vito genovese

did vito Genovese know that lansky and Costello conspired to send him to prison? the man who testified against Genovese was a puerto rican named nelson cantellops. he was later stabbed to death in a bar. if Genovese did know why didn't he go after them?

was he powerless in Atlanta, or was it that he didn't know.
he clipped tony bender, maybe because he thought bender set him up. and why did Costello and lansky want him in prison?

Where do you get that Costello and Lansky conspired to send Vito to prison? One of the Bureau of Narcotics agents connected to the case later wrote a book telling what they did to send him to prison. An agent was with a drug dealer and they walked by Vito. The dealer said, "Hi" to him and Vito said, "Hi" back. That was twisted into implicating Vito into a narcotics conspiracy even though they had no evidence of his personal involvement. The agent justified it as the only way they could get him, sort of like how they got Capone on failure to pay income taxes.

It's in Boiardo's book; says that Luciano, Lansky, Gambino, and Costello framed Genovese on a petty drug charge that put him in prison.

I always thought Bender turned snitch and ended up on the back lot at Richie's farm.

alfansosgirl, like you ive read where Genovese was set up by Costello, and lansky, I think its entirely plausible and credible. you have heard of richies farm? ive read where he had

a creamotorium in his barn, no wonder he was widely feared,

But the agent is confirming half of the tale told, that it was a frame up.

Frank Costello was the "Prime Minister". He was the connection the mafia and syndicate had to the legitimate world of influence, him and Tommy Lucchese.

Here is the million dollar question:

If Frank Costello was presiding over the same rackets as Vito Genovese, why didn't he get taken down [indicted] when he was Boss the way Vito did?

faithful1 1 I think you have Genovese mixed up with carmine tramunti. [ mr. gribbs. ] his arrest happened as you described genoveses. Genovese was convicted after the jury heard testimony from nelson cantellops.

alfa, evidently Costello. and lansky, were bothered a great deal by vitos heroin dealings, and they didn't trust him after

the murder of anastaaia. there may have been more reasons, that we don't know of. but they feared him greatly. he would kill in a heartbeat. if he was allowed to lead his family he

could have been another scarpo, or casso, he was that murderous.

Good Evening Binnie,

I think Luciano, Costello, and Lansky were probably more against Vito controlling the Genovese family's heroin/narcotics trade, not against dealing drugs.

The biggest cash crop of the two biggest families (Genovese and Gambino) I believe was narcotics.

When Vito forced his way into becoming Boss, he was taking over the top income sources of the family and diverting the funds towards himself...as Boss.

Galante did that and didn't share the money with other Bosses on the Commission.

What Vito and Carmine Galante had in common was their desire to control drug trafficking that was not seen by others as rightfully theirs.

Vito felt he was the rightful heir to becoming Boss, and Carmine thought the drug pipeline belonged to him...cause he was the one who set it up.

No, I didn't mix up anything. This is from "Crusade" by Tom Tripodi, a former CIA, FBN and DEA agent:

"The continuing conspiracy against Genovese largely rested on the testimony of Nelson Cantellops... Cantellops, 'working off his case ' by going undercover for the FBN, attempted to cut a dope deal with Joseph DiPalermo (aka Joe Beck), a Genovese lieutenant. Beck insisted on checking Cantellop's bona fides, and the two men engaged in a cat-and-mouse game of "whom do you know?" -- all under FBN surveillance. Finally, Beck asked Cantellops if he knew "Don Vitone." Cantellops assented, only to have Beck further insist that the relationship be corroborated by Don Vito Genovese himself."

[At a restaurant] as "Genovese was preoccupied with his meal, Beck tapped him on the shoulder and said, 'Do you know this guy?' As much to dismiss the intrusion as anything else, Genovese waved and replied, 'Yeah, he's all right.'"

"And with those few words Don Vito Genovese earned his death sentence, for seated at the bar were FBN agents Jim Hunt and Frankie Waters. Both would later testify that they had witnessed and overheard the conversation. By vouching for Cantellops, an admitted dope peddler, Genovese sealed his fate. It made him guilty of a continuing conspiracy."

"So thin was the evidence against Genovese that even J. Edgar Hoover" wrote a letter to the head of the Bureau of Narcotics and asserted that it was a frame-up and a travesty of justice.

This author talks like he is sorry for Genovese as if he was an example of an innocent framed for nothing. In my opinion, the scumbag deserved it, he didn't stop killing people even from jail, he was so sadistic he left the witness for the Boccia murder live for decades in fear before killing him. In there ever was a "travesty of justice", it was when Genovese was acquitted the first time for the Boccia murder when another witness was poisoned in custody.

