Sample Essay on Mineo - Gambino Crime Family

Example of Narrative Essay , Sample Paper

“<Coza nostra> will stay <Coza nostra>, until I die”, - John Gotti

 

Gambino Crime Family… This name is probably known all over the United States and far beyond it. And it’s obviously known as one of the richest and most powerful crime families. Its history was full of murders and betrayal. It was betrayal that made the family loose its traditions, its power and dissolve.
But let me turn to the very birth of this crime family. It all began in the days of Alfred Mineo and Steve Ferrigno. At that time the family included Tata Chiricho, Joe Traina, Vincent Mangano, Frank Scalise and Albert Anastasia. Al Mineo and Steve Ferrigno were murdered in 1930. Vince and Phil Mangano took over and became part of the contemporary Mafia.

Mineo - Gambino Crime Family Essay

Those days what they did was they ran an outfit limited largely to rackets in Brooklyn, the waterfront and gambling - horse betting, the numbers, the Italian lottery. Then Albert Anastasia known as the head of Murder Incorporated took over. Anastasia was unofficially advised by Frank Costello (who was from another crime family). He expanded the organization greatly into new rackets, especially gambling, loan-sharking, and drug trafficking. But he couldn’t not go further that this – for he was a man who was really into dangerous actions, which sometimes had no explanation. As Anastasia wasn’t eager to share power and even more that that – he wanted to take control over the crime family he got into a deal with his friend Costello and Vito Genovese. The two of them decided to get rid of Anastasia with the help of Carlo Gambino. Gambino got rid of Anastasia in a murder. Tough his actions were rough, Gambino understood that it wasn’t safe to be enemies with Luciano and Costello and he tried to tie up a “friendly” relationship.

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Even at this point we can see that Gambino’s crime family history was all over in blood: the first boss, Al Mineo, has been killed by the second, Albert Anastasia who, in turn, was betrayed by the third, Carlo Gambino. Gambino rules with the assistance of Dellacroce. Gambino was a man who didn’t really care about what people thought of him, though he liked to be believed to be “a common guy” from the neighborhood. He often visited his old neighborhood. And obviously he didn’t pretend, because he was a man that had a strong believe in traditions, old ties. For him coming there was like recalling what he went through to get to the place he was at the moment. It reminded him of his family, which he really loved and respected. Gambino wanted everything to be the way it’s supposed to be, democracy obviously wasn’t the thing he preferred. I got very interested by the way he shook hands because it tells a lot about his personality. When he didn’t know the person and didn’t really care to get to know him his hand was under that person’s hand and didn’t mean anything. But if the person dealt with his business or had his respect his hand was on top.

Gambino’s crime family structure included: the boss, his assistant, the counselor who transfers necessary instructions, kapo responsible for "soldiers" in the commands, and, at last, executors of bloody orders of the leaders - "soldiers". Gambino "Family" included over twenty commands. Kapo was the boss of 250 “soldiers”. ”Soldiers” swore to the "family" and were under it’s protection. Kapo, in turn, directed the profit to the three main leaders of "family".
John Gotti, Gambino’s “soldier”, was one of the man who did his best to prove he is true to the “family”. It was him, who by Gambino’s order found and killed the murderer of his nephew Emmanuel. John Gotti was also under the protection of Dellacroce. As Gambino was getting older everybody thought that Dellacroce will come after him, as his assistant and right hand, but…Gambino did something that no other family leader dared to do. He chose himself a person to come after him and it was Paul Castellano – the husband of his sister. I personally believe he did it because family bounds were very valuable for him. But still…Paul Castellano got an enemy – Dellacroce. In recompense Dellacroce was allowed to stay the family and was given ten out of 23 branches they had. In 1976 Gambino died. It was this very moment when the family started dividing, because by doing this Gambino formed two different opposing forces in one single crime family.

In 1976 Paul Castellano became the leader of the family, but he didn’t really look like a mafiosi, he was more like a businessmen. There were some ”professional” areas that interested Castellano, such as the garment trade, trucking industries, construction unions. He didn’t want anybody to die and tried to avoid situations like that. In spite of this he was the boss of the staling –cars operations, as the result of which there were a lot of murders. As Castellano didn’t want his family to participate in some activities he thought weren’t worth of the family started losing it’s power and couldn’t affect the same people anymore. One of the things he didn’t want to do – is to deal with drugs.

There still was a person that tried to work with drugs behind his back. It was John Gotti. John Gotti stayed under the protection and gave advice to Dellacroce until 1985 when Dellacroce died. Castellano made an attempt to get rid of him. Castellano thought that the best way to do it would be choosing a different underboss. This way he was stopping Gotti’s further career movement. If he was a clever mafia boss he would’ve started killing his opposition, but he didn’t do it and what he got was awful. He got killed by John Gotti and Salvatore Gravano. The same day it happens Gotti swears to be true to the Gambino Crime Family and becomes it’s boss. It was John Gotti who became “The boss of the bosses” who had a yearly outcome of 16 million dollars. But his only mistake was trusting Salvatore Gravano, a real killer who was just afraid of death. John Gotti was believed to be invulnerable, but at the moment Gravano got scared of the electric chair he told everything he knew about Gotti and Gotti was accused and sentenced for life. It would’ve never happened if they didn’t become enemies. It was the second moment when Gambino’s Crime family started dissolving. Actually, as historians assure, this moment was a breaking line and saying it in other words it was the end of an era of a mafia. John Gotti sits in prison. His son and successor John Gotti Jr. didn’t take his father’s place for long. It was Peter Gotti, John’s younger brother who became the god father of the Gambino’s Crime Family. But the family is not the same anymore, it doesn’t have even a half of the control it used to have.

The OLD FAMILY tried to establish the control and over the International association of dockers. Them were interested in the financial streams coming in this organization from the insurance organizations and employers. The Family wanted to receive a part of money that should go on payment of pensions to former dockers and for the maintenance to the invalids who have received a trauma at work. Besides the crime family "held" many shops in territory of Brooklyn. Representatives of a clan also owned underground game institutions where there were slot machines which have not passed procedure of licensing in official bodies of the USA, ect.
Nowadays, because of the arrests, deaths, betrayals, not following the family traditions the Gambino’s Crime family is almost dead. And the EMPIRE that was built for so long on the bones of it’s slaves is now at the level of earth. But who knows what would’ve happened if the family didn’t dissolve. And someday we might hear again about the “Italian Power”!

Bibliography:

• Bonnano. Bill”Bound by honor” (St.Martin’s, 1999).
• Davis. John “ Mafia dinasty” (Harpertorch,1994).
• O’neil Garard, Lehr. Dick“ The underboss“ (PublicAffairs 2002).
• Italian chronicles (ONYX, 1996)