Also Joe Montana was quite an “extraordinary” individual. The guy worked as a bootlegger and also a cop killer, because once he killed two police officers and was later acquitted, of course with the help of Diamond Joe’s connections because his connections reached quite high in the upper world. As for the Gennas, they had a huge army of small time criminals, killers and bootleggers and that’s why Esposito gave all of his support towards the Sicilian crime family. With the help of his crew, he sold sugar to various alky-cooking gangs in Melrose Park, Cicero, in Chicago Heights and also the Torrio mob on the South Side. Esposito also owned the Milano Cafe, where dry agents found a 1,000-gallon still, 3,800 gallons of alcohol, fifteen barrels of wine, and two barrels of whiskey. He even exported his product out of Chicago and around the Midwest, and that’s why to some people Esposito was bigger than the president of the U.S. And speaking about the president, there’s a story that Esposito personally met with U.S. President Calvin Coolidge and asked him to give him and few other men, special protection and all rights to bootlegging booze. As additional info, according to some reports, one of those few men was Joe Kennedy, who in fact was a close friend and business partner of Esposito.


But as some people say, some great beginnings have their own tragic endings. In 1925 the Gennas were at war with a group of gangsters from the North Side, in which the Genna crime family was totally destroyed. Now all of their former underlings went on separate ways around Chicago’s underworld. Many of the up above mentioned West Side gangsters took some of these up and coming criminals, such as the ruthless 42 gang, under their wings. So Volpe and De Lucia started hiring some of these young hoodlums in the name of Diamond Joe and if someone got caught, Joe’s people paid the bond or fixed the trial.


I’m not quite sure if anybody in Chicago’s underworld ever knew about De Lucia’s bloody past but by now he was a real “devil in disguise” because besides being a waiter, he slowly started working everything else, including smuggling whiskey, collecting and delivering payoffs, and maybe even murder. Story goes that his favourite weapon was the knife and his favourite “game” was cutting human throats, which was the sign of the old Camorra. But on Thanksgiving, he and the rest of Esposito’s underlings passed more than 3000 turkeys to the poor Italian people around the Patch, which was one of the poorest areas on Chicago’s West Side. Esposito sometimes even ordered for the guys to get dressed as Santa Claus and give presents to the poor children around the neighbourhood.


In January of 1925, De Lucia received sad news from back home that his father has passed away in prison at the age of 55. I believe that this was a very hard moment for De Lucia because he was forbidden to go back or otherwise he was going to end up in Italian jail, so there was no other way for him but to let it go. Now he had lost both of his parents and in a very short time and so De Lucia saw Esposito as a father figure and started taking his advices quite seriously. With the help of his new mentor, De Lucia received sort of finesse in his work and developed a sense for diplomacy and tact in all kinds of difficult situations. He also started dressing well and became a gentleman and a known name among female circles. He transformed into more sober, more elegant and less conspicuous than the rest of the gangsters. De Lucia also saw that Esposito's soft-spoken power would endure, and that’s why he took his image as a model. Styling himself after his mentor, De Lucia became committed to the ideal of the Camorrista as a sort of gentleman and a criminal at the same time. With the help of these characteristics, De Lucia became a very trusted and also likable person among his gangster friends. But the luckiest thing for him was that Esposito was a believer and had lots of faith in his underlings such as De Lucia, but because of that he was making a huge mistake which will have a deadly impact on his life.


So by now Esposito’s bootlegging operations represented a part of the “grease” which was intended for the wheels of Chicago’s political machine, but by 1926, things started to change in Chicago’s underworld. South Side boss Johnny Torrio was almost killed by assassins, and was replaced by his more ambitious protégé Al Capone. Capone and De Lucia met each other previously during their booze shipments and business deals for their bosses, but now Al became the boss of the South Side and the Cicero area. Capone’s territory was slowly turning into a criminal empire and he needed more men so he can maintain his presence. Many multi-ethnical gangs from around the city started to line up with the Capone group and achieved sort of memberships, thus making it a unique crime organization for many decades to come.


Story goes that De Lucia quit his job at the Bella Napoli and went to work for the Capone mob at the Hawthorne Hotel at 4823 22nd Street, Cicero and over there, as the hotel’s manager he had the pleasure to witness the rest of Chicago’s underworld. Many mob researchers are pointing out that De Lucia started his career with the Capones at the Lexington Hotel which is false because Capone wasn’t using that hotel until 1928, and he and De Lucia associated with each other at least 4 or 5 years earlier than that.


