Lucky (Lucky) Luciano (Charles "Lucky" Luciano), aka Salvatore Lucania (Salvatore Lucania, 1887-1962) - American mafioso, originally from Sicily, is considered the father of organized crime in America. He died in 1962 of a heart attack, thereby avoiding arrest.
When Lucky Luciano took over the vice industry, it became highly organized and governed by the latest in newfangled commercial management.
The list of people who “defined the face of the 20th century” published in Time magazine includes the names of the inventors of the automobile, airplane, television, computer, and the Internet. And organized crime, invented by a Sicilian boy who came to America with his large family in April 1906. This boy's name was Salvatore Luciano. His name on the Time list is next to the names of Bill Gates and Henry Ford.
Emigrant
“Mama mia! - exclaimed 9-year-old Salvatore when he saw New York for the first time. - What showcases! And lanterns, lanterns, lanterns … Electric lanterns! We do not have such lamps in Italy”.
Salvatore, born on February 24, 1897 in Sicily, has lived in the suburbs of New York for about a month. His family settled in an emigrant area where no one could speak English well. Almost everything in Italian. When they boarded the ship in Palermo, Salvatore saw several families from his native Lercata-Friddi, a tiny town where, except for a stunted sulfur-producing factory, there was nothing.
His brothers studied English very poorly. Salvatore fought with them. Can't they really understand: it takes a lot of money to go to huge stores. And where can you get them if you don't know English? By the age of 16, when his father put Salvatore in with the hatter Stent, who had a tiny workshop on a nearby street, the boy spoke English fluently and without an Italian accent. This was his first capital.
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However, how can it be effectively applied in such a squalid society: four fat guys are barely dragging their feet, and Stent only pays a few cents an hour? The answer was prompted by the lanky Lepke, a Jewish boy with burning eyes, who told about the bustling life of the New York streets at night, where you can hear the laughter of girls and where luxurious rich people win as much as $ 200 or even more per evening. The decision was made: to save up money and go where there is laughter and fun, where money comes literally out of nothing.
The first time Salvatore was able to win $ 224. He dared to go to one of the most luxurious gambling houses. The rough clothes from the shoulder of the older brother did not allow him to feel at ease. The jokes of the regulars and the ridicule of the blonde divas embarrassed him. But he resisted, did not drink a drop and left, having picked up a good jackpot. A week later, they greeted him and willingly let him go to the gambling table. He won again and went with new friends to buy clothes for himself - a fashionable suit, brown low shoes and a felt hat. The choice was made: Luciano left the hat workshop and plunged headlong into the world of new acquaintances. Father and brothers were indignant - pious Catholics suspected something was wrong and did not approve of his inclinations.
Somehow Salvatore lost a big game. Then he and Lepke were made an offer to trade in drugs - a win-win. Meetings at appointed places, a burning sensation of risk, bags of cocaine, big money. The only pity is that the case is very poorly organized. Drunken showdown, accidental robbery and violence. And wild disregard for safety. A few months later, Luciano was arrested along with a group of similar yellow-mouthed drug dealers: in January 1916, 18-year-old Luciano received three years in prison camps for drug trafficking (unproven) and store robbery (allegedly proven, but eventually turned out to be fabricated by the police).
Petty businessman
The correctional camps were good for Luciano. It was there that he made acquaintances and received the first lessons of mutual responsibility. He was surrounded by people who were close to the big tycoons of the shadow economy of America, powerful and wild in their customs and methods of doing business. Torrio, Costello, Masserio … Later, it was with them that he would create his own criminal corporation.
Upon his release from prison, Luciano invited new acquaintances to open their own business - a company of recruiters, "processing" unemployed girls and little-known dancers. The recruiting tactics are simple and brilliantly demonstrated by Luciano himself. Girls like him - slim, fit, with very masculine (Italian) ideas about life. Luciano rushes after future victims, sparingly spends money on them, convincing that the flexibility of morals can bring good dividends. Then a gorgeous dinner in a restaurant, sleeping pills in a glass of champagne, bedroom, drugs, gangbang. The next morning the girl wakes up with a heavy head and a full set of compromising evidence. That's all - an unspoken employment contract has been signed.
