The Gambino Crime Family

The three hit men knew that they could not get into the fortress where Anastasia lived, they knew they needed to get him somewhere he felt comfortable. When he ventured into the city, he always stopped at his favorite barbershop in the Hotel Park Sheraton at Seventh Avenue and Fifty-Fifth Street for a shave and a trim. On October 25, 1957 at 10:15am the Gallo brothers entered the shop and, as the barber was covering Anastasia’s face with a towel and lowering his chair, shot five shots at Anastasia’s head and back. Miraculously, Anastasia, with his last ounce of life, lunged at the killers, but only hit the mirror in front of him. When the news of Albert Anastasia’s death reached the four other bosses of New York, they knew that Vito Genovese would now be making a move to be in charge of the Mafia’s ruling body, the Commission. Carlo Gambino too knew this and was determined to make a power play of his own. To decide who would be the leader, Genovese decided to call a gathering that notably became the largest Cosa Nostra reunion in history. In attendance there was nearly one-hundred bosses, underbosses, caporegimes, and labor officials all called on upon by Genovese who hope to be voted in as “boss of bosses”. The meeting was to be held on the giant estate of Joseph Barbara, near the village of Apalachin on November 14, 1957. The higher-ups of La Cosa Nostra were to discuss who was to take over for Anastasia, how to put a stop to the violent changes of leadership that had been occurring, a discussion on membership into the Mafia and finally, revise the Cosa Nostra’s drug policy, due to the federal government passing “the Narcotics Control Act of 1956 which created the most punitive and repressive anti-narcotics legislation ever adop...

... middle of paper ...

... in drugs, Vito, however, felt that he was exempt from that law. He began to create a huge international heroin smuggling operation. Gambino, along with Lansky, Frank Costello and Lucky Luciano, formulated a plan for Genovese to get nailed by the feds. They hired Puerto Rican hoodlum, Nelson Cantellops, to testify against as a witness against Genovese, who he had “seen” buying large amounts of heroin, paying him a $100,000 bribe. From there an anonymous tip was sent to the Narcotics Bureau and arrested Genovese and twenty-four of his men under violation of the Narcotics Control Act. Cantellops’s testimony was the nail in Genovese’s coffin at the trial, held in 1959, that sentenced Genovese to 15 years in prison, where he died after 10 years. With Anastasia dead, Genovese in prison, and all of those men’s loyal followers dead, the rule of Don Carlo was set in stone.