15. Trouble Shipped Over From Sicily
Years of mounting tensions between the New York City criminal organizations of Salvatore Maranzano and Joe Masseria finally came to a head. The result was a bloody struggle for control of the Italian-American mafia, waged from February, 1930, to April, 1931, that came to be known as The Castellammarese War.
Joe Masseria had been the dominant mafia figure in the 1920s, running a powerful crime family whose ranks included future mob bosses such as Lucky Luciano, Vito Genovese, and Frank Costello. However, a Don Vito Ferro, a mafia chieftain from Castellammare, Sicily, decided to reach out and wrest control of the American mafia. So he sent Salvatore Maranzano to establish the rival Castellammarese faction, whose ranks included future mob bosses such as Joe Profaci, Joe Bonano, and Stefano Magaddino.