Infamous America - LUCKY LUCIANO Ep. 3 | "Boss of Bosses”

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

In the spring of 1931, Charles Luciano orchestrates the removal of his boss, Joe Masseria. Luciano cuts a deal with Salvatore Maranzano to become the boss of his own crime family. But when Maranzano declares himself “the boss of all bosses,” Luciano becomes concerned. After months of Maranzano’s tyranny, Luciano realizes he needs to force another dramatic change in order to institute his vision for the mafia. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join   Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial.   On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage.   For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Power is not given, it is taken, is an expression that's commonly attributed to Octavian, better known as Augustus Caesar, the first emperor of Rome. It was a fitting quote from a Roman emperor, and it was still relevant 2,000 years later when mobsters were battling for power in New York in the early 1930s. Throughout the 1920s, Charlie Luciano had worked for Joe the boss, Masaria, and became Maseria's most trusted lieutenant. But the relationship soured when Masaria became embroiled in a feud with another boss, Salvatore Maranzano.

The feud escalated into a full-blown conflict called the Castellomerese War. It started in February 1930 and dragged on for more than a year. By the spring of 1931, it seemed as if the bloodshed would never end. Luciano despised the carnage because it interfered with business and drew unwanted attention from the police and the press. So Luciano cut a deal with Maranzano, and he organized the murder of his boss. On April 15, 1931, Luciano and Maseria

had lunch at a restaurant in Coney Island. When Luciano excused himself to the restroom, assassins burst into the restaurant and killed Joe Mazaria. According to gangland lore, when the police arrived at the restaurant, they found the owner's mother-in-lawful. law hunched over Masaria's body. In Masaria's hand was a bloody ace of spades playing card. If the scene were in a modern movie or TV show, the card would probably be interpreted as a

message from the killers. In reality, Masaria had been playing a card game called Peanuckle before he was shot. But there was probably more to that part of the story. Lucky Luciano was said to still be at the restaurant when officers arrived. Supposedly, he was distraught. One minute he was dining with his boss, and the next, his boss was full of lead and dead on the ground. When questioned by police, Luciano couldn't give them any information because he was in the bathroom when the assassination happened. In reality, Luciano was long gone from the restaurant when the police arrived. Newspapers don't mention him, and he likely either ran off with the assassins or fled out the back. And while there is a famous photograph of Joe Maseria's lifeless hand,

holding an Ace of Spade's playing card, it almost certainly wasn't in his hand when he was shot. The consensus was that the card was probably added by the press for dramatic effect. The NYPD started their investigation, and a few hours after the assassination, they discovered the getaway car in a Brooklyn alley. Inside the car, they found a few pistols, and in the alley they found a few more pistols,

as well as discarded hats and coats. Beyond that, investigators never found anything that could lead them to the killers, and the case went cold. The prominent story has always been that there were four shooters, and if their identities are accurate, they were an all-star team of the next generation of mobsters. Luciano allegedly chose Vito Genovese, Bugsy Siegel, Joe Adonis, and Albert Anastasia to carry out the hit on Joe Maseria. Right after the assassination, Luciano returned to his apartment and cleaned up. Later that day, a few Maranzano associates dropped by the apartment. Luciano said he and his men had killed Masaria and would accept Maranzano as the new boss,

but only up to a point. Organized crime needed major changes, and if Luciano didn't like the way things were headed, he was prepared to go back to war. From Black Barrel Media, this is infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season we're telling the story of Charles Lucky Luciano. He was a notorious bootleger, a gunman, a key player in a mob war, and the father of the American mafia. This is episode three, Boss of Bosses.

