I believe I never posted this old project on this place before, which I created with some help from other researchers and also some might be on this forum also. The project is mainly about all ethnic, including Italian/Sicilian gangs that started around the city of Chicago and created the base for all future organized crime.

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As the headline goes, this particular project is about Chicago’s crime syndicates and gangs from the pre-Prohibition era, or from 1900 until 1920, and we managed to collect at least 11 most prominent groups that even in those days played a major role in the creation of what we call today, the Chicago Outfit. The main reason for this was the close business relationship between these particular groups which in turn belonged to different ethnicities, but it seems that the main “ingredients” for the so-called collaboration were money and political connections.

Many researchers believe that the whole bloody chaos that was going on in the second largest city during the days of Prohibition was something that lasted since the beginning of the 20th century, until Al Capone organized every single gang in Chicago. That’s completely false because things were already different and stable to extent decades before that, meaning the Irish, Italians, Jews, Germans, African-Americans etc., all worked together in different areas of illegal business, all donated cash to the same politicians, all were protected by those same politicians and they all made a lot of money.

So the whole point of this project is to show you that Prohibition was only a “bump on the road” for organized crime in Chicago and possibly the U.S. in general, obviously because of the huge amounts of easy money something which in fact tripled the number of killings and created disharmony and greed that lasted for over a decade. You will notice that many of the old syndicates, such as the Irish and Jews, often bombed their opponents’ homes or business establishments but murder was their last resort. Also, many of the most prominent Italian clans often had internal conflicts and vendettas but they rarely went against other high level syndicates from different ethnicities, unless they had the right backing or if the scheme was huge.

You will notice that during those two decades, the Italian crime syndicates, especially the Sicilians and Mainlanders constantly brought so-called recruits from their homelands to different cities around the U.S. thus forming their own criminal networks and national organizations. You’ll see that both Chicago’s Sicilian Mafia and Camorra most of the time were in alliance, although there were few conflicts which mainly arose from financial or personal problems.

You will also notice many infamous names who survived the days before and after Prohibition, which in fact is a proof that some of those same various ethnic criminals already witnessed the “glory days” before all the chaos erupted, but they needed someone to bring back the “good old days” and to get organized again, and obviously later that guy was Capone. This is also another proof that it was inevitable for Chicago’s leading Italian organization to include other racketeers from different ethnicities in their own inner workings, mainly because at the beginning they were the ones who gave the Mafia or the Camorra a big push to rise in the upper levels of organized crime and politics.

During the first decade of the 20th century, most of the various ethnic and larger syndicates coexisted between each other, meaning some of them even created their own underworld “commissions” or “combines” and controlled all illegal operations and politics within the Chicago area. So years later, Capone possibly copied on what was going on before Prohibition and created his own “commission” but with him at the top. Capone obviously didn’t organize them for the second time in a peaceful way but by the end of the day, he also managed to place them under one umbrella which in fact was a huge score for the Sicilian Mafia in Chicago mainly because Capone and his men were accepted as members of their brotherhood.


SOUTH SIDE 1900 - 1920

First Ward, Loop and South Halsted St, Chinatown, South Side and Near West Side

Michael Cassius McDonald (First Ward political crime boss who operated from a four story building located next to City Hall) (member of the Trust/gambling commission) (died on August 8, 1907)

- George Murray (assistant for McDonald and the Trust)

- Hall Varnell (McDonald’s second in command)

- James O’Leary (South Side rackets boss with headquarters at 4183 South Halsted and also at 6300 S Cottage Grove) (member of the Trust/gambling commission)

- John Ryan (top enforcer for McDonald and O’Leary)

- Dickie Dean (top enforcer for McDonald and O’Leary)

- John Condon (owner of Harlem racetrack)

- Tom McGinnis (Kennas’s gambling operator)

- Patsy King (policy operator on the South Side)

- Charles Smith

- Harry Perry

- Bud White

- Patrick O’Malley (W Clark and Polk streets, Loop)

- Maurice Enright (union racketeer and enforcer for O’Malley) (killed February 1920)

- Thomas Enright

- Sonny Dunn

- Patrick Paddy Ryan (leader of the group known as the Valley gang and Enright’s lieutenant) (killed in June 1920)

-Danny Vallo (precinct captain for the 19th Ward and Ryan's second in command)

- Cornelius Con’Shea

- Walter Quinlan

- Mickey Norris (saloon owner and agent for Lime and Cement Teamsters Union)

- George Vogel

- John Nolan

- Pete Kusanski

- James Linden

- Harry Bartlett

- William McPadden

- Hughey McGovern

- Raymond Cassidy

- Frank Carpenter

- Frankie Pope

- Frankie Lake

- Terry Druggan

- Danny Stanton

This particular syndicate was Chicago’s oldest organized crime group that mostly included criminals from Irish heritage, followed by few Jewish, German and Italian racketeers, and this was Chicago’s original Irish Mob, not the latter one during Prohibition which was wrongfully labeled by the newspapermen at the time. In fact, these were Chicago’s first racketeers and political corruptors who formed the base for all future organized crime.

Michael Cassius McDonald was an Irishman born in 1839 in Niagara Falls, between Canada and the United States and lived together with his good mannered father Ed McDonald and mother Mary, two brothers and one sister. In 1854 McDonald moved to Chicago where he worked as a candy vendor on railroad cars and trains, while selling half-filled boxes of candy and fake jewelry to unsuspecting passengers. At the time guys like McDonald were known as “train butchers” and it is believed that McDonald was the inventor of the “prize package” swindle.

By 1863 McDonald was already a very wealthy guy and he was only 24 years old. He bought a residence in Bridgeport, in an Irish neighborhood. In those days Bridgeport was named as the “Terror District” which in fact was the place where McDonald received his nickname “King Mike”. In 1885, McDonald formed a bookmaking syndicate which controlled gambling at the Chicago and Indiana race tracks and some reports say that in just one season his syndicate alone profited to the extent of $900,000 which was a lot of money in those days.

During this time, that in an effort to overcome many reform activities, McDonald contributed lots of cash to many political figures and so he sort of “created” the first real corrupted political machine of Chicago which became known as "Mike McDonald’s Democrats". He built a four-story building which was placed next to Chicago’s City Hall, which in fact was a big gambling parlor at Clark and Monroe known as The Store and was reportedly the largest brothel and gambling house in Chicago.

Back in those days every big shot criminal had a desire to win respect also as a legitimate businessman and so one day McDonald purchased the Chicago Globe newspaper and also took over as manager of Chicago`s first elevated rail system, the Lake Street Line, which became known in gambling circles as “Mike`s Upstairs Railroad”.

By the early 1900’s, McDonald had an army of younger and more powerful notorious thieves, forgers, gambling operators, smugglers, corrupt aldermen and other associates of every nature. The most prominent of those was one big time gambler known as James “Big Jim” O’Leary, and two very powerful political crime bosses Michael Kenna and John Coughlin. They became his legacy and also became Chicago’s most high profile organized crime faces at the beginning of the 20th century.

James O'Leary was an Irishman born in 1869 in Chicago and his childhood was filled with shame because of the blame that his family carried over the Great Chicago Fire. O’Leary grew up among the South Sides slaughterhouses and later worked at the Union Stock Yards, where he acquired the nickname "Big Jim." He also began working for many gambling and saloon operators and made many connections which caught the eye of one of McDonald’s associates "Prince" Hal Varnell. During the mid 1880’s because of the threat of reforms, McDonald decided to expand his gambling operations around northwest Indiana and so he instructed Varnell to send O’Leary to act as their scout.

By the early 1900’s the big cash started falling into O’Leary’s pockets when he made a connection with the Santa Fe Railway which ran three “Gamblers Special” trains out to O’Leary’s gambling joint while the Western Union provided the wire services and with the protection of police officials like Nicholas Hunt, O’Leary became the rising star of illegal gambling in Chicago.

During that time O’Leary became the most prominent gambling boss in Chicago and so he opened another joint which became Chicago’s most prominent two-story gambling local at 4183 S. Halsted, which included a billiards room, several bowling alleys, a saloon, a barbershop, and a sauna. The name "O'Leary" was written in giant electric letters on the front door as a sign of his pride and the joint also had false partitions, tunnels, hidden passageways and reinforced doors. He also opened a branch of suburban shopping malls in Du Page County with the help of new contacts from different syndicates such as Mike Heitler and Jim Colosimo.

Michael Kenna and John Coughlin were born in the same shack at Polk and Sholto Sts. at the western edge of Connelly’s Patch. Kenna was born in 1858 and Coughlin was born in 1860 and both grew up in the same Irish Slum District .They went to the first Jones School at Harrison and Plymouth Court and to get to school they would have passed the Custom House Place Levee in the " Cheyenne " District every day, in those times perhaps the wickedest place in America.

Coughlin at the age of 15 left school and began working in a Turkish bathhouse at Clark St, rubbing down politicians and underworld figures. It was here he made some of the connections that would later propel him upward in First Ward Politics. The bathhouse was often visited by Varnell and McDonald and they became his mentors. Later Coughlin opened a bathhouse himself, where he gained the nickname “Bathhouse John”.

As a teenager, Kenna was a very quiet boy but very aggressive in the business sense, thus making connections with many madams, prostitutes and anyone who might come in handy. In his late teens Kenna also owned his own newsstand but later decided to leave Chicago and went to Colorado. Over there he worked as a circulation manager at Lake County Reville in Leadville. After few years Kenna came back to Chicago and opened his own saloon, which was visited by many politicians and with that Kenna got mixed in the world of politics. The hooking up with Coughlin made them the most infamous duo in Chicago’s politics.

The duo hung around at a saloon at 120 East Van Buren which was called the "Workingman’s Exchange" and it was a sort of a “home” to many Chicago racketeers, followed by a well disciplined army of voters on every Election Day. They even had a so-called defense fund that was headed by two lawyers who were always placed on retainer to immediately appear in court anytime if some of Kenna’s and Coughlin’s associates were arrested.

At first their territory, the Levee, occupied the blocks between Harrison and Polk, from Dearborn to Clark St, but later their operations were relocated between 19th and 22nd Streets. During the early 1900’s the Levee was now in the Second Ward and this troubled the two crooked aldermen and in order to regain control of the Levee, Kenna and Coughlin with the help of their supporters and the resistance from the unsatisfied residents, they proposed a redistricting ordinance that would return the Levee to the First Ward. The "New Levee," as it was called, now consisted over two hundred brothels with Kenna’s and Coughlin’s headquarters being the Frieberg’s Dance Hall which was a big prostitution house.

In 1903, McDonald gathered all leading political crime bosses, racketeers and gamblers and formed Chicago’s first underworld commission which became known as “The Trust”. This was in fact a so-called gambling combine, which included gambling bosses from all four sides of the city, meaning North, West South and all southern suburbs. For example, McDonald and Jim O’Leary controlled the First Ward, Loop, South Side and all southern suburbs, followed by Mont Tennes on the North/ West and the Gazzolo family together with Mike Heitler on the West Side. O’Leary was represented by McDonald’s successors and First Ward political bosses Kenna and Coughlin, while the Gazzolos and Heitler were represented by 19th Ward Alderman John Powers.

Kenna and Coughlin were also often seen in the company of Alderman Johnny Powers who in turn was also very important regarding the Italian voters. These guys were the main representatives at the time who were followed by numerous street bosses, such as Jim Colosimo, the Benvenutti bros, Patsy King and Sam Young.

Patsy King was a former Mississippi riverboat gambling operator who arrived in Chicago sometime during the late 19th century and became closely associated with McDonald’s syndicate on the South Side. Even though the policy game was a black man’s racket, legend goes that King was allegedly the one that devised the game and became closely associated with many African-American and Italian racketeers from the South Side. In 1903, King together with another one of Kenna’s underlings, Tom McGinnis, controlled the policy wheel companies called the ''The Union and the Phoenix'', which were headquartered at The Emporium.

By 1906, the so-called “Trust” broke apart and all hell broke loose, with dozens of bombs being unleashed around the city of Chicago. In 1907, Mike McDonald died of natural causes and later his “throne” was shared by McDonald’s protégés Kenna, Coughlin and O’Leary, the leading figures from the former “Trust”. In July 1907, John Condon’s residence on S Michigan Av was completely destroyed by a bomb, followed in August 1907, O'Leary's resort on S. Halsted was also bombed and later in 1908 his gambling place was bombed twice and each time he rebuilt. This situation became known as the infamous “Gambling Wars” that lasted until 1911.

One source stated that some of the bombings that occurred at the time were in fact thrown or planted by the owners themselves, so later they were able to collect the insurance. Frauds and schemes like these were very often used by many criminal ethnicities, and this was only “the tip if the iceberg”. For example that same year, the Empire Voting Machine won a $1,000,000 contract from the election commissioners but a scandal occurred after some of the investigators found out that McDonald’s associate John Condon and some of his associates were the largest stockholders in the company through some of their front men. This was probably one of the biggest schemes ever executed by the old Irish Mob.

Patrick O’Malley was another Irish racketeer and close associate of both Condon and O’Leary, who owned a saloon in the Loop area at corner of W Polk and S Clark streets. Few of O’Malley’s close associates were the Enright brothers, Maurice and Thomas, and also Simon O’Donnell and Sonny Dunn. Now these guys were probably few of the most ruthless enforcers in Chicago at the time, who completely opened the doors to the field of labor racketeering. This was a result from the gambling conflicts and government pressure over the gambling racket in Chicago at the time.

During the waning years of the Harrison administration 1913-14, the massive gambling operations and conflicts stabilized because Mont Tennes from the Northwest Side consolidated his holdings at the expense of his rivals and allies. Condon passed away in 1915 and O’Leary kept his old gambling parlor but also turned to other more legit businesses, which was a sign that this particular faction slowly began to lose its influence and power within Chicago’s underworld. This was the same time period when the Italian and Jewish syndicates from the South Side somehow “inherited” a large criminal empire.

In 1920 Robert E. Crowe was elected as state’s attorney and declared war on the gambling business and the bosses and so a “big haul” was made and O’Leary’s ancient stronghold and was closed for good. So Crowe’s campaign at the time shook the foundations of the Irish handbook empire in Chicago and spread panic through Chicago’s underworld, so some of the old bosses like O’Leary used the illegal schemes of the recently arrived law of Prohibition.

