Salvatore Lucania was born in Sicily in 1897 but he immigrated to New York City with his family when he was 10 years old. Later he became known as “Lucky Lucianoâ€, the Father of Organized Crime in America. Once in America, Lucky Luciano wasted no time in engaging in petty criminal activity to the point where his parents were forced to send him to truancy school. There he formed gangs which evolved into more serious criminal activity such as gambling, extortion and heroin dealing. As a teenager he met and formed a close relationship with two Jewish gang members: Meyer Lansky and “Bugsy” Siegel. When Prohibition came in the early 1920s, the door to opportunity was wide open for those who didn’t shy away from crime and wanted to make heaps of money through bootlegging activities. Luciano and his gang would come to dominate the illegal alcohol market. He received his nickname “Lucky†in 1929 after surviving a brutal beating. After he became one of the “Bosses†of the five crime families who controlled NYC, Luciano then went on to organize the network, establish formal rules and work to mitigate disputes. “The Commissionâ€, as it was called, brought mob crime to a whole new level. That is, until Thomas E. Dewey became special prosecutor in 1935 and started to take a stronger position against organized crime. Lucky’s luck was about to change. In 1936 he was sent to prison for extortion charges. After using his connections in Italy to aid the Allies in WWII, he was granted release from prison but forced into exile through deportation. He spent his days out between Italy and Cuba before suffering a heart attack and dying in the Naples, Italy airport at the age of 65. His legacy continues to this day…
