10. The Myth That the Mob Didn’t Deal Drugs
Italian-born gangster Charles “Lucky” Luciano (1897 – 1962) was a visionary criminal and mafia boss who revolutionized organized crime in the United States. Among other things, he founded today’s Genovese crime family – one of New York City’s five mafia families. He is also credited with establishing The Commission – a committee that ran the Italian-American mafia and arbitrated its internal disputes to avert bloody struggles disruptive to business. Lucky Luciano is considered the founding father of the modern Italian-American mafia.
Contra the widespread myth that the mafia stayed away from narcotics, Lucky Luciano and the mob were America’s biggest drug traffickers. A criminal since childhood, Luciano had emigrated to America when he was nine years old. By age ten he was a shoplifter, a mugger, and an extortionist. When he was nineteen, Luciano was sentenced to six months for selling heroin. In 1920, he joined Joe “The Boss” Masseria’s crime family. He became his chief lieutenant and ran his bootlegging, prostitution, and narcotics operations.