The Gambino Crime Family, The Most Notorious Of The Five Families
Public DomainIgnazio Lupo, the man behind what would eventually become the Gambino family.
The origins of the Gambino crime family are not all that different from those of the Genoveses. In fact, it was Giuseppe Morello’s ally Ignazio Lupo, also known as “Lupo the Wolf,” who started the gang that would become the Gambino family. His early partnership with the Morello gang allowed him to expand his operations in the U.S. as well, and when he married Morello’s half-sister, it truly secured their bond.
When Lupo went to prison for counterfeiting in 1910, Salvatore “Toto” D’Aquila took over his gang. He began to amass more and more members, and it was clear that he was on track to become the most powerful man in the New York Mafia. However, when conflict broke out between him and Joe Masseria, who had taken over the Morello family, D’Aquila’s reputation began to wane. While there is no way to confirm it, many people believe his eventual murder by Masseria’s men was set up by none other than his own underboss, Alfred Mineo.
New York Municipal ArchivesSalvatore D’Aquila was fatally shot in Manhattan on Oct. 10, 1928.
Mineo took over D’Aquila’s operations and aligned himself with Masseria to ensure his safety, but unfortunately for him, he would become an early victim of the Castellammarese War. In November 1930, Mineo was killed during an attempted hit on Masseria. Mineo’s crew was taken over by Frank Scalice — who then flipped sides, aligning himself with Salvatore Maranzano. Then came Masseria’s assassination and the formation of the Five Families.
Like the Genovese family, the Gambino family originally had a different name. It was first known as the Mangano family, as Lucky Luciano forced Scalice to step aside and installed Vincent Mangano as the boss after Maranzano’s murder. However, it was Mangano’s underboss, Albert Anastasia, who truly put the family on the New York Mafia map.
Public DomainAlbert Anastasia, the “Lord High Executioner” of Murder Inc., which may have been behind as many as 1,000 killings in the 1930s.
Anastasia, known as the “Lord High Executioner,” headed Murder Inc., a vicious gang of hitmen. He racked up a startling number of murders, and his business dealings allowed him to control most of the waterfronts in Manhattan and Brooklyn. This eventually led to a bitter feud between Mangano and Anastasia, with the former being wary of Anastasia’s close ties to Lucky Luciano and Frank Costello. Then, one day, Vincent Mangano vanished without a trace.
Though it was obvious to many that Anastasia had either killed Mangano himself or had someone else do it for him, Costello saw value in Anastasia as an ally, and the other members of the Commission wanted to avoid a new war, so they all gave their support for Anastasia’s ascension to boss.
Of course, it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and Anastasia was stuck in his violent ways. He even broke one of the golden rules of the New York Mafia when he allegedly ordered the murder of a man named Arnold Schuster, who had no affiliation with organized crime. Anastasia had proven that he was problematic because he could bring unwanted police attention to the New York Mafia. So, Vito Genovese and Meyer Lansky made a plan to get rid of Anastasia and replace him with another man who had shown that he could get results without drawing attention.
Public DomainCarlo Gambino, the namesake boss of the Gambino crime family.
His name was Carlo Gambino. When Anastasia was killed in 1957, he was ready to take over the family, and it took on his name. Gambino worked hard and managed to steer clear of the public eye. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he never spent time in prison as a Mafia boss, and he managed to expand his family’s operations significantly. His son married Tommy Lucchese’s daughter, forming a strong alliance between the two groups, and any attempts made by other mobsters to take Gambino out failed.
By the time he died of a heart attack at age 74 in 1976, he had already appointed a successor in Paul Castellano, securing the future of the Gambino crime family in the process — or so he thought. As it turned out, Castellano wasn’t universally well-liked in the Gambino family, particularly by Gambino’s underboss, Aniello Dellacroce, and his supporters, who felt he should have been appointed boss over Castellano.
Bettmann/Getty ImagesPaul Castellano, the reclusive Gambino family boss.
Roy DeMeo, the Gambino soldier who ran a crew of bloodthirsty killers, kept people in line for Castellano as best he could, but Castellano’s arrogance did little to win him any new support. Dellacroce’s protégé, John Gotti, had a particular hatred for Castellano. Gotti used the growing resentment against Castellano to garner support for himself, and in 1985, he ordered a hit on the Gambino boss.
Castellano was gunned down outside of a Manhattan steakhouse on Dec. 16, 1985, and a month later, John Gotti became the head of the Gambino family. Gotti was, in many ways, Castellano’s opposite. Castellano was a known recluse, whereas Gotti crafted a very public image of himself, earning the nickname the “Dapper Don” for his lavish lifestyle within the New York Mafia and “Teflon Don” because, like the nonstick coating, no charges ever stuck to him. That is, until the early 1990s, when authorities doubled down on efforts to catch Gotti, even convincing his underboss, Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, to cooperate with them.
Gravano’s testimony proved to be crucial in putting Gotti behind bars, and in 1992, the Gambino family boss was convicted on numerous charges, including murder, racketeering, and obstruction of justice. Ten years later, Gotti died of cancer while still in prison.
Yvonne Hemsey/Getty ImagesSammy the Bull Gravano and John Gotti before Gravano’s testimony put Gotti behind bars for the rest of his life.
But the Gambino family always struggled to find a suitable replacement for Gotti. His son, John Gotti Jr., was the acting boss for a while before landing himself in prison in 1999, and when the elder Gotti’s older brother Peter took over, he was given the nickname the “Dumbest Don.” Peter Gotti was convicted of racketeering in 2003, and since then, control of the family has shifted hands several times.