Story goes that O’Leary allegedly joined Torrio’s gang in the bootlegging ventures. That same year O'Leary, who had been delivering whiskey to Colosimo's Cafe under arrangement with Torrio, was also a suspect of being involved in the murder of Jim Colosimo. Despite his connection, there were no charges brought against him. But few weeks after Prohibition went into effect, federal agents discovered a large supply of liquor in O’Leary’s basement, although he produced a pharmacist`s license that he claimed allowed him to sell whiskey. But one not-too-sympathetic judge revoked that license and ordered the saloon shut down as a public nuisance.

Other younger remnants from the old Irish Mob, such as Enright and his gang of followers, continued to bring illegal income from the unions which they extorted, and so this particular crew was “formed” sometime during the mid 1910’s. For example the leader Patrick “Paddy” Ryan was a strong Irish lad who used to be involved in planting bombs during the infamous gambling wars and later became a protégé of Enright . But besides being a product of the South Side syndicates, still by the late 1910’s most of Ryan's taverns were located around the Near West Side in an area which back then was called the "Valley” and was known as Irish enclave, though surrounded also by Jewish and Italian population.

Ryan owned a saloon at 1403 S Halsted St and was also part owner together with his associate and brother-in-law Mickey Norris in another saloon at 1916 Halsted St. Norris was a business agent for the Lime and Cement Teamsters Union, and so Ryan and his gang were often used as labor sluggers and also slowly wedged their way into labor politics, like for example one of Ryan’s prime enforcers and partner in the labor field was Cornelius Con’Shea.

Another close and most valuable associate of Ryan was Danny Vallo who in turn was a prime connection to various gangs, including the Mafia from the Northwest Side. Vallo’s blood ties were possibly from Potenza, Basilicata and he worked as a precinct captain for the 19th Ward but he didn’t live in that area, which gives the impression that he probably had strong Mafia and Camorra contacts in that same ward. In 1919, Vallo managed to escape from the state’s attorney’s office while being under arrest on robbery charges, while that same year their associate George Vogel shot to death a police detective in one of Ryan’s saloons during a quarrel between members of the gang.

At beginning of the year 1920 and with the start of Prohibition, the gang managed to steal $162,000 worth of booze during a holdup in one wholesale liquor house but the problem was that they started bothering other bosses and began making trouble in different areas around the city. For example, it seems that Ryan’s boss Moss Enright was different than some of his mentors and predecessors, meaning he possibly despised the Italian faction from the South Side and created many problems for them and also the Irish racketeers that were closely associated with the Italians.

For example, Enright and his gang harassed Johnny Patton from the Burnham area who in turn was close associate of Jim Colosimo and the South Side Italian faction, followed by Mike Heitler who was also connected to the Italians through the prostitution business. In February 1920, Enright was eliminated by those same Italian racketeers who he despised the most and also tried to extort. Reports say that Enright received a lavish funeral that blocked the main streets of the city, and Ryan together with few of his gang members were honorary pallbearers.

So Ryan was the next one to go and just like in their own style, the Italians or the Colosimo syndicate possibly picked one of Ryan’s close associates John Nolan to finish the job. In June 1920, Ryan was murdered by his own gang and his “throne” was instantly taken by Vallo, who in time slowly managed to transfer most of the gang members on the Northwest Side, while some remained on the South. In fact, as they entered the new era of Prohibition, this gang also gave the “birth” to future bootleggers and racketeers such as Frankie Pope, Frankie Lake, Terry Druggan and Danny Stanton.


Loop and Levee, South Wabash and 22nd St, S Clark St, S State St and W Harrison St

James Colosimo (Loop and Levee rackets boss with headquarters on South Wabash Ave) (member of the Trust/gambling commission until 1906 and later associated with the Sicilian Mafia)(killed in May 1920)

- Rocco DeStefano (member of the 19th Ward and Colosimo’s lawyer)

-Robert Vanella (Colosimo’s top lieutenant)

-John Torrio (Colosimo’s top lieutenant)

-Victoria Moresco

- Joseph D’Andrea (labor boss associated with both Colosimo and the Mafia) (killed in 1914)

-Joseph Moresco

-John Moresco

- Maurice Van Bever

- Mike Potson

- Mike Carrozzo (president of the Street Sweeper’s union and connection to other South Side gangs)

- Jerry Riggi

- Joe Bovo

- Thomas Colosimo (cousin of Colosimo)

- Ed Weiss

- Alphonse Capone

- Sylvester Agoglia

- Vincenzo Cosmano (South Side crew boss on Wentworth Av and associated with Mike Carrozzo and Jim Colosimo)

- Tim Murphy (union racketeer with connections to other South Side gangs)

- James Murphy

-James Vinci

- Sam Vinci

- Mike Vinci

- Bruno Roti

- Sam Roti

- Vito Roti (cousin of the Roti brothers)

- Vito Bertucci (killed in 1908)

- Bruno Perrino

- Frank Romano

- Nick Romano

- Tommy Fusco

- Tony Cifaldo

- Ralph Buglio

- Paul Bolanti

- Edward Geirun

- John Patton (Mayor, brothel owner and Colosimo’s associate in Burnham Ill and northwest Indiana)

- Joe Hogarty (killed November 1916)

- Charles Costantio

- Julius Rosenthal

- Jerry Orlando


We believe that this was the prime group that either presented the Italian Camorra organization or gave “birth” in the Chicago area to that same old organization, meaning many Italian Mainlanders arrived in already formed groups or crews that were also in alliance with other syndicates such as the Irish, Jews, and the Sicilian Mafia.

Vincenzo Colosimo was born in 1875 in Cosenza, Calabria, Italy and he left his homeland in 1895 at the age of 20 and sailed towards the US. When he arrived in Chicago, Colosimo first started working as a street cleaner, shoe shiner, newspaper boy and also as a water carrier at the railroads. In fact he grew up around Chicago's Loop and he also became a good fist fighter and was involved in many street fights, thus earning the nickname ‘Big Jim”. Legend goes that Colosimo made friends in Chicago’s underworld and became very popular among his fellow Italians, and began to rise as one of the representatives for the Italian population on Chicago’s South Side at the time.

By 1901, Colosimo worked as a precinct captain and also as personal bagman for First Ward political crime bosses Mike Kenna and John Coughlin. In 1902, Colosimo met Victoria Moresco, a middle-aged Madam who operated four second-rate brothels around Armour Square. Colosimo quickly took over the management of one of his wife's brothels renaming it The New Brighton, and he also took over operations in another brothel named “The Victoria” and by 1903, began making contact stations in New York, St. Louis and Milwaukee. This is a proof that during this time period Colosimo began making national connections and raises the question on whether his new bride and her family already belonged to some criminal network.

In 1903, Colosimo joined forces with another prominent “pimp” known as Maurice Van Bever who in turn took the white slavery business on a higher level. Van Bever drove around the Levee in a red carriage which was driven by top hatted coachmen and together with his wife Julia, ran two huge brothels and with Colosimos help, they made contact stations around the country. Over the next few years, they allegedly imported more than 600 young women for sale into the Levee and other fleshpots across the country.

When the gambling combine known as the Trust was formed, the year after that or in 1904 Colosimo opened the so-called Colosimo Billiard and Pool Room. With the help of the old Irish Mob, Colosimo also made connections with North Side gambling boss Mont Tennes by connecting his parlor with a telephone wire, a sure sign in those days that a horse racing handbook was operating within, as race information needed to be distributed quickly to bookmakers. In addition, Colosimo hired two of his brothers-in-law, Joseph and John Moresco, to work at the gambling joint.

Colosimo was also connected to some Jewish syndicate from the around the Lawndale and Ogden Av areas, such as the Guzik crew which was headed by the head of the family Max Guzik. Both Guzik and Colosimo thrived in the prostitution racket and both of them once worked as precinct captains for Kenna and Coughlin around the First Ward and Levee. In fact it was allegedly Kenna, Coughlin and Colosimo that brought the Guzik family on the South Side.

By the mid 1900’s Colosimo became a big shot in Chicago’s underworld and acquired another nickname, which was "Diamond Jim". He got the nickname because he frequently dressed in a white suit and wore diamond pins, rings, and other jewelry, usually at his headquarters that was known as Colosimo’s Café at 2126 South Wabash Av. This was a proof regarding Colosimo’s lucrative connection to the Irish racketeers and after the breakup of the “Trust” in 1906, Colosimo kept his close contacts within the First Ward through Kenna and Coughlin, but he also began forming his own crew and alliances allegedly for his own protection against numerous extortionists like the ones from the Black Hand gangs and other groups.

One source from that period stated that Colosimo allegedly called upon some “leaders of the Camorra” with the help of one of his bodyguards but the source didn’t state any names. Story goes that a meeting occurred which also included some three Italian guys who tried to extort Colosimo and later or that same night, those same three fellas were allegedly shot to death between Clark and LaSalle streets. Two died instantly but the third one was taken to a hospital and before his death, he allegedly shouted in Italian “Colosimo is a traitor”. This also might answer our question regarding the alleged connections that the Morescos had to their associates back in New York or even to their homeland in southern Italy.

We don’t know if Colosimo was preparing to protect his wealth from any potential extortionists but we are quite certain that he began creating his own “army” in Chicago by bringing more than few enforcers from the New York and the east coast. Most of the info shows that Colosimo had humble beginnings, meaning he started climbing the ladder from the bottom and he allegedly wasn’t born in a family that was connected to Italian organized crime but when he connected to the Morescos and the gambling syndicates, his connections suddenly spread to other cities from around the Midwest and East Coast, and maybe even Italy. In 1907, one alleged Camorra boss Antonio DeLucia was arrested in Naples with $20,000 allegedly received from recruits that were previously sent to New York, so maybe some of that cash was also from Colosimo’s organization in Chicago.

During that period or by the late 1900’s two of Colosimo’s most prominent enforcers who arrived from the New York area, were John Torrio and Robert Vanella. We are not able to confirm if Torrio or Vanella had any blood connections to the Colosimos or Morescos, but we are sure that they probably belonged to some of those “contingents” of reinforces sent from New York to Chicago, similar to the DeLucia situation.

It seems that the first time Torrio’s name reached the newspapers was in 1909, when he was accused of being one of Colosimo’s managers in his establishments but also as one of his prime lieutenants in the prostitution racket who was connected to a criminal network between Chicago, St Louis and New York. We don’t know if Torrio arrived that same year in Chicago but it is possible that he arrived the year before that according to one sporting event. You see, by 1911 Torrio was known for sponsoring many wrestling tournaments and it seems that he favored the same wrestler since 1908.

In 1912, one lounge that was controlled by Colosimo, Torrio and the Guzik family, was raided by investigators and they found one staggering information, that the establishment alone was making more than $3,000,000 a year or 80 million dollars in today’s money. In 1913, Torrio began managing another saloon located at 2001 Archer Av and from that point on the group opened up few additional establishments like the ones at 2031 and 2014, 2016, 2017 Federal St, and also at 2015 S Clark St, 45 West 20th St and 108 W 20th St. Some sources say that all of these establishments were overseen by Colosimo’s associates Van Bever and also Greek racketeer known as Mike Potson.

Back in October 1907, Torrio’s associate Robert Vanella killed one Italian in Billings, Montana and the next year was sentenced to 50 years in prison but in 1914, he was paroled and was located in Chicago. This also might be another proof that some of Chicago’s Mainlanders already devised a criminal network around the country thus sending their enforcers to eliminate any obstacles in certain areas. Vanella received interests in a brothel at 2119 Federal St and sources say that he was also the head of the largest combination of owners of “concessions” in the Levee.

That same year, Vanella together with one of his lieutenants Mack Fitzpatrick got into a gunfight with government detectives with one of them being killed during the shootout, and sources say that Vanella fired the first shot. Vanella was wounded in the leg and reports say that he was carried away to hospital by John Torrio with his car. But it seems that like any other Mob case from that time period, the whole thing was swallowed up by other events and became completely forgotten.

During this period Colosimo allegedly hosted a banquet on which many politicians, government detectives, mobsters and racketeers were present, including Colosimo’s right-hand man John Torrio, one of the Mafia’s leaders Mike Merlo, Joseph D’Andrea and Joseph Esposito aka Diamond Joe. Joe D’Andrea was a Mainlander who arrived in Chicago sometime around the early 1900’s and started from the bottom by working as sewer digger. We don’t know the exact reason on why D’Andrea and Colosimo became close associates but we believe that Colosimo’s contacts to some of the Irish racketeers in the labor field, gave additional push for some of the Camorra and Mafia factions to receive a cut from it.

As the years passed by, D’Andrea slowly became the president of the Tunnel Miners’ and Sewer Diggers’ union and lived at 913 South Halsted St. His Mafia connections came through the boss Tony D'Andrea (no relation) and so we are not quite sure if Joe D’Andrea belonged to the Colosimo group, although many sources say that he was both close friend and associate of Colosimos and so we’ve decided to include D’Anrdea in this particular list. In 1914, Joe D’Anrdea was killed on the orders by the recently appointed Mafia boss Tony D’Andrea.

Colosimo also set his sight at Burnham and northwest Indiana and key individual who brought him in those areas was again one Irish hoodlum known as Johnny Patton. Born in 1883, Patton became one of the most extraordinary individuals who largely contributed to this so-called menace to society. Story goes that Patton since young age, to be precise at the age of 14, worked at a local bar in Burnham, which was visited by many interesting figures such as politicians, business men and of course big time gangsters and hoodlums.

During the elections for village president in 1908, Patton was elected as village president or the so-called position as “Mayor” of Burnham. He came by the nickname “the boy Mayor of Burnham” because he had taken office somewhere around the age of 23 and when first elected, Patton became the youngest Mayor in Illinois at the time.

By the early 1910’s, Patton’s second in command was one Joe Hogarty and they also controlled a burglary crew which operated in the Calumet City, Burnham, Gary, and Hammond areas and had a good score like at least three robberies a week. Patton’s right hand man and leader of the crew was Italian gangster and saloon owner Charles Costantio and their street guy or man on the field was one Julius Rosenthal. Other prominent gang members were the Dominick brothers, Jerry Orlando, Ben Chaken, Frank Lemar, Charles Dwartz, Martin Duffell, Frank Quinn and Jerry Raffles.

Sometime by the end of the Civil War, Patton met Jim Colosimo and together they bought a brothel known as the Arrowhead Inn, which of course was located in Burnham at Entre and Chippewa Streets. Previously the joint was owned by one Chicago big shot Ike Bloom but now it was operated by people who were instructed personally by Patton himself. After the gambling wars and all of the problems that began to surface around the Levee, Burnham became the new place for fun because it was the era of the automobile and the town was just 15 miles south of the Levee, which was a very short distance by car.