With Joe Masaria's death, the Italian underworld experienced a sizable shakeup. While the Irish and Jewish gangs continued with business as usual, The Italians, specifically the Sicilians, learned that the organizational chart would be seriously restructured. As it turned out, Salvatore Maranzano wasn't as set in the old ways as were many of his predecessors. It isn't clear if Luciano knew that Maranzano was planning on reorganizing the mafia, but it must have sounded like music to his ears when he started to hear hints that change was coming. Maranzano's plans weren't going to be secret for very long. Now that his rival Joe Masaria was out of the way, the time had come to let the survivors of the Castellimerese

war know that things were going to be different. Not long after Masaria's death, Maranzano called a meeting with all the other major players in New York City. He also demanded that bosses from other cities, like Al Capone in Chicago, attend the meaning and learn about the changes. The historic mobster meeting was held at a resort in Wappinghurst Falls, New York, a small town along the Hudson River about 70 miles north of Manhattan. When everyone was gathered, Maranzano proudly stood up. For those of the Castellamere clan, he was seen as a war hero, the man who had bested his rival.

Of course, the man who really ended the war sat quietly in the crowd. Charlie Luciano waited to see if Maranzano's vision for the future corresponded with his own. Maranzano declared that moving forward, all Sicilian gangs in New York would be reorganized into five families. There would be no more individual gangs who ran little bits of territory here and little bits there.

There would be no more sprawling networks of confusing alliances. Five large groups would be established, each with its own identified territories and military-style structure to avoid confusion and dysfunction. Each of the five families would be led by a boss, and Maranzano listed the original bosses of the five families. He gave his most trusted lieutenant, Joseph Bonano, his own family. The next three bosses were Thomas Gagliano, Vincent Mangano, and Joseph Prafachi.

Finally, in keeping with the agreement that saw the end of Mazaria, Maranzano named Charlie Luciano, the fifth and final boss. Maranzano then laid out the structure of the family. Directly below the boss would be the underboss, the second in command. Luciano's underboss would be Vito Genovese, one of the men who likely killed Joe Maseria. Below the underboss were the captains. The captains, sometimes called Capos, would run crews and oversee the bulk of the family's operations. In the crews beneath the captains were the soldiers.

At that point, the only thing missing for Maranzano's reorganization was the role of Maranzano himself. If there were five families, and he had just named the five bosses, where did that leave Salvatore Maranzano? Maranzano declared he would be the Capo de Tuti Kapi, the boss of all bosses. He would control the entire system. Like Augustus Caesar 2,000 years earlier, Marizano had, in effect, declared himself emperor of the new American mafia. As boss of all bosses, Maranzano laid out a strict code of conduct. First, every member was bound by Omerta, the code of silence. Next, every member in the family must obey their respective bosses.

He said members couldn't attack other members unprovoked. In essence, he said a version of the idea that's been featured in dozens of mobster movies. You can't whack a made guy without permission. Lastly, no one would hurt wives or girlfriends. A member's family was off limits. Any violation of the rules had one simple punishment, death. After laying out the new edicts, Maranzano made it clear that the past was in the past, and that included the recent war. Supposedly, he said, there is no more ill-feeling among us. If you lost someone in the past war of hours, you must forgive and forget. If your own brother was killed, don't try to find out who did it to get even. If you do, you pay with your life. Lucky Luciano reacted to Maranzano's plans

with mixed feelings. He liked the new structure of the five families and the rules that were designed to minimize violence so they could all focus on making money. But he didn't like the idea that Maranzano had installed himself as a dictator over the top of everyone else. Ultimately, Luciano could only wait and watch. With the five-family structure in place, the time had come to get back to work without any problems. Prohibition was still going strong, which meant illegal booze was pouring into all of the major American cities.

And with Luciano now at the head of his own family, he was seeing an even bigger cut of the profit. But so was Salvatore Maranzano. At every turn, Maranzano wanted to remind the men below him that he was their Roman Emperor. As it turned out, it wasn't just a convenient analogy. Maranzano really did have an obsession with Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire. Julius Caesar's adopted son was Augustus Caesar,

who became the first emperor of Rome after Julius Caesar was assassinated. Many of Maranzano's ideas for how to structure the new mafia came from the old Roman Empire, not the Sicilian mafia. One famous gangster said, I didn't know until later that he was such a nut for Julius Caesar. He even had a room in his house full of nothing but books about him. Maranzano wanted everything to emulate the Romans, including celebrations. In ancient times, Rome through a massive celebration called a triumph to honor a victorious general.