But Luciano sees himself not as a simple recruiter, but as a director of a large company. Having launched the recruitment technology, he completely concentrated on management, holds workshops, drives out alcoholics and rowdy, and examines the claims of prostitutes in absentia. It is absolutely impossible to consider pasta from the New York suburbs in it.
He has a chic look, he is rightfully considered the trendsetter of New York fashion: silk shirts, cashmere coats, tailor-made shoes, sophisticated reading in the evenings, a society of the best women - singers, actresses, models. All those who begin to get rich imitate him. Buy the same Cadillacs and Buicks with red leather seats. They say about him: “Luciano? Oh, this is a real gentleman. He can give a girl $ 100 just for smiling at him."
According to a federal investigation in 1929, Luciano's annual income was $ 200,000. For comparison: at that time the most expensive mansions in Beverly Hills were estimated at no more than $ 20 thousand. When asked by investigators about the source of income, he replied: “I have so many generous friends! I also run small business."
Organizer
Luciano's first patron, Joe Masserio, loved it all. He headed a huge network of brothels in New York and was glad to welcome into his arms the presentable Luciano, who, in addition to good prison recommendations, also had good connections in the drug business. And this is always useful for brothels. The unification has brought remarkable results.
Didn't forget Luciano and Frank Costello, another valuable acquaintance of the camp times. This sturdy black-haired Calabrian who came to America in 1896 had arcade rooms throughout the United States. Luciano invested in automata and formed an alliance with Costello - Salvatore liked his approach to solving security problems: Costello spared no effort, no money, or ingenuity to create a network of corrupt law enforcement officials.
A little later, another fellow countryman joined the union - Joe Edonis, a man from the Masserio system, who had extensive connections in political and secular circles. Edonis' channels made it possible to give bribes at the very top, in the prosecutor's office, and to release the right people from prison. After several years of work, Edonis was able to form a whole network of "smeared" police inspectors.
Luciano's empire was taking shape. He began to control a huge criminal industry (prostitution, casinos, drugs), covered by strong ties in law enforcement agencies. The first steps towards a new type of criminal corporation have been made.
Authority
“Everything is good with Luciano,” Masserio said. "But he's just a sissy son of a bitch." The reputation of a "sweet boy" did not allow Luciano to claim leadership in the group, which he, in fact, created. This image was able to debunk the case. 1929, October 16 - Three unknown persons caught him at the corner of 6th and 33rd avenues, pushed him into a car and, holding a knife to his throat, drove him to a vacant lot. There, in an abandoned barn, they did what they do in such cases: they hung him from the ceiling by his legs, cut out several belts from his back, beat him to death: “Where is the last batch of cocaine in the warehouse? Where?!"
Luciano was silent. He knew that if he split, his own people would not be forgiven. After 6 hours, he was thrown onto the sidewalk in one of the deserted suburbs of New York. Only two days later a woman noticed him and called an ambulance. In the hospital, Luciano did not answer the police's questions: “I don’t know, I don’t remember, I haven’t seen”. The journalists were raving: there was no sensation. Zealous police officers, anticipating new stripes, bite their elbows. As a result, after leaving the hospital, Luciano realized that he was no longer only the brain of the group. He became an authority. And he also got a nickname - Lucky ("Lucky"). In reality, few have survived in this kind of situation.
Lucky Luciano immediately took advantage of new opportunities and, with the support of Costello, launched an illegal trade in alcohol. A little later, relying on connections with prison friend Dandy Phill, he organized a racketeering in New Orleans. There is almost nowhere for a business to grow qualitatively.
Reorganizer
“That's it, it’s not good anymore,” Luciano said at a 1929 meeting in Atlantic City that was the starting point for the reorganization of the American mafia. - You cannot predict profits and control risks when everyone blows their own tune. All these Sicilian family principles get in the way of business. I didn’t bring all my relatives with me!”