But during this period many gangs went to war over bootlegging profits, including Esposito’s gang. For example, one of Esposito’s main booze buyers was the Sheldon gang headed by Ralph Sheldon. On April 15, 1926, Esposito’s men Frank DeLourentis and John Tuccello were picked up and brutally murdered by rivals of the Sheldon gang. Then the killers left the bodies in an automobile which was parked outside the home of Ralph Sheldon as a warning to stay out of the Saltis – McErlane territory, which was operated by those two rival gangs. It was a time when everybody started packing guns and murder became an everyday thing and so Esposito’s illegal operations were slowly sinking down to the bottom. In 1927, De Lucia was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon and he gave a new alias “Paul Viela.”



De Lucia arrested




The old guys had a sense on when to stop their illegal activities until the moment when the smoke cleared, but the younger generation saw things differently. Esposito already had the cash and political connections but the younger thugs such as Volpe and De Lucia, needed more of Esposito’s connections and business deals. So the old boss started having numerous problems with different groups such as rival bootleggers, political rivals backed by other gangsters, juvenile hoodlums who still needed Esposito’s protection, and even with members from his own organization. De Lucia was a smart fellow, who knew a ripe apple when he saw one and so he got near to Volpe and gave him a proposal and also presented to him a very lucrative plan. Maybe the idea came from Volpe himself, but one thing is for certain that high level members of the Capone mob backed the plan. For example guys such as Capone himself or Francesco Nitto a.k.a. Frank Nitti, Al’s brother Ralph or Charles Fischetti, all high level hoodlums within the Capone organization.


I believe that Capone knew that De Lucia was his only way to get Esposito and later to rule the West Side Bloc, as it was called. So to make the blood oath between the two gangsters even more meaningful, Capone became De Lucia’s best man at his wedding. De Lucia was a tall handsome guy, with a pale face, firm square jaw and half-closed eyes who had the “swagger” by wearing soft felt fedoras with different elegant grey fannel suits, double breasted pinstripes and foulard silk ties. He also had supple calfskin shoes and two toned black and white oxfords. The young man also knew how to wine and dine and it’s been said that he had much respect for beautiful women and never told an off colour story and that he rarely used any curse words. That’s why most of the ladies loved him because he was a real womanizer. But in January, 1927, De Lucia decided to tie the knot with a beautiful Neapolitan female immigrant named Nancy. They had a lavish party which was mostly occupied by the Capone gang. Instead of using his alias “Paolo Maglio”, this time he signed the marriage papers with his real name as Paul De Lucia, who in time became known as Paul Ricca.


In 1928, the government started using deportation as the main weapon against the Capone organization. One of the first gangsters that were struck with the law was Ricca’s pal, 38 years old Tony Volpe. When he was 15, Volpe entered the country and was naturalized in Chicago but later the government realized that he had made false statements in his application for citizenship and so his papers were revoked. Because of the problem, Ricca decided to retain American citizenship under the name of Paul DeLucia, because he probably assumed that the Italian government had notified the U.S. government, that he was living under the name Paul Maglio. This was a huge mistake that would come back to haunt Ricca decades later but for now, he swore that he was an American citizen and that Maglio was his actual name.


So now Capone and Ricca had to just wait for the right moment to get the old man and after a year of waiting, the real opportunity came along. Now you ask yourself on why killers such as Capone and Ricca waited for a real opportunity and not just walk to his door and shoot Esposito right in the head?! That’s because highly connected political mobsters such as Esposito had many allies or business partners who after the assassination, were going to acquire a good explanation and reason for the action, or the members of the plot were going to be next. So I believe that the plot for elimination of Esposito was sanctioned by mobsters not just from the Chicago area, but also from other cities as well.


The opportunity was that Esposito, who was already a Republican 25th ward committeeman, again was the primary candidate for re-election but this time against Joseph P. Savage, former assistant states attorney and by this time a member of Mayor William Thompson's staff of legal experts. Thompson was under a huge influence of the Capone organization and they guarded each others backs. Al Capone respected Esposito for a very long time until he became a problem. Some sources say that Esposito was even one of Al’s mentors. Capone allegedly went to see the old man himself and told him to back off. Esposito even received threatening phone calls at his home but still the old man refused to give up his candidature and with that he signed his own death warrant. Ricca was approached by Capone’s men, who in turn plotted the “hit.” First they had to remove Esposito’s right hand man and also a brother-in-law Phil Leonatti, who in February, 1928, was shot to death in his cigar store on West Taylor St. It was just like in the movies, the boss called upon his underlings for help but in reality they were the ones plotting against him and now, it was his turn.


