Consigliere
Consigliere ( , ; plural is a position within the leadership structure of the Sicilian, Calabrian, and Italian-American Mafia. The word was popularized in English by the novel ''The Godfather'' (1969) and its film adaptation. In the novel, a consigliere is an advisor or counselor to the boss, with the additional responsibility of representing the boss in important meetings both within the boss's crime family and with other crime families. The consigliere is a close, trusted friend and confidant, the mob's version of an elder statesman. They are an advisor to the boss in a Mafia crime family, and sometimes their "right-hand man". By the very nature of the job, a consigliere is one of the few in the family who can argue with the boss, and is often tasked with challenging the boss when needed, to ensure subsequent plans are foolproof. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Colombo Family
The Colombo crime family (, ) is an Italian Americans, Italian American American Mafia, Mafia crime family and the youngest of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City within the criminal organization known as the American Mafia. It was during Lucky Luciano's organization of the American Mafia after the Castellammarese War, following the assassinations of Joe Masseria, "Joe the Boss" Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano, that the gang run by Joseph Profaci became recognized as the Profaci crime family. The family traces its roots to a bootlegging gang formed by Profaci in 1928. Profaci ruled his family without interruption or challenge until the late 1950s.Critchley, David. (2009''The origins of organized crime in America: the New York City mafia, 1891-1931'' Taylor & Francis. pp. 160-64. .Robbins, Michael W. and Palitz, Wendy (2001)''Brooklyn: a state of mind'' Workman Publishing. p. 104. The family has been torn by three internal wars. The first ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Genovese Family
The Genovese crime family (), also sometimes referred to as the Westside, is an Italian American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the American Mafia. The Genovese family has generally maintained a varying degree of influence over many of the smaller mob families outside New York, including ties with the Philadelphia, Cleveland, Patriarca, and Buffalo crime families. The modern family was founded by Charles "Lucky" Luciano and was known as the Luciano crime family from 1931 to 1957, when Vito Genovese became boss. Genovese was head of the family during the McClellan hearings in 1963, which gave the Five Families their current names. Originally in control of the waterfront on the West Side of Manhattan as well as the docks and the Fulton Fish Market on the East River waterfront, the family was run between 1981 and 2005 by "The Oddfather", Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, who feig ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Los Angeles Crime Family
The Los Angeles crime family, also known as the Dragna crime family, the Southern California crime family or the L.A. Mafia, and dubbed "the Mickey Mouse Mafia" by former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates, is an Italian American Mafia crime family based in Los Angeles, California as part of the larger Italian-American Mafia. Since its inception in the early 20th century, the family has spread throughout Southern California. Like most Mafia families in the United States, the Los Angeles crime family gained wealth and power through bootlegging alcohol during the Prohibition era. The L.A. family reached its peak strength in the 1940s and early 1950s under Jack Dragna, although the family was never larger than the New York or Chicago families. The Los Angeles crime family itself has been on a gradual decline, with the Chicago Outfit representing them on The Commission since the death of boss Jack Dragna in 1956. The sources for much of the current information on the history of th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Frank Bompensiero
Frank "Bomp" Bompensiero (October 29, 1905 – February 10, 1977) was a Sicilian-American American Mafia, mobster who was a longtime caporegime in the Los Angeles crime family. In 1956, with the death of boss Jack Dragna, Bompensiero was demoted to the rank of soldier by the new boss, Frank DeSimone. He was the older brother of associate Salvatore "Sam" Bompensiero. Bompensiero made a name for himself for the many killings he committed on the orders of his superiors. Jimmy Fratianno, a close associate, once said that Bompensiero "had buried more bones than could be found in the brontosaurus room of the National Museum of Natural History, Museum of Natural History.""Frank Bompensiero: San Diego Hit Man, Boss and FBI Informant" Crime Magazine by Allen May ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Italian-American Mafia
The American Mafia, commonly referred to in North America as the Italian-American Mafia, the Mafia, or the Mob, is a highly organized Italian-American criminal society and organized crime group. The terms Italian Mafia and Italian Mob apply to these US-based organizations, as well as the separate yet related Sicilian Mafia or other organized crime groups in Italy, or ethnic Italian crime groups in other countries. These organizations are often referred to by its members as Cosa Nostra (, "Our Thing" or "This Thing of Ours") and by the American government as La Cosa Nostra (LCN). The organization's name is derived from the original ''Mafia'' or ''Cosa Nostra'', the Sicilian Mafia, with "American Mafia" originally referring simply to Mafia groups from Sicily operating in the United States. The Mafia in the United States emerged in impoverished Italian immigrant neighborhoods in New York's East Harlem (or " Italian Harlem"), the Lower East Side, and Brooklyn; also emerging in o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Crime Boss
A crime boss, also known as a crime lord, mafia don, mob boss, kingpin, or godfather is the leader of a criminal organization. Description A crime boss has absolute or nearly absolute control over the other members of the organization and is often greatly feared or respected for being willing to use criminal means to exert their influence and gain profits from the criminal endeavors in which the organization engages.Manning, George A. ''iarchive:financialinvesti0002mann, Financial Investigation and Forensic Accounting.'' Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, 2005. Some groups may only have as little as two ranks (a crime boss and their soldiers). Other groups have a more complex, structured organization with many ranks, and structure may vary with cultural background. Organized crime enterprises originating in Sicily differ in structure from those in mainland Italy. American groups may be structured differently from their European counterparts and Latino and African American gangs oft ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Underboss
