Word: mafia
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Colombo family's public pronouncements constituted a weak, improbable case. As Colombo lay in a coma, Mafia and law-enforcement officials awaited developments in what was certainly the opening round of a new Mob conflict. In the past, the emergence of a boss of bosses like Gambino has usually resulted in a war. The modern Mafia was reorganized in the 1930s, and the Commission was established after bloody battles to curb the power of a single leader. Gambino's assertion of leadership?quite apart from the Colombo family's need for revenge?makes it possible that a full-scale battle...
Returning to Brooklyn, Colombo drifted into a life of petty crime under the shadow of the Mafia. By Mafioso standards, Colombo was not much of a success. He failed to compile the kind of record that would mark him for bigger things. For a while he served as a muscleman on the piers; later he organized rigged dice games. He was given a promotion of sorts when he was appointed to a five-man assassination squad under the direction of Mafia Boss Joe Profaci. Also on the team were the Gallo brothers: Larry and Crazy...
...disposing of some 15 troublesome victims until in 1959 they were ordered to murder one of their own gang. They obeyed their instructions, but afterward they thought it over. If Profaci could eliminate one of them, what about the rest? The Gallos committed the unthinkable: they rebelled against their Mafia boss. Not only that, they kidnaped five Profaci henchmen, holding them captive until the boss agreed to give them a bigger piece of the action. The solemn agreement lasted until the hostages were released. Then a fierce three-year gang war broke out. Before it was over, nine mobsters...
Eventually, Colombo engineered a truce between the warring Mafia factions. At the same time he added to his power in another way. Two of the Mafia bosses, Joe Bonanno and Joe Magliocco, decided to let a contract for the extinction of three of their rivals: Carlo Gambino and Thomas Lucchese of New York City, and Slefano Magaddino of Buffalo. Who should be picked for the job but enterprising...
...given command of the Profaci family. At 40 he was the youngest of the Mafia chieftains. Until then, his virtue had been his caution. Except for law-enforcement agencies, hardly anyone knew who he was. Though he had been arrested a dozen times on minor charges, he had been convicted only three times. He was fined twice for gambling, and he was jailed for 30 days in 1966 because he refused to tell a grand jury what he knew about mob infiltration of legitimate business. His bigger operations were largely untouched by the law or publicity: gambling in Brooklyn...