Ricca and Volpe didn’t know Esposito’s daily routines because the boss kept everything in secret regarding the current situation but realised that they can use the dissatisfaction of Esposito’s constant companions and bodyguards the Varchetti brothers. The two brothers knew that Esposito was going to leave them high and dry after the elections and so Ricca and Volpe approached the brothers and asked them about Esposito’s plans in the next few days and also advised them about the plot. On March 21, 1928, Esposito was escorted out of his house at 800 South Oakley Boulevard by the Varchetti bros. While walking down the street Esposito and his bodyguards met an old lady from the neighbourhood and told her “I guess I haven’t much chance of winning, it won’t make much difference even if I had. If I loose I’ll move out of the ward, and then, perhaps, ill be missed.” After that, the trio continued to walk down the street in formation of left and right bodyguard with Esposito in the middle. Later according to the bodyguards and their wives who lived right across the street, suddenly a car with three armed guys showed up and was slowly approaching behind them. The two bodyguards probably noticed the car because with out any warning, both of them dropped on the ground while leaving old man Esposito alone in front of the killers. The poor guy was riddled with bullets while hopelessly screaming in despair. His screams and the shootings were heard all around the neighbourhood. His bodyguards didn’t receive a scratch which became very suspicious to some of the Chicago detectives. Plus on that same day, both of them forgot their guns. Later the coroner said that Esposito had 58 pellets of shotgun shells and numerous pistol bullets, and something which made things even more suspicious and that was a bullet in his arm but from the right side, and Esposito was riddled on his left side as he was in position of walking down the street. Plus he also had powder burns on his body which indicates that he was shot from close range, which for me personally raises the question on whether the Varchetti brothers were two of the shooters in the Esposito killing.


It will never be clear on who executed the shooting, but my opinion is that Ricca was deeply involved in the murder of his boss and mentor. Eight years ago Torrio and Capone killed of their mentor and Camorra boss Giacomo Colosimo and their criminal careers skyrocketed and the same thing happened later with the case of Esposito. Proof for that is Ricca’s criminal career, which also skyrocketed within Capone’s organization, immediately after Esposito’s death. The takeover of Esposito’s empire, presented the first and only really big push for De Lucia, which placed him high within the Capone organization for the next four decades. In fact, Esposito’s death was Ricca’s key to all of his desires and now he was representative on the city’s West Side under the command of the Capone mob and directly under Al Capone himself. Ricca, blinded by greed, betrayed his mentor and played the right cards and now he was on top of the game. Its one of the main rules in the world where the younger generation always takes over from the older one, and it doesn’t matter if it’s in peaceful or in violent way. It’s a natural process, especially within the criminal underworld. In reality, Ricca took two things from Esposito, including one which was his connections and second and above all, his image. He continued to be a man of “refinement,” who was also well read, spoke in English, but was also an interesting speaker, meaning in telling stories and stuff. He didn’t want to talk about business most of the time, but instead he loved to talk about his impoverished childhood in Naples and also loved to hear emotional stories and get involved in such conversations.


As additional info, my opinion is that by now Ricca and Volpe almost shared an equal amount of power on the streets of the “Windy City.” I say “almost” because during this period Volpe still had problems with his naturalization papers and he fought quite a long battle with the government regarding the case. As for Ricca by now he was “clean” and had almost no pressure from the government.


But in 1929, the eyes of the world were turned towards the Capone mob. On St. Valentines Day, seven associates of the rival Bugs Moran gang were slaughtered by machineguns in a small garage in Chicago and everyone around the country looked at Al Capone. By everyone, I mean not just the government and the public, but also the National Mob. So allegedly Capone became the reason for a big national meeting in Atlantic City between top mobsters from around the country, including Charles Luciano, Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, all representatives of the Mafia clans from New York, also the non-Italian faction of New York/New Jersey areas, Meyer Lansky, Louis Buchalter and Jacob Shapiro, and from Philadelphia Irving Wexler, Harry Stromberg, and Max Hoff. There were also many other Italian and non-Italian gangsters from New York, Cleveland, Detroit, Boston, Kansas City, Florida and Louisiana. Chicago was represented by Capone himself, and allegedly Paul Ricca, Frank Rio and Jake Guzik were the ones who accompanied the boss. If this is true, then probably Rio acted as security, Guzik was financials and Ricca was Capone’s “prime minister for foreign affairs.”