Julius Caesar was honored with several triumphs after his conquests around Europe and beyond. Maranzano rejuvenated the tradition and threw himself a huge party to celebrate his new power. The party was the first big thing that started to push Lucky Luciano over the edge. In early August, 1931, Maranzano held a three-day private celebration in his own honor. He added salt to his dead rival's legacy by holding the celebration at the restaurant where Joe Masaria was murdered. But the celebration was more than just a grand stand. standing party. Gangsters from across the city arrived to pay tribute, literally. Envelopes of cash were placed on a tray as if it were a grand altar. Allegedly, boys stood near the tray,

and whenever an underling placed their tribute on top, the boys shouted, long live our capo. Supposedly, Maranzano collected around $100,000 during the party. Today, that would be worth just over $2 million. dollars. Maranzano had said all of the money would go to the families of loved ones who died during the Castell-a-Morese War. But when the party ended, none of the money went to the families. Maranzano kept every dollar for himself. Maybe Luciano knew that Marizano pocketed all of the money. Maybe he didn't. But Luciano definitely understood that Maranzano was proving to be more power-hungry than his old boss. As August 1931 continued, Luciano started to start to be a lot of the money. He said,

to wonder if he had made a mistake helping Maranzano win the war. Though Maranzano had the right idea about a solid mafia structure, it turned out the old world hadn't entirely left him. Like other leaders, Maranzano only wanted to work with other Sicilians. He despised Jewish and Irish gangsters, and he made it clear he wanted nothing to do with them. On one occasion, Luciano and Maranzano were taking a business trip to Chicago. asked if his old friend Meyer Lansky could accompany them on the trip. Maranzano didn't like the idea, but he reluctantly agreed, on one condition. Lansky wasn't allowed in the room when business was being discussed.

As Luciano's frustration festered, he understood that he had traded one tyrant for another, and the new boss was rapidly showing signs of being worse than the old boss. If Luciano wanted to do business his way, he was going to need to correct. erect the error he made in placing Maranzano in power. And that meant putting a bullet in Maranzano. What Luciano didn't know was that Maranzano was thinking of doing the same thing to him. Some mob historians claim Luciano was plotting Maranzano's murder even as he was scheming Masaria's death. Others say it began when Marzano started calling himself Capo di Tuti copy. Either way, by the end of summer, 1931, just four months after Masaria's death, Luciano was fully planning to kill Salvatore

Maranzano. At the same time, Maranzano was planning to kill Luciano. Luciano didn't like Maranzano on a personal level, and as it happened, the feeling was mutual. In fact, Maranzano didn't seem to like any of the younger gangsters. He told one of his associates, I can't get along with those guys. We got to get rid of them before we can control anything. As Maranzano considered going after Luciano, he also thought about killing two of Luciano's closest friends, Vito Genovese and Frank Costello. He even toyed with the idea of murdering Al Capone. But the first name on his hit list was Charles Luciano. Luciano was the most respected of the younger generation, and the most calculating, which made him the most dangerous. To take out a smart, watchful boss like Luciano, Maranzano, needed a reliable hitman. He hired one of the most infamous Irish assassins at the time, Vincent Mad Dog Cole. Vincent Cole was from County Donegal, Ireland, and moved to America with his family when he was an infant. Cole's family landed in the Bronx and hoped for a better

life. Sadly, they continued to struggle, and Cole's father abandoned the family. Before long, Cole's mother died, and he and his siblings were sent to various orphanages around the city. Eventually, Cole and a few of his brothers wound up living with a relative in Hell's Kitchen, a predominantly Irish neighborhood. Like many kids his age, Cole received his education on the streets, not in school. He befriended Irish and Jewish gangsters, most notably a Jewish gangster named Arthur Fleggenheimer, better known as Dutch Schultz. When Prohibition began, Vincent Cole earned a reputation for being especially ruthless

