Camorra in New York

Last updated
Camorra in New York
Navy street gang.jpg
The Navy Street Gang, one of the Camorra groups in Brooklyn
Founding location Brooklyn, New York City
Years active1885-1918
Territory Brooklyn and East Harlem
EthnicityNeapolitan American
Criminal activitiesVarious criminal rackets, mainly extortion, policy game, and wholesale fruit and vegetable markets.

The Brooklyn Camorra or New York Camorra is a loose grouping of early-20th-century organized crime groups that formed among Italian immigrants originating in Naples and the surrounding Campania region living in Greater New York, particularly in Brooklyn. [1] In the early 20th century, the criminal underworld of New York City consisted largely of Italian Harlem-based Sicilians and groups of Neapolitans from Brooklyn, sometimes referred to as the Brooklyn Camorra, as Neapolitan organized crime is referred to as the Camorra. [1]

Organized crime Groupings of highly centralized criminal enterprises

Organized crime is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals who intend to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist groups, are politically motivated. Sometimes criminal organizations force people to do business with them, such as when a gang extorts money from shopkeepers for "protection". Gangs may become disciplined enough to be considered organized. A criminal organization or gang can also be referred to as a mafia, mob, ring, or syndicate; the network, subculture and community of criminals may be referred to as the underworld. European sociologists define the mafia as a type of organized crime group that specializes in the supply of extra-legal protection and quasi law enforcement. Gambetta's classic work on the Sicilian Mafia generates an economic study of the mafia, which exerts great influence on studies of the Russian Mafia, the Chinese Mafia, Hong Kong Triads and the Japanese Yakuza.

Naples Comune in Campania, Italy

Naples is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest municipality in Italy after Rome and Milan. In 2017, around 967,069 people lived within the city's administrative limits while its province-level municipality has a population of 3,115,320 residents. Its continuously built-up metropolitan area is the second or third largest metropolitan area in Italy and one of the most densely populated cities in Europe.

Campania Region of Italy

Campania is a region in Southern Italy. As of 2018, the region has a population of around 5,820,000 people, making it the third-most-populous region of Italy; its total area of 13,590 km2 (5,247 sq mi) makes it the most densely populated region in the country. Located on the south-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, with the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west, it includes the small Phlegraean Islands and Capri for administration as part of the region.

Contents

Background

'The substantial population of the New York Italian immigrant community offered plentiful economic opportunities. At the turn of the century, some 500,000 Italians, mainly originating from the impoverished southern regions of Italy, lived in New York City and had to survive in difficult social and economic circumstances. [2] [3] A New York Times article in 1885 mentions the presence of the Camorra in New York, involved in extortion and immigrant and labour racketeering. [4]

Southern Italy Macroregion of Italy

Southern Italy or Mezzogiorno is a macroregion of Italy meant to broadly denote the southern half of the Italian state.

<i>The New York Times</i> Daily broadsheet newspaper based in New York City

The New York Times is an American newspaper based in New York City with worldwide influence and readership. Founded in 1851, the paper has won 127 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper. The Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation and 3rd in the U.S.

Extortion Criminal offense

Extortion is obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offense, the bulk of this article deals with such cases.

Italian immigration “made fortunes for speculators and landlords, but it also transformed the neighborhood into a kind of human ant heap in which suffering, crime, ignorance and filth were the dominant elements,” according to historian Arrigo Petacco. [3] According to sociologist Humbert S. Nelli: “New York’s Italian community offered a lucrative market for illicit activities, particularly gambling and prostitution. It also provided a huge market for products from the homeland and from the West Coast, such as artichokes and olive oil, the distribution of which the criminal elements attempted to control.” [2]

The Italian diaspora is the large-scale emigration of Italians from Italy. There are two major Italian diasporas in Italian history. The first diaspora began more or less around 1880, a decade or so after the Unification of Italy, and ended in the 1920s to early-1940s with the rise of Fascism in Italy. The second diaspora started after the end of World War II and roughly concluded in the 1970s. These together constituted the largest voluntary emigration period in documented history. Between 1880-1980, about 15,000,000 Italians left the country permanently. By 1980, it was estimated that about 25,000,000 Italians were residing outside Italy. A third wave is being reported in present times, due to the socio-economic problems caused by the financial crisis of the early twenty-first century, especially amongst the youth. According to the Public Register of Italian Residents Abroad (AIRE), figures of Italians abroad rose from 3,106,251 in 2006 to 4,636,647 in 2015, growing by 49.3% in just ten years.

Arrigo Petacco Italian historian and journalist

Arrigo Petacco was an Italian writer, historian and journalist.

