The Mafia Files: Episode 3 Lucky Luciano

Charles “Lucky” Luciano was the crime boss & leader of the Luciano family. This documentary serves as a biography of the infamous mobster & his role in the Mafia.

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November 24th, 1897: Charles Luciano is born in the Sicilian sulfur mining town of Lercara Friddi under the original name, Salvatore Luciana. At the age of 10, Salvatore & his family immigrated to New York like many other Italian families at that time. Unable to speak English, Luciano struggled in school & by 14 years old, racked up an entire record of arrests. One of Luciano's earliest schemes was convincing schoolmates to pay him for protection. Those who refused to pay would be beaten up themselves.

Reports on how Luciano earned the nickname, “Lucky” vary greatly, mainly due to the fact that Luciano himself would provide different accounts when questioned about it. Common belief is that the name stuck after he escaped from & survived multiple murder attempts, some of which Meyer Lansky saved him from. In 1929, Luciano was abducted by a group of men who beat & stabbed him then left him for dead on a Staten Island beach. He was discovered by the police & taken to a nearby hospital where, miraculously, he survived; although it did leave him with a scarred chin & his characteristic drooping right eye.

After winning $244 in a street dice game, Luciano quit the only legitimate job he would ever have in his life doing hat delivery & instead, devoted himself to making money on the streets. By 1916, he was a leading member of the Five Points Gang, a violent New York City-based youth gang who's members were mainly Italian-American. It was at around this time that he also befriended rising Jewish gangster, Meyer Lansky. Their paths crossed when Luciano's gang targeted a skinny Jewish kid whose bold defiance won their respect. That skinny Jewish kid was of course Meyer Lansky. Luciano & Lansky would go on to become friends for life. The two would play a crucial role in the Mafia's development as Luciano rebuilt the mob with Lansky as its architect.

The 1920s alcohol prohibition created many opportunities for criminals to make large amounts of money. Through this, “Lucky” Luciano became one of the “Big 6,” a group of six men who dominated the illegal liquor trade on the East Coast. Also included in this group was Lucky's childhood friend Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, Jacob “Gurrah” Shapiro, & Abner “Longy” Zwillman. By 1927, Luciano was appointed to top lieutenant to Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria, head of New York's largest crime family & the man that controlled Mafia operations in the United States in the 1920s.

The late 1920s also saw the breakout of the Castellammarese War, which eventually allowed Luciano to take control of the Genovese family & ultimately establish The Commission. The Castellammarese War was a bloody power struggle for control over the Italian-American Mafia between partisans of Joe "The Boss" Masseria and those of Salvatore Maranzano. Maranzano was sent to New York by powerful Sicilian mafioso Don Vito Ferro to attempt to seize control of operations there.

Big blows were traded for about a year, with members of both sides being killed on a regular basis. Tensions began rising but in the end, Masseria lost more high-profile members than Maranzano. Because of this, Luciano, Tommy Lucchese, & Vito Genovese—all of whom were high-ranking leaders within the Masseria family—grew tired of the bloodshed & the impact it had on their business. They saw this as a window of opportunity & thus, began communications with Maranzano & in doing so, betrayed Masseria.

Betrayals of this kind within Mafia circles always ends in death. In 1931, Luciano arranged to have Masseria killed following a lavish lunch at a Coney Island restaurant. “Joe the Boss” ultimately ate lead that afternoon. With Maranzano's blessings, Luciano took over Masseria's gang and also became Maranzano's lieutenant. This move marked the end of the Castellammarese War, but nevertheless, the bloodshed continued.

Lucky had a vision of replacing traditional Sicilian strong-arm methods with a corporate structure, a board of directors, & systematic infiltration of legitimate enterprise. But his vision failed to impress Maranzano. Maranzano found Lucky too ambitious, too enterprising, and all-in-all too dangerous. He planned to have Luciano whacked as well in order to pave the way for him to rule New York with an iron fist as capo di tutti capi, or boss of all bosses.

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