Meet the Families – The Genovese Family
Title: Meet the Families – The Genovese Family
Original Publication Date: 6/7/2023
Transcript URL: https://share.descript.com/view/eTZcBjMKbEs
Description: In this episode, Mustache Chris and Steve will delve into the captivating world of organized crime as we explore the history and operations of the Genovese Crime Family. Named after its founder, Vito Genovese, this notorious Italian-American mafia syndicate has left an indelible mark on the annals of organized crime. Join us as we unravel the origins, key players, and lasting influence of the Genovese Crime Family, shedding light on its illicit activities and impact on American society. Join us as we explore the pivotal role of Charlie "Lucky" Luciano and Frank Costello in the family's ascendancy during the Prohibition and beyond, the beginnings of The Commission, and the family's wide-ranging criminal enterprises, including gambling, labor racketeering, narcotics, and extortion.
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Begin Transcript:
[00:00:00] Welcome to Organized Crime and Punishment, the best spot in town to hang out and talk about history and crime with your hosts, Steve and Mustache, Chris.
Steve here mustache. Chris and I are back at it with another installment of five families in five episodes just to set the stage. These episodes are meant to lay some of the groundwork and provide us with the a reference to the five PO most powerful mafia families in New York City and in the American Mafia.
These overview episodes of the Pivotal families that form the golden age of the Italian-American Mafia in the United States will lead us in so many different directions and future episodes. We'll dig into the stories of all of these families and mafia organizations all [00:01:00] around the UN United States and even into Canada.
We will also dig into the dark distance past of the Pre five family era. In the five families, we get an important anchor point for any study of the American mob before or after. We highly encourage you to revisit these episodes and tell your friends about them so they can become friends of ours. Now, today we have the Genovese.
Family or the Genovese say family. I'm sure we'll switch around how we say that for you. Um, mustache, why don't you start us right at the beginning. What is sort of the pre-history and early history of the Genovese family? Yeah, so like the Genevieve's family can like literally trace its origins back to Amer the American mafia in New York.
Really its roots are in the, the Morelo Gang, which was one of the first major, um, Mafia's and uh, I would say actually it was probably the first mafia in [00:02:00] New York. Really? Yeah. And there was another guy at that, uh, there was a, a guy at the time, uh, Ignasio, the Wolf Loop ball. He was the boss of, uh, little Italy and he married one of morale who was the in charge of the Morre gang.
He married one of his, uh, half sisters and then kind of united these two gangs together to kind of create like the, I dunno, the. Super mafia New York at the time. Right. Uh, he was in charge of, uh, little, little Italy or, and, uh, they ran like a giant counterfeiting like, uh, scheme. I think they were printing off like $5 bills, like fake $5 bills.
And they were working with the mafia. So like back in the homeland in Sicily and. Eventually they, they got caught. Uh, we're gonna probably end up talking about this detective. He, uh, down the road, Joe, uh, Joseph Petino. He's kind of like a Sherlock Holmes around this time. I, I [00:03:00] recently just finished a book about him.
He's a fascinating guy, and, uh, he was like one of the first, um, Police officers to really kind of, uh, identify the mafia. At the time, it was kind of, it was referred to as like the black hand organization organized like criminality in New York. He was one of the guys that really led, uh, like a crusade against it.
He ended up dying and Sicily, but he did, um, get these guy, these two guys rung up on, uh, like counterfeiting charges and they ended up getting, uh, I think it was sentenced to 25 years in prison. I think they got deported later on. And the, that starts into the next big phase of the Mafia with Joe the boss, Mezzer, and he forms his, uh, own gang using this as a, the more gang, as a kind of a nucleus.
We're gonna get into it, like, kind of like the pre, pre-history. It's, it's, it's, it's really complicated. There's like a. There's a war called the Ma Lafia and Kimora War. And [00:04:00] like, so, you know, for the purposes of this show, um, now it's at the end of the mafia. The Sicilian Mafia wins the war. Most of the Kimora who are from, uh, Neopolitan, um, from Naples, uh, Neopolitans, um, Either they were killed or they were sent to prison, or they ended up joining the, uh, Sicilian Mafia.
And so Joe Mazare, who's also known as Joe, the boss, uh, ends up becoming, basically running the, the entire organized crime in New York City. You know, in that one point, it's just crazy to think like all the people that were like, um, Working under him at one point. And, uh, if anybody's like familiar with just, you know, basic mafia history, like Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia Meyer, Lansky, even though he wasn't Italian, he was Jewish, you know, Bugsy Siegel, these were all guys that were working underneath.
[00:05:00] Um, Joe Masseria, I would say it's like this is the All-star, uh, mafia crew in the history in the mafia. Really all these guys ended up founding families or, uh, having. You know, long eventful careers in the mafia. Joe the boss, mazare, gets into a big war, which we'll get into with, uh, Salvato Marzano. And what kind of comes out of that whole thing?
