Originally Posted By: TonyG
Originally Posted By: HairyKnuckles
Keep in mind guys that the Gambino Family was divided into two factions at the time. And it seems like the two factions operated seperatly without the faction leaders interfering. Dellacroce had basically a free hand on running his faction. One example is when Dellacroce demoted Mike Caiazza, a captain in his faction, to the rank of a soldier without Castellano opposing. Gotti´s problem started with the death of Dellacroce. Up til then, Castellano could not demote Gotti because he belonged to Dellacroce´s faction. Normally, by LCN standards, a boss can make or break anybody within his Family. But this unusual set up between Castellano and Dellacroce, prevented Castellano to move on Gotti, at least while Dellacroce was still alive.


Good post HK. What was the genesis of the 2 factions? How did this come about and how were guys assigned or grouped into these factions?

I have read the 2 factions have been broadly described as (1) the blue collar / street faction (Dellacroce / Gotti) responsible for book making, loan sharking, extortion, drug dealing and murder; and (2) the white collar faction (Paul / Billotti / Jimmy Brown Faila etc) running wall street scams, controlling unions, bid rigging construction and more sophisticated crimes.

I think Dominick Montiglio talks about this some in the Capeci book, but I never understood the dynamics, other than Dellacroce was a stabilizing force and was ok sharing power with Paul.

These factions are confusing because it seems like there were guys in each faction that crossed over into the other faction. For example, Roy DeMeo was in the "white collar / Paul faction" but his crew was doing more drug dealing, auto theft and blue collar stuff.


I think first of all, forget about the "Blue collar faction v the White collar faction". The Gambinos were not divided that way. I have no idea why the split was categorized in this way in the first place because both the factions had members involved with both blue collar crimes and white collar crimes.

The Gambino spilt probably began after the Anastasia murder back in 1957. Some of the captains (Tommy Rava and John Robilotto notably) opposed the killing and thought it was unsanctioned. The Gambinos were in a disarray so the Commission was obliged to step in. They made Carlo Gambino the provisional boss provided he could keep the peace. There was probably a lot of negotiations between Gambino and the Rava/Robilotto faction and in order to keep the peace, Gambino gave the Rava/Robilotto faction a free rein.

Rava was killed not that long afterwards, but we don´t know why. His body has never been found. Robilotto was also killed close to a year after Rava. According to Magaddino wire tap transcripts, Robilotto was killed by his own men, his own faction. The killings left Dellacroce in charge of the "rebel faction". Later in the 1970s, when the Gambino Family made new captains, some Dellacroce undelings like Carmine Fatico and Andy Ruggiano was upped. Their crews, together with Mike Caiazza´s, summed up the "Dellacroce faction", or as Montiglio put it, the "Manhattan faction".

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