under-boss Neil Dellacroce should have had the top job. The dissension split the family in two.
Gambino’s legacy was not what he had hoped. His mission to transform the Mafia from a high-profile killing machine into an invisible corporate entity remained incomplete. In fact, the Seventies and early Eighties saw some of the most publicinstances of Mafia violence. Over the same period, ordinary Americans received, through police crackdowns, media investigative reporting and a few revelatory court cases, an insight into how little had changed in the murderous minds of the Mafiosi.
The most sensational example of this was a very public assassination that had been set in motion by Carlo Gambino himself. Shortly before he died, the ailing Godfather had happily given his seal of approval to the elimination of a deadly rival. It was vengeance from beyond the grave that remained outstanding for three years until the contract was finally executed on a man who had boasted: ‘No one will ever kill me, they wouldn’t dare.’
Carmine ‘Cigar’ or ‘Lilo’ Galante, who saw himself as the new Godfather following Gambino’s death, was a brutal, old-time Mafioso of the Bonanno family. In his youth, he had been a vicious triggerman, carrying out contracts in grisly fashion many times. But now he was to become the target. His brazen bid to become Godfather and seize control of the New York narcotics market had angered other Syndicate leaders. And his aim of rubbing out all gangland opposition was drawing unwelcome attention from US lawmakers.
In July 1979 Galante was finishing lunch on the patio of Joe and Mary’s Italian restaurant on Brooklyn’s Knickerbocker Avenue. He had enjoyed a plate of spaghetti and meatballs with side orders of salad and fruit. Dining with him were Leonard Coppola, a Bonanno capo, and restaurant owner Giuseppe Turano, a cousin who was also a Bonanno soldier. Also sitting at the table were Galante’s Sicilian bodyguards, Baldesarre ‘Baldo’ Amato and Cesare ‘Tall Guy’ Bonventre.
The cigar-chewing mobster was sipping his sixth glass ofChianti as two black limousines drew up outside. He looked to his bodyguards – but they had set him up for the contract murder. Three men, neatly dressed but wearing ski masks, strolled calmly from the cars into the eating-house and opened fire with a whole arsenal of shotguns and automatic weapons. They didn’t even give their quarry time to scream. The 69-year-old mobster tried to rise from his chair but was cut down in a hail of bullets. He died with his cigar still grotesquely clenched between his teeth. His two associates were also killed. As the gunmen sped off, the bodyguards walked away unharmed.
The Galante assassination was a Mafia ‘classic’. The contract had been farmed out by the Commission to friendly Mafiosi in Connecticut, who provided the killers as a favour. This is a Cosa Nostra trademark. To confuse the authorities and hostile gangsters alike, the actual executioners are often ‘imported’ from out of town. The trail is sometimes covered once again when those who put out the original contract have the executioners rubbed out afterwards. Dead men tell no tales.
A string of murders during that period of modern history horrified an American public who believed such violence had ended in the lawless Twenties and Thirties. The headlines, however, proved that the Mafia’s rules had not changed. In short, it is difficult to join the organisation unless, of course, you’re close family. Getting out, though, is very easy indeed: you become dead.
The typical Mafia execution remains a few clean bullet holes in the head. Unwanted personnel, even Godfathers, are disposed of in this fashion. But there are nastier ways of disposing of the greedy, the talkative, the disloyal and the rebellious. By Mafia tradition, those undesirables were killedslowly and painfully. Some were garrotted, others cut to pieces with chainsaws or crushed to death in
Gambino’s legacy was not what he had hoped. His mission to transform the Mafia from a high-profile killing machine into an invisible corporate entity remained incomplete. In fact, the Seventies and early Eighties saw some of the most publicinstances of Mafia violence. Over the same period, ordinary Americans received, through police crackdowns, media investigative reporting and a few revelatory court cases, an insight into how little had changed in the murderous minds of the Mafiosi.
The most sensational example of this was a very public assassination that had been set in motion by Carlo Gambino himself. Shortly before he died, the ailing Godfather had happily given his seal of approval to the elimination of a deadly rival. It was vengeance from beyond the grave that remained outstanding for three years until the contract was finally executed on a man who had boasted: ‘No one will ever kill me, they wouldn’t dare.’
Carmine ‘Cigar’ or ‘Lilo’ Galante, who saw himself as the new Godfather following Gambino’s death, was a brutal, old-time Mafioso of the Bonanno family. In his youth, he had been a vicious triggerman, carrying out contracts in grisly fashion many times. But now he was to become the target. His brazen bid to become Godfather and seize control of the New York narcotics market had angered other Syndicate leaders. And his aim of rubbing out all gangland opposition was drawing unwelcome attention from US lawmakers.
In July 1979 Galante was finishing lunch on the patio of Joe and Mary’s Italian restaurant on Brooklyn’s Knickerbocker Avenue. He had enjoyed a plate of spaghetti and meatballs with side orders of salad and fruit. Dining with him were Leonard Coppola, a Bonanno capo, and restaurant owner Giuseppe Turano, a cousin who was also a Bonanno soldier. Also sitting at the table were Galante’s Sicilian bodyguards, Baldesarre ‘Baldo’ Amato and Cesare ‘Tall Guy’ Bonventre.
The cigar-chewing mobster was sipping his sixth glass ofChianti as two black limousines drew up outside. He looked to his bodyguards – but they had set him up for the contract murder. Three men, neatly dressed but wearing ski masks, strolled calmly from the cars into the eating-house and opened fire with a whole arsenal of shotguns and automatic weapons. They didn’t even give their quarry time to scream. The 69-year-old mobster tried to rise from his chair but was cut down in a hail of bullets. He died with his cigar still grotesquely clenched between his teeth. His two associates were also killed. As the gunmen sped off, the bodyguards walked away unharmed.
The Galante assassination was a Mafia ‘classic’. The contract had been farmed out by the Commission to friendly Mafiosi in Connecticut, who provided the killers as a favour. This is a Cosa Nostra trademark. To confuse the authorities and hostile gangsters alike, the actual executioners are often ‘imported’ from out of town. The trail is sometimes covered once again when those who put out the original contract have the executioners rubbed out afterwards. Dead men tell no tales.
A string of murders during that period of modern history horrified an American public who believed such violence had ended in the lawless Twenties and Thirties. The headlines, however, proved that the Mafia’s rules had not changed. In short, it is difficult to join the organisation unless, of course, you’re close family. Getting out, though, is very easy indeed: you become dead.
The typical Mafia execution remains a few clean bullet holes in the head. Unwanted personnel, even Godfathers, are disposed of in this fashion. But there are nastier ways of disposing of the greedy, the talkative, the disloyal and the rebellious. By Mafia tradition, those undesirables were killedslowly and painfully. Some were garrotted, others cut to pieces with chainsaws or crushed to death in
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