Antonio Cecala

Anto­nio Cecala arrived in Amer­ica in 1889. He ran a gro­cery store at 9 Spring Street, and bought most of his pro­duce whole­sale from Ignazio Lupo’s store on Mott Street.

Involved in gam­bling and arson in New York. Cecala was even­tu­ally involved with the Morello gang coun­ter­feit­ing money in High­land NY.

In 1908, Cecala met with Anto­nio Comito and con­spired to begin coun­ter­feit­ing US and Cana­dian cur­rency for the Morello gang. Cecala arranged the pur­chase of the print­ing equip­ment before trav­el­ling to see his god-son Sal­va­tore Cina in High­land. Whilst the print­ing was tak­ing place on the farm, Cecala worked as mes­sen­ger between New York and High­land, some­times bring­ing news and other times bring­ing essen­tial supplies.

When the print­ing was com­plete Cecala and Cina trav­elled to Chicago, Buf­falo and Pitts­burgh to try and sell the coun­ter­feit cur­rency. They did not man­age to sell much due to the poor print qual­ity of the notes.

As the secret ser­vice cracked down on the gang Cecala was fol­lowed all over New York. Often seen at the home of Giuseppe Morello, Cecala was also spot­ted at Pietro Inzerillo’s café which had been involved in the Bar­rel Mur­der case.

On Novem­ber 15^th, 1909, the Secret Ser­vice agents fol­lowed Cecala from his apart­ment at 54 Spring Street to the Bow­ery. They placed him under arrest and took him to Cap­tain Flynn to be searched. Cecala was sen­tenced on the first charge to 12 years hard labour and a $500 fine. On the sec­ond charge, 3 years hard labour and a $500 fine. He was even­tu­ally paroled from Atlanta Pen­i­ten­tiary on 21^st Feb­ru­ary 1915.

He was later noted to be involved with var­i­ous gang related busi­ness and finally gunned down in 1928.