and sadistic. As Dutch Schultz's top enforcer, Cole killed whoever was necessary for Schultz to expand his territory. And as time went on, Cole became increasingly volatile and unpredictable. In 1930, Cole broke away from Schultz. He started his own gang and actually went to war with his old friend and employer. In the ensuing violence, Cole became isolated from other Irish gangsters. And Cole didn't help himself when, in July 1931, he allegedly killed a five-year-old boy during a botched kidnapping. Cole immediately went into hiding. The NYPD cast a wide net as they searched for the man known as Mad Dog. The police couldn't find him, but Maranzano's man could. While dodging the cops, Cole received word that his services were needed.

Maranzano was offering $50,000 to murder Charles Luciano. Despite an active, citywide manhunt, Vincent Mad Dog Cole accepted the contract. Maranzano's idea was solid. He would never work with the Irish on any serious business deals, but if he hired a crazy Irish killer, he would put some distance between himself and the murder. And Cole was disposable. It was a sound strategy,

except Maranzano didn't know that he had defectors in his organization, specifically Tommy Lucchese. Lucchese gave Luciano the heads up that Maranzano had hired Mad Dog Cole to kill him. If Luciano was going to strike, he needed to do it sooner rather than later. Ever the strategist, Luciano already had a plan in place. All he had to do was make a call and give his assassins the green light. He made the call in September 1931. Luciano's plan had an extra element of revenge. Knowing that Maranzano was anti-Semitic,

Luciano thought it would be poetic if Jewish gangsters were the ones who took him out. So Luciano contacted his close friend Meyer Lansky about using some out-of-town Jewish assassins for the job. Lansky was more than happy to oblige. He recruited the assassins and staged them in New York to wait for the green light. In September, Tommy Lucchese called Luciano and said Maranzano was planning to kill him. Luciano knew it was time to act, and he had men ready for the job, but he hadn't answered the question of exactly how to kill Maranzano. Maranzano was heavily guarded. It would not be easy

to get to him, but there had to be away. Tommy Lucchese was the one who pointed Luciano in the right direction. According to Lucchese, Maranzano was having problems with the IRS because of Maranzano's fraudulent import-export business. Import-export companies were common fronts for criminal enterprises. That summer of 1931, leading up to Luciano's decision in September, Al Capone was famously charged with tax evasion as a way for federal investigators to finally remove the man who was widely known as the criminal kingpin of Chicago. If the strategy worked against Capone, a similar strategy could work against Maranzano.

And the IRS investigation gave Luciano an idea. If his assassins disguised themselves as IRS agents, they might be able to walk right into Maranzano's office. On September 10, 1931, Maranzano called Luciano and told Luciano he wanted to see him and Vito Geneviz that afternoon. They were to meet at Maranzano's new office on Park Avenue near Grand Central Station. When Luciano hung up, he had a feeling this was the moment.

If he went, he'd likely be walking into his own execution. So Luciano called his assassins and gave them the green light to take out Maranzano. Shortly after lunch, Luciano's four assassins arrived at Maranzano's office. When they walked up to the front door, they identified themselves as IRS agents and were allowed to enter. When the assassins were inside, they told Maranzano and his bodyguards to line up against the wall. Maranzano begrudgingly agreed. Two assassinses frisked Maranzano and his men. Ironically, Maranzano's bodyguards were not armed. Marizano expected an IRS raid at some point, and he told his bodyguards to leave their guns at home, just in case federal agents dropped by.

One of Maranzano's men who was pinned to the wall was Tommy Lucchese. Lucchese casually confirmed the identity of Maranzano in the lineup, and two assassins grabbed the boss and marched him into another room. Once in the side room, the two assassinsins pulled out knives and began to stab Maranzano repeatedly. They had hoped for a quick and quiet kill, but Maranzano was a big man and he fought back. Eventually the two assassins called out their pistols, and fired. They shot Maranzano four times and then slid his throat to make sure he was dead.

