Lucky Luciano

Charles Luciano (1897-1962), better known as Lucky Luciano, was a legendary mobster with a long history of crimes and accusations. He is also a somehow unlikely American patriot and hero of WWII.

Luciano was born as Salvatore Lucania in Sicily. At the age of ten, his family moved to the United States. Luciano earned money in his younger years by getting kids to pay for his protection, and, in true mafia style, whoever wouldn't pay him one or two cents a day for his service would get beaten up. There was one kid who refused to pay, and when Luciano tried to beat him up, the kid gave him a good fight: The kid's name was Meyer Lansky, another legendary mafioso on the making, and who would remain friends with Luciano for life.

By 1916, Luciano and his gang the Five Points Gang were suspected by the police as being involved in many murders. Lansky was also a member of that gang, as well as Bugsy Siegel. New York area mafiosos started taking notice, and by 1920, Luciano was working for various gangsters as a bootlegger and meeting such legendary mafiosos as Frank Costello and Vito Genovese[?].

Many old time mafiosos recommended Luciano to stay away from Costello, but Costello and Luciano kept their friendship going, and Costello introduced Luciano to mafiosos of other nationalities, such as , Big Bill Dwyer[?], Dutch Schultz[?] and Arnold Rothstein[?]. Luciano also admired the way in which Costello was able to buy over city officials and policemen.

Luciano by the late '20s became one of the leaders of another mafia family, the one led by Joe The Boss Masseria[?]. But Luciano disagreed with Masseria's hard liner ideas, where he hated everyone that wasn't Sicilian and distrusted them. Luciano was of the opinion that, by not associating with other mafias, the Sicilians were wasting a good chance to make more profits.

In 1928, the Castellamarese war[?] broke , pitting Joe The Boss and his men against those of the up and coming gangster Salvatore Maranzano. Luciano realized this war could be beneficial to him and befriended the younger members of the Maranzano gang. That achieved, he sat and planned to wait until both bosses killed each other, figuring that he would become boss after that happened.

By 1931, Luciano was so eager to gain power and become a boss, he, along with Lanksy, planned the assassination of Masseria, and four Luciano men, including Bugsy Siegel, went and killed Masseria at a Coney Island restaurant. Maranzano then realized that Luciano was hungry for power, and, having become the winner of the Castellamarese war thanks to Luciano and his friends, he made Luciano the second man in his organization. But this was just part of a Maranzano plot to have Luciano, Genovese and Chicago's boss Al Capone killed off quickly. Luciano and Lansky learned of this, and Luciano and Genovese were aware that Maranzano was going to try to kill them. So, when Maranzano was waiting in his office for them to have a gunman, Irishman[?] Mad Dog Cole[?] kill them, four of Luciano's men, disguised as government agents, went into Maranzano's office and shot and stabbed him to death instead.

With the killings of Messeria and Maranzano completed, Luciano was able to complete his vision and join all the mafia groups of different ethnicities in New York to join in what became known as a national crime syndicate. They controlled such areas as prostitution, bootlegging and loan-sharking.

In 1936, Luciano's doom came however, as he was convicted by Thomas E. Dewey of prostitution and faced jail time. He got 30 to 50 years in jail for the charge, and served 10 years. In between getting arrested and sentenced, however, he got a contract on Dutch Schultz after Schultz had prostested some mafia rulings, and he killed Schultz.

During the WWII, America needed new allies to advance its invasion of Sicily, and Luciano was a perfect choice - imprisoned but with good connections in the Italian Mafia, which has been severely persecuted under Fascists in Italy. A patriot and devoted to Sicily, the Mafia and the USA alike, he helped tremendously and was duly rewarded. In 1946, he was paroled on the condition that he left the United States and returned to Sicily. He accepted the deal, but was deeply hurt about having to leave the USA, a country he had considered his own ever since he arrived there at the age of ten. Later that year, he flew to Cuba, from where he began to lead the American syndicate and ordered the execution of Siegel, who had cost the mafia millions in opening the casinos at the city of Las Vegas, which were losing money at the time. But the USA government learned of his presence in the Caribbean island, and soon he had to fly back to Sicily.

When Albert Anastasia[?] was killed in 1957 and Frank Costello forced to retire, Vito Genovese plotted to have Luciano killed. However, Luciano, Lansky and their men trapped Genovese and made him get caught smuggling drugs by American government officials.

Luciano grew angry about the money he was getting from Mafia operations in the early 1960s. He felt Lansky was getting too much money and he wasn't. But his failing health deprived him from putting up a fight against this, and in 1962, he died of a heart attack while at Naples International Airport[?].

Legend has it that during the 1940s, Luciano used to meet US military men during train trips throughout Italy, and he enjoyed being recognized by his countrymen, several times taking photos and even signing autographs for them.