Early crime bosses

Giosue Gallucci (centre) outside Gallucci's East 109th Street cigar business, ca. 1900 Giosue Gallucci ca 1900.jpg
Giosue Gallucci (centre) outside Gallucci's East 109th Street cigar business, ca. 1900

The cheap labour needed for the expansion of capitalism of that time was made available by the scores of poor Italian immigrants. Like earlier immigrant generations, a few Sicilians and Neapolitans engaged in criminal activities to succeed, employing the crime traditions from their original Italian home regions. [3] One of the prominent crime bosses was Enrico Alfano, who became one of the principal underworld targets of police sergeant Joseph Petrosino, the head of the Italian Squad of the New York City Police Department. [5] Another prominent criminal boss around 1910-15 was Giosue Gallucci, the undisputed King of Little Italy born in Naples, who employed Neapolitan and Sicilian street gangs as his enforcers for the Italian lottery or numbers game and enjoyed functional immunity from law enforcement through his political contacts. [2] [3]

The Second Industrial Revolution, also known as the Technological Revolution, was a phase of rapid industrialization from the late 19th century into the early 20th century. The First Industrial Revolution, which ended in the middle of 19th century, was punctuated by a slowdown in important inventions before the Second Industrial Revolution in 1870. Though a number of its characteristic events can be traced to earlier innovations in manufacturing, such as the establishment of a machine tool industry, the development of methods for manufacturing interchangeable parts and the invention of the Bessemer Process to produce steel, the Second Industrial Revolution is generally dated between 1870 and 1914.

Enrico Alfano One of the chiefs of the Camorra, a Mafia-type organization

Enrico Alfano, also known as "Erricone", was considered to be one of the chiefs of the Camorra, a Mafia-type organisation in the region of Campania and its capital Naples in Italy, at the turn of the 20th century. He was described as "a kind of president of the confederation." According to some sources, Alfano was linked to the murder of New York City police lieutenant Joseph Petrosino in Palermo in 1909, however, the murder had since been attributed to the Sicilian Mafia.

Joseph Petrosino Italian-American police officer

Joseph Petrosino was a New York City police officer who was a pioneer in the fight against organized crime. Crime fighting techniques that Petrosino pioneered are still practiced by law enforcement agencies.

Mugshot of Alessandro Vollero Alessandro Vollero.jpg
Mugshot of Alessandro Vollero

Apart from them there were different Camorra gangs in New York. The gangs had their roots in the Neapolitan Camorra, but most members were American born. [1] The two New York based Camorra groups were the Neapolitan Navy Street gang headed by Alessandro Vollero and Leopoldo Lauritano, and the Neapolitan Coney Island gang under the command of Pellegrino Morano who ran his activities from his Santa Lucia restaurant in Coney Island.

The Camorra is an Italian Mafia-type crime syndicate, or secret society, which arose in the region of Campania and its capital Naples. It is one of the oldest and largest criminal organizations in Italy, dating back to the 17th century. Unlike the pyramidal structure of the Sicilian Mafia, the Camorra's organizational structure is more horizontal than vertical. Consequently, individual Camorra clans act independently of each other, and are more prone to feuding among themselves.

Alessandro Vollero was a New York mobster and a high-ranking member of the Neapolitan Camorra Navy Street gang in Brooklyn. Vollero served as a lieutenant to gang boss Pellegrino Morano during the Mafia-Camorra War of 1916.

Pellegrino Morano (1877–????) was the head of a group of Neapolitans criminals with roots in the Camorra based in Coney Island, where he owned the Santa Lucia restaurant, which was often used as the headquarters for their gang, known as the Coney Island gang. He is also known as Marano.

Vollero and Lauritano owned a coffee house at 133 Navy Street in Brooklyn. The coffee house was used as the headquarters for their gang, which mainly consisted of Neapolitans, and was often referred to as The Camorra. [6] Morano opened the Santa Lucia restaurant close to the Coney Island amusements parks with his right-hand men Tony Parretti, [7] from where his gang made money in gambling and cocaine dealing. [8] [9] The gangs were not tightly led organizations, but rather loose associations where everybody worked for himself, although Morano was one of the leaders that initiated recruits as camorristi. [7] [10]

Brooklyn Borough in New York City and county in New York state, United States

Brooklyn is a borough of New York City, coterminous with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York, the most populous county in the state, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States. It is New York City's most populous borough, with an estimated 2,504,700 residents in 2010. Named after the Dutch village of Breukelen, it borders the borough of Queens at the western end of Long Island. Brooklyn has several bridge and tunnel connections to the borough of Manhattan across the East River, and the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge connects it with Staten Island.