The four assassins rushed out of the building and disappeared. Soon afterward, the police arrived, but because the assassins were out of towners, no one could identify them. Once again, an investigation into the murder of a mob boss went unsolved. Luciano's premonition that he would likely have been killed that day was a good one. Vincent Mad Dog Colour, was scheduled to meet with Maranzano later that afternoon. When Cole arrived at the office, he was informed that Maranzano was dead. As a wanted man, Cole knew it was foolish to stick around, so he quickly left, and he kept the money Maranzano had advanced him to take out Luciano. Word got back to Luciano that Marizano was dead. His plan had worked, but Luciano wasn't done.

There were others who needed to go. It was time to settle all family business. On the afternoon of September 10, 1931, Charles Luciano arranged the murder of Salvatore Maranzano. But Maranzano wasn't the only victim. All across New York and New Jersey, mobsters who were closely aligned with Maranzano were taken out. In the Bronx, Jimmy Marino was riddled with bullets while standing in front of a barber shop. In Newark, Sam Monaco and Louis Russo went missing. When their bodies were found a few days later, They were covered in stab wounds, and their throats had been cut.

According to Gangland lore, Luciano orchestrated the deaths of between 40 and 90 mobsters. He was sending a message that the next generation was taking control. The underworld massacre of 1931 became known as the Knight of Sicilian Vespers, a reference to a successful 13th century rebellion in Sicily. But like many tantalizing stories, the myth was an exaggerated. version of the truth. Luchiano did order the murders of several Maranzano allies, and it probably did feel like a purge that was worthy of the title, the Knight of Sicilian Vespers. But the true number of dead is believed to be less than a dozen. Still, by the end of September 10, 1931, it was clear

who was the new boss of all bosses in New York, Charles Lucky Luciano. When word spread throughout the underworld that Maranzano had been assassinated, all eyes went to Luciano. He had already arranged the death of one mafia boss, and it was obvious he could do it again. Luciano didn't deny it, but as a way to try to avoid retaliation from lingering Maranzano loyalists, he pleaded self-defense. He told other gangsters that Maranzano was planning on having him whacked, and he simply got to Maranzano first. Luckily for Luciano, Marizano didn't have many loyalists left. Even his right-hand man, Joseph Bonano, seemed okay with the death of Maranzano. Bonano said,

Marzano represented a style that often clashed with the Americanized men who surrounded him. He was Old World Sicilian in temperament and style, but he didn't live in Sicily anymore. In New York, he was not only advisor to Sicilians, but to American Italians. Luciano and Bonano quickly made peace. Both knew that too much blood had been spilled over the last 18 months, and it was interfering with business. More importantly, Bonanno agreed a little more with Luciano's vision of a mafia that worked alongside Irish and Jewish gangsters. Bonano himself had no intention of working with Jewish gangsters, but he didn't oppose others doing it. At the end of the day, it was all about making as much money as possible.

They all had to live in New York, and it was better to work together, or to at least coexist peacefully rather than fight each other continually. Luciano had despised many things about Maranzano, but he did agree with some of the changes Maranzano had already put in place, specifically the new organizational structure of the five families. That said, Luciano had ideas on how to improve it and elevate it to a grand scale. It was a little like famous American automaker Henry Ford. Ford didn't invent.

the automobile, but he invented the assembly line which allowed for mass production of autos and undreamed-of profits. Luciano wanted to do something similar. He wanted to take Maranzano's plan for the New York mob and expanded across the country, and he wanted to elevate it with two new ideas. Luciano called a conclave in Chicago that would change the American mafia forever. Next time on Infamous America, Charlie Luciano adds a new position to the mafia family and creates a nationwide governing body to maximize profits and minimize violence. But the new rules are put to the test when a rival gangster decides he wants to kill a New York district attorney who will be a future candidate for president of the United States.

That's next week on Infamous America. Members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week for new episodes. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials, and they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships are just $5 per month. This series was researched, written, and produced by Joe Garrow.

Original music by Rob Valier. Early research and writing by Michael Byrne. I'm Chris Wimmer. Thanks for listening.