Salvato Marzano basically leads a, yeah, it leads to wars like, uh, Joe, the boss, Joe the boss, ends up. Getting killed. He ends up getting, he was betrayed by his own underlings, uh, lucky Luciano and, uh, Meyer Lansky and Betsy Siegel and those guys. And, um, yeah. And then Marzano takes over for a little bit and Lucky Luciano thought, you know, we'll get Marzano in there and he'll be like, a little less, uh, fascistic or, I don't know the term you want to use iron fisted that, uh, A little less [00:06:00] iron fisted than say Joe Lo Joe the boss was, but lucky immediately doesn't like what Mariza's doing.
He starts using the title, uh, boss of All Bosses and does away with him too. He actually sets up this little scheme where, IRS agents are gonna sneak into Marzano's office and he got, he actually got, uh, Meyer Lansky and Betsy Siegel to like recruit, uh, some Jewish hoods from around the area. So Marzano wouldn't really know who these guys are, cuz it's not like Marzano was hanging out with, uh, many Jews at the time.
I don't even know if he spoke English, to be honest with you. Um, so then they sneak in and they kill 'em. And that leaves basically lucky and in charge in New York, and he sets up the commission system. That's a famous. Now in Chicago, actually it was done at a meeting in Chicago and Al Capone was there and basically anybody that was in important.
Really, it's pretty amazing that all this stuff happens. [00:07:00] It happens so quickly. And the mafia's before this, it's these different gangs of, um, chemos and. La Nostra and all these mafia and all the different Italian gangs, and they're just kind of running their own little things. Some are bigger, some are smaller.
You have Jewish gangs in there, and then all this whole thing starts developing and developing and just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And then you have, I mean, really. I don't know if Lucky Luciano was necessarily brilliant or but between him and Meyer Lansky, the, the two of them together, that power team really absolutely recreated organized crime in the us.
Yeah, I would say, I would say, I would say in terms of organized criminality, I'd say, yeah, lucky was a visionary in a lot of ways where there's kind of like a misunderstanding of like Meno I find where. [00:08:00] People think like Mari Arizona is just trying to become like the boss of bosses, like the king of Kings.
But he actually did set up like the five family system and something kind of like the commission where, but like he was gonna be like the he charge of it. Like the best way I can kind of describe, like, I would describe it sort of kind of like how a medieval kingdom would run where yes, the king was at.
Was on the top and kind of what he said was final word, but he couldn't really, he couldn't just go around like decreeing things, like he had to come with some. We get to have like support of like the, the dukes and the local bishops and you where like the system that, uh, lucky ends up setting up is the best way.
I describes him as kind of like a democratic oligarchy where. In theory, all the families are equal, but there was more than just five families. There was a lot of different families part of the commission, but it was the New York family is pretty much everything. So these five families and the head of these five [00:09:00] families would run like this democratic oligarchy, I guess, where they'd all have votes on, you know, important matters, wars and.
Um, you know, who's gonna get whacked and not get whacked and, you know, are we gonna get involved in drugs or not get involved in drugs and stuff of that nature? Well, Marzano was from Italy and like you said, he maybe didn't even speak English. And he comes in and he has, uh, uh, these highfalutin ideas that I'm going to recreate this.
And it's kind of based on the Roman military and it's kind of based on how the Catholic church ran and how a medieval uh, A medieval futile system worked, but I'm gonna be the, the, like you said, the King of the Kings, where Lucky Luciano was a, he wasn't born in the US but I think he came here when he was very young.
He understood what the street was all about in New York City and how these gangs actually and [00:10:00] practically work together. Oh yeah, for sure. And like, yeah, lucky he was, I don't believe he was born in the States. He was born in, uh, SIU. But. He was American, right? Like even later on in his life and he gets deported to Sicily and there's a story about, I think he was talking to some ki, some American actor and name escapes me right now where he just wanted to talk to him because he is the key miss hearing a New York accent.
Right. And I mean that's one of the sadder like when we'll end, probably end up doing a series unlucky, but yeah. Lucky was an American through and through where Zao or like America was kind of like a foreign country to him. Now lucky steps up. And he forms really what, at this point we might call the American Mafia 2.0.
After all of this kind of from the primordial stew of Italian, uh, slash American criminal criminality, lucky Luciano really forms what we [00:11:00] know of as the mafia. How does he do that? Yeah. So through like setting up the, the commission, right. And they had a big meeting in Chicago and there was an agreement that, uh, like I pointed out, like things would be democratically elected, there'd be no more boss of bosses.
Cuz the way Lucky looked at it as this whole Boss of bosses title was what led to all these conflicts to begin with, like the, like the war that we had just previously talked about. But, but even before that, there was the mafia and the Kimora war and the way Lucky kind of looked at it was like, None of this stuff is good for business really, and none of this stuff is good for us because like if there's people dying on the streets and there's wars going on, no one's making money.
The police are, the police start getting involved and you know, it's the best way to run this thing is like to as quietly as we possibly can under, you know, underneath the surface where nobody really notices. And the cops. Don't like the police organizations don't feel like [00:12:00] they have to. They're being forced to do something about it.
A lot of the times they didn't really, you know, like your local police officer at the time when, when they were still a walking in the bead, they'd be happy to accept a bribe and turn a blind eye. But it gets to the point where you don't know people are getting shot in the middle of the street and it's like, you know, there's pushback enough from the public where it's like, you guys have to do something about this.