The meeting was chaired by Enoch Thompson, the boss of Atlantic City and also Johnny Torrio as elder statesman for the New York and Chicago organizations. Many mob researchers say that the main subject of the meeting was the notorious Capone mob and its chief and the bloodshed on their territory. My personal opinion is that besides Capone being the accused one, his companion Ricca had a much higher purpose on that same meeting. I believe that during the meeting, Ricca established good connections with his fellow Camorrista Vito Genovese and Sicilian Mafioso Charles Luciano, and their relationship will result with the changing of the guard of the underworld across the U.S. Also I think that if Ricca really attended the conference in Atlantic City then I believe that in the end he didn’t return as Al’s supporter.


Ricca’s main role within the Capone organization was maintaining connections with the New York Mafia but by 1929, the Mafia around the U.S. was more disorganized than organized, meaning there were huge conflicts on both sides of the continent. In New York the Masseria clan was in war with another Sicilian group led by Salvatore Maranzano, and the same war was led in Chicago between the Capone mob and Sicilian Aiello crime family. In fact the Aiello’s received support from the Maranzano group in New York and Capone was backed by Joe Masseria and the other way around. So Capone sent Ricca to New York to inform the rest of the crime bosses about Chicago’s support for the Masseria clan. Ricca allegedly even issued a threat to the bosses that if someone had a problem with Chicago’s decision then they were ready for all out war. My opinion is that if Capone said that in his own flashy style, he would’ve been killed right there on the spot, but Ricca had a sense for diplomacy and knew how to use the right words. But there was a problem and that was Joe Aiello, the boss of the Aiello crime family, who was “made” member of the American Mafia or La Cosa Nostra and Capone was not. This is one of the reasons which made Ricca more respectable among the New York Mafiosi, and even though he belonged to the Camorra, still he was considered a “made” member of the Mafia because even in those days, after the Mafia/Camorra war, many Camorristi were absorbed by the Sicilian Mafia as members. So in 1930, Joe Masseria, or Joe the Boss as he was called, decided to make Capone a member of the Sicilian Mafia and boss of the Chicago area. There are also some accounts that the Mafia bosses told Capone to “make” ten more people from his “family”, which I believe that one of those ten ”made” members was Ricca. Now he was fully initiated into the American La Cosa Nostra. During this time the chairman for the Chicago Sicilian Mafia was a known Mafioso named Salvatore Loverde, but in reality the real power was Capone. I would also like to add that after St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, it wasn’t important if the Capone gang was involved or not because everybody strongly believed that they did it. So I believe that it was the main reason that a lot of high profile mobsters started to fear the Capone “menace”, including Joe Masseria who in fact made a smart move by making Capone a member of his “family.”



Joe Masseria


Ricca eventually had to do more important jobs within the Capone organization, and continued to act as messenger to the East Coast crime families. The bosses in New York had a nickname for Ricca which was "il Comparello". During his visits, he was often advised by the old Mafiosi that he should always play a waiting game, stay out of the headlines, and build support quietly, which was all opposite of his boss Al Capone. They also warned Ricca about Capone being too flashy and that he had to take a lower profile. But Ricca knew that it was the era of backstabbing games and so he spoke colourfully and knew how to manipulate the old bosses. In other words he said what they wanted to hear. Slowly but surely Ricca gained respect and made his presence to be known. For example, there’s a story that once Ricca had an argument in New York with an unknown individual from some of the crime families, and that same individual continuously insulted Ricca by calling him “waiter.” This crazy individual would taunt Ricca by laughingly ordering him to pour him some more wine, and continued calling him “waiter man.” The joke probably came from Ricca’s nickname which was the “Waiter” because of his previous work at the Bella Napoli Café. But soon this disrespectful individual will learn that nobody called Ricca like that in his presence. So shortly after, the cops found a nude torso of a body in a suitcase, which was dumped near a train station in NY. The head, arms and legs had been cut off from the torso with a very sharp tool, probably a knife, which was Ricca’s favourite weapon. As additional info, the murder was never pinned on Ricca or any other gangster from the New York area.


