Was LUCKY Luciano OVERRATED in Mafia HISTORY ? Feat. Mob Archaeologist Eric Stonefelt – HT
with regards to the history of the American mafia. Has Charlie Luchiano’s role been overstated? Let’s check it out. I’m James Gladwish and welcome to OC Shorts, bringing you detailed historical snapshots of the American Mafia and other organized crime. Feel free to subscribe if you like that sort of thing.
I’m joined today by mob historian Eric Stonefeld. Many of you may recognize him from the excellent YouTube channel, The Mob Archaeologists. He also has a fascinating Substack called Mafia Bloodlines: A Society unto Themselves, which is well worth listening to. The link to this is in the comments below.
Eric’s knowledge on the history of the mob is almost unparalleled and we will be discussing fascinating information on the mafia hierarchy as well as examining Charlie Luchiano’s role in the creation of the commission. Hi Eric, thanks for coming on. Um if you’d like to tell the my viewers a little about yourself. Yeah, absolutely man.
Yeah, I’m happy to be doing this. It’s the timing is good because King Charles visited Trump this week. So, we can kind of do our own little little version of this. Um, but yeah, my name is Eric. Uh, some people may know me from the mob archaeologist, which we were we did a number of YouTube videos kind of dealing with mob history, kind of doing a off-the cuff kind of panel discussion that’s been on hiatus.
I also do my own blog, Mafia Bloodlines, a society unto themselves. I do long form articles, kind of off-the-cuff audio episodes where I’ll just discuss different aspects of this, whatever comes to mind, mostly improvised, you know, just whatever is on my mind at a given time. Um, I do again long form articles. Recently did one on the sort of the early Castella Marice networks.
Um, kind of focusing on the Assaro clan, you know, of the Banano family, but they went back five generations going back to the Castella Castellamari mafia. There was an 1896 case that uh, uh, Vineyero’s great-grandfather was involved in in 1896 and, you know, Joe Banano’s uncle was involved.
So there are all kinds of connections there. I really mapped those out uh in an absurdly long article. Um but I did that um have some other articles of a similar nature just a heavy focus on the continuity and just the the sheer scope of connections that formed this phenomenon. And so I I do I do long articles as well as episodes on that.
And then and and then I’m just around, you know, people know me as someone who just loves talking about this stuff. Well, that’s it. And we come we we’ve come across each other obviously from obviously the mob archaeologist and the Blackhand Forum and we’ve emailed a few times and obviously when your Substack popped up again like the last couple of weeks um and you did this fascinating one and people on the substacks there’s the audio as well to listen to as well as obviously what you can read and it’s it’s fantastic. Um yeah, there was a
fantastic sorry I keep using that word an amazing um audio that I listened to on one of your substacks about the the terminology and kind of the ethmology and of some of the phrases that um are used and some of them now you don’t hear regarding the mafia, right? Especially with regards to hierarchy and and the kind of the setup of everything.
Um, so yeah, if we if we can start off by talking about, you know, the position of boss. Um, tell us a little about what you discovered about that. Yeah. Well, I mean, this this stuff is fairly wellnown, but I feel like it doesn’t necessarily get the attention that it deserves sometimes. Um, you know, the boss traditionally, he’s an elected representative of the organization.
You know, both Sicilian Pentiti as well as American sources have talked about how there are elections uh to choose the boss. It’s not just shooting your way at the top and and claiming yourself boss, you know, even if a guy does take over, you know, through aggression. Um, he still must go through a certain process.
We saw that even with John Gotti. Yeah. Where Gotti killed Castellano. It’s it’s an off thereord hit, but he still had to go through the motions of this election. Um, and so, you know, the traditional term, the most common traditional term for the boss was representant, literally meaning representative, but it’s because he was the elected representative of the family.