The club became a real “cash cow” for Colosimo and the rest of the gang and so the Italian boss became one of the most prominent guests at the place, and story goes that with Colosimo’s help, many old Jazz headliners provided musical entertainment to the Arrowhead crowd.

Not all of Patton’s associates in the old Irish Mob were happy because of his new connections and so he began receiving some pressure. For example, Maurice Enright and his band of followers began making problems when one day Enright’s brother Tommy entered Patton’s joint with Sonny Dunn and few other men, who were accompanied by few nice looking girls and they were greeted by Joe Hogarty himself, who was also accompanied by two girls. In the end, 18 bullets were pumped into Hogarty’s body and after that Enright’s party left the joint and quickly took a train which was headed for Chicago.

Since Colosimo’s empire was slowly growing, he needed additional enforces to defend his illegal income and so again with the help of his associates, during the late 1910’s other recruits began arriving from the New York area such as Alphonse Capone and Sylvester Agoglia. Some sources say that Capone was involved in a murder in New York and so he fled the city and went to Chicago, supposedly with the help of Torrio and one Gaetano Ricci.

This is another proof that the so-called Mainlanders were still re-enforcing their contacts and factions all around the country in alliance with the Sicilian clans, and for the second time this raises the question on whether the Camorra and the Mafia worked together in Chicago since “day one” and slowly began forming some type of mixed or “hybrid” criminal organization. We don’t know if the whole evolution process began in the U.S., because there are quite few chances that the “alliance” was already established back in Italy.

As we previously sated, the gambling business in Chicago was under huge pressure and so many criminals began to look for other illegal income such as labor racketeering. The Irish racketeers began to infiltrate the unions and so they were simply followed by their associates in the Italian community. Mike Carrozzo’s blood ties came from Avellino Campania, and he allegedly was also one of Colosimo’s prime enforcers, both on the streets and the union business, and reports say that Carrozzo also made alliances with other South side gangs such as the ones headed by Jim Cosmano, Tim Murphy, the Vinci, Roti and Bertucci families.

Both the Vinci and Roti families came from Simbario, Calabria and they were all “stationed” around Chinatown and Near South Side. For example Bruno Roti was born in 1880 and by the early 1900’s he posed a young meat dealer on Ohio and Sangamon streets but in 1903, he together with three of his family members were involved in all kinds of burglary activities and often acted as fencers and in fact that same year, the Rot clan was arrested on charges for receiving a stolen property. In addition, one of Roti’s associates was John Nolan who in turn was connected to the old Irish clans from the South Side.

The Rotis married with the Bertucci clan since during the mid 1900’s Bruno Roti married Marianna Bertucci who in turn was the sister of Vito, Joseph and Michael (or James) Bertucci. It is possible that Roti married the Bertucci sister before the 1909 murder of her brother Vito, in which the Rotis and Vincis were allegedly involved. It seems that some family quarrels occurred in which besides Vito being dead, Mike Vinci was also wounded and later died. One report says that the whole problem started when Joseph Bertucci killed their uncle Vito Umbrillo, and because of that Bertucci was sent to prison. It seems that the conflicts between the Roti, Vinci and Bertucci families never really ceased even during the following decades and many of them fell as victims under the judgment of “vendetta”.

Vincenzo Cosmano was involved in all kinds of rackets including extortion, burglaries and racketeering, and according to some investigators from that time period, this crew extorted around $15,000 on monthly basis from South Side Italians. In 1912, Cosmano survived an assassination attempt and in the hospital, he allegedly asked for help from Tim Murphy who in turn walked into the hospital, knocked down the cops and took Cosmano out of state. Later Cosmano survived another assassination attempt and this time he was stabbed almost 20 times but survived. In April 1915, investigators suspected that Cosmano was behind the bombing of one Joseph Coco’s home but the family was very lucky because they weren’t in the house during the huge explosion.

Tim Murphy and his brother James were also “products” from the former “Trust” or in plane words they were hired as enforcers by old time gambling bosses such as O’Leary and Tennes. By the late 1910’s Murphy became business agent for the Garbage Handler’s with the help of union racketeer Maurice Enright. It is possible that Carrozzo “received his badge” when he together with one of Colosimo’s right-hand men John Torrio allegedly orchestrated the murder of Enright.

Some sources at the time reported that Torrio asked for help from their “relatives” far on the east coast or in the Buffalo area. So the problem was solved when their guys on the east coast sent one of their best hitman only known as “Tommy the Wop”, who in February 1920 pumped hundreds of shotgun pellets into Moss Enright’s body. Later information came up that two weeks before the slaying of Enright, the imported Italian hitman was first seen with Carrozzo and later with Torrio at Patton’s joint the Burnham Inn. Carrozzo, Cosmano and Murphy were arrested regarding the murder.

In fact, two young hitmen arrived for the job such as Tommy or Tony Fusco and Tony Cifaldo who together with the rest of the crew were also arrested by investigators for the murder. It is interesting to note that one assistant state’s attorney and Sicilian leader of 17th Ward Steve Malato quickly became involved in the case and wanted to question both witness alone.

We will talk more about Malato in the following text regarding North/West faction, but after his investigation all of the guys were later freed after posting their bonds and according to reports, both Fusco and Cifaldo were ordered to appear as witnesses against the rest of the gang, including Carrozzo and Vinci. Later both Fusco and Cifaldo simply disappeared from the face of the earth and whole case went nowhere.

This was also a sign that the old Anglo-Saxon Mob was slowly fading away, while other criminal ethnicities began to take over what they already built. Some newspapers at the time even reported that the Camorra organization was behind Enright’s murder, and that Colosimo, Torrio, Carrozzo, Cosmano and Roti belonged to that same group. In fact the same statement was used by investigators when later they also executed the murder of Enright’s right-hand man Patrick “Paddy” Ryan. The connection comes with Ryan’s alleged slayer, John Nolan who in turn was closely connected to the Roti clan since the early 1900’s.

In May 1920, Colosimo walked out to the half darkened lobby of his restaurant where his killer or killers were allegedly hiding in the telephone booth. Two shots were fired with the first one hitting Colosimo in the head or behind the right ear, and the second missed and hit the wall. Colosimo hit the tile floor face first. The killers rushed out from they’re hiding place, ripped open Colosimo’s shirtfront, withdrew his long leather wallet and fled. The killer left a message on the check “So long vampire, so long lefty.”

Almost all of the reports say that Colosimo’s demise was simply orchestrated by Torrio and the rest of the gang and maybe the theory is true, but we believe there were also some other complications. You see, Colosimo divorced his old wife Victoria and married to a much younger girl, so few reports at the stated that Colosimo’s demise might’ve included some love problems.

As we already stated at the beginning, Colosimo allegedly started from the bottom and there’s no evidence regarding he being connected to some Italian organization at the start, but instead he possibly got his push from the old Irish syndicate and was later recognized by some of his Italian associates, allegedly when he married Victoria Moresco.

So if the Moresco family was connected or belonged to the Camorra, it is possible that when Colosimo dumped Victoria, he signed his own death warrant. Colosimo’s and Victoria’s marriage was obviously a business relationship at the start, meaning the wife owned all of those numerous brothels while the husband took care of the political protection with his connections to the Irish. Please don’t take this theory for granted because there are at least a dozen of other theories on who orchestrated Colosimo’s demise and why.

Colosimo’s end was also one of the signs regarding the end of an era and the old world of crime in general, and the beginning of a new era which was followed by the law of Prohibition. As already most of us know, Torrio became Colosimo’s successor but it seems that the new leader didn’t change a thing, meaning he was still connected to remnants from the old Irish faction like Jim O’Leary and representatives of the First Ward, followed by his connections to the Sicilian Mafia under Tony D’Andrea and later Mike Merlo, and Torrio also kept the connections South Side Jewish Mob, now under the Guzik family.

Ogden Av, Lawndale, Levee, First Ward and South Side

Max Guzik (Levee rackets boss with headquarters at 362 Ogden Av and associated with Colosimo)

- Charlie Maibaum (saloon owner and power in the First Ward)

- Julius Maibaum

- Harry Guzik

- Sam Guzik

- Jake Guzik

- Frank Lewis

-Leo Bernstein

- Jack Colvin

- Al Harris

- Isadore Levine


Since we already saw some of the original Irish or Italian South Side syndicates, now we are going to witness the original Jewish Mob from the lower Chicago area. Max Guzik was Jewish immigrant born in 1855 in Poland and came to Chicago’s Lawndale area somewhere around the early 1890’s or to be exact in 1892. Back than the Lower West Side and South Side were overwhelmed mostly with Jewish population and by this time in general there were over 200,000 Jews.

Guzik settled together with wife and his eight children and started working as a cigar maker at 362 Ogden Av. and allegedly became very well known among his fellow Jewish people but the thing was the cigar business wasn’t enough to feed his big family because when in Chicago he and his wife Mamie had three more children. Guzik’s sons like Charles, Harry, Sam and Jacob were also employed at his cigar shop.

During the early 1900’s Guzik started working as a political enforcer and precinct captain for Kenna and Coughlin by gathering votes from his fellow Jewish people mainly from the Lawndale area and delivered it to the Democratic machine, and some reports say this was the same time period when Guzik met Jim Colosimo. This was the prime reason for which Guzik’s prime income was in fact prostitution or white slavery, although different sources say that Guzik’s prime connection to the racket were in fact the Maibaum brother, Charlie and Julius, who in turn were old time brothel owners and were already infiltrated among the Irish political powers within the First Ward.

Few of Maibaum’s most prominent brothels were The New Paris at 2001 South Dearborn St, the St. Charles Hotel at 2128 South State St, and the third one was located at 2024 Armour Av. Some sources say that Charlie Maibaum was also connected to the Colosimo/Moresco syndicate mainly because they operated around the same areas.

With Maibaum’s help, Guzik’s son Harry opened his own brothel in 1904 which was named “The Blue Goose” at 119th and Paulina Street, and he managed his brothel together with his wife Alma and his three brothers Charles, Sam and Jacob. In short time the activities began spreading around Chicago and that also made a lot of “noise” among Chicago’s government officials and so in 1907 Harry Guzik was convicted for white slavery and was sentenced to the Illinois State Penitentiary while achieving national publicity.

In 1909, Harry’s younger brother Jacob Guzik was arrested for the vanishing of an underage girl who he allegedly married back in 1908. Guzik was mistakenly labeled as “John” in the newspapers at the time but besides that, he was later released on all charges, although this confirms the rumors that the Guziks “enslaved” underage girls for business but also for their own personal purposes. Besides receiving one suspicious telegram, the girl’s family never saw their daughter or sister ever again.

Few of Guzik’s prime associates in the prostitution business were Frank Lewis aka “Dago Frank”, Al Harris, Isadore Levine, Charlie Maibaum and Leo Bernstein. In fact, both Lewis and Harris also started as precinct captains for the Kenna/Coughlin “regime” and they also knew both Max Guzik and Colosimo since “day one”. For example, both Harry Guzik and Lewis owned several prostitution establishments like the one on 2033 Armour Av, followed by additional few at 2014 Armour Av, 2117 Dearborn Av and 32 W 20th St., and these joints were operated by their fronts such as Leo Bernstein, Helen Torrio and Mary DeGeorge. The Camorra organization was/is always known for giving women positions within the organization but besides that, this is also another proof that the Guzik faction was deeply involved with the leading Italian factions from the South Side.

While working as precinct captain in the First Ward, Al Harris together with his wife oversaw at least a dozen brothels for the Guzik family alone, and story goes that by the early 1910’s this group brought the prostitution racket on much higher level than it was before. One righteous assistant state attorney named Clifford Roe, who in turn started to investigate the situation, was forced to ask for help even from Washington D.C. so he can make a move on the vice trade. In 1912, Harry Guzik, Lewis and Harris were charged for harboring young girls in their resorts and the newspapers at the time labeled the group as being a part of a “powerful South Side vice syndicate”.

In November 1914, Harry Guzik and Jack Colvin were arrested and questioned regarding a national prostitution network but as always, these guys kept their mouths shut. The newspapers at the time labeled Guzik as the constantly “paroled convict that never visited the penitentiary”. This was obviously a sign regarding the high level contacts that the Guzik family had at the time in Chicago’s politics and judicial system. In addition, that same year their prime associate Charlie Maibaum and his wife were deported to Russia after fighting a court battle for 6 years. In 1917 all of Guzik’s establishments were labeled as being protected by local police officials, including the new one of Frank Lewis on 1807 West Van Buren Av and so the whole situation became new national scandal which in the end resulted with low level city officials being the only victims of the law.

After Colosimo’s demise in 1920, the Guzik family continued to work the Italian Mainlander faction from the South Side and some Mob historians say that Jake Guzik introduced his family to the Torrio/Al Capone faction but as we can see that’s completely false, mainly because the Colosimo/Torrio syndicate and the Guzik group were already in business relationship long before Capone arrived in the Chicago area. During those days the Guzik family was “riding high” within Chicago’s underworld by keeping their close connections to both the Italian and Irish South Side syndicates and as a matter of fact, their alliance will last longer than every other criminal group from around the Chicago area and a decade later, they will rule the city’s organized crime for almost a century.


22nd and S Clark St, Chinatown

Salvatore Cardinella (South Side crew boss mainly involved in extortion and murder)

-Frank Campione (hanged in December 1920)

- Nicholas Viana (hanged in December 1920)

- Thomas Errico (in 1920 became informant and was given life sentence because of cooperation)

- Leonard Crapo (in 1920 became informant and was given life sentence because of cooperation)

- Santo Orlando (killed in October 1919)

- Tony Sansone

- Sam Ferrara (hanged in December 1920)

- Antonio Lopez (hanged in December 1920)

- Frank Gibbia (killed in August 1920)

- Joe Costanza (hanged in December 1920)


Salvatore Cardinella was born in 1868 in Sicily, and arrived in Chicago sometime around the late 1900’s and this guy was known for organizing bands of mislead and youthful individuals by showing them the life of crime. Cardinella’s headquarters was a poolroom which was located at 217 West 22nd St and according to investigators, in just several years the group committed at least 20 murders, 1000 holdups, and over 150 burglaries. Few of Cardinella’s most prominent associates and enforcers were young criminals such as Frank Campione, Thomas Errico, Leonard Crapo, Sam Ferrara, Tony Sansone, Antonio Lopez, Frank Gibbia, Joe Costanza and Nicholas Viana, and most of them were young Italians who came from homes in "The Valley" a slum area west of the river.

