Organized crime in the 1920s.

1920

Events

Births

Deaths

1921

Events

Arts and literature

Births

Deaths

1922

Events

Deaths

1923

Events

Arts and literature

Births

Deaths

1924

Events

Births

Deaths

1925

Events

Births

Deaths

1926

Events

Arts and literature

Deaths

  • John Tuccello, Sheldon Gang member
  • January 10 – Henry Spingola, brother-in-law to the six Genna Brothers of the Genna crime family
  • February 15 – Urazio Tropea "The Scourge", associate of the Genna crime family
  • February 23 – Edward Baldelli, Genna crime family member
  • February 24 – Vito Bascone, Chicago bootlegger and Genna crime family ally
  • August 6 – John "Mitters" Foley, Chicago bootlegger
  • October 11 – Hymie Weiss, North Side Gang leader, and his associate/bodyguard Patrick Murray
  • December 30 – Hillary Clements, Sheldon Gang member

1927

Events

  • Al Capone's Chicago Outfit earns a yearly income of $108 million ($1.8 billion today).
  • Salvatore Maranzano is sent to New York by Sicilian Mafia Don Vito Cascio Ferro in an attempt to unify the New York Italian-American gangs into a single organization.
  • South Carolina bootlegger Manley Sullivan becomes the first gangster to be convicted for federal tax evasion. The case would establish the precedent of illegal income being taxable, an effective weapon against organized crime figures throughout the decade.
  • The Southside O'Donnell's gang kidnaps John "Jackie" Adler, a liaison for Al Capone to the Chicago police. Adler is later released unharmed.
  • Angelo Lo Mantio, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin gunman, is hired by Chicago bootlegger and organized crime leader Joe Aiello to murder competitor Al Capone.
  • Joe Aiello continues hiring gunmen to kill rival Al Capone, but hitmen Sam Valante and New York gangster Antonio Torchio, in separate incidents, are both killed by members of Capone's Chicago Outfit as they each disembark their trains in Chicago.
  • Sydney, Australia, gangster Norman Bruhn is killed on the orders of John "Snowy" Cutmore, leader of the Fitzroy razor gang.
  • January – Chicago saloon owner John Costanaro, a distributor for the Sheldon Gang, is killed by a rival bootlegging gang.
  • January 6 – Theodore Anton, a restaurant manager above Al Capone's Hawthorne Inn, is kidnapped and later killed by the rival North Side Gang.
  • March 11 – Saltis-McErlane gunmen Charles "Big Hayes" Hubacek and Frank "Lefty" Koncil are killed, possibly by Chicago Outfit gunmen in retaliation for Koncil's recent acquittal for the 1926 murder of Sheldon Gang member John "Mitters" Foley.
  • March 28 – Joseph Amato, boss of the Milwaukee crime family, dies of natural causes and is succeeded by Joseph Vallone.
  • April 4 – North Side Gang leader Vincent Drucci is killed by Chicago Police detective Dan Healy while in police custody.
  • June 10 – While checking up on Frankie Yale's bootlegging operations in New York, Capone gunman James DeAmato is killed in Manhattan.
  • July 24 – Charles Birger is sentenced to death for the murder of West City Mayor Joseph Adams. Ray Hyland, a gunman for Birger, and Birger associate Arthur Newman are sentenced to life imprisonment.
  • August 7 – After being stopped by a US Coast Guard cutter off the eastern coast of Florida, "King of the Rum Runners" James Alderman kills a US Secret Service agent and two members of the Coast Guard while being arrested. Alderman is later convicted of murder and hanged in 1929.
  • October 13 – Joseph "Big Joe" Lonardo, founder and boss of the Cleveland crime family, is killed in a local barber shop, along with his brother John. Family underboss Salvatore Todaro, who planned the killings with the large Porrello brothers faction (owners of the barber shop), becomes the new boss.
  • October 16 – New York labor union racketeer Jacob Orgen is killed by Louis Buchalter and Jacob Shapiro. Orgen's bodyguard Jack Diamond is severely wounded but survives.
  • October 26 – A shootout between rival Australian razor gang leaders Joseph 'Squizzy' Taylor of Melbourne and John "Snowy" Cutmore of Sydney results in the deaths of both men (Taylor succumbed on the 27th).

Arts and literature

Births

Deaths

1928

Events

  • Louis R. Elfman, a former lieutenant of Philadelphia bootlegger Maxie "Boo-Boo" Hoff, becomes a government witness.
  • April 21 – Illinois gangster Charles Birger is executed for the ordered murder of West City, Illinois Mayor Joe Adams.
  • June 14- Mafia associate Samuel Stein is charged with killing Kansas City police officer James H. "Happy" Smith.[1]
  • June 26 – Timothy D. "Big Tim" Murphy is gunned down by assassins as he answered the door at his Chicago home.
  • July 25 – Salvatore Canale, an associate of Chicago mobster Joe Aiello, is killed outside his home in Chicago.
  • September 7 – Unione Siciliane President Antonio Lombardo, an advisor to mob boss Al Capone, is killed by several unidentified gunmen.
  • October 10 – Salvatore "Toto" D'Aquila, founder of the present day Gambino crime family and reportedly held the title of "capo di tutti capi" (or "boss of all bosses"), is shot and killed by unidentified gunmen. He is succeeded by Alfred "Al Mineo" Manfredi.
  • November 4 – Mob financier Arnold Rothstein is shot by an unidentified gunman while at Manhattan's Park-Central Hotel and dies of his wounds at the Polyclinic Hospital the following day. Rothstein's murder would be attributed to his refusal to pay a $320,000 gambling debt from a three-day poker. Rothstein had refused to pay because he said the game was dishonest. George "Hump" McManus, a participant in the game, would be arrested for Rothstein's murder, but later acquitted due to lack of evidence.
  • December 5 – In a meeting known as the Cleveland Conference, over 20 mobsters are arrested while staying at a Cleveland hotel, including Cleveland, Ohio bootlegger Philip Bacino and New York bootlegger Vince Mangano. Of those in attendance, future mob boss Joe Profaci and mobster Joseph Magliocco, would attend the 1957 Apalachin Conference in New York.

