Carmine Galante

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Carmine Galante 1943

Carmine Galante , called "Lilo" or "The Cigar" (born February 21, 1910 in East Harlem , New York City , † July 12, 1979 in Brooklyn , ibid), was an American mobster and notorious leader of the Bonanno family the La Cosa Nostra of New York. He was best known for his attempt in the late 1970s to gain power over all five families by controlling the drug trade in New Yorkto get. As his nickname "The Cigar" suggests, Galante was a passionate smoker who was mostly found with a cigar in his mouth.

Early years

Galante was the son of a fisherman from Castellammare del Golfo in Sicily , who immigrated to the USA. Born in an apartment building in East Harlem, Galante began his career as a professional criminal at the age of 11 when he joined a street gang of juvenile criminals in the Lower East Side . As a teenager he made his first contacts with the Mafia, in whose ranks he rose during the prohibition era. In 1930, Galante, who had by then made it to the head of a team of debt collectors, was surprised by the police when he and a few other gangsters tried to rob a truck in Brooklyn. After a gun battle in the course of which he shot a police officer in the leg and in which a six-year-old girl was injured by a stray bullet, Galante was arrested and later sentenced to 12½ years in prison.

Promotion and re-imprisonment

When he was conditionally released from prison in 1939, Galante first entered the service of the influential mafioso Vito Genovese , for whom he carried out murder assignments. It is believed that Galante murdered the left-wing Italian journalist Carlo Tresca on behalf of Genovese in 1943 . Eventually he was accepted as a full member of the Bonanno family , in which he worked his way up from the chauffeur of the leader Joseph Bonanno to the underboss.

At that time, Galante was already involved in drug deals. Together with Anthony Strollo and Joseph DiPalermo , he formed a trio that dominated the drug trade in New York at the time. However, its rise came to an abrupt end in 1962. Strollo was murdered in 1962, and Galante was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his involvement in a drug deal allegedly betrayed to the authorities by Frank Costello and other rivals of the Bonanno family. While Galante was in custody, internal disputes broke out within the Bonanno family, which resulted in his patron Joseph Bonanno losing the position of head of the family and withdrawing to Arizona . After some turmoil, Philip Rastelli became the new head of the family .

The reach for power

In 1974 Galante was released from custody under certain conditions. As Rastelli was sentenced to prison a short time later, Galante effectively took over the role of leader of the Bonanno family. In the following years he tried to usurp control of all drug deals of the Mafia and was very violent to achieve this goal. So he was z. B. also suspected of having ordered the murder of eight members of the Gambino family , who were hostile to him, in order to take over their lucrative drug business.

The American Mafiosi were prohibited from dealing in drugs due to a decision by the Commission , the highest instance of the American Mafia - not for moral reasons, but because the deal attracted too much attention from the criminal authorities. The American mafia therefore transferred the drug trade to the Sicilians; these organized the logistical structures for the smuggling from 1957 and shared the profits of the Five Families, an arrangement that became known in the 1980s as the Pizza Connection .

Galante, who had once been involved in establishing this system, no longer bothered about the old ban. He wanted to get into the drug business straight away and began bringing experienced Sicilian mafiosi to the US so that they could smuggle and sell heroin for him. Galante kept the profits almost exclusively for himself, which of course caused displeasure. Galante began to keep a loyal Sicilian bodyguard, slowly and systematically trying to use the profits from the drug trade to gain control of the New York Commission and the other four families. He accepted important Sicilian "men of honor" into the Bonanno family and even appointed two of them captains, which caused displeasure among his own soldiers: The Italian-American mafiosi viewed the Sicilians with a mixture of disdain and fear and called them 'zips' ('Hiss' - due to her quick speech), as undercover agent Joseph Pistone reported to the FBI .

In 1978, Galante was briefly detained and charged with violating his probation requirements, including having been told to stay away from criminals. Defended by the notorious Mafia lawyer Roy Cohn , however, he was acquitted in a trial.

The end

Due to his lust for power and his unusually violent actions, Galante had not only drawn the indignation of Rastelli, who he ousted, but also the wrath of the leaders of the other four Mafia families in New York, who were his growing power feared more and more. But many Sicilians were now also dissatisfied with Galante, who was considered greedy and greedy. Even in the Bonanno family there were now many dissatisfied.

Therefore, a broad coalition of Mafioso decided to eliminate Galante. On July 12, 1979, Galante was shot together with his American bodyguard Leonard Coppola and his cousin Giuseppe Turano in his favorite Brooklyn restaurant "Joe and Mary", where he had just had his lunch. The perpetrators shot Galante in the head and chest from close range. He died with a cigar in the corner of his mouth.

Directly involved in the murder were Dominic "Sonny Black" Napolitano , Anthony "Bruno" Indelicato , Dominick Trinchera , Cesare Bonventre , Baldassare Amato and Louis Giongetti , those of Alphonse "Sonny Red" Indelicato , a high-ranking member of the Bonanno family, and Joseph Massino had been commissioned to carry out the deed. Sonny Red, Massino, Joseph "JB" Indelicato and Philip "Philly Lucky" Giaccone are said to have been stationed outside the restaurant during the attack , according to Bonanno member Frank Lino , in order to guarantee a smooth and trouble-free operation. The gallant Sicilian bodyguard around Bonventre and Amato was privy to the attack plans and betrayed him to his enemies.

After the crime, the murderers fled in a previously stolen car. Bruno Indelicato then drove to the Ravenite Club of the Gambino underboss Aniello Dellacroce , where the bonanno consiglieri Stefano “Stevie Beef” Cannone was waiting for him and received notification of the execution of the deed. This meeting, at which the arriving Indelicato was congratulated by Cannone, was recorded with a surveillance camera. The killers later received high positions in the Bonanno family.

Adaptations

  • In the film Donnie Brasco , the Galante assassination is mentioned when "Lefty" Ruggiero speaks of the "assassination of the boss" after he was "summoned". At the time, Galante was the acting boss of the family when Philip "Rusty" Rastelli was imprisoned.
  • His murder is in the television series The Sopranos mentioned ( Season 1 , Episode 10, entitled: "A hit is a hit" [ A Hit is a Hit ]).
  • In the 2019 film Mob Town , Galante is played by Gino Cafarelli .

Documentation

2012: In the Mafia Network - The FBI's secret files : The drug lord: Carmine Galante; British docu-drama

Web links

predecessor Office successor
Philip Rastelli Head of the “ Bonanno Family ” of La Cosa Nostra
1975 - 1979 		Philip Rastelli
personal data
SURNAME Galante, Carmine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lilo; The cigar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mobster, boss of the Bonanno family of La Cosa Nostra in New York City
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH East Harlem , New York City
DATE OF DEATH July 12, 1979
Place of death Brooklyn , New York City