And then they have no choice in the matter. They have to. And it's kind of a mix of the, the criminality. They have this low end things like running, uh, numbers games and slot machines that are in every little corner store. They're also into drugs and unions and they have a lot of, um, in the mafia parlance, they're wedding their beak in a lot of little games and a lot of big games.
And we can kind of see that different. Of the families had, either they were more involved in the small time stuff or like Lucky and his version and gang, [00:13:00] they're kind of in the bigger game. Bigger money stuff. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Like each kind of family, uh, like the bons was always. They were always big time drug dealers.
Right. And the, the Genovese is like, I've always kind of thought of them as like the, they're like the Ivy League mafia. Like they're like the top and the top, right? It's like them and the Gambinos or like the head honcho. Um, especially to the Genevieve. We'll, we'll talk about that when we get. Little later in the episode, in my opinion.
Um, yeah, pretty quickly the commission, the whole commission system is put to the test where duck, uh, there was a gentleman named Dutch, Dutch Schultz, and he was, he was a big time gangster in the area and. They were running into trouble with a, with a gentleman named Thomas Dewey. I mean, if you're a little familiar with history, you know who Thomas Dewey is, right?
He, you know, he ran for president. Um, didn't win, right? But he ran, he was a, you know, he is a big time American politician, right? But [00:14:00] he, uh, he saw an opportunity, uh, depends on the way you look at it. I think he was legitimately upset about organized crime and, um, In New York in generals. Yeah. So he saw an op opera.
Thomas Dewey saw an opportunity to go after Lucky Luciano and organized crime in general and, and, uh, You know, he was one of these like crusader types where they weren't gonna be bribe this guy off. Right? That's why they go get Thomas Dewey, right? Like he probably could have taken bribe money and, you know, I'm sure he was threatened and all, you know, all the typical stuff with them, Maia does to people to uh, you know, get them to stop doing stuff, something they don't want them to do.
And Thomas Dewey never didn't, it never felt. Into that trap. So Dutch Schultz came up. This idea was like, well, we're just gonna kill him. The commission was like, look. He's like, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait. Like we're not killing this guy. Like, are you nuts? You know how much heat that's gonna cost [00:15:00] And, uh, So the commission had their, like their first sit down where all the heads of the families talked about like, well what are we gonna do with this Dutch guy?
Cuz he seems dead set, he is gonna kill Thomas through. And he is like, you know, they sat down and apparently the meeting was six hours and they decided no, we gotta kill Dutch cuz it's just, he's not listening, he's flying off the handle, he is not following the rules. And that's what they ended up doing.
Dutch is one of the great hotheads. There's so many hotheads in mafia history, and Dutch Schultz is one of the great ones. And I believe he was another Jewish gangster as well. I'm not, I think he was German. I have, I'll have to double check on that. That could be a series in and of itself, of the, and we've been talking a lot about this, of what made the American Mafia what it was, and it's a lot of it is the interface of all these different ethnicities that were paid, basically living right on top of.
Each other and the tenements and the neighborhoods of New York. We get into, uh, [00:16:00] Charlie Lucky's Luck is about to run out. What happens to Char Charlie? Lucky and who replaces him? Thomas Dewey. He goes after, uh, lucky Luciano. He gets him up on, uh, uh, Compulsory, uh, what do they call it? It was compulsory, uh, prostitution, basically, they basically charged him with human trafficking.
Uh, but the case is, if you, we'll get into it, but a little bit like, just to give a quick overview, like it is a little kind of flimsy where, you know, some of the girls talked about like being basically like sex slaves and then, but then later they ended up recanting it. Uh, The whole case is a little kind of wishy washy, but at the end of the day, you know, lucky got charged.
He ends up, he goes to jail. Um, which is funny cuz like lucky, he was probably one of the guys that they should really make a movie about this. We're lucky between Lucky and Tommy Thomas, Dewey, and like, The back and forth between the two of them, because I [00:17:00] mean, a lot of ways Lucky saved Thomas's life. He could've just said, Dodge, you don't have at it.
This guy's having to be a lot of trouble. That Tommy's the one that ends up putting him in jail. I wonder if Tom, I wonder if Dewey knew that in his lifetime that. Like lucky, pretty much saved his life. It'd be, it'd be fascinating. I, I'm sure I could find it somewhere. I don't know off the top of my head, but it's fascinating to think about Steve.
Here we are a member of the Pathon Podcast Network, featuring great shows like Richard Lims, this American President, and other great shows. Go to paron podcast.com to learn more, and here is a quick word from our sponsors. Everything I've ever seen of Thomas Dewey is that he was such a square shooter. I don't think he would've cared that he would've put somebody in jail.
Like I just don't think he played that game, but, and so this is all happening in the 1930s at this point, [00:18:00] right? Yeah. And so how do we lead into once, uh, lucky he, he's out fairly much out of the picture in the day-to-day operation who takes over after him. Uh, Lucky's in jail at the time, and he's. Kind of running the family outta prison, but he leaves the, I guess, the day-to-day operations, the acting position, to a gentleman named Vito Geneve.