One time, four gang members, including young Nick Viana, were accosted by two police officers at 21st and Indiana Avenue. While the cops searched some of the young criminals’ pockets, Viana pulled out a pistol and shot one of the cops in the groin and the other in the leg. On another occasion, Thomas Errico allegedly planned the robbery of a poolroom which was located on Chicago’s South Side. When the place was packed, Errico gave a signal to his friends outside to get in the joint and start robbing. So Campione, Sansone and Viana entered the joint, while waving with their pistols, and robbed 15 people out of their cash and jewelry but something which was known as a “clean robbery” wasn’t in the gang’s book. One of the hostages foolishly reached for his pocket, and Campione pumped one bullet straight into the guy’s heart, thus killing him instantly.

So, all government investigators at the time obviously labeled the Cardinella crew as a “Black Hand” gang mainly because they were involved in non-sophisticated crimes such as extortion and murder. But the question is that whether they were connected to some of the Italian clans from the Chinatown or South Side area, or maybe even the Sicilian Mafia from the Northwest?

You see, these guys rarely sent threatening letters to their victims, which in fact was a Black Hand method but instead, in most cases they simply showed up at the wanted location and asked for money, and if they didn’t receive anything or if someone began making trouble, they simply killed them. One case stands out and gives a clue on whether the Cardinella crew was independent or not, when on October 14, 1919, five members of the gang entered a saloon at 4420 West 63rd Street and in the course of a holdup, killed the owner Martin (or Albert) Kublanza and one costumer.

Later the cops found that same car and also found out that it was registered on one of the members of the gang known as Santo Orlando who in fact drove the getaway car, and so ten days later Orlando’s body was found in a drainage canal with more than several bullets in his head and body. Story goes that someone approached Cardinella and asked for the lives of those who were involved in the Orlando hit. We don’t know if Cardinella was approached by some member or members of the Mafia or maybe even the Camorra, but we are 100% sure that the late Orlando was probably connected to one of those organizations or maybe even some other gang or syndicate.

Again, this raises a second question on whether Cardinella was a simple associate of some crime organization or he was a member? We obviously don’t have enough information and evidences regarding that type of question, but we know for that there were already more than few Italian clans around the Chinatown area and they also owned saloons, but they were never touched by the Cardinella crew, nor the crew was ever touched by them.

One thing is for sure and that is, at first Cardinella warned Frank Gibbia, the guy who executed the Orlando hit, and allegedly advised him to abandon the city. In no time Gibbia fled Chicago and went to New Orleans but after a while, he returned to Chicago to see his sister. So Cardinella had no choice but to obey the request and in August 1920, Gibbia was killed allegedly on Cardinella’s orders.

In November 1919, the cops arrested the whole gang and at first, on May 31, 1920, Errico, Crapo, Ferrara, Costanza, Lopez and Viana all were sentenced to death by hanging. Viana, Ferrara, Costanzo and Lopez were sentenced for the murder of Antonio Vurchetto, a simple baker, while Errico and Crapo were later sentenced to life in prison because they were the first ones who decided to cooperate.

Even though Cardinella didn’t directly participate in the murders, still on May 31, 1920, he was also found guilty for arranging the operations. Actually his case was unusual in the criminal jurisprudence in the state of Illinois at the time but under the English common law, which holds that the instigator of a murder is equally guilty with the slayer, he was sentenced to death and no sentimentality was expressed for his fate even by the most persistent opponents of capital punishment. In addition, the most interesting thing to note is that Cardinella and his gang tried to pull one quite crazy stunt by “coming back” from the dead after they got hanged, but allegedly they all failed.


22nd and 31st Streets, State Street, 39thand 95th Streets, Whiskey Row and South Side

John Johnson (gambling boss of all African-American operations on the South Side)

- Oscar De Priest (Second Ward Alderman under Johnson’s auspices)

- Sam Young (close associate of both the Irish and Italian factions and Johnson’s lieutenant)

- Julius Benvenuti (close associate of the African-American element on the South Side)

- Caesar Benvenuti

- Leo Benvenuti

- King Foo

- Andy Scott

- Bob Motts (in 1905 became Johnson’s enemy)


Chicago’s African-Americans were involved in organized crime since “day one” and these sophisticated crime groups operated independently to an extent, and also played an important role in the creation of many illegal rackets and future syndicates. The African-American organized crime groups differed from other criminal ethnic syndicates only in the fact that they always ran things mostly among their own race. Chicago’s South Side was a “black metropolis” that had its own elected officials, business community and underworld that had little interaction with “white” Chicago.

One of the black community’s earliest vice lords was John “Mushmouth” Johnson who was born in St. Louis in 1845 and in 1875 at the age of 30, he migrated to Chicago and started working as a waiter in the Palmer House Hotel and as a “floor man” in a downtown gambling hall. In 1882, he got his first taste of vice as an employee in one of the gambling houses on Gamblers' Row. By the late 1890’s, Johnson operated many gambling games on South Clark Street together with many white people, such as Andy Scott, a known vice operator.

At first Johnson was incorporated into both the First Ward political machine of Coughlin and Kenna and the Second Ward organization and later with the expanding African-American community on Chicago’s South Side, he developed into an African-American political force whose endorsement was sought by Republicans and Democrats alike. Legend goes that the policy game was a black man’s racket and allegedly it was first established by one of Johnson’s African-American associates known as Sam Young but it seems that the reality is different.

Young started as a porter on one of the gambling riverboats where he allegedly met Patsy King, member of the old Irish syndicate, who in turn explained to Young the whole policy operations. In fact, King taught Young on how the game works and they started operating together. “Policy Sam”, as he was known, came to Chicago’s South Side back in 1885 and allegedly explained the rules to the black people and used the same tactics as King, by taking bets and pulling numbers out of his hat. With the financial backing from the Irish syndicate, Johnson and Young managed to take the policy game on a much higher level.

During the late 1890’s they opened a saloon in the old Whiskey Row area, which was named The Mushmouth Saloon, and in 1900 it was renamed as The Emporium and besides craps, poker and billiard, the main game was policy. Some of the investigators at the time referred to Johnson as the "head henchman" or "lieutenant" for Kenna and Coughlin. Johnson also controlled gambling among the Chinese community with the help of one Oriental criminal only known as King Foo. They collected graft from more than 20 Chinese opium dens and gambling halls where Fan Tan and Bung Loo card games were played very often.

In 1903, Johnson and his syndicate received a “seat” on the gambling combine known as “the Trust”, and their interests were usually represented by Kenna and Coughlin. That same year, Johnson, Young and Foo received control over the policy wheel companies called the ''The Union” and “The Phoenix'', which were headquartered at The Emporium. In 1904, Reverend Reverdy Cassias Ransom, pastor of Chicago’s Institutional AME Church and Settlement House, which was located at 3825 South Dearborn Street began to attack what he called “the evils of policy gambling”, but in very short time “someone” bombed his church. The following year, Johnson was sued by one gambler for $15,000 supposedly lost on rigged games.

On top of that, 1905 one of Johnson’s long time associates Bob Motts decided to go against his boss allegedly because Johnson refused to include Motts in the proceedings from the policy operations. Back in 1890 Motts had been a porter in Johnson’s saloon and later opened a tavern and gambling hall further south on State Street in the Second Ward. Motts not only became known as a good “pay-off” for the police, but also worked to organize the black vote.

Motts reportedly paid saloon patrons and local women $5.00 a day to assist in political canvassing and in return for his political activities, he was able to obtain jobs for Chicago blacks and helped elect his protégé Edward Green to the Illinois legislature. So since Johnson refused to cut Motts in the policy operations, in retaliation Motts used his connections with Illinois congressman Green to press anti-policy legislation.

In 1906, tired of the continuing assaults from the press, police and unhappy gamblers, Johnson closed The Emporium and went down to the new Levee centered on 22nd and Dearborn streets. Over there he opened the Frontenac Club together with Tom McGinnis and Bill Lewis. This gambling hall catered only white men and there were no policy wheels.

The stress may have been too much for old Johnson because he died on September 13, 1907. A huge crowd attended his funeral at the Institutional AME Church, including many police inspectors. Some accounts indicate that Johnson’s money may have helped establish Binga State Bank, the nation’s first black-owned bank, in 1908. Later one of his daughters, Eudora Johnson had married Jesse Binga, the bank’s founder.

During the early 1910’s, the African-American population became staunch supporters of the Republican Party and the newly elected Mayor William Thompson. With the help of Mayor Thompson, the most corrupted government official in Chicago’s history, the black criminals saw the opportunity of bringing back their criminal operations on the streets of Chicago. Mayor Thompson depended on the black vote so he placed Oscar De Priest as a Second Ward Alderman, who became the first black Alderman.

In 1916, De Priest organized a “colored voters club” that demanded contributions from local gamblers in order to support upcoming elections. “King Oscar,” as the Chicago Tribune referred to De Priest, ran what was described as his “Tammany Club” from a real estate office at 35th and State. De Priest received a monthly tribute of thousands of dollars from gambling houses that he protected in the “Black Belt.”

The Mayor and De Priest swamped in corruption, which allowed the policy racket to reinvent and flourish free without police interference. That’s why by 1917, Sam Young still ruled the policy racket along South State St and his betting slips bore the name “Policy Sam” and opened a wheel at the Pullman Restaurant at Thirty-First State Street and named it the Frankfort, Henry and Kentucky policy wheel.

During that same time period, one part of the African-American population from the South moved westward along Lake Street and into the Near North Side. The majority of the population moved there because the rents were allegedly the cheapest in town at the time. So Young also met a lot of influential Italians and made alliances which helped in transferring or spreading his racket on the city’s North Side. One of Young’s most lucrative Italian connections was probably one tavern owner known as Julius Benvenuti, who in turn was a millionaire and was also well known among the black community.

The Benvenutis arrived around 1898 from Pisa Italy, and in 1900 the family was living on South State St, near 29th St, an area that had few Italians but was mostly mixed with Jewish and African-American populations. The Benvenuti brothers, Julius, Caesar and Leo, must've gained early familiarity with the black population due to growing up on the same block and this was probably a big push for their multi-million dollar criminal careers as "policy kings" in primarily black communities.

Julius Benvenuti was also very well connected with the “upper world” and one of his best friends was First District congressman Arthur Wergs Mitchell and with his protection, both Benvenuti and Young formed Chicago’s first well regulated policy wheel called The Blue Racer. Benvenuti placed Young as the headman for the operation who supervised the game at many carnivals or picnics that were organized by Benvenuti himself. By the late 1910’s, Benvenuti and Young operated another policy wheel called The Interstate Springfield Policy Company which became the largest policy operations in Chicago.

According to some reports, this particular syndicate generated around $500,000 a month or 6 million dollars in today’s money. The Interstate Springfield Company employed more than 300 policy runners who collected bets from 10 cents to one hundred dollars throughout the South, West and North sides of Chicago. The first time Benvenuti became noticed by the government was in 1919 when one state’s attorney decided to clean the old Second Ward from all gambling activities.

In 1920, Benvenuti together with corrupt policeman Eddie Mitchell went to trial for conspiracy to obstruct justice after the testimony of one African-American gambler who in turn was approached by the two men and was asked for $800 so they can fix his case, which was another proof of Benvenuti’s high level connections within Chicago’s judicial system. When one part of the black population from the South transferred on the North Side, later Benvenuti also began spreading his operations around the north, especially in Rogers Park and even in the northern suburb of Evanston, just over the city line from Rogers Park.

Many Mob historians say that Benvenuti was a close friend of John Torrio and Jim Colosimo during the days of Prohibition and after, but the thing is we couldn’t find any direct connection between them from this specific time period, although some of Benvenuti’s African-American colleagues were connected to the Torrio/Colosimo syndicate through the business of prostitution. In fact, we believe in the possibility that the Benvenutis became the main “bridge” or connection between the Italian syndicates and the African-American criminal world.

NORTH/WEST SIDE 1900 - 1920

Lincoln Av, N Clark St, N Dearborn St, Irving Park Rd, W Belden Av, S Clark and Ontario streets, Loop

Jacob Tennes (North Side gambling boss and leader of the faction) (member of the Trust from 1903 until 1906)

-William Tennes (overseer on Lincoln Av and N Clark St)

-Edward Tennes

-Ed Wagner (18th St and Indiana Av, Near North Side)

-James Sweeney (gambling lieutenant on S Clark and Adams streets)

-William Knott (31st St and S Cottage Grove Av and Sweeney’s associate)

-Jack Ford (Dearborn St and Sweeney’s associate)

-Phil Green (saloon owner on 31st St and Indiana Av)

-John Fisher

-John Meyer (saloon owner on W Chicago Av)

-Jim Monday

-John Hogan

-Tom Walsh

-Joseph Moore (saloon owner on N Sheffield Av)

-John Newton

-Joseph Sangerman (enforcer and union racketeer)

-Henry Seeman

Jacob “Mont” Tennes was born in 1873 on Chicago’s North Side to a poor German family with five brothers and two sisters. During the early 1890’s he and his two brothers William and Edward ran many handbook operations and on his 20th birthday Tennes provided the start-up capital to open their first Billiard Hall on Lincoln Ave., near Wrightwood Ave. At the gambling joint Tennes also sponsored pool tournaments, in which he himself was frequently the victor. Tennes started stashing his big amounts of cash and by the late 1890’s slowly became the most prominent gambling operator on Chicago’s North Side.

In 1900 Tennes began opening a big number of saloons, cigar stores and many other gambling parlors on N. Clark St. in River North, and by 1903 he also operated a bookie joint which was a little cottage in Dunning at Irving Park Rd. and Narragansett, just outside Chicago city limits. They used to take wagers in the morning at homes and stores on the races that took place in the afternoon, and also settled accounts from the previous day's races. That same year Tennes continued to spread his gambling operations on North Sheffield Avenue, further down to 18th St and Indiana Av. With that, Tennes earned his seat on the underworld gambling commission known as “The Trust” which also included gambling bosses from the West and South sides such as the Gazzolo brothers and Jim Colosimo.

By the late 1910’s, Tennes also became part owner in the steamer boat known as “The City of Traverse” and also managed to enter the Loop and First Ward and the Levee, obviously with the blessing from the local bosses Mike Kenna, John Coughlin and Jim O’Leary. Also, when the Western Union was closed in 1904, two years later John Payne a telegraph operator of Cincinnati established a telegraph service that again provided results from race tracks around the country formed the Payne Telegraph Service. Tennes wanted in and by 1907 he purchased and took a part in the Payne Telegraph by taking the daily returns on races from tracks throughout the country. No gambling operator could secure race returns by telephone or telegraph unless he paid Tennes for the service and so all local bookies were required to turn over to Tennes' syndicate fifty per cent of the net daily receipts.

