts even assisted in the Allies’ 1943 amphibious invasion of Sicily by providing maps of the island’s harbors, photographs of its coastline and names of trusted contacts inside the Sicilian Mafia, who also wished to see Mussolini toppled. Luciano directed

Calogero Vizzini Calogero "Don Calò" Vizzini (; 24 July 1877 – 10 July 1954) was a Sicilian Mafia boss of Villalba in the Province of Caltanissetta, Sicily. Vizzini was considered to be one of the most influential and legendary Mafia bosses of Sicily after ...

to assist the Allied Forces in the invasion of Italy. Vizzini is the central character in the history of direct Mafia support for the Allied Forces during the

invasion of Sicily The Allied invasion of Sicily, also known as Operation Husky, was a major campaign of World War II in which the Allied forces invaded the island of Sicily in July 1943 and took it from the Axis powers ( Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany). It bega ...

in 1943. Vizzini spent 6 days on an American tank during the Allied invasion of Italy, guiding Allied forces through the mountain pass and directing his Sicilian Mafia to eliminate Italian snipers in the mountains. Luciano was in Dannemora at the time, serving a 30 to 50-year sentence for running a prostitution ring. For his cooperation he was moved to a more convenient and comfortable open prison in Great Meadows in May 1942.Newark, ''Mafia Allies'', p. 103 Luciano’s influence in stopping sabotage remains unclear, but authorities did note that strikes on the docks stopped after Luciano’s attorney Moses Polakoff contacted underworld figures with influence over the longshoremen and their unions.Campbell, ''The Luciano Project'', pp. 111-127 In 1946 Luciano's sentence was commuted – after serving 9½ years – and he was

deported Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. The term ''expulsion'' is often used as a synonym for deportation, though expulsion is more often used in the context of international law, while deportation ...

to his native

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

.Campbell, ''The Luciano Project'', pp. 233 ff.

References

Further reading