You know, we had talked about earlier, a lot of these, they grew up together, right? Like lucky and Vito. They've known each other for a good chunk of their lives. Um, and I think it was like it was down to Vito and Frank Castello and Lucky went with Vito. I guess maybe we'll get into the differences between Vito and Frank Castello in little bit and then we'll discuss some.
Just quickly, there's apparently a movie coming out. Uh, about the two of them, like you were saying, Vito and Lucky Luciano, I think they even called them the Young Turks. They were [00:19:00] like the young generation stepping up against the mustache pizza of Mazari and Marzano, even though they weren't really that much.
Younger than Marzano. I think they was less than 10 years younger, but they had a, a way different attitude. And so maybe, uh, talk a little bit about Vito and his early time as being the, the boss of the, of this new family. Or of his new family, you might say, he gets put in charge and, but like, pretty much, like pretty quickly he ends up having to flee to Italy, to be quite honest with you.
He gets caught up in some murder charges and he just flees, um, and on, and then Frank Costello ends up becoming the boss. But what's interesting during like this whole time period, it's like, World War II breaks out, right? And the federal government ends up going to, you know, lucky Luciano saying like, you know, can you like make sure like nothing goes on at the Harbors in New York and stuff like [00:20:00] that so we can get like supplies to the troops.
And he is like, yeah, no problem. I'm an American. And it ends up coming out later that, um, It was really embarrassing for the government where this agreement, uh, becomes public and they, I again, think they had made a deal with Lucky that they were gonna let him outta jail early, but I think they changed that deal and said, look, well, here's the deal.
Y you can get outta jail, but we're gonna dep you're going back to Sicily and that you have to stay there. And that's basically what happened. And Lucky goes to Sicily and Frank Costello, uh, takes over the family. And, uh, Frank's an interesting guy where, if you could think of the guy that's like, it's like, yeah, he's a, he's a gangster Barry, but he's not really a.
The stuff that you typically associate with a gangster, like Frank Costello's, not bad guy. Like he's not prone to violence, he's not quick tempered. He's very much like a businessman. And like when people talk about like how the mafia is just like, oh, they're just like [00:21:00] businessman and they just doing this and you know, they just do this and this and you know, like sometimes they have to use violence.
Like a lot of the times these people don't know what they're talking about, but uh, Like Frank Costal is kind of like the meme of what people think of like a mobster, like, uh, you know, he's like a businessman. He doesn't do, he doesn't do anything really wrong. It's like they, he's just doesn't want to pay taxes to the government type thing.
But he like set up this huge empire of slot machines in New York, like bringing in tons and tons and tons and tons of money. I think I read somewhere he had like 25,000 slot machines in New York at one point, and like at one point the mayor. Basically took like thousands of these slot machines and threw 'em in the middle of the ocean or some somewhere and like he was having a hard time with it.
And like, and then apparently like Huey Long at one point goes to Frank Castello and be like, you know what? I don't care about your gambling. Uh, here's the deal. Like you can open up as many gambling joints in slot machines in Louisiana as you want, as long as the state. [00:22:00] As long as we get a 10% cut of it, we don't care.
Right. And you know, like, uh, that's where Frank made most of his money was in Elite like. Gambling. Really. Which it's crazy for people to think of it now, but at the time, yeah, it was, it was illegal. Yeah. Lotteries, illegal slot machines illegal? Uh, I don't, in Louisiana to this day, there's pretty much slot machine parlors and.
Every single rest stop if you drive through there. And that, that's how it goes in a lot of other places too, when they, you know, they basically legalized these number rackets that the mafia was just making money hands over fists and they just legalized it and moved on from there. But it's was such huge money.
It was more than, like you said, that's, it was the. I don't know if white collar is, uh, quite the right word, but it was the not breaking somebody's, uh, fingers over owing [00:23:00] $25 and being late on a, uh, on a 25 cent vig payment. This is huge money and we have. Costello's running the joint. He's running the family.
Lucky Luciano's kind of floating around on the peripheries. Uh, it's, there's no zoom in the forties for him to be able to run the organization from the, from a distance. But Vito Genovese is on his way back in. How does he come back into the story of this family of his family? Yeah. So Vito, yeah, he fled to Italy, really?
Right. Uh, Sicily when for the murder, um, that we'll get into in a little bit, right? Uh, during this entire time, he is just cozying up with Benino Mis, you know, like they're good pals and he is helping out and it's, there's like, um, the. Just a little side pit. Like there's a, there's a belief that like bonito Mussolini, like really [00:24:00] took on the mob and kind of destroyed it in, in, in Southern Italy.
And in some ways it is true. Right? Uh, a lot of, I would say there's like two things that kind of formed the American mafia to prohibition would be one, because it just, it filled, it gave them a huge war chest really. And. I would say like the, the fascist crackdown on, uh, mafia, uh, mafia activity and Sicily and Southern Italy, cuz a lot of these guys had just fled and went to New York.
Right. Which just filled up their ranks more. Uh, I'd say like those were two big things that happened, but. You know, veto didn't have a, didn't have a problem working with this guy. Um, uh, and I dunno, there's this belief that like, Venito Mu was like super anti mafia. I mean, I don't know. It depends. Like, if you're like veto and you're willing to work, sure.