Luciano proposed to delimit powers and conclude an agreement on the rules of competition (constant feuds harm the cause). At the same meeting, the idea of creating common security structures was discussed. A few months later, Murder Incorporated appears - a paramilitary unit of professional killers, ready at any time to stand up for arms and do any job. The experienced Alberto Anastasia, who had already carried out the delicate assignments of Lucky, began to head this structure.
In the following years, such meetings, which turned two dozen bosses into a board of directors, and the mafia world into a highly organized commercial structure, were held with enviable regularity and clearly showed everyone: the president of the entire company is not Masserio, but Lucky Luciano.
The hour had come - it was time to dot the i. Luciano invited Masserio to an Italian restaurant, treated his old friend to deliciously cooked oysters and lobsters, and then, retiring to the toilet, gave the command to his fighters to shoot their favorite boss. The police did not get the testimony: "I saw nothing, I relieved myself." So Lucky became the head of the American mafia clan - without any "buts".
And he continued the reforms. “We need to penetrate the legal business as actively as possible,” he said at a regular meeting, “to take control of industry and agriculture. Use these networks to transport drugs. And expand, expand, expand. Well, the police will not check every package of sausages! Luciano gleamed spectacles in expensive frames and looked more and more like a professor from the university. With regard to anyone who doubted the firmness of the chief, the punitive apparatus immediately worked.
They decided to seek control over the factories through trade unions, which often resorted to the help of bandits to guard the demonstrations. The corporation allocated funds to bribe trade union leaders and after a few years achieved almost complete control over sewing and fur factories, transport, cinemas, vegetable and grocery stores, sausage factories, and slaughterhouses. Drugs flowed like a river. The turnover of the Lucky Luciano empire grew by several orders of magnitude.
The bosses were happy. The specialization is complete: childhood friend Lepke deals with trade unions, Anastasia - punitive unit, Torrio, another friend of prison times - brothels, Lanzo, Torrio's man - casinos and slot machines. In fact, there is only one task left to solve - to find the exits to the very top.
And that was done. Through Edonis, Luciano partially financed Roosevelt's election campaign - he paid for the travels of one of the presidential candidate's campaigners, Jimmy Hins. Among Luciano's acquaintances were senators and lawyers. This enabled him to expand his business across America.
Warrior
One day, at a meeting of Murder Incorporated, they discussed the candidacy of a certain Thomas Dewey, a New York prosecutor who had been collecting a dossier on Lucky Luciano for many years. The board of the corporation insistently advised Luciano to sign his death warrant. "He does not love me? Lucky wondered. "Did I do something bad?" Everyone laughed, but stubbornly put Thomas Dewey on the death list. The lucky one disagreed. God knows why.
It was indeed very difficult to prove Luciano's guilt. The mafia has no archives, zero paperwork. This means that you will not find the signature. And personally, Luciano has not recruited girls for a long time and did not sell bags of cocaine. Dewey, desperate to catch him on drugs, decided to try to play the prostitution card. He sent out disguised agents to brothels, who listened attentively to the girls' revelations. And they were used. In April 1936, an arrest warrant for Luciano was placed on the investigator's desk.
Lucky arrived at the courthouse in a light suit, smiling, fit and, as always, unperturbed. All charges were smashed to smithereens. “Did they find a weapon on me? So I was going to hunt! They could not incriminate him with anything. You never know what prostitutes are chatting! In addition, the testimony of the degraded courtesans really looked unconvincing.
Then Dewey went to the extreme - bought a witness, a decent lady. Lucky laughed in her face: "Sewn with white thread!" In addition, the lawyer was able to provide evidence of the corruption of the witness, as well as the fact that the testimony was memorized by her. Did not help. On June 18, 1936, Luciano was sentenced to 50 years of strict regime. Thomas Dewey grasped the very essence of Luciano's work. In his accusatory speech, he stated: "When Luciano took over the industry of vice, it became highly organized and began to be governed by the latest word of newfangled commercial management."
