Now Playing
Killing the Boss of Bosses: How Luciano Ended the Old Mafia
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
In 1931, Lucky Luciano eliminated both Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano and replaced the entire concept of a supreme boss with something far more dangerous — the Commission. This is the chapter that turned a street criminal into the architect of modern organized crime.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Here's a question that reframes everything you think you know about the American Mafia. The prosecutor who spent years building a case against Lucky Luciano, who finally put him behind bars with a thirty to fifty year sentence, was the same man who let him walk free.
By nineteen thirty, New York's criminal world was tearing itself apart. The conflict that historians call the Castellammarese War had been running for months between two factions.
What came next is what makes Luciano genuinely significant as a historical figure, not just a criminal one. He convened the leaders of New York's five families and proposed a governing body.
The Commission gave Luciano cover and power. What it couldn't give him was immunity.
December seventh, nineteen forty-one, changed the calculation entirely. After Pearl Harbor, Naval Intelligence began worrying about the vulnerability of the New York waterfront.
January third, nineteen forty-six. Governor Thomas Dewey commuted Luciano's sentence.
From Italy, Luciano made his way through contacts and arrangements to Cuba. Havana in December of nineteen forty-six was, briefly, the center of the criminal world.
Luciano lived out the rest of his life in Italy, maintaining contact with American operations and remaining a figure of considerable weight in the criminal world, even from a distance. The Commission he'd created in nineteen thirty-one continued to govern the five families.
Chapter summary auto-generated from the verified script. Listen to the full episode for the complete content.