Pellegrino Morano

Pellegrino "Don Grino" Morano (* 1877 in Prata di Principato Ultra in the province of Avellino in the Campania region in Italy ; murdered on an unknown date after 1920 in Sicily ) was an Italian-American Camorrista and has been the boss of the US Camorra since 1911 .

biography

Pellegrino Morano was a childhood friend of Giuseppe Battista Balsamo , who was later considered the first great mafioso in the USA. In 1905 Morano came to New York and in 1911 rose to boss of the American Camorra , originally from the Naples area , who, like the Sicilian Mafia, had "emigrated" to New York City . He owed this rise to the deportation of Enrico "Erricone" Alfano in 1907, who was considered the leader of the Camorra in Italy, but was exposed through the work of the New York police officer Joseph Petrosino and expelled from the USA the year he arrived.

From the remaining members, Morano formed a group that, in retrospect, can be regarded as the forerunners of the Mafia clan, later classified as the Gambino family , after the Sicilians gained the upper hand and took over the group.

At first, however, the American branches of the Camorra and the Mafia were still in a rivalry for the most lucrative sources of income. The Camorra was also firmly rooted in the Italian communities in the New World . So she controlled the Brooklyn borough of New York City at the beginning of the 20th century ; their headquarters were in a restaurant on Coney Island ; Camorra bosses from all over the country, such as B. Andrea Ricci from Philadelphia met here with Morano for deliberations. These revolved primarily around the expansion of their own "business activities" at the expense of the Sicilians.

Expansion into other parts of the city inevitably led to conflicts, such as in Manhattan , East Harlem and Greenwich Village . The situation from 1914 is now seen as a real war between the Camorra and the Mafia.

In particular, a dispute began with the Morello family , which claimed numerous victims. In order to win the conflict, Morano planned to assassinate the leaders of the opposing side. For this purpose, they were invited to a meeting at which a peaceful solution was supposed to be negotiated. Nicholas Morello and his bodyguard Charles Ubriaco were on their way to this meeting at Navy St. Cafe on November 6, 1916 when they were attacked and killed by five people in front of the sidewalk cafe. The area was ruled by the Navy St. Gang , whose boss was Alessandro Vollero , an important subordinate of Morano. The Navy St. Cafe was the headquarters of the Navy St. Gang .

Morano and Vollero felt completely safe, but were then arrested for days for this act, as one of the five shooters had apparently testified before the police. Morano was convicted in 1917 and deported to Italy in 1919.

With the departure of Morano, the Camorra in the USA had taken the lead against the Mafia and the American Cosa Nostra began to dominate. The Sicilian Salvatore D'Aquila became Morano's successor.

Books

• Carl Sifakis. The Mafia Encyclopedia: Second Edition. Checkmark Books, New York 1999.

Web links

• Pellegrino Morano on www.lacndb.com (English)

predecessor	Office	successor
Enrico Alfano	Head of a forerunner group of the later " Gambino family " 1911–1916	Salvatore D'Aquila