All of the trouble began by the end of that year when one day Tennes was physically attacked on the street near his home. Tennes, was convinced that O'Leary was behind the attack in retaliation for Tennes' efforts to have O'Leary's Dearborn Park poolroom in Northwest Indiana. Now, most of the South Side groups and O’Leary were on one side, while opposite of them were the Northwest clans such as the Gazzolo bros and Mike Heitler who joined Tennes. This situation became known as the infamous “Gambling War”.

On July 25, 1907 Tennes' home on Belden Av was bombed and completely destroyed and a month later, O'Leary's resort on S. Halsted was bombed. On August 19, the Tennes home was again victimized by a bomb which landed in the front yard and during the war over 30 bombs exploded at the business joints and homes of Chicago’s most prominent gamblers and racketeers, including lots of independent gambling operators who also suffered the consequences.

In 1911 the bombings suddenly ended and it was the beginning of the few quiet years for Chicago’s underworld. Sources say that almost 60 bombs were thrown during the conflict. When the smoke cleared, Tennes rose as the dominant force and opened his own wire service which was named the “Tennes General News Bureau” and immediately started a process of eliminating the “Payne News Service” from national control of the racing news service. A reign of terror prevailed over the Payne Service Agency which resulted in a legal, as well as illegal, war which eventually drove the Payne Agency out of business.

The number of Tennes bookmaking operations significantly increased when he made an alliance with South Side boss Jim Colosimo. The Loop flourished under Tennes and Colosimo and their penchant for vice, with fifty wide open gambling joints operated under the protection of the First Ward. With Colosimo’s help, Tennes also managed to spread his interests further down the South Side all the way to northwest Indiana. Following an investigation in 1911, the Civil Service Commission revealed police raids were made only under the instruction of Tennes and his associates like Colosimo and Mike Heitler, and then only against those who competed against their organization.

So in a very short time Tennes became the Czar of all race tracks gambling in the United States and Canada. From 90 poolrooms in Chicago and 70 in New York City, he received tremendous profits. Tennes was servicing cities all over the country including San Francisco, New Orleans, Baltimore and many more. He maintained control over the handbooks through violence, and those who opposed him could expect police raids, slugging and bombings.

Few of Tennes’ most prominent associates in the gambling business were Ed Wagner, who in turn was connected to racetracks all around the country with headquarters on Chicago’s 18th St and Indiana Av, followed by James Sweeney on S Clark and Adams streets, and also at 914 Clark St. Sweeney was Teens’ guy on street, meaning besides gambling he also had connections to numerous gangs from all around the city. Two of Sweeney’s prime operators were Jack Ford at 221 Dearborn St and William Knott on 31st St and also on 2232 S Cottage Grove Av.

Joseph Sangerman owned a barbershop at 1447 W Winona Av on the city’s North Side and was also a business agent for the Master Barber’s union. But besides that Sangerman was also connected to many bombers and arsonists, something which brought the attention of Tennes and other syndicate leaders, like the Mafia from the 19th Ward. Another Tennes lieutenant was Phil Green who owned the Arlington Club saloon on 31st St and Indiana Av which in fact was huge gambling operation, followed by another gambling establishment at 6022 N Clark St knows as the Otis saloon.

In 1916, Federal appeals court judge and future baseball commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis launched a personal investigation on Tennes' gambling schemes, in which it was revealed that his operations netted around $100,000 each year. Tennes hired superstar attorney Clarence Darrow and eventually Landis' inquiry ended with the conclusion that interstate transmission of gambling information wasn't illegal under federal statues, and actual gambling was a local phenomenon and so not under a federal court's jurisdiction. However, on January 16, 1917, indictments were returned based on official corruption growing out of gambling. Many raids on the gambling parlors were accomplished by the government, including one of Tennes’ gambling joints on 743 N. Clark St and also his news agency at 303 West Chicago Av.

By 1919 Tennes was slowly losing his political protections and on top of that, he and his associates lost thousands of dollars because of the betrayal of their cipher code. In 1920 Robert E. Crowe was elected as state’s attorney and declared war on the gambling business and its bosses. A “big haul” was made and over 100 associates were arrested, and the raids were sensational with axes and breaking doors and furniture. O’Leary’s ancient stronghold was also raided and closed for good. Crowe was now after Mont Tennes himself, James O’ Leary and the rest of the gambling brotherhood. The campaign shook the foundations of Chicago’s gambling empire and so Tennes fled the city and went down to Florida until the situation cooled down.


18th and 19th Ward, W Madison and Polk streets, W Jackson blvd

John Gazzolo (18th Ward political crime boss who owned a poolroom and saloon at 1342 W Madison St, and close associate of alderman Johnny Rogers) (member of the Trust from 1903 until 1906) (died in May 1914)

-Frank Gazzolo (18th Ward alderman and West Side saloon owner at 461 W Madison St) (died in December 1914)

- Lewis Gazzolo (18th Ward political crime boss and West Side saloon owner at 1356 W Madison St) (died in April 1917)

- Frank Kilcrane (enforcer for John Gazzolo)

- Henry Hughes (gambling operator and close associate of alderman John Powers from the 19th Ward)

- Jim Lavelle

- Fred Pond (saloon owner in Melrose Park)

- Michael Heitler (West Side rackets boss in the 18th and 19th wards)

- Coleman Heitler (saloon owner on West Madison)

- William Skidmore (saloon owner on the West Side)

- Robert Pearlman

- William Freise (gambling operator on W Chicago Av)

- Louis Kirsch

- Charles Hirsch

- Sam Bloom

- Peter Cohen

- Louis Marks

- Louis Frank

- Thomas Jones (saloon owner at 381 W Van Buren St)

- Martin Michaels (gambling operator on Taylor St and Ogden Av)

- Mike Rold (gambling operator on 6 N Clark St)

- James Considine (attorney, 19th Ward politician and saloon owner on W Madison)

The Gazzolo family arrived in Chicago around the 1850’s and the three brothers were actually all born in the city during the 1860’s. Their parents were from Genoa Italy, and it is quite possible that the Gazzolos might’ve been among the early founders of the Chicago Italian Diaspora. The brothers were born in the 18th Ward, in which Frank Gazzolo served two terms as alderman while his two brothers, John and Lewis, controlled all illegal activities. Frank Gazzolo’s home was located at 12 North Leavitt St on the city’s North Side.

By the late 1890’s and early 1900’s many Sicilians and so-called Mainlanders arrived in Chicago and during those days the Gazzolos already controlled large number of Italian votes, something that made them instrumental in the creation of the Italian political bloc in which both the Mafia and Camorra began to infiltrate sometime after that. Besides being from the northern part of Italy, some of the most prominent Italian southern criminals began working as precinct captains and enforcers for the same political candidates and racketeers that were already backed or associated with the Gazzolos for years.

The gambling schemes of the Gazzolo’s were located around the whole West Side and their prime illegal operations were centered on W Madison, Polk, and W Chicago streets, in the form of brothels and gambling saloons. Same as their associates from the South and North sides, in 1903 the Gazzolos were also members of the gambling combine known as the “Trust” with John as their representative. During that period the brothers also spread their gambling operations further west to Melrose Park on 5th Ave and their operator there was Fred Pond.

John Gazzolo was also closely connected to another West Side racketeer Mike Heitler and during those days they both backed alderman Johnny Rogers, a corrupt political boss and also one corrupt state senator known as John Broderick. Michael "The Pike" Heitler was a Jewish racketeer who began operating brothels in Chicago since the late 1890’s together with his brother Coleman.

Their operations were stretched all around West Madison Street and by the early 1900’s Mike Heitler had become one of the leading crime figures in the prostitution business. His brother Coleman owned a saloon at 201 Washington St, and they allegedly used to collect street tax from many brothels and gambling parlors on the West Side for the 19th Ward political machine, and sometimes Mike collected by himself and sometimes with the help of other criminal associates such as corrupt police officials.

Two of those officials were chief inspector Edward McCann and Detective Sergt. Jeremiah Griffin of the Desplaines street district and they wouldn't let anyone operate in their districts without first paying tribute to this small criminal syndicate. A lot of bad women and men went to the police station and settled their debts with McCann and Griffin in person. Heitlers other criminal associates who also collected street taxes from the prostitutes and gamblers were Peter Cohen, Louis Marks and Louis Frank, who in turn was also a saloon owner and a politician.

In 1903, the Heitler clan was represented by Gazzolo in the gambling combine and during that period, besides white slavery and extortion, the Heitler brothers were also involved in gambling and few of their prime operators were Louis Kirsch, Charles Hirsch and Sam Bloom and in 1909 all of these guys, including the Heitler bros, were indicted on gambling charges but later the case was dropped. According to some news reports at the time, this small syndicate allegedly accumulated over $100,000 a year from the brothels and saloons on the West Side.

Even though gambling was their prime illegal income, the brothers were also involved in extortion. For example in 1905, John Gazzolo together with Frank Kilcrane wrecked the grocery store of one local fruit dealer from Washington blvd in Oak Park. When the so-called Trust broke apart, an era of bombings occurred and almost every big time racketeer had problems with keeping their establishments in one piece, like for example the Gazzolos owned the Coliseum Annex saloon on W Madison St that was bombed during the gambling wars of the late 1900’s.

In 1911, a bomb also exploded in front of Mike Heitler’s saloon on W 35th St, but when the smoke cleared, the Gazollos and the Heitlers ended up with close connections to the winning faction that was headed by Mont Tennes from the North Side and Jim O’Leary from the South. That same year, one informant stated that both Gazzolo and Tennes joined forces and controlled large number of gambling parlors all across the West and North sides.

Some sources say that Heitler also strengthened his connections with the Tennes syndicate and some news reporters at the time even labeled Heitler as being a “lieutenant” for Tennes which is false. The interesting thing was that by now he and the Gazzolos began creating alliances with other organizations from both the 18th and 19th wards. For example two of Gazzolo’s prime connections to alderman Johnny Powers from the 19th Ward were Henry Hughes, a gambling operator from the West Side and James “Dick” Considine who in turn was an attorney and also a saloon owner at 2757 W Madison St.

In May 1914, Gazzolo’s headquarters on W Madison St was blown to pieces and almost 50 people were injured, mostly individuals that worked near the joint or were walking by it. At first it was said that the explosion was caused by gas leakage but that was later nixed from the case, and so the investigators began to suspect that the establishment was allegedly bombed by some rivals. The problem was that the gambling wars were over and after that the brothers allegedly didn’t have problems with anyone or maybe they entered another racket known as arson and fraud since in the end they collected the insurance.

By the end of 1914, both Frank and John Gazzolo died of natural causes, followed by their third brother Lewis in 1917. So by the mid 1910’s the Gazzolo dynasty was finished and it wasn’t a coincidence that during that same time period the southern faction of the Italian Diaspora began to rise within Chicago’s West Side politics.

In 1917, a big case for Illinois State’s Attorney Hoyne painted a centralized organized crime triumvirate that appeared to be largely for prosecution purposes more so than actually having cracked the decentralized clustered organized crime network. Hoyne’s men raided a luxury office at 109 North Dearborn Street and discovered Mike Heitler, William Skidmore and two other corrupt government detectives sorting through packages of money secured by rubber bands.

The raid also uncovered that one of the detectives was carrying a small notebook that included lists of protected hotels, brothels and saloons. The prosecutors at the time labeled both Heitler and Skidmore as “rulers of the vice world” on the city’s West Side, and well connected to other members in Chicago’s organized crime network such as Jim Colosimo and John Torrio from the South Side.

William “Billy” Skidmore started around the Lawndale area and later became close associate of Heitler, but Skidmore also had connections to many Jewish clans, such as the Guzik family and also to some Italian factions such as the Gazzolos. Skidmore was also known for being a “fixer” in both the 18th and 19th wards since 1908, when he became connected with the so-called Roger C. Sullivan wing of the Democratic Party, and in 1912 both Skidmore and Sullivan were sued for not paying any cash on their rents for several West Side saloons. In 1916, Skidmore also became assistant sergeant at arms at the Democratic convention.

By 1917, Skidmore owned a saloon for almost a decade which was located at West 1958 Lake St but that same year the license of joint was revoked by the mayor of Chicago, followed by two more of his saloons around the Northwest. Besides the ownership of several Northwest saloons, by now Skidmore also allegedly reached some of the South Side areas which were mostly populated by African-American people, and so he had several associates who represented Skidmore’s gambling interests in those same areas.

During that same time period, Skidmore’s senior associate Mike Heitler was arrested with 30 other individuals in his cigar shop at 28 North Halsted St and later all charges were job, but few months after that Heitler was indicted on another case and was sentenced to 1 year in prison on white slavery charges. When the law of Prohibition took its turn in 1920, Heitler and his associates quickly rushed to join the “venture” and so in October that same year, he together with Robert Pearlman were arrested regarding the robbery of $175,000 worth of booze.

Both Heitler and Skidmore entered the era of Prohibition as two long time established criminal bosses and mentors of many future criminals from the West Side area, but the most important thing was that they were also accepted by the new rising syndicates which were more ruthless than every other criminal organization before.


Taylor St, Grand and Milwaukee avenues, Milton and Gault Court streets, North/West Side

Salvatore DiGiovanni (Neapolitan crime boss in the 19th Ward) (killed in 1901)

-Joseph Morici (president of “Sicilian society”)

-Frank Morici (saloon owner on Grand Av)

- Onofrio Serritella (close associate of 17th Ward representative and ass. State’s attorney Steve Malato)

-Joseph Mariso (another possible crew leader)

-Pietro Misuraci

-Antonio Sparacini

-Salvatore Quatrocchi

-Frank Catalano

Salvatore DiGiovanni was Neapolitan criminal who arrived in Chicago sometime around the late 1880’s and was labeled as “leader of the Italians” around the city’s Near West Side. DiGiovanni started in New York and before coming to Chicago, he landed in St Louis and lived under the alias Dr. Raffaelo Guidone. One conflicting source from 1901 says DiGiovanni was a Chicago resident for 10 years, which might be wrong and a third source says that one time he had been married in Kentucky. Whatever was the truth regarding DiGiovanni’s travels before his arrival in Chicago, still this brings a suspicion if he was a part of some criminal network or organization already operating in the US as well.

