The Five Families

Joe 'the boss' Masseria, known to be extremely devoted, to his tubercular wife was once the most powerful mafia don in New York. He was a thug, and on one occasion had literally dodged bullets matrix style. The first time he just ducked forward when the assailant fired from close range. He did this again a second time. And the third time he quickly dived to his side. The assailants had no more bullets. We are talking now about the 1920's.

But Joe the boss was too violent and though he had many friends he kept making enemies. He ordered a successful hit (i.e. killing) of the leader of the Castellamerese family which led to the Castellamerese war in which the Castellamerese under the leadership of Salvatore Maranzano hit back at Joe the Boss in a war of attrition which continued for four years. Initially, the odds were in favor of Joe the Boss but Maranzano showed supreme organizational skills and eventually Joe the Boss's own allies started deserting him for Maranzano once it became clear who would be the eventual winner.

Lucky Luciano was a senior leader in the Joe the Boss's gang. He advised Joe the Boss to have a peace agreement with Maranzano but Joe refused. And so he approached Maranzano, and it was agreed that the war would come to an end with no further reprisals if Lucky bumps off Joe the Boss. Lucky did the job on Joe the Boss with the help of a hit team consisting of four people including it is said Vito Genovese, Bugsy Seagal, and perhaps albert anastasia. All these men would play a prominent role in the mob in the future.

The peace agreement though was short lived since after the peace Maranzano crowned himself capo di tutti capi (boss of all bosses). In other words he expected Luciano and others to be subservient to him and pay him a percentage of whatever money they collected. This was unacceptable to the young turks. Maranzano hired a well known Irish thug Vincent 'Mad Dog' Cull to do the job on Luciano and a few others whose names he had written on a 'Death list'. But Luciano got wind of this and arranged for Maranzano to be assassinated with the help of his Jewish allies Myer Lansky and Bugsy Seagal and their men.

(to be continued)