Genovese was a bad guy, but we have to remember that a lot of older writers exaggerated and passed along stories without investigating them. Read Alex Hortis's book on pages 226-27. Peter La Tempa's death was ruled a suicide for a good reason. He previously tried to hang himself and stockpiled his prescription barbituates (which were used as sleeping pills back then) to kill himself.

So he'd never actually met him before ? Vito must have bein takeing some of the drugs he was selling that day lol, okaying a guy he'd never met...

The rest of the story is that while Vito was in Europe in the 1930s and 40s he developed a love for German food and was in a German restaurant and didn't want to be bothered while eating pig knuckles and red cabbage!

his wife snitched on him and he let her live, theres some cool article on it somewhere on the site. I don't believe they set him up, I mean other mobsters it would have been a war. think he was just to powerfull like lucky luc. and the gov had to put him away. surprised they didn't shot him.

@Faithful1 ,Scheisse! Lol I'd say Vito was a strictly Italian cusine man!

yeah it doesn't really make sense for Luciano to be against the drug trade, considering he himself was implicit in the importation and sale of heroin. I also read in A.G.D Maran's book that Luciano was probably a heroin addict himself.

I have been reviewing a book I read, by Salvadore Vizzini.

The name of it is "Vizzini, The Story of America's No. 1 Undercover Narcotics Agent".

This identical book is published under a different name, "Vizzini: The Secret Lives of America's Most Successful Undercover Agent".

This man got right up on Charley Luciano and befriended him. He got a hold of a couple of the hundred dollar bills Charley carried in his pocket by asking Luciano if he could have larger bills for his small ones. Luciano obliged. Agent Vizzini had the bills traced for their serial numbers and said that the serial numbers matched up with bills used in Heroin deals under the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.

He lists the serial number of one of the bills in his book.

So Charley was in on it, and as the Boss of the Luciano Family, he was probably making more money that Vitone Genovese. Now if Vito forces Costello and Luciano out, he sits on top of the Luciano Family's heroin empire. So that's who set Vito up and why. Qui Bono? Lucky Luciano and Frank Costello. If Lansky was in on it, that's because he and Lucky and Frank went way back together.

alfa------ great information. Luciano was the biggest heroin dealer in the world. no doubt that's why they all met in cuba in 1947. Luciano always hated harry anslinger the head of the

narcotics bureau. anslinger was on to him. vito Genovese thought he would be the king of the hill, and if they didn't

set him up he would of been. thanks alfa.

Genovese seemed to be as bad they come, but the feds are supposed to be above this stuff..They know and the judge knew there was no way this cantelops guy would ever be dealing with genovese yet they allowed it to happen anyway...So much for the oaths they take as well !!!

good point. and I also wondered who would be crazy enough to testify against vito Genovese! you would sign your death warrant. I think there is more to this thing. but, it seems like all parties wanted him off the streets.

Vito I always heard was street thug gangster bordering on a psychopath, he lacked the panache and sophistication of Frank and Lucky.

Lucky hated the fucker.

This might sound strange, but I think had Vito not been set up, he might have gone to jail anyhow. Why? Because he didn't have the political connections of the Boss he supplanted (Costello). Vito's concept of political protection was simply to kill off all the witnesses to his crimes. That won't help you much if you are a drug kingpin.

In terms of his personal appearance, he certainly looked like a thug and did not have any of the style of Frank or Lucky

However, I suspect he was much more sophisticated than you are giving him credit for, especially if you consider his dealings with both the Fascists and the Allied Forces in Italy during WWII. That was ultra-sophisticated double-dealing with high-ranking government officials, a long way from mere street thuggery

most of what I have read, and joe valachi goes into it, Genovese was instrumental in killing Anastasia, valachi said " vito would never have done it without carlo Gambinos participation.

Genovese took a big chamce, in hitting albert Anastasia, if something would have went wrong, it would have been vito's neck.

If Lucky hated him he wouldn't have picked him to be his underboss.

faithful 1 in the book " the last testament of lucky Luciano"
Luciano mentions he and vito had a fight in a hotel in cuba and lucky beat him up, and in addition the book " Cuban nocturne"
it also mentions the same thing.

If Vito loved Charlie, he wouldn't have forced out Frank Costello and grabbed the Boss' chair.

One event has nothing to do with the other. Charlie had not been boss for years at that point.

The Genovese and Luciano fued did not start till Vito returned to the United States, and Luciano was deported. When Vito returned, he no longer had the position of underboss, but was only a powerful capo in the family. The rumor is that when Genovese went to visit Lucky in Cuba, he went to ask Luciano to tell Costello to give him back the underboss position, where Charlie told Vito that Frank was the boss and that was that. Vito did not like that too much and put his hands on Lucky, who in turn slapped Genovese in front of a few witness who were in the family and other families. That was an insult to Vito who waited his time for the moment he would become boss of the family. He is also most likely the one that informed the U.S. about Luciano being in Cuba.

Vito suspected Lucky was the one that set him up and rumor is he sent a couple of people over to Italy to find out, but thought both Costello and Lansky were too weak at the time to arrange such a thing. A rumor is that Genovese wanted to set Luciano up, and reached out to some members of the Lucchese crime family to do this. Tommy Lucchese is in the center of most of these rumors as he had known both Genovese and Luciano way back, not Carlo Gambino as many believe, but Gambino might have been involved as a puppet to these setups. Keep in mind Vito and Lucky were too cautions to be setup like how they both were, and only trusted solid and proven members in their ranks. Side note, both Costello and Lucchese are rumored to have had a capo in each of their families that had FBN agents on their payroll. That too is something to think about.

great post, very informative,i knew a confrontation happened, but, didn't know about the fbn on anybody's payroll.

that is strange, considering how chaste the fbn was said by many to be. thank you giacomo.

Can I ask where this information came from?

giancomo its important that if you can site your source.
please do, as there are many researchers on this site.

thank you.

I guess those sources aren't coming.

You guys have to understand that sometimes you read so much of stuff sometimes you forget where you read it at, it happens.

that's very true. Ive done that a lot, but now I make a mental note to myself to try and remember where I heard it or read it.
then if someone does't like the post , they can take it up with the author. and least they know I didn't make it up.

but that's just me.

The problem is that there are good sources and bad ones. The story about Luciano assaulting Genovese sounds like something out of the book "The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano." That's an example of a bad source because the book is fraudulent. It was examined by the FBI, which considered it a hoax. It was analyzed by New York Times organized crime reporter Nicholas Gage, who came to the same conclusion. Then the entire book was taken apart piece by piece and refuted by Richard N. Warner in an article "The Last Word on The Last Testament." So if that story came from that book, then it's fiction and it didn't happen.

The Last Testament is only fraudulent in the sense that someone took a Hollywood movie script screenplay and tried to pass it off as an authorized autobiography.

It's fraudulent in the sense that it was passed off as an authorized biography when not only was it not authorized, it's full of made-up quotes, made-up facts and misinformation.

I read the Informer article on the Last Testament. It seems like one of the main things wrong with it is it was out of chronological order....which would be expected if you are composing a screen play from notes taken during 30 different interviews with the subject. There are some made up things, some fake quotes, but mostly it is out of chronological order and well known names are misspelled. But just like the article in the Informer said, much of the book couldn't be refuted because there was nothing to compare it to or measure it against.

alfa, the book may be tainted, however I do believe many parts of it. Luciano wanted money, and, I do think at times he was on the level. for instance the killing of abe reles. Luciano
says in the book. he went to Costello and asked him "what can be done to reles, can we get to him" and Costello said "the cops will have to do it" Luciano replied "then let the cops do it"

and that's what happened. Luciano explains it cost 50,000 and
the cops threw him out the window. now, I believe that, because reles was going to put Anastasia in the death house. so I do think that part and more are credible.

Hey Binnie, it's true that it wouldn't be accurate to say there is NO truth in that book. Abe Reles went out that window. The cops were assigned to watch him. He flew too far away from the building to justify the cop's alibi which was that he fell trying to lower himself out of the building in an escape attempt using sheets or something.

There are facts in the book.

But I do believe the Informer has it right when it was claimed that the author of Last testament relied on older mafia books for material and not Lucky Luciano.

Another thing I noticed...

The Last Testament fictitiously depicts Lucky Luciano's language as very vulgar and gutter, like some corrupted English dialect you'd expect to hear from someone who lived in the Five Points slum of ancient New York City. But the real Luciano, in his news media quotes and trial testimony, spoke very astutely/articulately. I think the reason for that is because Charlie Luciano never wanted to be in the mafia in the first place and was coerced into it by Joe Masseria. In other words, he wasn't originally a mafia guy.