Like, well, why not? You know, I'm willing to work with you too. Right. So, yeah, he's [00:25:00] working with Sini, but like as soon as the war turns, Um, you know, Vito being the swell guy that he is, it's like, oh, no, no, I'm gonna go work for the allies now. And he was helping the allies with like supply, you know, local supply issues in terms of like troops getting food and what have you.
And he was skimming off the top obviously throughout this entire time and doing like, illegal activities. And I even at like in, uh, sorry. There was like an army officer in Italy and he was, um, I'm trying to tell like the, the, um, US military, like what Vito was doing, and they're like, we don't want to hear it.
Just, just leave it be. But Vito finds himself in trouble a little bit like back home where um, one of the, uh, somebody uh, ended up turning like state witness or whatever. And I says that Vito was involved in Bo Chi's murder and, um, Basically is being, you know, forced to go back to the United States to stand trial for, uh, this murder.
And something interesting happens though, like anybody that can collaborate, the evidence that were [00:26:00] willing to testify in court just ends up dead. So the charges ended up getting chopped. And the judge actually had a famous, pretty funny thing to say to him. He's like, I cannot speak for the jury, but I believe that there was even a shred of corroborating evidence.
He would've been condemned, the electric chair. So yeah, he gets off on all the charges and now he's back in the United States and the way he looks at it, you know, I had to flee because I was on murder charges. I, you know, I was the head of the family. This is my gig, and he actually hires a, a young hitman by the name of, uh, Vincent Gigante Young, up and coming mob.
Uh, we're gonna get into him in a little bit, uh, hires him, but, you know, Vincent screws it up. He, he shoots him in the head, but he just grazes him so he doesn't actually kill, uh, Frank Costello and. Frank Costal just looks at this and he's just like, you know what, man? Like, I've, I've made my money. I'm out.
Yeah. [00:27:00] I'm out. Like, I don't, I don't want any part of this. Like, vito's since Vito's a not case, right? Even right from the, like early on they, they, the new veto was nuts. Right? That's kind of why they liked having morale, because in that, You know, in the mafia lifestyle, it's good to have someone who's a little author rocker when you need 'em, right?
Uh, Frank's like, I'm out, and he just steps aside, you know, which is. I can't think of any other example of that happening in the American mafia. You know, I even, you know, he even went to court and they were prying him like, well, who shot you? Who do you think shot you? And then you know, Frank just didn't talk, which is crazy when you com.
Compare it to like, say the Colombo family or the Bono family where they found themselves in situations like this, this would've broke out into full on civil wars within the families where the, the, the Genovese family. This is handled about as smoothly as you can possibly imagine. You know, it probably would've been better if Frank had just stayed in power and Vito was just out of the picture.
But, you know, [00:28:00] this is what happened. Frank stepped aside and, you know, probably. Like I said, he was just down with it and he probably saw like, well, this could potentially learn lead to a civil war. And this is just not good for anybody in the family. It's not good for the mafia. So it's just, you know, let Vito run it for a bit and man, oh man.
With, uh, what Vito and the American Mafia and the Italian Mafia got involved in and post World War II Europe. With the Vatican, the Vatican bank, the o s s that would become the c i a, like you think we're starting to, uh, put on our tinfoil fedoras right now. But this is stuff that's been proven as a fact and we will probably more than just do a series on this.
We'll probably do an entire season on all of that stuff. And that the, the American Mafia linked to all of these really. You could almost say weird anti-communist things going on, but just the, the great game that unfolded after [00:29:00] World World War II that mafia money was central to is an absolutely fascinating thing.
But just to put a pin in that for a moment, what was, uh, The success or lack thereof of, uh, Don Vito after he takes firm control, one of the first things that he does is like, when he takes over, is he and is insistent that there would be a big, uh, mafia Summit to kind of legitimize his new, uh, the fact that he's the new head of the, uh, What is now called the Genevie family at this point?
Um, it was called the, the Luciano family, uh, previously, but, uh, I don't know. Vito, I don't know. I did, they, I wonder if they have like a vote on that. It's like, we're just gonna change the name or something. It just, I, I haven't figured that out yet. Where like, sometimes they keep the name and then other times they just change it.
Oh, I was just thinking about it right now. And I think we'll get into that with the Gambino family too. Uh, that the family's just kind of morphed into [00:30:00] a new name, and I don't know if that's maybe just what they're called by the outside. The, um, and then that just kind of caught. Because there was the Bono family, it was like they were still called the Bonanno family, but apparently when Joe Massino took over, I don't know, they were calling it the Massino family, cuz they were so ashamed of Joe Bono in his book.
But I mean, it's still referred to as the Bono family. It's just weird, like, Seems like kind of like this early-ish period, the names would change and they haven't changed since. So anyways, uh, she gets us into this. We've been talking about the Appalachian meeting and dropping hints about it, but Vito is absolutely central to this meeting.
Yeah, he called, well, he's the one who, he's the one that spearheaded this meeting. He wanted to like legitimize his rule. And, you know, I'm the, I'm the boss and at this time it was kind of unofficial, but like the Genevie family was the most powerful family. And who was ever in charge of the Genovese [00:31:00] family's kind of like the boss, the bosses really, and sort of Right.
