Following his victory in the Castellammarese War in 1931, Salvatore Maranzano founded the Five Families, an organisation of the five major New York City organised crime families of the Italian American Mafia.
The Maranzano, Profaci, Mangano, Luciano, and Gagliano families, which are today known as the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, and Lucchese families, reformed the Italian American gangs in New York City into the Maranzano, Profaci, Mangano, Luciano, and Gagliano families.
Each family had its own delineated region and organisational hierarchy, and they all reported to the same overall governing body. Maranzano planned for each family’s boss to report to him as the boss of all bosses.
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That job was eliminated for The Commission, a ruling group founded by Lucky Luciano to oversee all Mafia activity in the United States and serve as a mediator between families, after his assassination in September.
The bosses of the Five Families, as well as the Chicago Outfit and the Buffalo criminal family, were all part of it. At the Valachi hearings in 1963, Joseph Valachi made the existence of New York City’s Five Families public.
Since then, a few additional criminal families have been able to ascend to a level equivalent to the Five Families, earning the unofficial title of Sixth Family.
Let us know more about the five families in the video linked below.
Image Source: Google Images
Sources: Macmillian, BBC, GQ
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