At the beginning yes he was, but he was doubled crossed by Forrest Smith. Binaggio made the mistake of putting all his eggs in one basket. His gambling plans did not fall through, he could not pay back the loans that Charles Fischetti of Chicago, Joe Adonis of the Genoveses, and there was one more, maybe Frank Costello, and it had cost some of the members in his own family a nice chunck of cash. Despite what some will say, the hit came from within his own family, I am sure Chicago, St. Louis, and New York did not need to convince the shooters to kill Binaggio and his enforcer.