He’s there to not just direct orders, you know, he’s not just there to bark orders, but he’s also there to represent them, much as a political representative would. I mean, I mean, Eric, you see that word a lot in the Nicola Gentile kind of the FBI files that available on Mary Ferrell for anyone that that word is used a lot. Yeah.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. You see it on uh you know I I’ve gone through the the 1960s FBI bugs that the FBI had of many of the bosses of the US. Stephano Magadino being a big one. They they had a bug that ran in his office for years. They also bugged Angelo Bruno you know Ray Patriarcha all these leaders and especially guys like Maggadino and Bruno.
you see them use representante almost exclusively, you know, representant official, you know, and uh that was really the the the primary formal term for the position. You don’t really see them say boss um or even cappo, which literally translates to boss. You you see them primarily use rappers and tante. I mean cappo is an interesting one because you discussed this in in your in your substack but obviously in modern terminology we refer to capos as as in like the the crew chiefs the captains which obviously I think was capo deina is what you see a lot right
cappo essentially was just boss yeah kappo literally it literally translates in Italian to head or chief but also boss and so capoina what that means is head of 10 or boss of 10. So it, you know, I’ve talked to a couple people who actually thought it meant captain because it s, you know, there’s a similar root.
Yeah. Cappo, captain. Capitano would actually be captain. Um, but the the term is actually boss. And you know, you mentioned Gentille, and you’ll see Gentille, he alternates between calling the boss Cappo and representant. Those are the terms he uses for it. And that’s what you see historically as well.
When would you say the change kind of came where they they refer to the the captains as as as capos and they they kind of drop calling the boss the cappo? Was there a kind of a a shift in anything you’ve read or heard? I think it depends on where you know I think it depends on uh you know how Americanized a given group was.
I I’ve tried to figure that out with captain where like at what point did did kappo become the common term for captain? Yeah, because it’s it obviously comes from Capo Deina. It’s not like it’s a total like reversal of what it originally meant. Um I would guess around the 1950s is is when you really start to see it, you know, cuz and then with Kappo becoming less common for the boss position.
I’ve seen some sources in places like Pittsburgh and the Bay California Bay Area where member informants still used CAPO to refer to the boss. um in in San Jose and San Francisco, you know, there was still a stronger kind of Sicilian lineage that informed those families. So that may have have been played a role.
Um you know, we see this with with all the families across the US though there where like certain euphemisms are more popular in a given region than others. Certain, you know, linguistic changes are more common in certain places than others. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when something like that changed because, you know, most of our information starts coming in in the early 1960s.
Most of like our internal organizational info doesn’t really start to filter in from the FBI until the 1960s. Um, so, you know, it’s it’s hard to pinpoint when exactly these changes took place, but they were likely organic. Yeah. Yeah. You know, sometimes people like to imagine that like a meeting was held where it’s like, “Oh, we’re going to start calling uh them cappos now.
” And it’s like, you know, that’s not how things work. No. I mean, it’s going back to the the title of title of boss, but you came across a term which was like cappo pies. Do you remember? Oh, yeah. In Sicily, yeah. In Sicily, they uh I’ve never seen it used in the United States, but in Sicily, they’ll sometimes refer to the boss of a family as the capo de paesti.
Um pa my you know, I don’t speak Italian. I butcher I butcher this stuff. I can I can read these words better than I can say them, but uh it’s pa and it’s the root of the word pyano. Yeah. And uh it refers to like a village or an area. And so it’s saying like this guy’s the boss of that village. And the term borgata is similar where borgata means you know a township.
It’s it’s you know similar to the word burrow. Our word burrow. And uh you know it’s no coincidence that in the United States they use the term borgata given that in Sicily being the head of a family corresponds to a specific jurisdiction usually a town or a district. Yeah. Yeah. So let’s move on to the to the next guy obviously in the in the hierarchy.
Um and there isn’t so many variations on this but we look at the underboss here. Yeah. That one doesn’t have much variation. stood capo which literally means under boss you know gentille used viche capo you know which kind of speaks for itself too um they didn’t get too imaginative with that you know it’s just this is the guy under the boss traditionally could be a standin for the boss or if if there if a family had more political division if it was larger the underboss might be a factional representative he might be
kind of a a de facto boss in his own right you know we see that in the United States as Well, um but yeah, he’s he’s there to be the second in command, the the substitute for the boss if needed. Um but stood capo kind of speaks for itself under boss. Okay, so let’s move on to something which is I think is absolutely fascinating is this this idea of a conciglio as in the council and not we’re not talking about consiliary here.