But Gosch (author of Testament) was said to have interviewed Luciano 30 times. That's a lot of information. Even if you "phony it up" as Luciano said, you are working from a great deal of fact to fabricate a great deal of fiction. Unfortunately because so much in that book is presently unverified/proven false, we can't take the facts presented in that book as gospel without corroboration.

alpha, you covered it all very well. I agree. thank you. again an informative post.

Binnie, you're a gentleman. We have to keep this thread going at least a little bit longer.

In the Testament, Luciano says that the ship that capsized in the harbor was sabotaged by his connections and he used that as a ruse to parade himself as a war hero to get sprung from prison.

I believe that.

It is a fact that the Luciano Family (Genovese) and Mangano Family (Gambino) controlled both the Manhattan and Brooklyn waterfronts through the Longshoreman's Union. I believe this was for the facilitation of narcotics trafficking.

The media reported that the government did it's own "investigation" and found no evidence of sabotage of the warship that capsized. But since when does the US government release the results of an investigation that are self incriminating or highlight it's own incompetence?

Never.

No, that boat didn't just catch fire and go belly up.

It was set on fire.

What I think REALLY happened is that the mafia set the USS Normandie on fire, blamed foreign saboteurs, and then this was used as a cover story to allow Dewey to exonerate Luciano from prison. But Dewey was told what to do by OSS (aka modern day CIA) so that one of the world's leading drug traffickers could continue to make someone in OSS very rich....from Italy.

There exists an anecdote, however true, which claims that it was the OSS (CIA) that got Luciano clemency and sprung him from prison.

Luciano had connections to OSS (CIA) and Naval Intelligence. He channeled information back to Naval Intelligence. Therefore he was a Top Echelon informant and his capos and soldiers were used to gather information. Not a rat in the sense of incriminating his criminal colleagues. But an informant nonetheless.

Imagine a Boss and all of his caporegimes knowingly gathering information for Naval Intelligence.

On a side note, people here laughed when I said Carlo Gambino was probably a CIA informant, but everything points to that. Carlo Gambino was visiting Luciano in Italy before he became Boss. That implicates Carlo in the Luciano/OSS/Sicilian Mafia/Heroin combination. Carlo held court in Little Italy out in the open with immunity. Carlo didn't do time. Everything points to Carlo being an employee of sorts of the CIA.

One of the characteristic attributes of a CIA asset is that they can move a lot of weight (drugs) and never see the inside of a prison. The CIA will shield them from local law enforcement, FBI, and even DEA. There are many modern examples of this phenomenon.

As an alternative to the conspiracy theory, there's a book that did a massive amount of research into the SS Normandie and found that there was no sabotage. http://www.amazon.com/Normandie-Life-Times-Harvey-Ardman/dp/0531097846

of course it well could have been sabotage, to set up the government to want protection on the waterfront, the mob controlled it absolutely, ive read similar accounts of how the mob manipulated the government along these lines, I really don't doubt that passage in the book. I also believe the mob and the new York city government were deeply entwined, much more than we are led to believe, that's why im going to buy " the mob and the city" the author was on this site and impressed me.

Faithful1,

Thank you for the referral for a book you feel is worth the time.

I am not an ignorant person. I am open minded. But before I invest the effort into reading 435 pages that "debunk conspiracy theories", I would like to know if anyone has any idea how Salvatore Lucania would have effected his exoneration from prison without the drama that took place on the New York waterfront. IE How would Dewey have been able to spring him without Luciano's purported service to America as the excuse?

alfa, that's my contention, there was no other way dewey would consent to freeing him, unless the government put it in his ear, the mob most certainly had the ways and means, to set the ship on fire. and lest we forget that the most powerful elements in the mob wanted him out. and, they held the n.y. waterfront in the palm of their hand.

Damn straight. Dewey had an all American image in a more innocent time. Luciano was never found innocent of compulsory prostitution. What would Dewey, who ran for President eventually, look like springing a mafia member from jail...for what? At a minimum, it would probably be the end of Dewey's career. Without the Normandie blowing up and catching fire, Luciano stays in prison and his story ends there. But we know Luciano was far too connected to be left languishing in a jail. So the Normandie's demise was awful convenient I would say.

I thought Joe Beck was in the LUCCHESSE family ?

two joe beck

The other Joe Beck was Joe Lapi from the Genovese family. He was big into garbage and hazmat disposal along with Fiumara and Co.


@Faithful1...The Joe "Beck" Dipalermo you mentioned as a Genovese captain on the first page, was that a mistake because i thought he was a Lucchese?