Uh, that wasn't a real title, but. They were the most powerful. Uh, he holds this meeting and it's a complete nutter disaster. You know, it gets raided. A lot of mob uh, bosses end up going to jail for, you know, not long stretches, but like three to five years. Some of 'em, some, some of them longer. Other ones are just being, uh, like were just harassed from this point on.
And, um, but the big thing that came out with that meeting was. There was really no denying that there was like a centrally organized crime syndicate that was predominantly ran by, uh, Sicilians and Southern Italians in the United States where like, uh, f B, like F the F B I and Jagar Hoover were very, uh, kind of hands off.
They, they didn't really wanna admit this was the case. I'm sure they knew, but they were kind of, they were focused more on other things, like in terms of like internal subversion with [00:32:00] communists and. Stuff of that nature and like more kind of Cold War stuff. But at the this point there's just, you can't just deny it anymore.
You can't pretend like it's not real. Like you have a meeting where all these people are meeting up at one place to discuss, discuss like criminality and how to organize it in the United States. There's just, there was just no denying it anymore, right? And it was very in your face and very public. What happens?
To veto as we move on after the Appalachian. He made a lot of enemies at this. Uh, after this debacle, what happens to him in the aftermath of Appalachian? Yeah, so there's like a combination of two things. The, the Appalachian meeting was. I think it gave like an a, an a convenient, I don't wanna say excuse, but it gave like the convenient reason for like the other families.
They kind of wanted to knock down the Geneve family. A couple pegs cuz I had previously leave message. Uh, me mentioned that they were the one the most powerful, they [00:33:00] were the most powerful families. So they saw this as an opportunity to kind of knock them down a little bit. Um, A lot of people just didn't like Vito.
He wasn't a very likable person. He wasn't, wasn't remarkably intelligent either. Um, from what I read that apparently there was like a drug busting scheme basically set up by like Lucky Luciano, who, you know, he was still involved distant ly, but they would still talk to Lucky. Right. You know, he set the whole thing up.
Um, Carlo Gambino, Frank Costello was, you know, other mobs guys would still turn to Frank and ask for advice and you know what to do in certain situations, right? Uh, and Tommy Lucchese like set up this entrapment scheme where Vito was caught. Dealing drugs and he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, which is, it had to have been entrapment or they like, they had to have something had to have been set up.
Cause I can't see a boss of a mafia family like dealing drugs [00:34:00] himself. Can you like, from everything I've read in the mo, like they're just not involved in that end of it. And I mean, that's the whole thing is to insulate them from the street level. So they must have in some way set him up. He goes to jail and.
But at the same time, another gentleman goes to jail, roughly around the same time, uh, Joe Occi and um, yeah, Joe Vei was like a soldier in the Genovese family for, you know, quite some time. Right? Uh, I think it was, yeah, for a good chunk of his life. Really. Uh, while Joe's in prison though, he becomes like convinced that Vito is trying to kill him.
And even at one point, It's hard to say accidentally killed somebody that he thought was a hit man from the DeVito from, uh, that was sent by Vito. But he, uh, he plunged, uh, a, a prisoner to death thinking that he was a hit man. Turned out not to be fearing for his life and probably wanting to get, realizing he's never gonna get outta prison for the rest of his life.
So maybe trying to get. You know, a little bit of a [00:35:00] deal, or maybe he just legitimately felt bad about the life that he led. Uh, turned state witness and decides that he's gonna talk about the inner workings of the. Of the mafia. It was the first guy to really break with Erta in any significant fashion.
Yeah, it's so, it's so funny that we talk about people who bro, uh, later on much, much later, who break the code of silence. But it was pretty early on in the, in the rise of the mafia where. People broke the, the code and there's always been, you know, what you might call stool pigeons along the way, who dropped stuff, but nothing like Joe Ceci did.
And we will get into a whole different thing with, uh, with Joe Ceci in a very soon. Let's wrap up today as we kind of. Cruise into the ending here of at least our overview of the Genovese family. What happens after the demise of Genovese? [00:36:00] He just pretty much just died in prison. And then what happens in, after his fall, Beto dies in jail.
He was like, he was kind of running it from jail for a bit. Right? That's, it's remarkable that he wasn't, he wasn't actually so much happened when he was in charge, but. He was only in charge for like a little bit. None of it was good. So, you know what I mean? The gene bes family's like, try to, they come up with this, like this system where, I guess in a sense to ensure that something like Vito, uh, Don Vito doesn't happen again.
Really? Or they, they set up like kind of like a ruling panel at first, and then they, they, they take it a little step. They take it a step further or a gentleman by. Philip Lombardo is actually named the boss, but they, they set up the system where they would have the actual boss and then they have the front boss.
So, The front boss is the one that the cops and the F B I and the wire tops are supposed to think, are, think is actually running [00:37:00] the thing. Well there's the real boss is behind all of this and this is kind of unique to the Genovese family cuz another family really set up a system like this. It's, it's crazy.
They think they'll, I think a lot of them, I think nowadays kind of have a system set up like this. Like I don't think we know. Who's actually in charge of the Colombo family now, and it's been like that for like a regionally long. We know the Colombo family's there, we just have no idea who's in charge of it.