Underboss () is a position within the leadership structure of certain organized crime groups, particularly in Sicilian Mafia, Sicilian and Italian-American Mafia crime families. The underboss is second in command to the Crime boss, boss. The underboss is also person-in-charge of all Caporegime, capos and its Soldato, soldiers. The underboss is sometimes a family member, such as a son, who will take over the family if the boss is sick, killed, or imprisoned. However the position of street boss has somewhat challenged the rank of underboss in the modern era. The position was installed within the Genovese crime family since at least the mid-1960s. It has also been used in the Detroit crime family and the Chicago Outfit. The power of an underboss greatly varies; some are marginal figures, while others are the most powerful individual in the family. Traditionally they run day-to-day affairs of the family. In some crime families, the appointment is for life. If a new boss takes over a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Joe Gallo
Joseph Gallo (April 7, 1929 – April 7, 1972), also known as "Crazy Joe", was an Italian-American mobster and a captain in the Colombo crime family of New York City. Diagnosed with schizophrenia in his youth, Gallo became an enforcer in the Profaci crime family and formed his own crew with his brothers, Larry and Albert. In 1957, Joe Profaci allegedly asked the Gallo crew to murder Albert Anastasia, the boss of what was to become the Gambino crime family; Anastasia was later murdered at a barbershop in Midtown Manhattan. In 1961, the Gallo brothers kidnapped four of Profaci's top men: underboss Joseph Magliocco, Frank Profaci (Joe Profaci's brother), captain Salvatore Musacchia and soldier John Scimone, demanding a more favorable financial scheme for the hostages' release. After a few weeks of negotiation, Profaci and his ''consigliere'', Charles "the Sidge" LoCicero, made a deal with the Gallos and secured the peaceful release of the hostages. This incited the First Colo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Carmine Sessa
Carmine Sessa, alias Carmine Marletta (born 1951), is an Italian-American mobster and former consigliere of the Brooklyn-based Colombo crime family, and played a key role in the family from 1991 to 1993. He later became a government witness. Biography Murders After becoming a government witness, Sessa admitted to personally murdering four people. In September 1984, Sessa murdered Mary Bari, a former girlfriend of then Colombo consigliere Alphonse Persico. When Persico went into hiding to avoid an indictment, the family decided to kill Bari out of concern that she knew Persico's location. Bari was lured into Sessa's social club Occasions on the pretext of a job interview. When Bari arrived, Sessa shot her three times in the head. In May 1988, Sessa murdered Anthony Bolino. Suspecting Bolino of robbing his dealers, Sessa shot him one time in the head on a street corner in Bayside. In November 1988, Sessa murdered Vincent Angellino, a top capo in the Colombo family. Angellino w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Victor Orena
Victor J. Orena (born August 4, 1934), also known as "Little Vic", is an American mobster who became the acting boss of the Colombo crime family of New York City. A challenge by Orena to boss Carmine Persico triggered one of the bloodiest Mafia wars of the late 20th century, and the last major mob war in New York to date. Early life Born in New York City, Victor Orena's father died when he was a child. Orena spent time in a reform school and eventually dropped out of high school. According to his son, Orena entered the mob life because the wiseguys he knew had risen from humble beginnings and had become big figures in his neighborhood. In the early 1970s, Carmine Persico, the boss of the Colombo crime family, allegedly had a few people " made" into his organization, even though the "books" had officially been closed since 1958, barring any new inductions. One of these men was Orena, who rose through the ranks and operated in Brooklyn, Long Island, and New Jersey primarily ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lexico
''Lexico'' was a dictionary website that provided a collection of English and Spanish dictionaries produced by Oxford University Press (OUP), the publishing house of the University of Oxford. While the dictionary content on ''Lexico'' came from OUP, this website was operated by Dictionary.com, whose eponymous website hosts dictionaries by other publishers such as Random House. The website was closed and redirected to Dictionary.com on 26 August 2022. Before the Lexico site was launched, the ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' and ''New Oxford American Dictionary'' were hosted by OUP's own website ''Oxford Dictionaries Online'' (''ODO''), later known as ''Oxford Living Dictionaries''. The dictionaries' definitions have also appeared in Google Dictionary, Google definition search and the Dictionary (software), Dictionary application on macOS, among others, licensed through the Oxford Dictionaries API. History In the 2000s, OUP allowed access to content of the ''Compact Oxford Englis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Joe Bonanno
Joseph Charles Bonanno (born Giuseppe Carlo Bonanno; ; January 18, 1905 – May 11, 2002), sometimes referred to as Joe Bananas, was an Italian-American crime boss of the Bonanno crime family of New York City, which he ran from 1931 to 1968. Bonanno was born in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, where his father was also involved in organized crime. At the age of three, Bonanno emigrated to New York City with his family, where he lived for about 10 years before he moved back to Italy. He later slipped back into the United States in 1924, by stowing away on a Cuban fishing boat bound for Tampa, Florida. After the Castellammarese War, during which Salvatore Maranzano was murdered in 1931, Bonanno reorganized most of the crime family as the Bonanno family. At age 26, Bonanno became one of the youngest-ever bosses of a crime family. In 1963, Bonanno made plans with Joseph Magliocco to assassinate several rivals on the The Commission (mafia), Mafia Commission. When Magliocco gave the c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |