https://gangsterreport.com/going-bananas-in-the-bonannos-the-banana-mob-war-timeline-1964-1969/October 21, 1964 — Bonanno soldier Carlo Simari is shot to death in Brooklyn outside his home.
February 10, 1965 — DiGregorio-Sciacca soldier Joe Badalamonte is shot to death in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn.
*Little Joe Notaro dies of a sudden heart attack during Bonanno’s brief return to New York in the spring and early summer of 1966
March 17, 1967 – Genovese crime family capo John (Johnny Futto) Biello is killed on Bonanno’s orders for being one of those who tipped off The Commission about his plans to assassinate its members. Biello, the former owner of the famous Peppermint Lounge in Times Square, ran a Genovese crew in Florida and was shot to death in Miami.
October 25, 1967 – Bonanno faction loyalists Vince (Jimmy Lefty) Cassese & Vince (Vinnie Carroll) Garofalo are shot in front of a Brooklyn bakery. Garofalo’s older brother was a trusted advisor for Joe Bananas named Frank (Frankie Carroll) Garofalo, who was one of the American mob’s biggest narcotics chiefs.
November 10, 1967: The Cypress Gardens Massacre – DiGregorio-Sciacca faction captains Gaetano (Smitty) D’Angelo, James (Jimmy D) D’Angelo and Frank (Frankie 500) Telleri are machine gunned to death inside the Cypress Gardens restaurant in Ridgewood, Queens. Telleri was the crime family’s policy lottery boss and Smitty D’Angelo was angling for an administrative post in the DiGregorio-Sciacca regime.
March 4, 1968 – DiGregorio-Sciacca faction underboss Pietro (Skinny Pete) Crociata is shot getting out of his car on a Manhattan street corner. Skinny Pete Crociata was the conduit to all the crime family’s “old timers†and the shooting pushed him into retirement.
March 11, 1968 –Bill Bonanno’s bodyguard, Salvatore (Big Hank) Perrone, is killed, gunned down as he was purchasing a carton of cigarettes at a candy store in Brooklyn across the street from his cartage company.
April 1, 1968 – DiGregorio-Sciacca camp soldier Mike (Bruno) Consolo is killed after a court appearance in Brooklyn related to the Troutman Street Ambush two years prior. Consolo was shot to death as he went to get into his car a few blocks away from the courthouse. Some people speculate he was slain by his own side of the war for considering switching allegiances back to the Bonanno contingent.
April 5, 1968 – Bonanno camp associate Billy Gonzales, Big Hank Perrone’s best friend, is shot in the Bronx walking towards his front door after a night out on the town.
April 17, 1968 – DiGregorio-Sciacca soldier Francisco (Frank Coffee) Crociata, Skinny Pete’s brother, is shot inside the Rossini Democratic Social Club in Brooklyn while sipping an espresso.
September 18, 1968 – Newly-minted DiGregorio-Sciacca faction underboss Frank (Frankie T) Mari & consigliere Michael (Mikey Adams) Adamo are murdered. They vanished from The 19th Hole Bar in the Dyker Heights section of Brooklyn.
February 6, 1969 – DiGregorio-Sciacca soldier Tommy Zummo is the last casualty of the war, shot to death in the lobby of his girlfriend’s Queens apartment building by up-and-coming wiseguy Joseph (Big Joey) Massino, who went on to become boss of the Bonanno crime family in the 1990s. Today, Massino, once the most powerful mob chief in America at the height of his reign, lives under assumed identity in the Witness Protection Program. He “made his bones†with the Zummo hit which officially ended the Banana War.
*Gaspare Magaddino’s murder in 1970 could have been residual violence from the war and remains unsolved. Magaddino had family ties on both sides of the squabble and was one of the shooters in the Cypress Gardens Massacre.
