Vito Genovese (; November 21, 1897 – February 14, 1969) was an Italian-born American mafioso and the boss of the Genovese crime family of New York City. A childhood friend and criminal associate of Lucky Luciano, Genovese took part in the Castellammarese War and helped Luciano shape the Mafia's rise as a major force in organized crime in the United States. He would later lead Luciano's crime family, which was renamed by the FBI after Genovese in 1957.
Along with Luciano, Genovese facilitated the expansion of the heroin trade to an international level. He fled to Italy in 1937, and for a brief period during World War II supported Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime for fear of being deported back to the U.S. to face murder charges. After returning to the U.S. in 1945, Genovese mentored Vincent Gigante, the future boss of the Genovese family.DeVico, Peter J. "The Mafia Made Easy: The Anatomy and Culture of La Cosa Nostra". (p. 186) .
In 1957, Genovese vied for the title of capo di tutti capi (boss of bosses) by ordering the murder of Albert Anastasia, boss of the modern-day Gambino crime family, and the botched hit of Frank Costello. Immediately following this, he called a Mafia summit in Apalachin, New York to consolidate his power, but the meeting was raided by police. In 1959, Genovese's reign was cut short as he was convicted on drug-related conspiracy charges and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. While he and his underling Joe Valachi were in prison together, Valachi killed an inmate he thought to be a hitman sent by Genovese. Valachi then became a government witness. Genovese died in prison on February 14, 1969.
Early life Vito Genovese was born on November 21, 1897, in Risigliano, a frazione in the comune of Tufino, in the Province of Naples, Italy. His father was Frances Felice Genovese and his mother was Nunziata Aluotto. Vito had a sister, Giovanna Jennie (m. Ricciotto Prisco), along with two brothers, Michael and Carmine, who later joined the Genovese crime family. His cousin, Michael, later became boss of the Pittsburgh crime family.Bureau of Narcotics, Sam Giancana, The United States Treasury Department. Mafia: The Governments Secret File on Organized Crime. p. 307) .
As a child in Italy, Genovese completed school only to the American equivalent of the fifth grade. In 1913, when he was aged 15, Genovese's family immigrated to the United States on board the SS Taormina and took up residence in the Little Italy neighborhood of New York City.Philip Carlo The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer (pp. 68–69) .
Until 1934, Genovese lived in New York. In 1935, looking for a country retreat for his family, he purchased a mansion in rural Middletown Township, New Jersey. The mansion's grounds were extensively landscaped into Italian gardens evoking Genovese's homeland, and included a small rock replica of Mount Vesuvius. Today, it is the site of a public botanical garden called Deep Cut Gardens. The mansion burnt down during Genovese's 1930s exile and was never rebuilt. After his return to the U.S., Genovese and his family moved to a modest house in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey.Blackwell, Jon. Notorious New Jersey: 100 True Tales of Murders and Mobsters, Scandals and Scoundrels , p. Rutgers University Press, 2007. . Accessed January 29, 2020. "The mob leader resumed control of his rackets and settled himself again in New Jersey, this time from a plush homestead in the Shore town of Atlantic Highlands. There, Vito and Anna Genovese dined on gold and platinum plates and enjoyed what was hardly a conventional Mafia marriage."
Criminal career Genovese started his criminal career at a young age, stealing merchandise from pushcart vendors and running errands for mobsters. He later collected money from people who played illegal lotteries. At age 19, Genovese spent a year in prison for illegal possession of a firearm. By the 1920s, he started working for Joe Masseria, the boss of a powerful Manhattan gang that would evolve into the family he would eventually lead. Lucky Luciano and his close associates started working for the gambler Arnold Rothstein, who immediately saw the potential windfall from Prohibition and educated Luciano on running bootleg alcohol as a business. Luciano, Genovese and Frank Costello started their own bootlegging operation with financing from Rothstein.
In 1930, Genovese was indicted after police found $1 million of counterfeit U.S. currency in a Brooklyn workshop. Later in 1930, he allegedly murdered Gaetano Reina, the leader of a Bronx-based gang. Reina had been allied with Masseria, but was suspected of secretly helping Masseria's rival, Brooklyn gang leader Salvatore Maranzano. On February 26, 1930, Genovese allegedly ambushed Reina as he was leaving his mistress' house in the Bronx and shot him in the back of the head with a shotgun.Milhorn p. 221Sifakis p. 277 Masseria then took direct control of the Reina gang.
Castellammarese War In early 1930, the Castellammarese War broke out between Masseria and Maranzano. In a secret deal with Maranzano, Luciano agreed to engineer the death of Masseria, his own boss, in return for receiving Masseria's rackets and becoming Maranzano's second-in-command. On April 15, 1931, Luciano had lured Masseria to a meeting where he was murdered at a restaurant called Nuova Villa Tammaro on Coney Island.Raab, Selwyn. Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires . New York: St. Martin Press, 2005. While they played cards, Luciano allegedly excused himself to the bathroom, with the gunmen reportedly being Genovese, Albert Anastasia, Joe Adonis, and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel; Ciro "The Artichoke King" Terranova drove the getaway car, but legend has it that he was too shaken up to drive away and had to be shoved out of the driver's seat by Siegel.Sifakis, (2005). pp. 87–88 Luciano took over Masseria's family, with Genovese as his underboss.