Um, so I think they kind of took a cue from the Genovese family, but, uh, it is actually a really kind of brilliant system. If you think about it, cause it's like kind of like a double deception and on top of it, like other than like Joe Velosi, the Genovese family's pretty famous for pretty, like, not many people really have broken erta.
Not a lot of people have turned state witness. So it's like this layer on top of layer of secrecy where it just becomes more and more difficult for the authorities to really get [00:38:00] to. The, the beating heart of the, uh, of the syndicate.
Steve, here again with a quick word from our sponsors. After all of this, it's a one thing, leads to another, leads to another, and we introduce, uh, one of our favorites, Vincent the Chin, Gigante, which was all, he was often called the odd father. And uh, he's another one. We're just gonna crew cruise over him.
But, uh, UEI, we're gonna do a whole thing on this guy too. Talk a little bit, just set up the chin a little bit for us. Like, like you pointed out, like the Vince the Shin Gigante is probably one of the most intriguing mafia figures of all time. Um, he becomes like the actual boss and then he, his front boss is, uh, Anthony Fat, Tony Saleno, which is, we're, we'll probably end up doing a whole series on him too.
Right? Uh, he. Just the amount of money that Solaro made was just [00:39:00] insane. Insane. Uh, and, uh, yeah, so Vince, Vince the Chin, he'd been around them all for, like, we had talked about 'em just earlier in this episode. You know, like this dude led in a pretty insane life. Like how many guys can say like they shot a mob boss failed at doing it, never got charged.
With anything. And then also nobody tried to kill him. And like later on he ends up becoming the boss of that same family, you know, like, uh, taco, about just being lucky. They should have called him that, that should have been his nickname and was like lucky. So he like takes up the secrecy to like, he like ratches it up to 11, like the, you know, like a spinal tap reference.
But he really did. Where. Like they had set up this whole system where they had like the front boss and then they had like the actual boss behind the scenes. Like Chin took it a step further where like, yeah, he had like Sono who, who was his front boss, but then he also, he was the actual boss, but he would act insane and he [00:40:00] kept up this act for a really long time.
Like, like quite literally just walking around town in bathrobes, like exposing himself, like pissing on the side of the streets. Um, Going to weekly psychiatric meetings, whether you'd have doctors write off that he was like an insane person, uh, taking showers with a suit on. So when, like, if cops came around the house, like he would literally be taking like showers with his suits on and like, even, it fooled a lot of people.
I mean, because he kept this act up so well, he should have been an actor, really. Like even some of the mob guys were like, Like we know that he's faking it, but like he can't be this good. Like he's gotta be a little off his rocker. Right. And I've heard different theories where like he actually did have some mental problems and like, so like if when he had to, you know, really ratchet it up, he would just.
He would plan it out and then like get off his meds for a little bit. So like, it was kind of like he was acting it, but it was [00:41:00] like being off the meds obviously made it more believable. But it fooled everybody. I mean, even at the Mafia Commission trial, like they, that. Uh, uh, fat Tony Solarno, like he ends up getting involved in all of this and he ends up going to jail for the rest of his life.
Um, you know, in just an example of just how powerful like the, the code of emer was in the Genovese family, like Tony Solarno could've been like, I, you guys are going after the bosses, like, I'm. Not the boss. Like, you got this all wrong. Like, I'm just pretending to be the boss. I can give you who the actual boss is, but he never ends up talking.
The, the prosecutors and like the, a lot of the people in the F B I and the local law enforcement were fooled. They, they honestly thought Chin was just, just an insane person, but in reality, he was running probably the most powerful crime family in New York. It reminds me of a book in a movie called The Prestige, and the whole thing of that book in the movie was that these [00:42:00] magicians basically completely changed their lives just for the benefit of their magic show.
Like their magic tricks relied on them living their entire life's lives. Completely abnormally and not to how they really were. It was two, two twins. I mean, we could get into all of that, but the Chin is an absolute 100% real life example of somebody who always played their role. So that. You always, I think he played it so much that he probably actually did turn into it.
I mean, I don't see how you couldn't, or the, um, there, there's so many examples of that sort of thing where to, in order for people to believe you have to, you cannot take the mask off for an instant. And he really pulled that off. And for that, I mean, I hate to say it, but I almost have to commend somebody who, [00:43:00] with the head to.
That amount of dedication for sure. Right. I mean, and even like, he would take it up the layers of like, um, security too, or like he, depending on where he was living at the time, like the house was never left alone and that the person's job was to make sure, like it wasn't getting bugged and like, you know, if you were speaking to him, you either had to point to your chin or you had to.
Like do a circle with a C in it, you know, just in regular conversation, like, you know, stuff that you would think about like, you know, this is kind of stuff that like teenagers would come up with to be like, secret. But I, yeah, it makes sense. Like it really does make, it would work. Um, it just seems like something like a blue collar criminal type would come up with and be like, oh, just don't see my name.
Just spell it on the air with a c or something. Do you know what I mean? Like, and I'm just gonna, I'm gonna pretend they'd be crazy this entire time. It was effective, man. Like, it really did, it really did work. And that's why till this day, [00:44:00] like the Genovese family is probably the most powerful family in New York right now.
