Stefano Magaddino

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Stefano Magaddino

Stefano "The Undertaker" Magaddino (born October 10, 1891 in Castellammare del Golfo ; † July 19, 1974 in New York City ) was a Sicilian-American mobster of the American Cosa Nostra , until 1921 the underboss of the New York Bonanno- Family and from 1922 for five decades the boss of the Magaddino family (Buffalo crime family), which is named after him today, with headquarters in Buffalo , New York State .

Life

Born in Castellammare del Golfo ( Sicily ), Stefano Magaddino emigrated to the United States in 1909 and settled in Brooklyn (New York City). He came from one of the most famous and powerful Mafia families of the original Cosa Nostra and already had the reputation of being a cold-blooded killer when he arrived. One of Magaddino's cousins ​​from Sicily was the future boss of the New York Bonanno family, Giuseppe "Joe" Bonanno .

Magaddino quickly established himself in the New York underworld, leading a clan of Mafiosi from Castellammare del Golfo, which became known as "The Good Killers" and from 1915 was the underboss of the Bonanno family.

In 1921 he was arrested along with Gaspar Milazzo , the future boss of the Detroit crime family , for alleged involvement in a murder. The victim was a member of the rival Buccellato clan from Castellammare del Golfo.

Upon his release in 1922, due to law enforcement, Magaddino relocated his operations to Buffalo and then to Niagara Falls . There he became a close ally of Benedetto Angelo "Buffalo Bill" Palmeri and after the death of the boss there, Giuseppe "Joseph" Peter DiCarlo, Sr. , headed the Buffalo crime family .

During the prohibition period he made a fortune with alcohol smuggling ( bootlegging ). After the end of Prohibition, his organization made money with extortion, loan usury, racketeering, illegal gambling, etc. The area of ​​influence is said to have included: North and West New York (state), Buffalo, Rochester, Utica, East Pennsylvania to Youngstown, Ohio ; In Canada from Toronto to Montreal.

Although largely popular, Magaddino also had enemies and survived multiple assassinations. In 1936, rival gangsters attempted to murder Magaddino with a bomb, killing his sister instead. In 1958, an assassin threw a hand grenade through his kitchen window, but it did not explode.

For over fifty years, Magaddino remained a dominant presence in the Buffalo underworld. He was the longest salaried boss of a family in the history of the American Mafia and was also very involved in the national affairs of La Cosa Nostra. Magaddino was a founding member of Charles "Lucky" Luciano's Mafia Commission and attended important underworld meetings like the Havana Conference in 1946 and the Apalachin Meeting in 1957. He was considered an old school mobster who stayed in the background and who The public shied away.

Stefano Magaddino died of a heart attack on July 19, 1974 at the age of 82 at Mount Saint Mary's Hospital in Lewiston, New York . His funeral was held in St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church . He was buried in St. Joseph's Cemetery in Niagara Falls.

literature

Magaddino is mentioned in three non-fiction books:

  • Mike Hudson: The Mob Boss . 2008 (A book mainly about Magaddino).
  • Niagara Falls: Confidential . 2009.
  • Peter Maas: The Valachi Papers . HarperCollins, 1968, ISBN 0-06-050742-X .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ David Critchley: The Origin of Organized Crime in America . Routledge, New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-415-99030-1 , pp. 172, 179, 214–222 (English, limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ↑ a b Emanuel Perlmutter: Stefano Magaddino dead at 82 . In: New York Times , July 21, 1974. Retrieved September 8, 2013. 
  3. ↑ a b Jerry Capeci: The Complete Idiot's Guide To The Mafia . pg. 49-52
  4. ^ Thomas Hunt, Michael A. Tona: The Good Killers: 1921's Glimpse of the Mafia . 2007. Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved March 15, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.onewal.com
  5. ↑ Literature: Carl Sifakis: The Mafia Encyclopedia . Checkmark Books, New York 2005, ISBN 0-8160-5695-1
personal data
SURNAME Magaddino, Stefano
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Magaddino, The Undertaker (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mafioso
DATE OF BIRTH October 10, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Castellammare del Golfo , Italy
DATE OF DEATH July 19, 1974
Place of death New York City