We’re talking about the coniglio as a as a a defined council of people. Yeah, this is something that’s been heavily overlooked and everybody who knows me knows that I will jump at the chance to talk about this because it’s um I first noticed I’d never seen it discussed and I I first started to notice it. There was a Milwaukee informant Auggie Maniachi.
There were also some San Jose member informants who talked about this this formal council in their families. And it wasn’t the administration. It was a body that included administration members, but it also could include just senior soldiers. They were elected to these positions. It wasn’t just a meeting, you know.
It wasn’t just, oh, hey, we’re going to get some guys together for a meeting. These were elected positions. In San Jose, we have confirmation that the this council had an elected chairman or secretary who uh whose duties seem to have been akin to what we would call the official consiguary in an ordinary administration. Yeah.
And then so that kind of opened my mind to it and I started kind of collecting information doing cross analysis discovered that there are far more references to it in the early American mafia than anybody realized. Nicola Gentille talks about it. He talks about when he transferred into the San Francisco family afterward he attended a banquet with the San Francisco coniglio.
He makes several other references to it. Um discovered that the Sicilian Pentiti talked about it. um Bushetta, you know, the most famous uh polaro pentito, he talked about how in I think he said larger families, but he said that there could be up to three elected conciglieri. And so that’s what these guys are.
If you sit on a consigio, you’re a consigary. Yeah. Yeah. Another one who uh talked about it a little bit was Antonyino Calderon of the Katana family, who’s a great source. He talked about a coniglio in the Katana family and again it was you know you could he said captains could sit on the cons he said in families that just had one or two captains a captain might sit on the council but in families with many captains they typically wouldn’t they would typically be the seats were typically for senior soldiers. Um so
it’s it’s different from the top down hierarchy where these guys aren’t part of the chain of command. the and we have some references to these councils what they actually did which is if a member was in trouble they would vote on his fate. They would decide, you know, whether he lived or died, whether he would be sheld.
They would if if members were proposed, their names would be brought before the council. They would discuss the candidacy of these proposed members. They would discuss matters of policy. Um they were designed to you know in a way democratize the family you know basically if I recall you said that you know if you know normally if you have a problem with something the boss does you can’t say it but if you’re in this council then you can in a democratic way raise it with the boss of a family without you know repercussions so to
speak. Oh yeah. Yeah. And there was actually the Milwaukee family council was actually recorded once by the FBI. And we saw an example of this where Frank Ballisteri wanted to kill a Banano member who had visited uh he hadn’t followed protocol because protocol required if a member from another family visited an area.
He has to inform his boss who then informs the boss of that area. This this Banano member hadn’t done that. So ballasturi being ballastury you know violent a very violent guy and and the council was like what are you thinking you know uh what are you what are you doing you know so it it allowed them to challenge the boss you know where it’s like you’re not just undermining the boss you are allowed to do that whether the boss liked it or not is another question but this is a body that was designed to kind of distribute the power among
senior elder figures and not just the boss Barcelona. But it’s interesting there obviously with Frank Bisteria because obviously that’s that’s a bit later on. I mean there’s no real record of this kind of these consilio um councils in New York like post 30 or so or there was a joint council that Joe Velace talked about.
He he actually referred to it as the consiglio and he said what it was was six concigary like the official cons administration. He said they like the five New York families and one of the New Jersey families, you know, there was both a New York family and the Decavalcantes. Yeah. Um but he said six of these conigliary in the New York New Jersey area sat on this council and then a different boss from each of those families rotated to be the tiebreaker vote and uh a little different than the conclio we see in individual families where they weren’t
directly concerned with the internal operations of a given family but they seem to have ser served a similar you know mediation purpose uh you know when it came to matters you know like conflicts and things like that they seem to have served served a similar purpose. There are a couple other vague references that indicate that was still in place maybe into the 1950s, but outside of Elachi, it doesn’t really get referenced.
But it’s interesting that it’s a conciglio and it’s similar in certain ways, but it seems to have been somewhat distinct in New York from what we see around the country and in Sicily. And Chicago had it as well. That’s an important detail. Um, you know, there are numerous references to the Chicago family, one of the most controversial subjects to talk about.