Antonio Parretti, also known as Tony Parretti or Tony the Shoemaker, was a Camorra gangster. He was a member of the Brooklyn based Coney Island gang in New York City, serving as the right-hand man of Pellegrino Morano.

Both gangs initially worked together against the Morello crime family from Italian Harlem for control of the New York rackets. The Camorra groups tried to muscle in the lucrative artichoke business, but the wholesale dealers resisted their threats. In the end, a deal was negotiated in which a ‘tax’ of 25 dollars was levied on every car load of artichokes delivered, under threat of stealing the dealer's horses or wrecking their merchandise. [11] Coal and ice merchants also proved hard to extort, and the business gains of the groups were not as large as they expected. Eventually, they were decimated when their own members turned against them. [12]

Mafia-Camorra War

Mugshot of Ralph "The Barber" Daniello Ralph Daniello.jpg
Mugshot of Ralph "The Barber" Daniello

The fight over the control of the New York rackets is known as the Mafia–Camorra War and started after the killing of Giosue Gallucci and his son on May 17, 1915. [2] [13] The violence and string of murders prompted a reaction from the authorities. Police convinced Ralph Daniello to testify against his former associates of the Brooklyn Navy Street gang. He provided evidence about 23 murders. [14] Several Grand Juries issued 21 indictments in November 1917. [12] [15] [16] At the trials, some criminals involved depicted the Navy Street and Coney Island gangs as "Camorra" and used "Mafia" to identify the groups from East Harlem. [15]

The trials in 1918 entirely dismantled the Navy Street gang. Testimonies of their own associates destroyed the internal protection against law enforcement they once enjoyed. The demise of the gangs meant the end of the Camorra in New York and the rise in power of their rivals, the American-based Sicilian Mafia groups. [12] Following the downfall of the New York Camorra, Neapolitan or Campanian organized crime groups in New York were absorbed into or merged with the newly dominant Sicilian Mafia groups in New York, creating the modern Italian-American Mafia, which would increasingly consist of not only Sicilians but Italian and Italian-American criminals from various Italian regions. Future Italian-American gangsters that originated from Naples or Campania, like Vito Genovese, operated in Italian-American Mafia families, in which an Italian-American gangster's exact Italian region of origin had little importance as long as he was of Italian origin.

Related Research Articles

The Castellammarese War was a bloody power struggle for control of the Italian-American Mafia, from February, 1930 to April 15, 1931, between partisans of Joe "The Boss" Masseria and those of Salvatore Maranzano. It was so called because Maranzano was based in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily. Maranzano's faction won, and he declared himself capo di tutti capi, the undisputed leader of the entire Mafia. However, he was soon murdered in turn by a faction of young upstarts led by Lucky Luciano, who established a power-sharing arrangement called "The Commission", a group of five Mafia families of equal stature, to avoid such wars in the future.

See also: 1915 in organized crime, other events of 1916, 1917 in organized crime and the list of 'years in organized crime'.

Nicolò Terranova, also known as Nicholas "Nick" Morello, was one of the first Italian-American organized crime figures in New York City. Along with his half-brother Giuseppe Morello and brothers Ciro and Vincenzo Terranova, he founded the Morello crime family, and was later one of the participants in the Mafia-Camorra War of 1914-17.

Manfredi "Al" or "Alfred" Mineo was a Brooklyn-based New York mobster, who headed a strong American Mafia crime family during the Castellammarese War. Mineo's organization would eventually become the present-day Gambino crime family.

Morello crime family

The Morello crime family was one of the earliest crime families to be established in the United States and New York City. The Morellos were based in Manhattan's Italian Harlem and eventually gained dominance in the Italian underworld by defeating the rival Neapolitan Camorra of Brooklyn.

Organized crime in Italy

Organized crime in Italy and its criminal organizations have been prevalent in Italy, especially Southern Italy, for centuries and have affected the social and economic life of many Italian regions since at least the 19th century.

Stefano "Steve" Ferrigno was a New York City mobster of Sicilian origin who led an important Italian criminal gang in the 1920s. Ferrigno was murdered along with Alfred Mineo during the so-called Castellammarese War.

Ciro Terranova American mobster

Ciro Terranova was an Italian-born New York City gangster and one time underboss of the Morello crime family.

Alfonso Sgroia also known as "The Butcher" was a New York gang member who became a hitman for the Neapolitan Camorra gang.

A crime family is a unit of an organized crime syndicate, particularly the Mafia, often operating within a specific geographic territory. In its strictest sense, a family is a criminal gang, operating either on a unitary basis or as an organized collection of smaller gangs. In turn, a family can be a sole "enterprise", or part of a larger syndicate or cartel.

