5. The Mob’s Eminence Grise and the National Crime Syndicate
Johnny Torrio’s near death experience frightened him, and convinced him to get out while he still could. So in 1925 he handed control of the Outfit to Capone, and moved to Italy. His retirement did not last long, however – Benito Mussolini launched a crackdown on Mafiosi, forcing Torrio back to the US in 1928. Back home, he became a mob consultant and respected emeritus figure.
A visionary and one of the American mafia‘s most talented and intelligent leaders, Torrio branched out from traditional crime and went into the boardrooms, becoming the godfather of corporate crime. He also set up the National Crime Syndicate – a loose confederation of several ethnic organizations, mainly the American mafia and the Jewish mob, and to a lesser extent, Irish-American outfits and African-American gangsters, among a total of fourteen different organization, which cooperated from 1929 until the 1960s. He died peacefully, of a heart attack on a barber’s chair in 1957.
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