By 1930, Ricca had such a minor official police record that it amazed even the other gangsters in the organization. But that same year, the government had a close surveillance over some of the top gangsters in town after the publicized assassination of Chicago Tribune reporter Alfred Jake Lingle. So one day Chicago racketeers Ted Newberry, Jake Guzik, Dennis Cooney, Peter Fusco, Agostino Loverde, Eddie Vogel and Paul Ricca took a train to New York to watch a boxing match. But on their way, the train was stopped by the police and ordered the gangsters out. The cops also found a briefcase which contained $60,000 on which the gangsters planned to place a bet on the Sharkey-Schmeling fight. Later they were all released. Also during the 1930’s the Chicago press carried an article to the effect that Frank Nitti and Paul Ricca had been placed under police surveillance as leaders of the revived Cammora to control gambling, bootlegging, and all other rackets in Chicago.


Also on November 4, 1930, Ricca and several other associates were arrested in a speakeasy at 901 S. Halsted, which was owned by Frank Nitti. Ricca was arrested in that joint while in the company of three state legislators and several other members of the Capone gang, including Murray Humphreys, Ralph Pierce, Frank Rio and also State Representative Roland Libonati, attorney Saul Tannenbaum, Alderman and State Legislator Al Prignano, and also State Legislators Frank Novelle and Tony Pintozzi. Later an army of politicians rushed to the police station to get the prisoners released, including City Sealer Dan Serritella, Senator James Leonardo and Alderman William Pacelli. So after several court appearances, eventually all of the defendants were released.


By 1931, the face of the Mafia in New York was drastically changing. On April 15, that same year, Capone’s ally Joe Masseria was assassinated in a Coney Island restaurant. Five months later, on September 10, Masseria’s rival Sal Maranzano was also killed. It is not known whether these so-called “young turks” such as Genovese and Luciano asked for help from the Capone mob during these high profile assassinations, but there are some reports that in this next example, they surely did. Right after the Maranzano killing, one of Masseria’s captains known as Saverio Pollaccia, suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth. Story goes that Vito Genovese lured Pollaccia by informing him that they had an urgent meeting in Chicago. Meanwhile, on their way to the “Windy City”, the duo stopped in Pittsburgh where Genovese allegedly confided to some individual that he was escorting Pollaccia “on a one way trip to Chicago.” In Chicago the duo was met by none other than Paul Ricca who in turn probably killed Pollaccia, cut him into pieces and buried him in an unknown location.


In February 1932, Capone captains Phil D’Andrea, Frank Rio, Michael Costello and Paul Ricca were arrested at the Planters hotel in Chicago. They prepared for the main thing that came next, which was two months later.



Michael Costello, Phil D’Andrea and Paul Ricca


On April 18, New York syndicate gangsters Charles Luciano, Harry Brown and Meyer Lansky arrived in Chicago. They were sighted by the Chicago police at the railroad station, who immediately took up their trail. The policemen followed the pair to a night club on the South Side and to their hotel room at the Congress Hotel. There the cops took an adjoining room, and overheard Luciano's telephone talks. According to the police report, Luciano received more than thirty calls in two hours. The conversations mentioned Detroit, shipments, airplanes, and steamships. The name of Joe Fusco, Al Capone's right hand man in the bootlegging business, was also mentioned. The next day, one of the first national mob meetings, after the death of Masseria and Maranzano, was held in Chicago on April 19, at the Congress Hotel. Paul Ricca and Rocco Fischetti were the hosts and all together they decided the faith of the two organizations.


We will never know the true agenda of their meeting, but we can surely exclude the subject of the National Italian Mafia since some of the attendees were non-Italians, such as Lansky, and Harry Brown, one of Lansky’s main gambling operators. The first subject I believe it was the independence of the Chicago group, since they were previously under the jurisdiction of the Masseria clan in New York, and their own seat on the new Mafia commission. Second, the coming end of Prohibition and by looking at some of the individuals and their skills, such as Lansky’s and Brown’s, I believe that the third and one of the main subjects was probably gambling. At the time the Mob was spreading their gambling operations mainly in Reno, Nevada or Hurley, Wisconsin and even Havana, Cuba. For example, the Chicago mob had connections in Havana since the days of the late Diamond Joe, when the old man used to smuggle sugar in the U.S.