While in Chicago, he became involved in the 19th Ward which during those days the Italian bloc was headed by prominent Italian faces such as Sabatino Falone, Raffaele DeBartolo, Antonio Greco, Vincenzo Pacelli, Giuseppe Spingola and others, while the alderman for the whole ward was John Powers. Powers was also connected to the Italian bloc from the 17th Ward by sponsoring their newspaper known as La Democrazia which in turn was operated by locals such as Steve Malato and Onofrio Serritella.

In fact, Malato was Sicilian who at first became representative for the 17th Ward and later assistant state’s attorney, but some say that his position in the ward was scandalous because he previously lived in the 19th Ward and transferred to the 17th several weeks prior to his election, while the rule was for one candidate to live at least two years in that same area before becoming a candidate. If this was true than it might confirm Malato’s alleged connections to Powers and the rest of the 19th Ward boys.

Malato was also a member of the “White Hand”, a society which was against all “Black Hand” extortionists, but besides legit guys the organization also had Mafiosi as its own members although it is possible that some of the newspapers at the time confused the organization with another one known as the Unione Siciliana. In addition, in September 1900 Malato’s close associate and manager of his newspaper, Onofrio Serritella, was shot to death by one Pietro Ianello who in turn was allegedly defrauded by Serritella regarding some land.

DiGiovanni lived at 114 West Polk St and he was closely connected to the Morici bros, Joseph and Frank, who in turn were Sicilians and came from the Near North Side or Milton Av but owned a saloon on 57 Grand Av. Besides acting as enforcers for the 19th Ward, the gang was mainly involved in extortion, burglaries and counterfeiting which means that they were not some ordinary “Black Hand” criminals but instead they were slightly more sophisticated and possibly belonged to some “secret societies” or national criminal networks.

In September 1898, DiGiovanni was arrested on murder attempt charges when he tried to kill one Joseph Palundo. When the cops questioned DiGiovanni, he gave his name as Guliano Gambordella and later reports came up that Palundo left the city but swore revenge. Sources say the whole problem began regarding some expensive watch that was stolen from a prominent West side politician, which should’ve been bought by DiGiovanni but instead it landed in the hands of Joe Morici.

Later Morici was arrested regarding the theft but was released because of lack of evidences. Several days after his release, Morici was almost killed by “someone” who slashed his throat but managed to survive. In fact, the same thing almost happened to Palundo which means that DiGiovanni was also Morici’s attacker. So DiGiovanni was arrested and questioned regarding the attack and surprisingly he admitted to it but was released on bond and allegedly fled Chicago for a couple of days. When DigIovanni returned, the case was dropped since Morici didn’t press any charges. In addition, it is interesting to note that the knife or razor was usually a traditional weapon used by members of the old Camorra clans when they wanted to execute someone who “hurt” their honor or to kill a member of the government.

On February 21 1901, the crew had a gathering in Morici’s joint on Grand Av and the guys on the table were DiGiovanni, Morici, Joe Mariso, Antonio Sparacini, Sal Quatrocchi, Frank Catalano and also one close friend of DiGiovanni who arrived from New York several days prior known as Carlo Battista. All of the men were armed and story goes that this was in fact a trap for DiGiovanni since later a shooting occurred outside which left Mariso wounded in the mouth, while DiGiovanni was lying dead on the ground.

When the cops searched DiGiovanni’s pockets, they found the gun from which he previously fired four bullets and this was quite a “mystery”. They also found many counterfeit coins and also few letters in which DiGiovanni’s was called back to New York by some criminal organization regarding a murder for which he was about to get indicted. It is also possible that Batista was sent to Chicago to bring DiGiovanni in New York and this is a proof that he or they belonged to some national criminal network, possibly the Camorra or maybe even the Mafia.

When the case was brought in 17th Ward leader Steve Malato took a hand in clearing up the mystery, and so he cleared all Mafia involvement by stating that from the whole gang, only Joe Morici was a member of a “Sicilian society” and the murder was a product of a quarrel and that Morici acted in self defense. The cops took Batista shady testimony but they also questioned Sal Quatrocchi whose testimony was taken as most “credible” and was confirmed by Malato and so Morici was released.

Giovanni’s life and death shows us that early in the days there were close connections and rivalries in Chicago between the Mafia and Mainlander criminals. We don’t have a proof that most Calabrian and Neapolitan syndicates in Chicago joined forces into one "Camorra" organization or that many Mainlanders were made into the Mafia, but instead we have proof regarding more than few early connections which confirms the previous statement to an extent.

After the murder of DiGiovanni, Joe Morici took over his area and opened his own saloon at 181 N Sangamon St on the city’s Near West Side and their prime racket became arson. In 1909 the place was caught by a mysterious fire and burned to the ground. The government investigated the case but the Moricis usually blamed the “Black Hand” gangs and often collected the insurance.

The Moricis originally came from Termini Imerese, Sicily and there were more than few families around the Northwest Side from that same town. One of Joe Morici’s nieces Josephine Morici, in 1914 married Vincenzo "Jimmy" Vinci thereby suggesting another potential link between the Sicilian Mafia and Southern Mainlanders as the Vincis were from Simbario, Calabria and were stationed on Chicago’s South Side.

Joe Morici’s partner in the wine and grape business was Peter Misuraci and they owned a wine shop at 838 Grand Av, and this guy also became a treasurer in a patent medicine company and also owned a fruit business in Danville, Illinois but in November 1909, a nitroglycerin bomb wrecked the whole place and Misuraci took the insurance. By 1911, both Morici and Misuraci owned a building on the corner of W Grand Av and N Green St, which was also blown to pieces.

We don’t have any proof if the Morici brothers or any of their associates were members of the Mafia, but we have proof that they were more sophisticated and wealthier than some of the other Italian criminals from that period, an image that perfectly fits with some of the Mafiosi at the time. Another interesting thing to note is that from 1902/03, one individual known as Mariano Zagone was the alleged leader of the Mafia in Chicago and he was killed in 1909, and after that Joe and Frank Morici began slowly to fade away from the newspaper headlines.


Gault Court (Cambridge Avenue) Oak St Milton Av and North Sedgwick St, Grand Av and Near West Side

Mariano Zagone (alleged leader of the Chicago Mafia and cigar manufacturer on Gault Court and Oak streets) (killed in 1909)

Rosario Dispenza (possible second in command and succeeded Zagone in 1909) (killed in January 1914)

Anthony D’Andrea (imprisoned in 1903 and released in, and succeeded Dispenza in 1914)

- Pietro Dispenza (died in 1912)

-Louis D’Andrea

-Michele Merlo (close associate of D’Andrea and allegedly held high rank in the Mafia)

-Martin Merlo

-Carmelo Nicolosi (saloon owner on Milton Av) (imprisoned in 1911 but released in 1914)

-Giuseppe Nicolosi (possible second in command) (imprisoned in 1911 but released in 1914)

-Anthony Puccio (killed in January 1914)

-Victor Barone (killed in February 1914)

-John Barone

-Pete Catalanetto (killed in June 1915)

-Tommy Petrotta (in 1915 fled the city)

-Tony D’Acunto

-Vincenzo Roselli

-Vincent Cutaia (alleged cousin of Dispenza and operator on Milton Av)

-Frank Cutaia (alleged cousin of Vincent Cutaia)

-James Marzano (19th Ward political boss)

-Joseph Esposito (labor enforcer and 19th Ward political boss)

- Sam Esposito

- Gaetano Esposito

-Pete Fosco (labor enforcer)

-Paul Labriola (deputy bailiff and associate of alderman John Powers)

- Anthony Volpe

- Phil Leonatti/Leonetti

-Peter Nota (enforcer for the Nicolosi bros and arrested in 1911)

-Tony Nota (arrested in 1911)

-Joseph Taddeo (arrested in 1911)

-Gianni Alongi (enforcer for the Nicolosi bros and sentenced to prison on white slavery charges)

-Aldurino Mazzone (Alongi lieutenant)

-Angelo Genna (enforcer for D’Andrea on Taylor St)

-Sam Amatuna

-Frank Gambino

-Victor Tortoriello

-Louis Battaglia

-Peter Granata

In time, this faction probably became the largest syndicate in Chicago mainly because their power was based on membership and of course, illegal income. This was the so-called original Mafia, an organization that began to build on national level, something similar to what we already saw in the DiGiovanni/Morici case, meaning they had contacts in New York and other cities around the country. As we already said, by the late 1910’s this became a huge organization and that’s why we’ve decided to include only the prominent names that are important to us regarding this project.

Many Mob historians labeled Mariano Zagone as the first Mafia boss in Chicago and we don’t deny that but instead, we think that there might’ve been already some Sicilian criminal “society or societies” present in Chicago even before he arrived in the city. Zagone was born in Ciminna Sicily, and immigrated to the US in 1899 and by 1902 he was in Chicago according to his marriage record, coincidentally the year right after the murder of Salvatore DiGiovanni and other situations. It is possible that Zagone's father also had ties to Caccamo, which of course is right next to Termini Imerese from where one of the Morici clans arrived.

Mariano Zagone married to a widow known as Biaggia Spatafora who had six children with her late husband and Zagone became their stepfather. The newspapers say that Spatafora’s late husband used be a wealthy Italian from the North Side, type of information which opens up few possibilities like for example, he was either a successful businessman or a Mafioso.

Either way, the family lived at 150 Gault Court and Zagone’s headquarters was a saloon at 134 Gault Court where other criminals also gathered on daily basis. Few of Zagone’s most prominent associates were the Nicolosi brothers, Carmelo and Giuseppe, and the D’Andrea brothers, Tony and Louis. For example, Joe Nicolosi was Zagone’s son-in-law by marrying his stepdaughter, while Carmelo was in charge of Zagone’s establishments. In addition, the Nicolosis allegedly arrived from Corleone Sicily.

We don’t know much regarding all of Zagone’s rackets except for posing as wealthy cigar maker, although sources say that he was involved in coin counterfeiting and it is possible that his crew was also involved in kidnapping for ransom. The D’Andrea bros were allegedly in charge for the gang’s counterfeiting operations, while the Nicolosi clan was in charge of kidnapping. Lots of other Mafiosi also lived in the same area such as Rosario Dispenza, Pete Catalanetto, Victor Barone, the Merlo bros and all of the Morici clans, and these fellas were involved in all types of rackets and legitimate enterprises and were probably connected to Zagone or were under his rule.

According to sources, the troubles for Zagone began in 1903 when the government arrested and sent to prison Tony D’Andrea on counterfeiting charges, and so Zagone’s bosses back in New York allegedly weren’t quite happy about it mainly because he was also exposed as being leader of the counterfeiting gang. The first attempt on Zagone’s life was registered in November 1906, followed by another one 15 days later, and two more attempts during the following years, once when Zagone received a bullet in his back but survived and the second attempt when one of his 13 year old stepsons was wounded by a bullet for seating right next to his stepfather. The police believed that one of Zagone’s stepsons Joe Spatafora was behind the attempt when his stepfather received a bullet, mainly because Joe allegedly was against the marriage of his mother with Zagone.

Besides his enemies in the Mafia, it is quite possible that Zagone also had love problems, meaning some sources say that he dishonored some girl back in Italy and that one of her relatives followed him all the way to the US or to Chicago. If that was true, then Zagone dishonored both families including his current one with the Spataforas. So it is possible that Zagone disappointed his close associates around him and slowly lost his protection, because for an alleged Mafia boss he surely was on his own. For example if it was only one guy after him, we don’t believe that was going to be a big problem for Zagone to solve but instead, we believe that there were more than few guys after him and were protected by someone.

In May 1909, Zagone sat down with his son-in-law Joe Nicolosi at their saloon on 134 Gault Court when suddenly a man walked near Zagone and fired few bullets in his stomach, thus fatally wounding him. After that Zagone staggered outside the saloon and fell into a coma right in front of it. He was taken to a hospital and died there. Later the cops found out that “someone” tried to clean the blood from the table where Zagone and Nicolosi previously sat, which caused suspicion that Nicolosi was also involved in the conspiracy to kill his boss and father-in-law. Nicolosi lied that he stood behind the bar while the shots were fired and allegedly couldn’t see a thing. So the cops decided to arrest both Nicolosi and Zagone’s stepson Joe Spatafora but were later released because of lack of evidences.

After Zagone’s demise, it seems that some of his associates began to expand their operations like for example Carmelo Nicolosi opened up another saloon at 1000 Gault Court which by 1910 also became a gathering place for Italian criminals from the Near North Side such as the Nota bros, Pete and Tony, and on top of that, sources say that Zagone’s successor as boss of the Mafia in Chicago became Spatafora’s relative Rosario Dispenza who possibly orchestrated his former boss’ demise. Sources show that Dispneza’s nickname was “Heartless” probably because he ordered the deaths of many men but also opened the doors to many “forbidden” rackets such as kidnapping and prostitution.

For example one alleged “Black Hand” leader known as Gianni Alongi was close associate of the Nicolosi bros, and besides extortion he was also involved in prostitution. In 1911, Alongi was sentenced to prison on white slavery charges. Also in August 1911, both Carmelo and Joe Nicolosi together with their wives were arrested regarding the kidnapping of 7 year old Angelo Moreno who lived on 852 Gault Court. In October that same year both Carmelo and Joe Nicolosi were sent to life imprisonment but in May 1914, they were acquitted on all charges and released from prison. So the question remains on whether the Nicolosi bros were really innocent, or the wheels of Mafia justice began to turn and helped the brothers to get out because of their stature in the organization? We currently don’t have an answer to that.

Same as his predecessor, Dispenza also came from Ciminna Sicily and this guy posed as wealthy banker who owned the Banca/Banco Siciliana on the corner of Milton Av and Hobble St. Dispenza’s close associate in the banking business was one Anthony Puccio and both were also members of the “White Hand” society and the Unione Siciliana which also included prominent faces such as Steve Malato.

It is possible that Dispenza’s bank "Banco Siciliano" was linked to the original Banco Siciliana in Sicily that was formed to offer loans to farmers around Palermo but was overrun with Mafiosi in the late 19th century who used it of course to extort farmers. In Dispenza’s case story goes that many Italian residents were forced to make deposits in his bank and if someone made a huge deposit, he or she was usually killed on Dispneza’s orders and so the cash remained in the bank.

