Gambino crime family
The Gambino crime family (pronounced [ɡamˈbiːno]) is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia. The group, which went through five bosses between 1910 and 1957, is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963, when the structure of organized crime first gained public attention. The group's operations extend from New York and the eastern seaboard to California. Its illicit activities include labor and construction racketeering, gambling, loansharking, extortion, money laundering, prostitution, fraud, hijacking, and fencing.
Carlo Gambino Paul Castellano John Gotti | |
| Founded | c. 1900s |
|---|---|
| Founder | Vincent Mangano |
| Named after | Carlo Gambino |
| Founding location | New York City, New York, United States |
| Years active | c. 1900s–present |
| Territory | Primarily New York City, with additional territory in Long Island, Westchester County, New Jersey, Western Connecticut, Baltimore, South Florida, Tampa, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Palermo |
| Ethnicity | Italians as "made men" and other ethnicities as associates |
| Membership (est.) | 150–200 made members and 1,500–2,000 associates (2004) |
| Activities | Racketeering, extortion, fraud, illegal gambling, money laundering, murder, robbery, drug trafficking, fencing, truck hijacking, loan sharking, prostitution and pornography |
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The family was one of the five families that were founded in New York after the Castellammarese War of 1931. For most of the next quarter-century, it was a minor player in organized crime. Its most prominent member during this time was its underboss Albert Anastasia, who rose to infamy as the operating head of the underworld's enforcement arm, Murder, Inc. He remained in power even after Murder, Inc. was smashed in the late 1940s, and took over his family in 1951—by all accounts, after murdering the family's founder Vincent Mangano—which was then recognized as the Anastasia crime family.
The rise of what was the most powerful crime family in America for a time began in 1957, when Anastasia was assassinated while sitting in a barber chair at the Park Sheraton Hotel in Manhattan. Experts believe that Anastasia's underboss Carlo Gambino helped orchestrate the hit to take over the family. Gambino partnered with Meyer Lansky to control gambling interests in Cuba. The family's fortunes grew through 1976, when Gambino appointed his brother-in-law Paul Castellano as boss upon his death. Castellano infuriated upstart capo John Gotti, who orchestrated Castellano's murder in 1985. Gotti's downfall came in 1992, when his underboss Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano cooperated with the FBI. Gravano's cooperation brought down Gotti, along with most of the top members of the Gambino family. Beginning in 2015, the family was headed by Frank Cali until his assassination outside his Staten Island home on March 13, 2019.