The Mafia–Camorra War was a gang war in New York City that lasted from 1915-1917. On one side was the originally Sicilian Morello crime family of Manhattan; on the other side were gangs originally from Naples and the surrounding Campania region, based in Navy Street in Brooklyn and Coney Island referred to as the Camorra. The fight over the control of the New York rackets started after the killing of Giosue Gallucci, the undisputed King of Little Italy, and his son on May 17, 1915. The trials that followed in 1918 completely smashed the Camorra gangs; the protection that they enjoyed was demolished from the testimonies of their own men. It was the end of the Camorra in New York and the rise in power of American-based Sicilian Mafia groups.

Rocco Valenti was a New York City gangster and prominent member of the Camorra in New York during the early 1910s.

Ralph Daniello American mobster

Ralph "The Barber" Daniello (1886–1925) was a New York criminal who belonged to the Brooklyn Navy Street Gang and participated in a major gang slaying. Daniello eventually became an informant and helped destroy the Camorra crime gangs in Brooklyn.

The 116th Street crew, also known as the Uptown crew, is a powerful crew within the Genovese crime family. In the early 1960s, Anthony Salerno became one of the most powerful capos in the family. Salerno based the crew out of the Palma Boys Social Club located 416 East 115th Street in East Harlem, Manhattan. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, the 116th Street crew had absorbed and initiated many former members of the vicious East Harlem Purple Gang, an Italian-American murder for hire and drug trafficking gang operating in 1970s Italian Harlem and acting generally independent of the Mafia.

The American Mafia, commonly referred to as "the Mafia" or sometimes "the Mob", though "the Mafia" can also refer to the original Sicilian Mafia, while "the Mob" can refer to other organized crime groups or organized crime in general, or Italian-American Mafia, is a highly organized Italian-American criminal society. The organization is often referred to by members as Cosa Nostra and by the government as La Cosa Nostra (LCN). The organization's name is derived from the original Mafia or Cosa nostra, the Sicilian Mafia, and it originally emerged as an offshoot of the Sicilian Mafia; however, the organization eventually encompassed or absorbed other Italian-American gangsters and Italian-American crime groups living in the United States and Canada that are not of Sicilian origin. It is often colloquially referred to as the Italian Mafia or Italian Mob, though these terms may also apply to the separate yet related Sicilian Mafia or other organized crime groups in Italy.

Giosue Gallucci New York City crime boss

Giosuè Gallucci, also known as Luccariello, was a crime boss of Italian Harlem in New York City affiliated with the Camorra. He dominated the area from 1910–1915 and was also known as the undisputed "King of Little Italy" and "The Mayor of Little Italy", partly due to his political connections. He held strict control over the policy game, employing Neapolitan and Sicilian street gangs as his enforcers.

Nicolo Schiro American mobster

Nicolo "Cola" Schiro was an early Sicilian-born New York City mobster. In 1912, he became the boss of the mafia gang that later became known as the Bonanno crime family. After nearly two decades as boss, a conflict with rival gangster Joe Masseria in 1930 would force Schiro out and elevate Salvatore Maranzano as his replacement. Following his ouster, Schiro returned to Sicily.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Critchley, The Origin of Organized Crime in America, p. 105
  2. 1 2 3 4 Nelli, The Business of Crime, pp. 129-31
  3. 1 2 3 4 Abadinsky, Organized Crime, pp. 81-82
  4. ↑ Italians Imposed Upon; A Branch of the Camorra Said To Be Established in New-York, The New York Times, February 21, 1885
  5. ↑ Romano, Italian Americans in Law Enforcement, p. 45
  6. ↑ Pelligrino Morano, GangRule.com
  7. 1 2 Critchley, The Origin of Organized Crime in America, p. 118
  8. ↑ Nelli, The Business of Crime, pp. 131-33
  9. ↑ Dash, The First Family, p. 252
  10. ↑ Relates Camorra Degree in Court The Daily Standard Union (Brooklyn), May 8, 1918
  11. ↑ Critchley, The Origin of Organized Crime in America, p. 122
  12. 1 2 3 The Struggle for Control, GangRule.com
  13. ↑ Father and Son Shot, The New York Times, May 18, 1915
  14. ↑ Confession May Clear 23 Feud Murders, The New York Times, November 28, 1917
  15. 1 2 Nelli, The Business of Crime, pp. 133-134
  16. ↑ Indict Twelve In Murder Conspiracy, The New York Times, December 1, 1917

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.