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The Five Families
The Bonanno Crime Family
The family was known as the Maranzano crime family until its founder Salvatore Maranzano was murdered in 1931. Joseph Bonanno was awarded most of Maranzano's operations when Charles "Lucky" Luciano oversaw the creation of the Commission to divide up criminal enterprises in New York City among the Five Families. Under the leadership of Joseph Bonanno between the 1930s and 1960s, the family was one of the most powerful in the United States.
However, in the early 1960s, Bonanno attempted to overthrow several leaders of the Commission, but failed. Bonanno disappeared from 1964 to 1966, triggering an intra-family war colloquially referred to as the "Banana War" that lasted until 1968, when Bonanno retired to Arizona. Following this period of great unrest, in the early 1970s the Commission named Philip "Rusty" Rastelli as boss of the Colombo Family, however, since his imprisonment in 1976, upstart Carmine Galante has seized power of this organization on the streets.
The Colombo Crime Family
It was during Lucky Luciano's organization of the American Mafia after the Castellammarese War, following the assassinations of "Joe the Boss" Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano, that the gang run by Joseph Profaci became recognized as the Profaci crime family.
The family traces its roots to a bootlegging gang formed by Profaci in 1928. Profaci would rule his family without interruption or challenge until the late 1950s. The family has been torn by three internal wars. The first war took place during the late 1950s, when caporegime Joe Gallo revolted against Profaci, but it lost momentum in the early 1960s when Gallo was arrested and Profaci died of cancer. The family was reunited in the early 1960s under Joseph Colombo. In 1971, the second family war began after Gallo's release from prison and the shooting of Colombo. Colombo supporters led by Carmine Persico won the second war after the exiling of the remaining Gallo crew to the Genovese family in 1975, leaving Persico in the big seat.
The Gambino Crime Family
This family, which went through five bosses between 1910 and 1957, is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963, when the structure of organized crime first gained public attention. The group's operations extend from New York and the eastern seaboard to California.
The family was one of the five families that were founded in New York after the Castellammarese War of 1931. For most of the next quarter-century, it was a minor player in organized crime. Its most prominent member during this time was its underboss Albert Anastasia, who rose to infamy as the operating head of the underworld's enforcement arm, Murder Inc. He remained in power even after Murder Inc. was smashed in the late 1940s, and took over his family in 1951 - by all accounts, after murdering the family's founder Vincent Mangano - which was then recognized as the Anastasia crime family.
The rise of what was the most powerful crime family in America for a time began in 1957, when Anastasia was assassinated while sitting in a barber chair at the Park Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan. Experts believe that Anastasia's underboss Carlo Gambino helped orchestrate the hit to take over the family. Gambino partnered with Meyer Lansky to control gambling interests in Cuba. The family's fortunes continue to grow through 1976, after Gambino appointed his brother-in-law Paul Castellano as boss upon his death.
The Genovese Crime Family
The Genovese family is the oldest and the largest of the "Five Families". They have generally maintained a varying degree of influence over many of the smaller mob families outside New York, including ties with the Philadelphia, Patriarca, and Buffalo crime families.
The current "family" was founded by Charles "Lucky" Luciano and was known as the Luciano crime family from 1931 to 1957, when it was renamed after boss Vito Genovese. Philip Lombardo has effectively been boss since Genovese was incarcerated in 1959, but officially took over the family following his death in 1969. Since then, he has been using other senior figures around him in the family as decoys to insulate himself from the FBI.
The Lucchese Crime Family
Members refer to the organization as the Lucchese borgata, the meaning of borgata is Mafia slang for criminal gang, which itself was derived from Sicilian word meaning close-knit community. The members of other crime families sometimes refer to Lucchese family members as "Lukes".
The family originated in the early 1920s with Gaetano Reina serving as boss up until his murder in 1930. It was taken over by Tommy Gagliano during the Castellammarese War, and led by him until his death in 1951. Known as the Gagliano crime family under Gagliano, the family kept their activities low-key, with their efforts concentrated in the Bronx, Manhattan, and New Jersey.
The next boss was Tommy Lucchese, who had served as Gagliano's underboss for over 20 years. Lucchese led the family to become one of the most powerful families to sit on the Commission. Lucchese teamed up with Gambino crime family boss Carlo Gambino to control organized crime in New York City.
Since Lucchese died of a brain tumor in 1967, Carmine Tramunti has controlled the family but he was arrested in 1973 for funding a major heroin network, leaving authorities uncertain of who is now in charge.
