Word: capi
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Luciano organized the Commission in 1931. Luciano acted to end the gang warfare that had wiped out at least 40 mobsters in just two days in September of that year. Before that, top gangsters like Salvatore Maranzano had conspired to shoot their way into becoming the capo di tutti capi ("Boss of Bosses"). Maranzano, who had organized New York's Sicilian gangsters into five families, was the first victim of Luciano's new order...
Though Dellacroce was not very forthcoming about his own crimes, he offered the feds a wealth of information about those committed by his enemies and the Commission. After Carlo Gambino, the capo di tutti capi (boss of bosses), died in 1976, Dellacroce told the FBI that another would-be godfather, Carmine Galante, had been marked for death. Dellacroce had reason to know: plans for the Galante hit were hatched in his own headquarters, the Ravenite Social Club in Manhattan's Little Italy. The feds were able to isolate and protect Galante as long as he was in prison for parole...
...effective than, shooting them. But the modern U.S. Mafia has fallen on hard times, say federal authorities. With their sons and heirs becoming assimilated and choosing the boardroom over the back room, and with their ranks depleted by the Government's limited but expanding success at prosecution, U.S. capi since the early '60s have found themselves increasingly short of manpower. The Sicilian families have provided the new blood, sending over a generation of immigrants who are very tough and far more willing than their U.S. counterparts to submit to the discipline required of anyone who joins the Mafia...
...first time, Bonanno's glib tongue could not keep him out of trouble, as it did in 1964, when three rival dons had him kidnaped after he tried to become the nation's top Mafioso, the capo di tutti capi (boss of all bosses). Bonanno persuaded his captors that under the Mafia's bylaws they had no authority to kill him. But they did not release him for 18 months, until he promised to retire and devote his remaining years to reading Aristotle and listening to opera. Instead, Bonanno quickly took over Arizona's burgeoning rackets...