Um, but there are numerous references to Chicago utilizing what some referred to as a committee or a board of directors. But LA informant Frank Bombero in 1969 had a meeting with Phil Aldicio where Aldisio updated him on kind of what was going on with Jean Kana being gone and all that. And uh Aldicio actually told Bopp and the family was, you know, basically under the governance of what he said was a consign.
And this is the FBI transcribing it phonetically, but it’s obviously obviously referring to a coniglio. Um so it was even in Chicago. It’s fascinating. So then move on to some kind of grander things there. this I mean like the the terms for you know like the commission and and along that side of things and and as we’ve kind of I’ve kind of alluded to before I often think that um you know people don’t realize that there there were meetings of of of the bosses and things prior to this 1931 you know Lucky Luchiano
invented the commission or or Marenzano um I mean it in that part of it I it could even be said that Lucho’s was a bit his impart is a bit more overrated than than it actually was. I mean, what in terms of like the history of the kind of the commission and the different phrases and um can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, that’s a good question because uh yeah, Luchiano, I mean, sometimes when you you kind of demystify him, people think you’re like trying to knock him down a peg because he was obviously a
very influential important figure. He became boss of a family in 1931 and it was not easy to become a boss and uh you know and he and he did have a voice in some of the changes that took place but but yeah the way I put it is the commission was an evolution of existing bodies where Gentille and Jepp a letter from Jeppi Mel himself the early Capo de Capi both confirm that there was not just something they called the general assembly of course it was in Italian but they had something called the general assembly where a meeting was held of
national leaders where basically the bosses or their delegates would meet in matters of of you know serious national importance and they would vote you know so you’d get a collection of leaders from around the country this was a highly formal affair you know the these guys weren’t just discussing rackets they were discussing political matters within Kosanostra and they would get together and they would vote on these matters and uh you know the capo de capi of course had a lot of influence but there was a democratic process in place
where bosses from around the country would come to these decisions together. For example, when they they removed Joe Maseria from being you know boss of bosses and they elected um Gaspar Msina Msina. Yeah. As a Yeah. So you know there was this kind of this this group of people who got together and voted in a democratic way.
Oh yeah. And and Gentille talks a lot about that with even issues of of quote unquote lesser importance because even even you know an issue involving a soldier in Colorado had national implications because those guys had relatives and paans in other cities. Um Gentile talks about that with the Colorado war of the 1920s where there were a group of members related to Pellegrino Skaglia who was killed.
He was believed to be the boss of Colorado and some of his relatives were still in dispute and so this national meeting had to be held where Gentille advocated for the relatives of Skaglia and uh ultimately they were allowed to transfer to Kansas City. Um but this this just involved these guys who were soldiers in Colorado but a national meeting had to be held with leaders from around the country to decide their fate and Gentile had to advocate for them.
Um, so even something involving people that we otherwise never would have heard of because these guys that Gentile talked about, uh, these Colorado guys, like they’re guys who we never would have had on our list of members otherwise, you know, these these aren’t people that we would otherwise know as like serious racketeers or gangsters or anything like that.
So it just shows you that even these microcosms within this larger entity had deeper implications and required national mediation. And there was also a body called the Grand Consigio. And it appears Gentille himself sat on this for a time. And uh he doesn’t really clarify exactly what it consisted of. I think you can look at how Gentille describes what he did at these meetings and say that’s probably what a member of this council did.
You know, it literally translates to grand council. Yeah. Great. Great council. And uh interestingly though in 1909 Jeppe Mel who was then the national cappo himself he wrote a letter to Rosario Despensza who’s believed to have just then become boss of Chicago. And Mel outlines these bodies. He Yes. That’s it. And he and he Yeah.
He says in this letter that um the Grand Consigio can attend meetings of the National Assembly but he they can’t the grand council members can’t vote. So uh you know the implications two distinct bodies there then two distinct bodies right? Yeah two distinct bodies um some of Gentile’s information suggests that the capo de capi at least formally was actually like the chairman or secretary of the grand council. Yeah.
Which kind of it’s kind of an as above so below effect where you see in these councils within individual families like in San Jose we have confirmation in Chicago. This is this has been referenced as well where there was a chairman elected to oversee the council. Um it looks like that was probably what the capo de cap was.
