This is a weird thread. Like someone else pointed out, A LOT of these guys were into being fly. And not just the suit era. When it was the Studio 54 era, they wore the collar shirts and gold chains and shit. It's just street fashion, lol.

Luciano was a consummate criminal organizer. He also had vision and strategy. More than dressing nice, I think women were a bigger problem for him. He never married, and seemed like an inveterate skirt chaser. He got kicked outta Cuba cause of some high society, socialite, 1940s version housewive ass thot. But hey, not even Genovese could control his woman either........

Lepke was Luciano's entry into the Garment Center. He helped him to streamline it and make it more of an organized racket, more than just isolated shakedowns.


This is no knock on Merlino, but I don't know if he ever actually MADE, or RAN an actual racket or operation. Present day excluded, with all the indictments and shit, but you know what I mean. When he was younger I think he mainly robbed the bookies, which is VERY counterproductive.


Luciano dealt with Scottish distillers, Chinese heroin merchants, Americanized Sicilian, Calabrian, and Napoletan gangsters. Irish guys, Jewish guys, French Corsicans, OSS agents, politicians, labor people, cops, the Naples black market.....

What fucked Luciano was Dewey, who somehow managed to flawlessly prosecute the perfect RICO case, when there wasn't even any RICO. Most of these prosecutors STILL fuck these cases up today, ( look at the East Coast enterprise thing,...) I don't think it's understood how impressive a prosecution that was....