In September 1931, Luciano and Genovese planned the murder of Salvatore Maranzano. Luciano had received word that Maranzano was planning to kill him and Genovese, and prepared a hit team to kill Maranzano first. On September 10, 1931, when Maranzano summoned Luciano, Genovese, and Frank Costello to a meeting at his office, they knew Maranzano would kill them there. Instead, Luciano sent to Maranzano's office four Jewish gangsters whose faces were unknown to Maranzano's people. They had been secured with the aid of Meyer Lansky and Siegel."Lucky Luciano: Criminal Mastermind," Time, Dec. 7, 1998 Luciano subsequently created The Commission to serve as the governing body for organized crime.
In 1931, Genovese's first wife, Donata Ragone, died of tuberculosis and he quickly announced his intention to marry Anna Petillo, who was already married to Gerard Vernotico.
On March 16, 1932, Vernotico was found strangled to death on a Manhattan rooftop, and on March 28, 1932, Genovese married his widow, Anna, who was Genovese's cousin via her mother, Concetta y Cassini Genovese.
Boccia murder and flight to Italy
In 1934, Genovese allegedly ordered the murder of mobster Ferdinand Boccia. Genovese and Boccia had conspired to cheat a wealthy gambler out of $150,000 in a high-stakes card game. After the game, Boccia demanded a share of $35,000 because he had introduced the victim to Genovese. Rather than pay Boccia anything, Genovese decided to have him murdered. On September 19, 1934, Genovese and five associates allegedly shot and killed Boccia in a coffee shop in Brooklyn.
On June 18, 1936, Luciano was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison as a result of his conviction on pandering. With Luciano's imprisonment, Genovese became acting boss of the Luciano crime family.
On November 25, 1936, Genovese became a naturalized United States citizen in New York City. On January 10, 1937, fearing prosecution for the Boccia murder, Genovese fled to Italy with $750,000 cash and settled in the city of Nola, near Naples. With Genovese's departure, Costello became acting boss.
After bribing some fascist party members, Genovese became a friend of Galeazzo Ciano, Benito Mussolini's son-in-law; it is believed Genovese provided Ciano with cocaine. Genovese donated nearly $4 million to Mussolini's fascist party by the end of World War II. He was also awarded the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus and made a commendatore, after he participated in helping create a new fascist party headquarters in Nola.
In 1943, Genovese allegedly ordered the murder of Carlo Tresca, the publisher of an anarchist newspaper in New York and an enemy of Mussolini. Genovese allegedly facilitated the murder as a favor to the Italian government. On January 11, 1943, a gunman shot and killed Tresca outside his newspaper office in Manhattan. The shooter was later alleged to be Carmine Galante, a member of the Bonanno crime family. No one was ever charged in the Tresca murder.
Return to New York When the Allies invaded Italy in September 1943, Genovese switched sides and quickly offered his services to the U.S. Army. Former New York governor Charles Poletti, then attached to the U.S. Army, accepted a 1938 Packard Sedan as a personal gift from Genovese. Genovese was appointed to a position of interpreter/liaison officer in the U.S. Army headquarters in Naples and quickly became one of Allied Military Government for Occupied Territories' (AMGOT) most trusted employees. Poletti and the entire AMGOT department were apparently unaware of his history.The Mafia Restored: Fighters for Democracy in World War II , The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, Alfred W. McCoy.
Genovese established one of the largest black market operations in southern Italy, together with the Cosa Nostra's boss Calogero Vizzini. Vizzini sent truck caravans loaded with all the basic food commodities necessary for the Italian diet rolling northward to hungry Naples, where their cargoes were distributed by Genovese's organization. All of the trucks were issued passes and export papers by the AMGOT administration in Naples and Sicily, and some corrupt American army officers even made contributions of gasoline and trucks to the operation. According to Luke Monzelli, a lieutenant in the Carabinieri assigned to follow Genovese during his time in Italy: "Truckloads of food supplies were shipped from Vizzini to Genovese — all accompanied by the proper documents which had been certified by men in authority, Mafia members in the service of Vizzini and Genovese."Fighting the Mafia in World War Two , by Tim Newark, AmericanMafia.com, May 2007 (Retrieved on January 16, 2009)Newark, The Mafia at War, p. 216
In the summer of 1944 in New York, Genovese was implicated in the Boccia murder by mobster Ernest "The Hawk" Rupolo, a former Genovese associate. Facing a murder conviction, Rupolo had decided to become a government witness.
On August 27, 1944, U.S. military police arrested Genovese in Italy during an investigation into his running of a black market ring. It was revealed that Genovese had been stealing trucks, flour, and sugar from the Army. When Agent Orange C. Dickey of the Criminal Investigation Division examined Genovese's background, he discovered that Genovese was a fugitive wanted for the 1934 Boccia killing. However, there was seemingly little interest from the Army or the federal government in pursuing Genovese.Hunting Down Vito Genovese by Tim Newark, June 2007.
After months of frustration, Dickey was finally able to make preparations to ship Genovese back to New York to face trial, but came under increasing pressure. Genovese personally offered Dickey a $250,000 bribe to release him, then threatened Dickey when the offer was refused. Dickey was even instructed by his superiors in the military chain of command to refrain from pursuing Genovese, but refused to be dissuaded.