He was probably elected to kind of chair this grand council. That of course you know you know formally that’s one thing but you know functionally that made him essentially a boss of bosses but interestingly you know Joe Banano pushed back on the whole boss of bosses thing and in his book he said you know the the capo de capi was more like a cappo conciglieri he actually says that you know I’m quoting him and so that plays into what I’m saying here which is that the cappo was probably the chairman or secretary of this grand council
Um, but the Grand Council wasn’t supposed to actually make the decisions themselves. I think they were kind of supposed to be a mediating body. Yeah. Um, Gentille says at one point the Grand Consiglio advised the Kappo. So, uh, we don’t we don’t know we don’t know as much as we’d like, but we do have some solid indication.
We have two great sources. You know, if you want two early sources, uh, to confirm something, having Gentille and Mel. Yes, is about as good as you’re going to get, you know. Uh so we have two people who confirm this existed. Um and that confirms the commission wasn’t a totally novel idea. It was more of an evolution of what already existed.
Well, that’s it because when you look at the what Gentile talks about with the um on the FBI files about the Catholi war, they it’s obviously a smooth transition in terms of you know they they removed Maseria um provisionally elected Gaswan Msina and then then Marano took over and then then it moves into this whole you know Marano had you know the the the kind of the families and everything like that and then then it becomes what people call the the Luchiano invention.
But really I mean this was just as you say an evolution. I mean what kind of changes you know some people say oh Luchiano bought in the role of consiliary but from the sounds of it they had these councils already right. Yeah. Luchiano Velace was under that impression. Velace you know and keep in mind was made during wartime.
Yeah. When the entire country was in chaos New York in particular there there was a lot that was missing from Velace’s perspective. He’s a great source. Yeah. And I think some of the things that he missed are interesting in their own right because they tell you that like they tell you what the practical realities going on at that time were where you know mapping out the full formal hierarchy wasn’t necessarily important during that time.
You know Gentille confirms the consigary position existed long before that. We know uh you know many of these ranks existed going back to Sicily. Um, one thing I want to add real quick, I’m not I might have to ask you to restate your question, but one thing I just wanted to add while thinking about it is um there was actually plans for a commission even before Marenzano took over as Kappo.
Uh there were discussions where they were going to form a commission. This is right, this is after Maseria is killed and before Maseria becomes the capo de cap. They had discussions about forming a commission where Vincenzo Troya was actually going to be the chairman of the commission. Gentille talks about this in some of his accounts and Troya for those who weren’t familiar.
His family were leaders in San Jose in Polarmmo province. He himself was heavily involved with the mafia there. He was a friend of Maranzano in Sicily. He comes to the US around the same time as Maranzano and he he kind of travels around Rockford, Springfield, Illinois, Madison. Some of us believe he was likely the Rockford boss before Tony Muso, but he’s he’s actually named as the initial chairman of this commission before Marenzano becomes Kappo.
Marenzano apparently says, “No, I want to be the capital.” You know, so Maranzano nixes this commission idea. Maranzano becomes the cappo. We know what happens there. And then they revisit this idea later. So this is this this further undermines the idea that it was Luchiano’s idea where they’re even toying with the idea of this formal commission, you know, before Marano’s death.
Well, in in the Gentill things, I don’t know if this is the same thing or similar to what you’re talking about. when they’re deciding to approach Maranzano about, you know, making peace, they they say they form a commission with with Troyer and they they go they go to meet Marano at a hotel and they have they they have conversation.
They call that a commission, but obviously that’s obviously slightly different like the commission. Yeah, that was actually what you’re talking about was actually a peace committee. You know, it gets confusing, but yeah, there was there was a peace committee formed during the cast race war which shows you they formed committees and things.
