Unione Siciliana
The Unione Siciliana (German: Sicilian Association) or often incorrectly Unione Siciliane , later Italo-American National Union , was an American political organization of American citizens with an Italian-Sicilian background .
In the first decades of the 20th century, it presumably controlled a large part of the Italian votes in the United States, was infiltrated by the American Cosa Nostra and thus itself triggered conflicts, as its presidents, especially during the prohibition by the mafia in Chicago ( " Chicago Outfit ") were checked.
history
founding
Originally the organization was formed in 1880 as a fraternal association of emigrants from Sicily in New York City . It supported its members with problems in finding work and accommodation and also took care of their interests in other ways. The organization quickly gained great influence among the Italian-Americans and determined their decision in city elections. The organization had existed in Chicago since 1893; in 1895 the state of Illinois gave it the right to sell insurance. With a narrow membership base, the Unione also expanded to Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.
Their headquarters in New York was in Harlem ; the organization soon expanded to other major cities. The infiltration of organized crime began in the early 1900s . In New York City, this was done by Ignazio Saietta , who, as the boss of the Black Hand Gang, was part of the Morello family . The branch in Detroit came under the control of Salvatore "Sam" Catalonotte in 1920 , under whom the cooperation with Chicago was expanded, where Mike Merlo , a confidante of Al Capone , pulled the strings. In Buffalo the Unione was headed by Joe DiCarlo .
Murder stable
In Brooklyn there were many members from Castellammare del Golfo ; a circumstance that was to play a role in the so-called War of Castellammare 1930/1931. However, the head office was headed by Ignazio Saietta . As the first point of contact for non-English speaking Italians, the Unione was the ideal recruiting point for his Black Hand gang and an ideal cover for criminal activities. When the Italian-American police agent Joseph Petrosino searched the headquarters of the Unione in 1901, sixty bodies were discovered. Saietta was arrested, but apart from the fact that he owned the building, there was nothing to prove to him. The morgue has since been known as the Murder Stable and the Unione's image was so forever ruined that there are even theories that the Unione was founded from the beginning by the Black Hand , and thus by the Mafia.
Either way, the Unione Siciliana developed into a mafia-like central body that collected members and membership fees by force. As a result, the presidency of this organization was of strategic importance for the supremacy within the mafia-like structures in the United States at that time and thus almost a forerunner of the later National Crime Syndicate .
Saietta was replaced by the Mafioso Frankie Yale . Yale was a member of the Five Points Gang , an Italian street gang in Manhattan that included Johnny Torrio and Al Capone until they left for the Chicago outfit . The Five Pointers , like most of the city's classic gangs, had worked for the Tammany Hall politicians , who had a keen interest in safe Italian voices.
Chicago outfit
Yale was murdered in 1928 over an argument with Capone. After that, the management of the entire organization fell to the Chicago underworld under the presidency of Mike Merlo and the outfit should no longer give up control from then on. However, the presidency became a competitive position; In particular, Al Capone now lost the control he had just gained over this position due to the death of Merlo, since as a non-Sicilian he could not initially belong to the Unione and had actually favored Antonio Lombardo as his successor. Because Angelo Genna , a member of the Genna family , had virtually taken over the presidency. It can therefore be speculated that this was a motive for his murder on May 25, 1925 by Al Capone and not by the North Side Gang . His successor Samuzzo "Samoots" Amatuna suffered the same fate on November 13, 1925.
The organization fell apart and then increasingly fragmented. Under Antonio Lombardo, the Unione Siciliana was renamed Italo-American National Union . However, he created enemies by opening the organization to non-Sicilians and Lombardo's presidency ended violently on September 7, 1928 and was only able to get through his brother Pasqualino "Patsy" Lolordo four months until January 8, 1929, the day of his assassination to be continued.
Joey Aiello was behind both murders , although the brothers Frank and Peter Gusenberg were probably the perpetrators and not Aiello and his brothers, who had now allied themselves with the North Side Gang in order to be able to prevail against Capone. In view of the conflict between Aiello and Capone that had been going on since 1927, the latter was now apparently looking for an end.
This included the murder of Joseph Giunta , actually a supporter of Capone who had taken over Lolordo's vacant post. Another Capone man was now also John Scalise as Vice President, who together with Albert Anselmi formed a killer team that Capone had taken out of the Genna family. Capone had doubts about the loyalty of these three people and apparently assumed that the three had defected to Aiello, which is why he called the three on 7/8. Murdered May 1929.
The presidential post was vacant again and Capone initially agreed to the election of Aiello in Atlanta, but after Capone had served a prison sentence for gun possession from May 1929 to March 1930, Aiello's closed season ended. He was murdered on October 23, 1930 while leaving the house of the Unione's treasurer , Pasquale "Presto" Prestogiacomo , at 205 Kolmar Avenue. A successor accepted by all could no longer be found in view of the series of murders. The breakup of the organization was driven by the Great Depression .
Since many of the “ Mustache Petes ” were “frozen” by the war of Castellammare in 1930/1931 , the organization disappeared by the end of the decade.
President
New York City
- 19 ?? - 19 ??: Ignazio "Saietta" Lupo (imprisoned 1910–1930)
- 1918-1928: Frankie Yale
Buffalo
- Joe DiCarlo († 1921)
Chicago
- 1918–1921: Anthony D'Angelo
- 1921-1924: Mike Merlo
- 1925: Angelo Genna
- 1925: Samuzzo "Samoots" Amatuna
- 1925–1928: Antonio Lombardo
- 1928–1929: Pasqualino "Patsy" Lolordo
- 1929: Joseph Giunta
- 1929–1930: Giuseppe "Joe" Aiello
- 1929-1934: Agostino Loverdo
- 1934-1941: Phil D'Andrea
Detroit
literature
- Stephen Fox: Blood and Power: Organized Crime in Twentieth-Century America , New York: William Morrow and Company, 1989. ISBN 0-688-04350-X
- Robert J. Kelly: Encyclopedia of Organized Crime in the United States , Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000. ISBN 0-313-30653-2
- Humbert S. Nelli: The Business of Crime: Italians and Syndicate Crime in the United States . New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. ISBN 0-226-57132-7
- Carl Sifakis: The Mafia Encyclopedia , New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8160-5694-3
Web links
- Chicago's Unione Siciliana, 1920 - A Decade of Slaughter ( Memento from February 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (part 1–4) by Allan May (English)
- Chicago's Unione Siciliana, 1920 - A Decade of Slaughter (Part 5) by Allan May on www.americanmafia.com from October 23, 2000 (English)
- The Detroit Outfit: Unione Siciliana (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Unione Siciliana ( Memento of the original from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on www.reocities.com (English)
- ↑ New York's Black Hand: Part 1 ( Memento of the original dated December 30, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) 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. on www.mobsters.8m.com (English)
- ↑ www.8ung.at www.8ung.at ( Memento of the original from July 17th, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ www.AmericanMafia.com Allan May of April 24, 2000 (English)
- ↑ www. britica.com (English)