Lucky Luciano's power was immense. The war proved it. German boats regularly sunk American merchant ships and the Americans suffered huge losses. Intelligence believed that the Germans were helped either by spies or by sympathizers. When all funds were exhausted, counterintelligence decided to resort to the help of the underworld.
The messenger organized a meeting, Lucky Luciano handed over to freedom: "Cooperate!" - and fishermen, dock workers and even vagabonds, who were previously silent, became the eyes and ears of military intelligence. Soon, 8 German spies were arrested in America. Luciano was immediately transferred to a personal cell (almost an office), where he received prominent politicians and businessmen. In 1945, the lawyer Luciano was able to obtain a pardon for his client.
Immigrant
1946, February 2 - Luciano was released. Meetings with friends, parties in the most honorable houses in his honor. However, he is forbidden to live in America. He goes to Italy. The sea, the mild climate - what could be better for rest after so many years in prison! He settled in a chic mansion in Palermo, leads a quiet life, goes once a week to the hippodrome, on Thursdays, sees friends who come to him from the USA. His task is to create a network that would cover the entire Mediterranean. And the whole world.
For this Lucky Luciano went to Argentina, and then to Cuba. In Havana, he was warmly received by the future dictator Batista, who relies on both local and international criminals. Luciano knows not by hearsay that Cuba is a major center for drug trafficking and smuggling of American cigarettes and rum. At the famous Tropican nightclub, he makes important deals with local mafiosi who control casinos, nightclubs, hotels, taxis and wholesalers. In turn, Lucky's personal connections helped the Cuban government get a lucrative contract for the supply of exotic products to the United States.
Then Lucky moves to Rome. He willingly invites journalists, gives interviews that slander persecutes him, poses in front of the camera, becoming a regular hero of the secular chronicles. He is always accompanied by the most beautiful and famous women, for example the Marquis Sandra Rossi or the dancer from La Scala Igea Lissoni. "How he knows how to love …" - they declare to sensationalized reporters.
1949 - Luciano received permission from the authorities to open a sugar almond factory, which served as the starting point for the development of a local drug network. Under the leadership of Lucky, agricultural cooperatives are formed, buying up the most fertile Italian lands. The result of his activities is similar to the American one - a new type of mafia has formed in Sicily, flourishing thanks to the cocaine trade. Many people knew that in a green or grocery store it is possible to buy not only basil or spaghetti, but also something more interesting.
As a distraction, as in America, Luciano created many legal firms with impeccable accounting records. In Naples, for example, he opened a household electrical goods store, in Rome - a company for the export of clothes and shoes to America. The business developed, more and more new markets were opened - France, Great Britain, the Netherlands. Life's work succeeded.
Hero
In late 1961, Lucky Luciano, a prosperous businessman and good citizen, received a letter: “Dear Senor Luciano. I would be honored to write and film your legendary life. Writer and Producer Martin A. Ghosh”. The lucky man, who always dreamed of fame, agreed. Provided, of course, that he gets acquainted with the script in detail - after all, there are so many rumors about him.
1962, January 26 - Lucky Luciano arrives at Naples airport to meet with the future filmmaker. The lucky one was with his guys, well-dressed, smart, cheerful. Suddenly Luciano grabbed his heart and fell down dead. "Heck! - Commissioner Giordano raged, arriving at the airport in 15 minutes. "We were already ready to take it." According to police, at that time there were about 300 mafia clans in Sicily and Calabria. In total, in Italy alone, 20,000 people worked for the mafia. And their leader, Lucky Luciano, lay helplessly, arms outstretched, on the floor at Naples airport.
1962, January 29 - The most luxurious funeral in the history of the city took place in Naples. They buried the person who invented organized crime, which was experiencing a period of rapid prosperity and had great prospects for the future.
A. Soloviev