Yeah, Gentille makes reference to that earlier. Um, when Michaela Merllo died in Chicago in 1924, uh, a committee was sent to Chicago, including Gentille, where they mediated a leadership dispute over who would take over. So these committees were a thing and uh they formed a a much more important committee during the Castella Morice war and they tasked Jeppe Tina who Gentile never identifies his rank except for earlier on Treyena would stand in for Daquila as the acting capo de Capi at national meetings where Daquila couldn’t attend. Um, you know,
I’m buddies with Michael Dionardo and he told me that Jerry Dquula, who was one of his mentors, told him that Trina was actually Doca’s consigary. He was the official consiguary of the early Gambino family. So he’s he’s you know with Dquila dead and then Mo gets killed and then uh they tasked Tria with heading he they they let him choose who got to be on it and so they formed this committee that included Gentilele Tria um Troya some other guys and this this group was tasked with establishing peace that was it. So, and then so that was
that was a separate thing. And then when Maserie is killed, they discuss the idea of forming a commission with Troya as the chairman. Marenzano says no. You know, being Marenzano, he’s not into that. He becomes Kappo. Then, you know, all those events play out. Marenzano gets killed.
Then they say, “Okay, now we’re we’re really gonna do it this time, guys. We’re really gonna do just a commission.” It’s not that different. Sorry, what’s that? This idea had been floating around beforehand and even before that we knew there was assemblies and councils you know so like I said it was an evolution and you know you know where where does the toiano idea come from then is it is it is it I think you know it’s other historians I think have really gotten into it.
Um, I don’t know what what the the true origin of it is. You I think some of it was just the general lack of insight into these historical nuances. You know, people weren’t familiar with Gentille. They weren’t familiar with some of the other sources. they were largely ignorant of how formalized the Sicilian mafia was much earlier because that’s I think that’s an important detail in this too is that Antonio Coutrera who was a Sicilian guy wrote a book about the Sicilian mafia that was published in the year 1900 and he did cross analysis of
some of the 1800’s investigations and he stated that there was a capital province in addition to identifying the formal ranks within families in 1800 Sicily. which included uh terms like capo duchina and uh you know all the stoapo he also identified the capo provenia position which still exists today and so the Sicilian mafia in the 19th century had the capo proincia position uh Dr.
Melior Allegra who was a member of one of the Polarmo families and he cooperated in the 1930s. He was made in in to the Sicilian mafia in the 1910s and he identified the capital proincia. Um so we have references to this provincial head going back to the 1800s and into the early 1900s. So it’s not just the US mafia had these governing bodies.
There was some form of larger governing structure over the island of Sicily much earlier too. And you know, um, Allegra also made reference. There was a Polarmo war in the 1920s that involved, uh, I could go all day about it, but, uh, there was a Polarmo war and they actually had an assembly of general meeting for that.
So, the national assemblies were held in Sicily, too. And that’s an important detail because it stresses that this was continuous. Yes. You know, a big part of my research, you know, if you’ll notice, is not just mapping out the connections. You know, it’s also this was a continuous entity. You know, it came from the Sicilian Mafia.
It wasn’t just people. It was also the organization itself was transplanted. Fantastic. So, let’s move away from the commission. I mean, what other kind of fascinating kind of terminology things that did you come across in your research? One is uh Melkior Allegra that same uh that he was a physician um you know ostensibly legitimate who was made into the Paglarelli family headed by the Motices same the Lupos Ignatio Lupo they came from Paglarelli and were heavily connected to the Motices.
Um, but Allegra referred to at one point in his deposition, he’s talking about members and he refers to them as as belonging to the baton, which means button. And that stood out to me. I was like, is he is he saying button, man? You know, he’s not he’s not saying it in the same way that that we use it here. But he’s he’s referring to mafia members using the term baton, meaning button.
And I was like, you know, that that must go back a little further. Yeah. Yeah, it might have been kind of Americanized where today you hear button man. Button man. Yeah. He’s got his button blah blah blah, you know, and and the Godfather, you know, they have Willie Chi-Chi testifying.
It’s the guy who pushes the button. Yeah. And but it seems like as a general euphemism, it probably goes back a bit further. Um but uh yeah, there’s there’s different terminology uh you know, for members. You know, in some of these early cases, uh you see terms like Amichi, which they still use today. one that you know you know they they still use but kind of more casually is brother.
You won’t really hear them use that formally but guys like Gentilele and Algra used futello. They said this guy was a futello meaning brother and it’s obvious why that was used. This is a a secret brotherhood. Yeah. Of course. Which is interesting though when um obviously Banano you don’t hear too many other people say referred to himself as a father, right? That’s a good one. Yeah. Yeah.
