Antonio Cecala

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

Cecala worked as an arson­ist in New York, burn­ing trou­bled busi­ness­es allow­ing them to claim on the insur­ance. He later opened to gam­bling dens on Eliz­a­beth Street before being involved with the Morel­lo gang’s coun­ter­feit­ing oper­a­tion in High­land NY. A crime which saw him sen­tenced to 15 years hard labour at Atlanta Penitentiary.

He was even­tu­al­ly paroled on 21^st Feb­ru­ary 1915. Later noted to be involved with var­i­ous gang relat­ed busi­ness, he was gunned down in 1928.