By
Skeletal Grace
Dead Rebel Of The Week
~ Lucky Luciano ~
C’mon… We all love them; the movie crooks, the bank robbers, the gangsters, and the master thieves. Robin Hood, John Dillinger, Jesse James, Bonnie and Clyde… They all cater to our dark adventurous sides. The parts of us that not so readily always agree with the letter of the law. Sometimes it’s good to be bad, but since we really can’t do more than rip up our parking tickets, we vicariously live out our darker sides through the lives and actions of the real crooks while still in the safety of our own boring suburban goody two shoes lives.
We have previously covered the subject of the organized crime families in America, often referred to as the Mafia, in various articles from both writers and readers (see articles listed at the bottom of this page). To tie up the organized crime theme, and to put my personal spin on it, I am hereby making Lucky Luciano my Dead Rebel of the Week, not so much for his amicable qualities as for his visionary thinking and shrewd mind.
Why Lucky Luciano? Why not Al Capone, John Gotti, Sam Giancana or Paul Castellano? The history of the mob is crawling with characters that all in some way, whether through actions or influence, put their imprints on history. Well, I can’t in good faith appoint Al Capone as DROTW since he wasn’t that smart. He was more muscles than brains. Sam Giancana broke the codex of the families by not sharing his profits with the other bosses, a big no-no (rebellious? – no, fucking stupid, and most dishonorable, in these circles). John Gotti went crazy with the power, after having successfully taken over the largest crime family in America through the assassination of then boss, Paul Castellano. After that, he wanted it all and tried to micro-manage his way into everybody’s pockets, while still trying to get as much spotlight on his own dapper person as possible. Stupidity is not commendable.
So, that leaves Lucky Luciano. The Father of Organized Crime. The master mind behind the modern Mafia.
Born 1897 in Sicily as Salvatore Lucania, his family moved to America when he was ten years old. He quickly made a name for himself by, at that tender age of 10, acting as an enforcer, beating other kids up for their lunch money, literally. Well, rather he encouraged them to give him their lunch money so they wouldn’t meet with an unfortunate accident the next day. In his teens he formed the Five Points Gangs and terrorized the streets of New York.
So far his story is pretty much the same as all the other low life gangsters prowling the underworld at this time.
Luciano befriended the rather influential mafioso Frank Costello (no relation – don’t ask, dumbass), and learned the tricks of the trade through him while becoming acquainted with all the right people in all the right circles.
When the opportunity arose to take control of one of the families through the intense scheming with a close associate, Meyer Lansky, and by turning the plots and plans around on the two rivaling bosses, he grabbed it and ran with it. When the smoke cleared, Luciano was the leader of his own family with the two warring bosses dead at his feet.
Still… This could be the story of any of the other gangsters. Not too much originality going on here. This patent of operation had already been applied for by scores of mafiosos over the past decade or so. Well, Luciano figured the only way the Mafia could clean up its act, and become more powerful at the same time, was to reorganize the whole system under which it had been operating thus far. Instead of rival families fighting each other for the scraps of society, he initiated a network between the crime families, disregarding ethnicities, where the map of America was efficiently divided between them all, with each group getting their cut of the action, according to geography and special interests in certain fields. This way nobody stumbled into anybody else’s territory and everybody was happy. Compensations and tributes were decided upon and distributed to all the involved parties whenever “business transactions” had to cross over somebody else’s border.
Luciano instated “The Commission”, consisting of the biggest crime family bosses, to look after the ultimate interests of the mafia’s workings, be it within the organization or in interactions with society.
He established pay out routines for people in the higher echelons of society; mayors, chiefs of police, politicians, entertainers, entrepreneurs… whomever. They were all in the pockets of the Mafia. Luciano now had total control of most everything. Nobody sneezed or made a dime on anything unless Luciano knew who said “Bless you” or got a nickel from the transaction. The shady violent underworld had been given a brilliant makeover, where all crime was regulated and approved beforehand. No more random acts of violence or street robberies. The neighborhoods in New York and Chicago, run by the mob, were the safest in all of America.
Luciano had thus re-organized Organized Crime into a corporate machine, yet still brutally illegal, of course. The new efficiency increased Mafia revenues more than tenfold within the first 5 years and Luciano was heralded as a genius in his social circles. Nobody even wanted to whack him since he was making money for everybody. He was seen in the best restaurants, surrounded with the most glamorous people, Frank Sinatra or whatever movie gal was the flavor of the month, spending money on local businesses and helping out with charitable causes. He was the epitome of the Gentleman Thief. A Guinea Robin Hood, giving back to society what he stole from it. Fucked up, but it worked. Luciano was everybody’s main man.
Everybody except the cops, of course.
In 1936 Luciano was convicted of multiple accounts of pimping (pandering) and he was sentenced to spend pretty much the rest of his life in prison. The debates raged whether the damaging evidence was false or not, but who are we kidding here? It’s not like this was Mr. Virgin Mary anyway, right?
So the guy went to prison, to rot his days away.
That’s where the story could have ended for this brilliant, but crooked, business man.
But, as “luck” would have it (we’re talking about a guy nicknamed “Lucky” here after all), America was drawn into WWII and German and Italian spies were dropped off by the boat load along American coastlines. Thanks to Luciano’s excellent ties with the Sicilian Mafia, and their hatred for Mussolini, he was able to strike a deal with the American government. It was well known that Luciano was very pro-American, as are most Italian-Americans. In exchange for setting up a network of anti-spy activities around America as well as getting inside information on what was going on in Italy from his overseas associates, he was given a parole from his prison sentence, on the condition that he return to Italy after the war was over. It was a huge success. Luciano’s network apprehended bundles of potential spies, and supplied the Allied Forces with vital help for the invasion of Italy in 1945 - all the while still running his empire from within his prison cell until things were settled. He killed two birds with one stone, doing his beloved country a great service and at the same time making obscene money in the process on stuff that was highly illegal.
Of course he didn’t go to Italy after the war. He flew to Cuba where he regained a more active and total control of the Mob syndicates’ operations.
When American officials found out his whereabouts, he was finally forced to flee to Italy, or risk getting thrown into prison for violating his parole.
Once back in Italy, for the first time in 40 years, he quickly worked his way into most everything. By striking a deal with the Corsican Mafia he became the first major player on the American heroin market, pumping insane amounts into the country, through his new and old contacts. Heroin was something Lucky never got involved with while in America, but it was the one opportunity left for him to make money on back in Europe. He had conveyed this to the American Government, but they had brushed it off as nonsense. So, through a strike of irony, the man sent off to do no more damage, actually turned the whole drug market upside down instead, setting it up for the Chinese Triads, and establishing a world wide spanning drug syndicate to work through the same channels long after he was gone.
He died from a stroke at Naples International Airport, in 1962, supposedly having been poisoned by jealous ex-colleagues.
The fact remains that he was the Mafia equivalent of the Gentleman Thief, the Glorious Bankrobber and the Masked Bandit. Luciano’s dark side ruled his life, but it was all done with sharp execution and grand visions never before conjured by anyone.
In his own fucked up way, Luciano was a rebel for going against the grain of the very dangerous people with whom he surrounded himself, and yet pulled off a total reorganization of their very existence to fit his purposes, becoming a “people’s Hero” in the process.
There’s a part of all of us that respects this. We’re just that fucked up.
“I learned too late that you need just as good a brain to make a crooked million as an honest million. These days you apply for a license to steal from the public. If I had my time again, I'd make sure I got that license first."
Lucky Luciano 1960
Other articles in our ongoing Mafia series:
"A Truly Dead Rebel Society" - VooDoo
"My Uncle, the Bookie" - Rosie
