One of the very first, and certainly one of the most important early Brooklyn based, Calabrian born racketeers in America was the iconic Frankie Yale.

He is the one man who formed the original nucleus of what would later become a very powerful faction of Calabrian and Neapolitan racketeers later absorbed into the mafia and the newly formed Luciano/Genovese Family, and several other New York borgatas for that matter.

Dead by thirty-five years old, Frankie himself never survived to see the full expansion of what was to later become Cosa Nostra, but make no mistake about, because this Calabrese’s well massaged-manicured hands were stamped all over the fledgling nationwide, monolithic underworld that would come to be!

.....and now, Francesco Ioele

Please visit our Button Guys website to read all about him.

Very good article, NYM.
Many accounts of Capone say that Torrio sent for him to come to Chicago ca. 1919. Capone biographer John Kobler says The Prince of Darkness was his mentor, and sent him to Chicago--one step ahead of the police, who wanted Snorky for two murders; and the White Handers, who were after him for nearly killing one of their own. Laurence Bergreen, Capone's most recent biographer, says Yale killed Colosimo to extend his power to Chicago, but Bergreen never follows up on that thought. And, if Yale was such a bigshot in Brooklyn, why would he hire himself out to do hits, like Colosimo and maybe O'Banion, in Chicago?

Good article. Can we predict (had he lived) would he be Vito's competitor for the leader of non-Sicilian wing of the Luciano family?