But, you know, that's getting a little ahead of ourselves. Eventually the chin does go down though. Uh, and it's a, it's a really interesting story and they kind of do, the police and the prosecutors do crack his, this facade he puts on of his mental illness and then Gig and Gigante died and. 2005, kind of what's the rest of the story of, you said they're the most powerful family Probably at the time, or as much as we, as we know, and, and just wrapping up because, um, we only have a couple more families left to go.
How would you. Compare, what's the flavor of the Genovese family as opposed to some of these other families instead of all the five families? The Genovese family really can't put it in any other way. They just got it right. Like they just got it. You know, like if, how to run [00:45:00] a criminal syndicate, really, uh, like the, the secrecy that they use, like the adhering to erta, uh, Making tons and tons of money.
Right. That's the thing with the, we didn't really get into that as much this episode, but we will in later episode. It's just the Genovese family just made so much money, like they were involved in this window installing scheme, which is actually kind of what brought Vincent. See down. At one point they were installing almost 80% of the windows that went in.
Any public housing that went in that was built in New York, 80%, I think they were bringing, I think that that scheme alone brought in like 400 million or something. They estimate in terms of just like, you know, doing the racketeering thing, you know, or you know, it's like kickbacks here and kickbacks there and like, I think I saw something like the, the amount of money that it cost install a window in the uni in New York in comparison to other cities was like as astronomically like [00:46:00] by like a factor of a hundred more cost more or something like that.
They also didn't like, like, The Genovese family also didn't let internal family squabbles break out into like large civil wars. It just didn't happen. Like if you look at how the Frank Costello and Vito situation, which really easily could have take, could have destroyed the family, really just didn't happen.
Where if, and if you compare that to like the other families, just simply. Not the case. Like if you look at the, it just, they just didn't have like a lot of the, like the pitfalls that the other families, like if you look at, say the Gambino family, like especially when John Gotti comes, comes along, it's the flash and the openness is.
Pretty ends up, ends up destroying that family. Really. We we're gonna end up doing a series on Gotti. Right. But I don't think there's any denying it in a lot of ways. He, he kind of single-handedly destroyed that family, uh, because of how open he was and, You know, it, it's interesting to contrast maybe, maybe we can do [00:47:00] an episode on that too, where we contrast John Gotti and Vincent Jae, cuz in a lot of ways they're like polar opposites from each other.
Where John Gotti was wearing fancy suits. He's out in the public talking to the reporters and Vincent was, you know, pissing in a corner, in a bath roll, acting crazy. Do you know what I, I mean, like, it, it's a totally different kind of approach to criminality or John's like, I know I'm gonna jail. I'm just gonna enjoy my time while I have it.
Where Vincent was like, I'm gonna tr I don't know, try not to go to jail. And I mean, I don't think there's any arguing that Vince's a Vince Vincent had chick's approach was much better in terms of the longevity of, of his family, where. I mean, there is something to say with Gotti. It's like, well, you know what?
You're gonna go to jail. You might as well have fun before you. You do. I think you see what somebody like, uh, with the Genovese family and the chin, uh, Gigante with the things that they were doing. They were almost, they were in that gray area of. [00:48:00] Yeah, you're, you're installing windows in public housing developments, and it was almost like they were the city and the contractors were just putting that money out to steal.
It's like putting a, uh, bag of Skittles in front of your kid. It's a, don't eat the Skittles. It's, it's against the rules, but the, you still left a big bowl of Skittles in front of them, and you, you left the room. And I think with the, with that, That huge money and contracting and contracts. It, it was all about being in that gray zone of legal and illegal, and that's why they made so much more money.
And I, you contrast that to the Bono family where I, you know, I like to go back to the example of them breaking open parking meters for quarters. Like that's the spectrum you have there of criminality. You have. People, uh, like chin [00:49:00] Gigante in the gray zone of, uh, multimillion dollar contracts that are illegal but kind of not illegal and all, all the way to just the most low level crime you could possibly imagine.
If you look at the Colombo family, right? Like we did an episode on them, right? And it was just constant civil war, really. Like anything, like to fight. Yeah, we're gonna have a war over it, um, throughout its entire history. And then if you, the Lucchese family's the only family that comes close to what the Genovese family was.
Uh, I would say too small. Like they never, I don't think they ever brought in the type of revenue that the Genovese family did, but in terms of just running smoothly up until. Vic Gas Pipe completely ruined it. That's probably the closest comparison. And like you had mentioned, the Bono family, right? Like the constant turnover and the leadership of the Bono family.
And [00:50:00] then, you know, they also let an F B I agent, like into the inter santum with the family, which is not good, i's gonna say like the Genovese family. In terms of the five families, they're, you know, they're the Ivy League, they're the Harvard, uh, They're the Harvard class out of all the, uh, uh, mafia families in North America.
Well, thanks again for joining us. We're cruising through these five families. We're just getting us set up to really d do deep dives into. All of these subjects, so if there's something that you wanna hear more about, definitely reach out to us by email, social media. You can find links to all of that in the show notes and just go and tell a friend so that they can become a friend of ours and we'll talk to you next time.
Yeah. See you guys. Uh, I hope you're enjoying these episodes and, uh, forget about it.
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