Births

Deaths

1929

Events

  • Mobster Antonino Morddelo "Tony," "Joe Batters" Accardo becomes head enforcer for Al Capone's "Chicago Outfit".
  • Danny Stanton, a former member of the Valley and Sheldon Gangs, assumes control as interim leader of arch rivals Saltis-McErlane organization.
  • January 8 – Unione Siciliane leader Pasquale Lolordo is killed in his Chicago apartment, supposedly by mobster Joe Aiello and members of the North Side Gang.
  • January 12 – Labor racketeer Cornelius Shea died in a hospital in Chicago after an operation for gallstones.
  • February 14 – Four unidentified men, two of them dressed as Chicago police officers, storm into a Chicago garage and murder seven members of the North Side Gang, (among them optometrist Rheinhart Schwimmer and mechanic John May). Their primary target, gang leader George "Bugs" Moran, is not there. However, the St. Valentines Day Massacre effectively ends the five-year gang war between The Chicago Outfit and the North Side Gang.
  • March 19 – William J. Vercoe, a colorful Chicago criminal noted for reciting poetry, is shot and killed by Westside O'Donnell gang member William Clifford while at the Pony Inn in Cicero, Illinois.
  • April 14 – William Clifford is gunned down along with former Westside O'Donnall's gang gunman Michael Reiley.
  • May 7 – Chicago Outfit hitmen Albert Anselmi and John Scalise, two of the men suspected in the murder of North Side Gang leader Dean O'Banion and fellow mob boss Joseph "Hop Toad" Giunta, the current Unione Siculiana President are all killed during a lavish party held at Al Capone's residence. The party was a ruse by mob boss Al Capone to lure the three men to their deaths after their plan to gain leadership of the Chicago Outfit by eliminating Capone is uncovered. The men where beaten to death by Capone, who used a baseball bat to commit the murders.
  • May 9 – Prominent New York mob associate Meyer Lansky marries Anna Citron.
  • May 13–15 – The Atlantic City Conference is held in Atlantic City, New Jersey by American East Coast and Midwest organized crime leaders. This conference would later result in the formation of the National Crime Syndicate of all Italian-American gangs.
  • May 16 – Shortly after leaving the Atlantic City, New Jersey meeting, Chicago mob boss Al Capone is arrested by Philadelphia police and charged with carrying a concealed weapon.
  • May 16 – Bootlegger Joe Porrazo "Disappears" after alleged confrontation with organized Crime Figures {Joseph Ardizzone}
  • May 29 – Thomas McElligot, a member of the Westside O'Donnell's gang, is killed in a Loop saloon in Chicago.
  • June 11 – Salvatore "Black Sam" Todaro, a Cleveland, Ohio mafia leader, the #2 man or underboss in the Porrello crime family is shot and killed while approaching a parked car. Todaro's murder was a revenge killing for plotting with the Porrello family to betray and kill his former boss Joe Lonardo and take over the crime family in late 1927.
  • June 24 – Broadway based mobster Gandolfo Curto, better known as "Frankie Marlow" was found murdered in Queens after a night of dining in Manhattan. Frankie Marlow was a former associate of Brooklyn mob boss Frankie Yale. Among other things, Marlow ran a bookmaking operation under Yale's protection and was also a bootlegger, nightclub owner and boxing manager.
  • July 2 – Benjamin Evangelista, a religious leader and real estate tycoon, is killed with his wife and four children. It is believed that the killings are related to possible dealings with organized crime.
  • August 6 – Pittsburgh mobster Steve Monastero is shot to death at the entrance of Allegheny General Hospital. Following Monastero's death, he would be succeeded by Joseph Siragusa.
  • August 17 – James Alderman, a prominent Florida bootlegger, who was sentenced to hang the previous year by US District Court Judge Henry D. Clayton for the 1927 murders of a US Secret Service agent and two US Coast Guard crew members during an arrest at sea, goes to the gallows. Despite appeals to the US Supreme Court and President Herbert Hoover, Alderman is hanged on a Coast Guard base near Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
  • September 4 – Westside O'Donnell gang member Frank Cawley is killed.
  • November 17 – John "Bilikens" Rito, a former bootlegger for the Chicago Genna brothers, is killed shortly after forming a partnership with North Side Gang member Ted Newberry.
  • November 29 – Los Angeles Vintner Frank Baumgarteker "Disappears" after alleged confrontation with organized Crime Figures {Joseph Ardizzone}
  • December 29 – Chicago bootlegger James Walsh is killed by Charles Baron after a prize fight.
  • December 30 – Stephanie St. Clair, the Harlem, New York numbers game queen, is arrested by New York City police. She would later be sentenced to eight months in prison.

Arts and literature

Births

Deaths

References

  1. "Patrolman James Smith".
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