Another Dispenza associate was Victor Barone who portrayed himself as a wine merchant and his shop was located at 1024 Cambridge Avenue, and from there he sold imported Italian wine and sold it around the local saloons, restaurants and other liquor shops. One of Barone’s associates in the grape growing business was Tommy Petrotta, who in turn also represented himself as a wealthy wine broker by owning or had connections to thousand hectares of wine grape on the west coast. In no time, besides the local owners on Chicago’s North Side, Barone’s organization began transporting their product even around the Midwest, thus providing huge amounts of legitimate cash for the organization. In addition, from this point on many Chicago businessmen also began investing in the importation of California products in their own city and even on the east coast.

By 1910, the D’Andrea brothers spread the group’s operations by opening a restaurant at 2727 S Archer Av on the city’s South Side, and the owner was Louis D’Andrea who same as his brother Tony, was also arrested on counterfeiting charges that same year. Louis was arrested in gambling establishment that was located on N Dearborn St.

One of their associates in the business was Chris Davidson aka Richard Davis who was known forger all around the country and arrived in Chicago back in 1901. In 1909, the D’Andreas and Davis sent their own men to New Orleans as presenters for their forged checks but the team got arrested which included Oscar Ryan, Carmelo Lucchese and Dominick Catalano. All of them went to trial and were sentenced to Louisiana state penitentiary but Tony D’Andrea remained untouched while his brother remained in custody for several months.

In 1912, Tony D’Andrea was the grand master of an Italian gathering presented by the society “Tripoli Italiana” that honored the “Consiglio Supremo di Trinacria Fratellanza Siciliana” which means something like the supreme council of the brotherhood of three cornered Sicily. They donated cash to Italian Tripolitania which in fact was an Italian colony located in present-day western Libya and believed in the expansion of Italians around the world. This was also a proof that during the Dispenza regime, the Mafia in the U.S. was connecting or was already connected to their counterparts in Europe and around the world.

In 1913 one of D’Andrea’s and Dispenza’s associates, Paul Labriola, was arrested regarding an assault with a deadly weapon after he tried to extort one firm owner. Labriola worked as bailiff in the Municipal court and according to investigators at the time, Alderman John Powers quickly rushed to rescue Labriola from imprisonment. It is possible that Labriola was one of the prime connections between Powers and the Dispenza/D’Andrea regime.

Even though their business ventures were going pretty steady, on January 23, 1914 Dispenza and Tony Puccio were ambushed on 1031 Milton Av, allegedly by one assassin who in turn killed his victims one by one. When the cops searched the bodies of the two dead men, they found some letter on Puccio that arrived from New York and in it, the investigators saw that order was sent from the Mafia bosses to Dispenza to tell his lieutenant D’Andrea to go and post a bond for one of their imprisoned Mafia members in some small town in Illinois.

Ten days later, Barone was also shot by a shotgun blast at Cambridge Avenue and Hobble Street, only a block away from where his crime boss Dispenza was also killed. After that, Barone was quickly carried to the Columbus Memorial hospital, seriously hurt, but because some of the slugs from the shotgun had deeply penetrated into his skull, he died shortly after the arrival. After the murders of Dispenza and Barone, in June 1915 one of their associates Pete Catalanetto also received a bullet right into his face from a very close range and died on the spot which marked the end of the Dispenza regime.

Proof for that were also some of the transfers that occurred during that period, such as their business partner Tommy Petrotta who completely dedicated himself to the wine selling business and one year later, he relocated to Sacramento, California, from where he continued to grow grapes and transport Italian wine all around the Midwest and became one of the wealthiest wine dealers in the country.

Petrotta wasn’t the only Chicago mobster who relocated far west and began growing grapes, but since the many shootings, by 1917 he was followed by others such as Tony D’Acunto and one Vincenzo Roselli, who in turn relocated few years later, and they operated around the West Market St. in Los Angeles, California; where many Italian fruit importers and exporters mingled and sold their products.

Tony D’Andrea succeeded Dispenza as boss of the Mafia from the Northwest, who in turn was probably the first most intelligent and powerful boss who headed the Chicago Mafia through various ventures. The D’Andreas arrived from Valledolmo Sicily, and the following leadership of the Chicago family seems to have been from this same area of western Palermo province.

By 1919 D’Andrea also became president of the Unione Siciliana and even became a Democratic committeeman and later candidate for alderman of the 19th Ward. The Unione Siciliana was important only among the Sicilians while the wards were important for organized crime in general, meaning being an alderman of the 19th Ward was more lucrative than just being president of the Unione. Besides that, the old Irish political leaders also needed the Italian vote and that’s why they had close connections to representatives from the Sicilian society.

The first one who really started the battle for an Italian to become alderman for the 19th Ward was allegedly James Marzano, a wealthy undertaker, Democratic representative and both associate and mentor of some Mafia and organized crime figures. James Pasquale Marzano was born in 1882 in Chicago to parents who recently arrived from Ricigliano, Salerno. Same as the Gazzolos, the Mazanos were one of the earliest Italian families that settled in Chicago and there were so many Riciglianesi settled in the city, that in later decades they were called by the nickname "Richies" in the Italian communities.

In 1909, Marzano was the Democratic candidate for a ward committeeman against James Bowler and since then, he was constantly building up his political ambitions as the Italian population continuously grew in that same ward. One of Marzano’s rising stars from the West Side was another Mainlander known as Joseph Esposito who in turn had close connections with the D’Andrea and Merlo bros, and also with other bosses such as Jim Colosimo from the South Side. Esposito was born in 1872 in Acerra Campania, and in 1895 arrived in New York and went to work as laborer in Brooklyn. After that he went to Boston where he lived for one year and later again returned to Brooklyn where he worked in a bakery.

In 1905 at the age of 33, Esposito landed in Chicago and opened his own bakery in the old 19th Ward, and in 1908 he became business agent for the International Hod Carriers’ and Construction Laborers’ union, and also became the president of “Circolo Accera” which in fact was a organization made out of more than 500 men and women from his native town back in Italy. This obviously raises the question on whether Esposito already had underworld connections in Chicago, or he created them during his stay in the city? After all Esposito wasn’t your ordinary businessman with underworld connections since that same year he was involved in the murder of one Italian barber, but the following year the case was stricken off and the indictment was quashed.

So this raises another question on whether Esposito already belonged to some Italian “secret society” that was already established in the U.S. and which also possibly gave him connections to other criminal societies such as the Mafia? For example, one news report said that Esposito allegedly had a distant relative known as Gaetano Esposito and this fella owned a saloon at 606 South May St, but after committing a murder Gaetano fled Chicago and went to Bayonne in New Jersey, where he instantly opened a poolroom and assumed a different name. So if the connections are true, than there’s no question regarding Joe Esposito’s national criminal contacts which gave him the “power” or opportunity to survive on high scale in any other city around the country.

Esposito’s fast rise within Chicago’s underworld made him to forget his bakery business and transferred to the saloon and restaurant game by opening a new joint at 1048 W Taylor St, and once a shooting occurred in which Esposito’s brother Sam was wounded, although the attacker was quickly eliminated. By 1915, Esposito also became business agent for the Excavator’s union which was recently taken over by the D’Andrea regime and that same year Esposito was arrested two times, once with Pete Fosco after a fight with other labor representatives and the second time with the Mafia’s top leadership such as Tony D’Andrea and Mike Merlo, again regarding union racketeering. In addition, it is possible that this was the time period when Esposito became made member of Mafia under the D’Andrea regime.

According to government authorities, by the late 1910’s Esposito controlled a large gang on the West Side, allegedly overseen by two of his main lieutenants such as Tony Volpe and Esposito’s brother-in-law Phil Leonetti. Reports show that Volpe was illegal immigrant born in Argentina, a country that was allegedly infested by many Camorra members at the time.

So with the help of James Marzano, investigators showed that Esposito also became political force in the old 19th Ward and supported his political mentor. In February 1919, Marzano challenged Alderman Johnny Powers and story goes that the old time Irish boss spent $25,000 ($350,000 in today’s money) to defeat his Italian opponent and he succeeded in doing it. Powers started as half-Irish, half-German saloon keeper on the Northwest Side and was connected to both Mike McDonald’s “Democrats” and also to the Tennes gambling syndicate and he wanted to stay at the top but still to control the Italian vote through his underlings.

The fight wasn’t over since that same year D’Andrea ran for ward committeeman in the 19th Ward and after he got elected, the Illinois Supreme Court nixed the election and so he also lost Powers’ support and was looked upon as opponent. Proof for the previous connection between D’Andrea and Powers was that some of D’Andrea’s associates like Paul Labriola decided to stay with Powers and turned their backs to the boss. This is a proof regarding the huge power of the old Anglo-Saxson political crime bosses that was still present even during those days.

So during this period, few of D’Andrea’s precinct captains in the 19th Ward were Peter Granata from the third precinct, Pete Fosco from the fifth precinct, Louis Battaglia from the 6th precinct, Benjamin Geldrman from the 24th precinct and Victor Tortoriello from the 26th precinct, and in the end D'Andrea decided to run again for alderman against Powers and that was the beginning of the so-called “Aldermen's Wars”.

Besides his buddies in the Mafia, D’Andrea was also backed by other bosses, both Italian and non-Italian, during the war especially with the arrival of more than few experienced bombers. Few of D’Andrea’s enforcers during the war were the Genna brothers headed by one Angelo Genna who in turn arrived in Chicago during the mid 1910’s. Besides killing people, the Gennas were also involved in extortion and white slavery aka prostitution. It is also possible that Joe Sangerman for the Mont Tennes group was hired by or joined D’Andrea during the bombings of both Powers’ establishments and also unions.

Obviously the conflict wasn’t good for neither of Chicago’s crime syndicates because lots of bombs were thrown around the city of Chicago until the violence reached such a point that D'Andrea allegedly condemned it and dropped out of the race, although our belief is that he probably received pressure from his Mafia bosses back in New York because of all of the unwanted attention and loss of business.

Milton Av, W Fulton St and W Washington Blvd

August Morici (owner of a wholesale bakery and grocery store on Milton Av)

Antonio Morici (owner of a macaroni manufacturing company on Fulton St)

Philip Morici

-Joseph Gagliardo (business agent for Local 233 Hod Carrier’s union)

-John Gagliardo (killed in September 1919)

-Joseph Novello (enforcer)

-Peter Montalbano

-Tony Campagna

-Giovanni Scardini

-Giuseppe Matalone

There were more than few Morici clans located on Chicago’s Northwest Side, including the previous Morici brothers that we already mentioned and we don’t know if they were related to the following Morici bros, mainly because Joe and Frank Morici came from Termini Imerese while the second guys came from Bagheria, Sicily which is only like 25km from Termini. So it could be possible for some connections between these different Moricis from back in Sicily, but there's no evidence one way or the other aside from them all being involved in the Mafia in Chicago, and as well as the fact that both Morici families were big in the grocery/wholesale business, followed by arson and fraud.

Antonio, Agostino and Filippo Morici posed as wealthy businessmen who by 1912 owned the Antonio & Co. wholesale bakery and grocery store at 906 Milton Av, and also sold imported Italian products. The brothers also owned a macaroni manufacturing company on 1622 Fulton St. It was quite possible that the Moricis were sometimes victims of “Black Hand” attacks, same as any other Mafioso and Camorrista, and so they donated money and were probably members of the “White Hand” society. The problem was that the brothers often used these threats to destroy their own establishments and later to collect the insurance.

Their associates the Gagliardo brothers, John and Joseph, followed similar path like for example, Joseph became a business agent for the Hod Carrier’s and Building Laborer’s union while John owned a wholesale grocery store at 921 W Randolph St. John Gagliardo was a friend of state’s attorney Steve Malato and often gave him information regarding reckless Black Hand gangsters who opposed the Mafia and any other organization. Another of Gagliardo’s connection in the state’s attorney’s office was one Charles Furthmann who in turn was an investigator that took bribes from Gagliardo in return for information regarding arson investigations on him and the rest of the Morici clan.

In 1913, both the Morici and Gagliardo brothers were indicted on arson and fraud charges and later they were released on $100,000 bond (or two and a half million dollars in today’s money), amount of money which speaks a lot regarding these fellas. Eventually the case was dropped because it involved members from the state’s attorney office and so the brothers continued to flourish in their rackets. We dont have any direct connections between the Moricis and the Zagone or Dispenza regimes, but we believe that they were connected to the D’Andrea organization through the Spingola and Genna families.

The brothers also controlled their own gang which was led by one of their lieutenants Joseph Novello followed by young criminals such as Tony Campagna, Peter Montalbano and others. In 1915, Novello had a shootout with the cops and was later caught and arrested, and was sentenced from 1 to 14 years in Joliet penitentiary. With the help from the Morici bros and their influence within Chicago judicial system, Novello was paroled to work in the Rock Island arsenal and was later released. Story goes that Novello had a very fearsome reputation and also had connections to various gangs such as the Gloriana crew.

All of the problems for the Morici and Gagliardo bros started in May 1917 when a general strike occurred, which included almost 200 macaroni workers from the Chicago Macaroni union against ten macaroni manufacturers including the Morici bros. Another strike occurred few months later and this time there were around 800 macaroni workers who quit their jobs.

The most serious problem for the brothers began in 1919 when some of their underlings and enforcers such as Novello and Montalbano thought that they didn’t receive enough profits or cash from their “employers” and so they decided to go against them. In fact, at first Novello tried to separate the Gagliardos from the Moricis, by making a visit to John Gagliardo and told him that they were sent by the Morici clan to extort $1000 from them. Montalbano also told Gagliardo that if they don’t pay, the Moricis allegedly ordered for them to be eliminated.

The Gagliardos didn’t believe the story and so they went to the Moricis and reached an understanding. So from that point on, the Novello gang targeted both the Morici and Gagliardo families and during that same year, there were several murder attempts made on their lived and first victim was John Gagliardo who was killed in September 1919.

The Moricis tried to use their contacts in state’s attorney’s office and so Novello and Montalbano were both arrested but during the investigations, the Moricis stuck to code of “omerta”, meaning they didn’t say a thing against their enemies. It seems that the Moricis wanted to settle the problem without their testimony but the problem was that they also gave many conflicting infos and so the case was dropped. Some sources say that after that, the Novello/Montalbano/Campagna alliance took control over the areas that were previously controlled by the Moricis and Gagliardos. Proof for that is that by 1920, the Morici bros began to invest most of their wealth into real estate along W Washington Blvd, like for example that same year, one of Moricis employees was crushed by an elevator in one of the their buildings on 652 W Washington.


