There were actually three crews, within the Bonanno Family, led by zips. The Montreal crew, Catalano´s crew and the Bonventre crew. Most of the NY zip soldiers were members of Catalano´s crew. By the looks of it, only Baldo Amato and Antonio Aiello Sr were Sicilian born members of Bonventre´s crew. Frank Lupo, Louie "HaHa" Attanasio, Bobby Perretti, Johnny "Green" Faraci, James Genna, Anthony Mirra and others were all American born Bonventre crew members. Although the zips were considered a powerful Bonanno faction, it´s wrong to claim that the zips were all in the same crew.

Pistone said that after the Galante murder, the zips were led by Catalano. He was the most powerful of the zips and served briefly as the acting boss of the Family in the early 1980s. If Rastelli and Massino feared any takeover by the zips, Catalano would had been the one catching a bullet, not Bonventre.

I have no clue if Catalano was made in Sicily before joining the Bonannos. Some say he was, some say he wasn´t. But the fact is that he did serve as acting boss, but stepped down due to language barriers he experienced during sitdowns with other made guys. If he was a Sicilan member, the rule that he could not serve as boss of any American Mafia Family, is therefore not applicable. Bonventre however, was most likely not a member of the Sicilian Mafia. He came over to the US still very young. I believe he and Baldo were 19 at the time.

Bonventre was killed in 1984. That´s 7 years before Massino was made boss. And Catalano was sentenced to 45 years in the mid 1980s. So he was def not a contender for the top spot when Rastelli died.