Joe Banano, he stresses in his book that he he didn’t like the term boss and he he says, you know, in my family, I was called the father. Probably padre, you know, probably used Italian. But he’s the only source I’ve ever seen who says that was actually a formal term used. However, on the Davalcante tapes in the 1960s, you know, Sam Davalcante, he was involved in mediating the early stages of the the Banano War.
Yeah. And there’s one wire tap of him talking to his members and he was like, “I just met with guys from the Banano family.” And he’s like, “They all call him the father.” And I was like, you know, Joe Banano wasn’t lying. No, no, that’s it. The interesting thing about it though because you know, Sam Davocante, you know, the Davocante was highly Sicilian, very traditional.
Uh Sam Davoccante himself came from a lineage. his father was a captain in that family. Yet it see the way he brought it up was as if that was strange to him. Yeah. Like he hadn’t he hadn’t heard members refer to their boss as father. It’s not that crazy. You know, when you think about this is called a family, it makes sense that the boss of a family could be called a father, but it doesn’t seem to be something that was in common use.
No, of saying that though, it confirms, you know, independent of him that apparently within the Banano family that was sometimes used. I think it’s because when you first read that his autobiography, you think it sounds more kind of self- serving like he’s getting away from that he’s the head of a criminal organization and I’m the father and the these you know the people I look after. That’s how it came across.
But it’s interesting that within his own family that that is how they actually referred to him. It is. Yeah. And his book is very self-serving but there are certain truths too you know because you know there there was a noncriminal aspect of the mafia. We have non-members who really weren’t involved in crime.
Obviously, there’s there’s a pervasive criminal element. And sometimes when I point this out, people have have tried to accuse me of whitewashing the mafia, but it really was multiaceted. You know, where you have guys of all types, you know, the original idea behind the Sicilian Mafia was to basically have basically control resources of all kinds.
Yeah. you know, and if you induct a doctor, and there have been numerous doctors made into the Sicilian Mafia as well as the early US mafia, the idea wasn’t to use him in a traditional criminal capacity. This is a guy who has influence in the community. This guy is a respected figure. He’s probably related to other mafiosi.
So, it’s like you don’t induct him to just traffic drugs or something. No, that will kill people. This guy This guy expands Yeah. This guy expands the influence of the family in other directions that where crime is more limited. You know, crime crime has a limited amount of influence. Um, so there there’s an entire spectrum of membership and uh well there is because I’m the name eludes me now but I did a video on it and I think there’s a Genevese guy who talks about having um priests as made members and I can’t remember who
talks about that as well. Yeah. Um Banano says we had priests we had you know there are numerous legitimate politicians who were made in Sicily. Um, the only confirmed priest I can think of offhand was in the Sicilian mafia. It was father Augustinino Copala who was a nephew of Frank Copala who’s who spent time in the US before he was deported.
Very famous drug trafficker. But his nephew Augustinino Copala was actually inducted into the Sicilian mafia and he was a priest. He he later marry he he later married a gynecologist who was related to the uh the contraras of the uh of Agriento interestingly but uh priests who married a gynecologist you never know what you’re going to find but but uh but yeah they they did induct priests some of these early investigations in the Sicilian mafia in the 1800s um there was one in Tropony province in 1838 where they identified an organization
referred to as the fratala distributed throughout numerous towns in tropony and they noticed that uh priests could be leaders. There was a case in egregento province in 1828 that it was a ritual it was a criminal ritualized secret society and they noted that some of the the members were priests there as well.
Unfortunately we don’t have the names but yeah no it it it included everybody basically everybody except cops. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, it’s all about influence and reach basically. Yep. And you have to understand how how closely interrelated everybody was too. It’s like these these priests and politicians and lawyer there were lawyers made into the Sicilian Mafia, doctors, they were generally related to other members too.
You know, relation and they came from the same hometowns. These weren’t an unknown quantity. You know, there was there were existing connections between these people. In the comments below, let me know your thoughts on the topic covered in this video. I hope you found that interesting. Thanks for watching.