W Oak St, Milton Av, North Cambridge Av and N Larrabee St, Near North Side

Charles Gloriana (leader of the gang)

-Carlo Moretti

-Frank Moretti

-Frank Giardinello

-Mike Lisciandrello

-Dominick Nuccio

-Victor Rizzo

-Carlo Patello

-Jack Cali

-Mike O’Malley

-Joseph Green

-George Connell

-Joseph Colo

-Carl Colo

-August Urbanowicz (killed in 1919)

It is possible that the so-called Gloriana gang was a “product” or at least closely associated with the old Morici/Novello clan from the Near North Side, and it is possible they were created sometime during the mid or late 1910’s. The gang was composed mainly out of young criminals from 15 to 25 years old and they represented some type of muscle for hire or farm team for some of Chicago’s most prominent organized crime syndicates such as the Mafia from the 18th and 19th wards, and also some of the Mainlanders from the South Side. Once, deputy police commissioner John Alcock described the Gloriana gang as the most dangerous band of criminals ever to infest Chicago.

The alleged leader of the group was Vincenzo "Charles" Gloriana who was from Palazzo Adriano Sicily, and was born in 1895. Gloriana specialized in various rackets from stealing cars and robberies, to extortion and murder. Gloriana lived at 1101 Townsend St (today North Hudson Av) and story goes that his prime lieutenant was one Carlo Moretti who in turn came from North Sedgwick St and it is possible that they both headed the crew at the same time, mainly because they were almost the same age with Moretti being the older one. Sources say that Gloriana oversaw one part of the group that operated between Oak St and the river, while Moretti oversaw the other half that operated mostly north of Oak St and was also closely associated with other gangs and crime syndicates.

One of their close associates was Dominick Nuccio who came from North Cambridge Av and specialized in robberies and sometimes also acted as driver for the crew, but he was also suspect in several murders. One news reporter at the time also labeled him as leader of the Gloriana gang, which is another proof regarding the confusion on who really controlled the group. Mike Lisciandrello was from Milton Av and was a grocer who in reality was the crew’s fencer of stolen goods with more than few underworld contacts. One of Lisciandrello’s neighbors and also member of the gang was Frank Giardinello who also had quite long arrest record and was suspect in few murders, same as the Colo bros Joseph and Carlo.

Even though the group was mostly made out of Italian members, still they also had few non-Italians in their ranks such as Mike O’Malley, Joseph Green and George Connell. For example, O’Malley was close friend of both Gloriana and Moretti, while Green joined the gang after his return from World War I and possibly had the needed skills and on top of that, one of Green’s childhood friends was another gang leader from the South Side known as Paddy Ryan who in turn was also closely connected to the Valley gang. Other members of the Gloriana group were Victor Rizzo, Carlo Patello and Jack Cali.

During April, May and June 1919, the gang allegedly executed around 30 robberies and holdups and their favorite were the liquor stores. In two months, over 20 liquor stores were robbed with the doors being shattered, safes cracked, and numerous barrels of beer and cases of whiskey and wine being stolen, and in fact the government even organized a special detective squad to go after these guys.

In May 1919, Gloriana, O’Malley and Patello were sent to 60 days in jail on vagrancy charges and story goes that the judge overlooked many evidences that were given by the prosecutors and even showed his sympathy towards Gloriana, which means that the case was obviously fixed and the criminals should’ve received higher penalty. In June, Moretti was also arrested and sent to court no robbery charges but he was also released, followed by O’Malley who was indicted on three burglary charges and managed to furnish $15,000 bond. Another crew member, Victor Rizzo, was also arrested on similar charges and came up with $30,000 bond. This means that the gang had some type of protection and funds to go free every time they did something wrong.

On September 8, 1919, Morici associates John Gagliardo and Charles Ramondo were allegedly killed by members of the Gloriana crew, possibly by Frank Giardinello and Mike Lisciandrello since the murder occurred near Giardinello’s home on Milton Av. The murders were ordered by Joe Novello who turned against the Morici clan. On October 3 that same year, two detectives George Burns and Bernard Lenehan were shot to death in one saloon on the North Side and some detectives suspected that the Gloriana gang was behind it but they had no evidences to prove it. On October 15, the ganged robbed the Downey-Farrell company at 509 N Union St and killed the company’s secretary Merl Bucker during the process. In fact, Bucker was also a payroll guard who protected the firm’s money but obviously failed.

The main problem was that one crew member, Joe Green, was arrested during one robbery and later he began to talk and so the first one who got arrested was Moretti, followed by Gloriana, O’Malley, Connell and Rizzo. Green informed that the gang made around $15,000 (more than $200,000 in today’s money) in six weeks and that he received around $1,500. The gang’s usual lawyer and bondsman was Rocco DeStefano, precinct captain in the 19th Ward for Mafia boss Tony D’Andrea and also close friend and associate of South Side boss Jim Colosimo. So when the leadership of the gang got imprisoned, DeStefano was the first one who rushed to the court and asked for writs of habeas corpus but the proposal was refused.

When the trial came, Green refused to testify and switched his story and so he was beaten and threatened by the detectives and he was even brought in front of Gloriana and Moretti but stated that he didn’t know them. DeStefano also brought in many witnesses regarding the gangsters’ alibis, including missionaries, physicians and businessmen. The prosecutors managed to destroy every possible alibi that was given by the alleged witnesses and in reality they almost won the case but in January 1920, some of the defendants like the Morettis, Rizzo, Patello and Connell were released on bonds when another writ of habeas corpus was posted and this time the judge accepted it, while Gloriana remained in jail.

All of the bonds combined were around $60,000 or more than 700,000 dollars in today's money. Eventually it was declared that all of the evidences were insufficient and that the witnesses were not positive enough for the identifications for the case to stick and in the end, that same case was dismissed and both Gloriana and Moretti walked out free.

In June 1920, Nuccio was questioned regarding the murder of one alleged “Black Hand” leader known as Paul Torina from the Near North Side. The hit was so brutal because the victim was shot three times in the chest, once in the neck, one in the forehead and once in the abdomen. Sources say that the late Torina recently arrived from Pittsburgh to Chicago and quickly became known as extortionist and bootlegger and when he got killed, investigators also found some letters in his pockets and one of them allegedly implicated Torina as being a member of a bootlegging gang back in Pittsburgh.

So we are not sure if the so-called Gloriana gang was killing these suspicious guys on someone’s orders or if they did it on their own, but one thing is for sure that they had skills in thwarting the law and on how to make illegal money. Another interesting thing to note is that the Gloriana gang also placed the foundations for the future North Side crew under the up and coming Chicago Outfit.


Thanks.

You also wrote about the dutch scavengers, not really a gang but def an In-group lol. Never realised Dutch Chicagoans played such a big part in the early days among all those ethnic groups like the Germans and Poles.

Yeah, the Dutch controlled the garbage business in Chicago since the 1920’s, although I believe those guys were not the type of criminals that we usually talk about but instead, they probably were involved in some minor corruption in the form of donations and stuff. During that period the Dutch scavengers formed their own association to regulate the whole business and also eliminate any possible competition, and all members decided not to compete with each other and traded accounts to concentrate their routes for greater efficiency, meaning it became some type of business brotherhood that created its own monopoly.

Terrific post Toodoped. A great breakdown of the differant areas in Chicago, names I never saw before, and the timelines. Very nice job.

Thanks for the kind words jace and im quite glad that you liked it. Cheers

Violence is not really in the Dutch nature, but we are always good in making a profit.

I completely agree since during the 50s and 60's Dutch families such as the Huizengas (?) or the Van Tholens allegedly controlled 90% of the garbage business in Chicago and also allegedly profited with over 20 million dollars a year, which is a lot of cash in today's money.

The only thing I always wondered is...when the beef between the Outfit and the Dutch association began, none of the Dutch people were killed or beaten or violent stuff like that. The Outfit was quite violent at the time and so again, I wonder why they didnt use any violence against the Dutch association, like they previously did with hundreds of other associations regarding different businesses?

We have information regarding the Outfit taking over spots and areas which previously belonged to the Dutch and some members of the Dutch Association were forced to haul for less than the real cost in order to compete with the Outfit-backed firms and on the other hand the crime syndicate was throwing a fortune into the attempt to force all Dutch legitimate scavengers out of business.

Some sources say that the investigations and arrests on many Outfit companies and guys which were made by the FBI at the time, forced some Outfit members like Giancana, Daddono and the Frattos to close down their firms and above all, the Dutch organization had control over the dumping grounds and so all of the Outfit’s companies were restricted from dumping their garbage on dumps which were controlled by the Dutch association and that is why, many drivers who worked for the Outfit were forced to dump the garbage illegally.

Thats how the Dutch won the garbage war.

Good point the Outfit at one point just gave up and sold their trucks and accounts to Dick Evenhouse, a member of the Association.

Thats true but I think that the Outfit didnt gave up completely from the garbage business but instead (as you already said) they gave up from taking over spots and areas which belonged to the Dutch associations and companies. The Outfit simply transferred to other areas like Chinatown and the South Side (which is one of the largest areas).

Interesting it was probably the best business deal for both.

I personally believe that the Dutch probably had huge political backing, which was also probably the same backing which the Outfit had at the time, so it was probably best to make peace. From the 1920s until 1960s is a lot of time, money and conflicts for the Dutch to remain control over such a lucrative business.

Very good article, thanks for the information!

Interesting that the Cardinella gang was the only one to be seriously dealt with by the law; most of the others were undisturbed or got some individual members sentenced for relatively non-serious crimes, while with the Cardinella gang it was different: hangings, life sentences etc.

In your opinion, was it because they lacked enough protection in politics and law enforcement or were they "sacrificed" because of being too violent and attracting too much attention?

So glad you are back TooDoped… you continue to educate,.. love the input my friend

Thank you also Dwalin2011 and you're welcome.

It is quite possible that the Cardinellas were connected to some of the Italian clans and the main proof for that was the Gibbia murder which was in fact ordered by someone (who we still dont know) who was above or had higher criminal status than Cardinella. Not all joints around Chinatown were extorted by Cardinella which means some might've been protected by the Mafia and in return the Cardinella crew was never touched by those guys.

But as you already pointed out, the Cardinellas were way to violent and attracted a lot of attention and I think they "sacrificed" themselves, meaning there was no more escape for them from law enforcement and something had to be done with these guys and thats why most of them were executed.

As I previously said in my article, these guys were quite crazy in the head by trying to pull a stunt such as the one when they tried to "come back from the dead", after being hanged lol.

Thanks again for the "welcome back" and also for the kind words Jimmy. I always greatly appreciate your support.

Good to have you back TD.

Thanks again man.

In addition, Mike "The Greek" Potson was a Greek immigrant whose real name was Mihali Bodoglou and landed on US soil sometime around 1900, and at first he stayed in New York, then in St. Louis and by 1904 he was stationed in Chicago. He became close associate and trusted member of the Colosimo/Torrio/Capone group. (similar to Greek mobster Gus Alex who became top level guy decades later)

So, theres one possible myth or legend which has yet to be researched regarding Potson allegedly introducing Capone to an Orthodox Bible that was later allegedly used by Capone while inducting new members who allegedly had to place their hand on the Bible and to take an oath regarding unlimited loyalty towards the organization. I dont know if this happened before Capone was inducted into the Mafia or after that, or maybe it happened way before or since the days of Colosimo and Torrio, BUT STILL dont forget that we dont have a shred of evidence regarding the situation with the book, which means dont take it for granted.

Also, besides Mike Potson being one of the first Greek associates or Greek "members" of Chicago criminal syndicate, still there were other Greek immigrants and alleged criminals who also largely contributed to the Colosimo/Torrio/Capone syndicate.

The Greek immigration lasted for centuries, mostly around southern Italy, but it continued to the U.S. during the 1890s and early 20th century, due largely to the economic opportunity in that country. Most of these immigrants that came from southern Greece, especially from the Peloponnesian provinces of Laconia and Arcadia, settled in New Jersey, New York, Florida, Louisiana, St. Louis and Chicago, Illinois.

Nikolaos “Nick” Alexiou (Alex) (born 1874) and his wife Christina Cipra Alex (born 1877) lived in the town of Yeraki, Greece and arrived to the US sometime around the early 1900's with a ship which began travelling from the Island of Crete and later settled in Chicago on 2050 Cottage Grove Avenue on the city’s Near South Side.

In addition, the name Alexiou can be also considered as having Vlach roots, same as the example with the female name Olympia which is taken by many Vlach females, even today.

The Alexs had eight children, including four girls and four sons, all born in the U.S. The oldest one of the four sons was James, then Sam born 1907, the third George born in 1908, and Gust or Gus was born on April Fools or April 1, 1916.

Their father Nick worked as a cook in a local restaurant and their mother stayed at home and took care of her children. By the 1910's the Near South Side and Chinatown was mostly controlled by the Italian racketeers.

During the 1920's and early 30's one of those Chinatown Italian gangsters was Capone associate and lieutenant for Phil D'Andrea, known as Bruno Roti Sr. who had his own headquarters in a tavern known as Phil’s Liquors which was located at 26th Street and Wentworth Av. And so Nick Alex became a close friend and business partner of Roti and together they opened a restaurant at 2604 South Wentworth. The place allegedly quickly transformed into a mob hangout.

Besides the Roti's and D'Andreas, other South Side members like Jake Guzik and Sam Hunt also visited Nick's place and so he probably became quite close with these individuals and he even received a mob nickname “Little Nick” and that’s why he was considered by government agents as mob associate at the time.

It is quite possible that Nick somehow influenced at least three of his sons to enter all criminal activities, including corruption and prostitution, and one remained legit which was James Alex, the oldest brother. while on the other hand Sam Alex became hitman for the Capone Mob and also enforcer in all union and political activities, while George allegedly was involved in the prostitution business and they youngest brother Alex was involved in every possible racket and later even received high level authority within the Chicago syndicate.

It seems Nick Alex hung around so much with the Italians that besides his three sons joining the Chicago Outfit, in addition two of his daughters even married mob-connected individuals such as politician Al Prignano (who was later killed) and Frank Glimco (brother of Joey Glimco).

On March 18, 1948, Nick Alex passed away and there was a huge and lavish funeral with "mountains" of lavish floral pieces which crammed Coletta’s Undertaking Parlors at 2600 Wentworth Avenue. In no time, it became a typical gangland affair with fifteen carloads of flowers, followed by a delegation of Cicero/Chinatown/South Side (the original Capone faction) and high level mobsters like Nick’s four sons, Jake Guzik, Sam Hunt, Bruno Roti Sr, Ralph Pierce, Murray Humphreys, Claude Maddox and Eddie Vogel.

So whatever the late Nick Alex did for the Mob, he was obviously quite respected by a part of the Outfit's high echelon.