Mafia: The Morello Gang

The Morel­lo gang was the first Mafia fam­i­ly of New York, led by ‘boss-of-bosses’ Giuseppe Morel­lo. The fam­i­ly was even­tu­al­ly bro­ken after its lead­er­ship was jailed fol­low­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion by the Secret Service.

The Morello Gang

Mod­ern research indi­cates that Giuseppe Morel­lo and Ignazio Lupo may have led sep­a­rate crime fam­i­lies.1 The “Morel­lo Gang” ref­er­enced on this page is a com­bi­na­tion of those two groups. 

Giuseppe Morello

Giuseppe Morel­lo was born at Cor­leone, Sici­ly, in May 1867. His entry into the local Mafia was like­ly facil­i­tat­ed by his step­fa­ther Bernar­do Ter­ra­no­va and uncle Giuseppe Battaglia, mem­bers of the Cor­leone bor­ga­ta (a term mean­ing bor­ough or vil­lage, with­in the Mafia it defines a clan or crime fam­i­ly).2

At the age of twenty-five, Morel­lo left Sici­ly for Amer­i­ca. His depar­ture occurred around the time he was accused of killing a wit­ness to a mur­der in Cor­leone.3 He arrived in New York in 1892, fol­lowed a year later by his fam­i­ly which includ­ed his half-brothers Nico­la, Vin­cen­zo and Ciro Ter­ra­no­va. After spend­ing a year in New York, the fam­i­ly moved to Louisiana and then to Texas, before final­ly return­ing to New York around 1897.4 

Morel­lo first attract­ed the atten­tion of the Secret Ser­vice in March 1899, after a let­ter he’d sent to a Boston coun­ter­feit­ing gang was inter­cept­ed.5 He was sus­pect­ed of dis­trib­ut­ing poor qual­i­ty coun­ter­feit notes and was arrest­ed the fol­low­ing year on East 108th Street. Papers found in his pos­ses­sion con­nect­ed him to Calogero Gulot­ta, whose son Gas­pare was later involved the New Orleans Mafia. Morel­lo was dis­charged after no direct con­nec­tion could be made between him and the sale of coun­ter­feit notes.6

In Novem­ber 1900, Morel­lo leased a saloon and base­ment at 445 Thir­teenth Street,7 but gave up the busi­ness after just seven months. He later start­ed a restau­rant in the rear of the saloon at 8 Prince Street,8 a known hang­out for coun­ter­feit­ers and under reg­u­lar sur­veil­lance of the Secret Service.

Morel­lo led the Cor­leone­si crime fam­i­ly in New York, which later divid­ed into what are known today as the Gen­ovese and Luc­ch­ese Fam­i­lies.9 His power was first indi­cat­ed in July 1902, when he was report­ed to have “approved” the mur­der of Brook­lyn Mafioso Giuseppe Cata­nia. Cata­nia liked to drink and “talked too much when drunk.” His muti­lat­ed corpse was even­tu­al­ly dis­cov­ered dumped in Brook­lyn in a sim­i­lar fash­ion to the Bar­rel Mur­der.10

Ignazio Lupo

Born at Paler­mo in March 1877, Ignazio Lupo worked for his father in the gro­cery busi­ness. In 1898, while man­ag­ing one of his father’s stores, he killed a local busi­ness­man dur­ing a dis­agree­ment. He fled to New York, where he began work­ing with rel­a­tives in the whole­sale gro­cery busi­ness.11

Lupo became a brother-in-law to Giuseppe Morel­lo when he mar­ried Sal­va­trice Ter­ra­no­va in late 1903.12 The press often referred to him as Morello’s lieu­tenant, but mod­ern researchers argue that the two men actu­al­ly led sep­a­rate crime fam­i­lies, Morel­lo head­ing the Corleonesi-based group and Lupo lead­ing a Paler­mi­tani fam­i­ly. The police described Lupo as “the trea­sur­er of the Mafia Soci­ety of the Unit­ed States, or at least to that sec­tion of it to which Ital­ians in the coun­try who come from Paler­mo belong.”13 His orga­ni­za­tion was later head­ed by such names as Carlo Gam­bi­no and John Gotti.14 

Lupo was described as a delin­quente raf­fi­na­to (refined delin­quent). A well-dressed, soft spo­ken, urbane and affa­ble busi­ness­man, he wore rings on both hands and was found to carry a “big blue bar­reled revolver of the lat­est type of one of the best man­u­fac­tures.15 His store at 210 – 214 Mott Street, was described in The New York Times as ‘‘eas­i­ly the most pre­ten­tious mer­can­tile estab­lish­ment in that sec­tion of the city, with a stock of goods over which the neigh­bor­hood mar­veled … Lupo’s hors­es and deliv­ery wag­ons were the best that had ever been used in the neigh­bor­hood.” The turnover was esti­mat­ed between $500,000 and $600,000 a year.16

William Flynn, chief of the Secret Ser­vice, explained that Lupo forced local busi­ness­es into trad­ing with his whole­sale stores under the threat of their own busi­ness­es being bombed. Flynn also believed that Lupo was using olive oil cans to import coun­ter­feit notes from Sici­ly, but after impound­ing his ship­ments found no evi­dence to sup­port the the­o­ry.17

In Novem­ber 1908, Lupo left New York owing up to $100,000 to his cred­i­tors. As many as sev­en­teen other Ital­ian gro­cers also dis­ap­peared, with com­bined lia­bil­i­ties esti­mat­ed at $500,000. The stores had been emp­tied of their stock, which was later tracked to ware­hous­es across the city, with some goods hav­ing been shipped to Italy.18 

The entire con­spir­a­cy was claimed to be the idea of Attor­ney Philip Sait­ta, who had rep­re­sent­ed the Lupo-Morello com­bine dur­ing the Bar­rel Mur­der trial and had pre­vi­ous­ly rep­re­sent­ed New York fruit importers in front of Con­gress. The assis­tant dis­trict attor­ney stat­ed, “The Police Depart­ment of this city, as well as many well-informed busi­ness­men, believe that [Sait­ta] has been the mas­ter­mind and legal advis­er to the Mafia, and has been in close asso­ci­a­tion as advis­er and friend of some of the most dan­ger­ous and noto­ri­ous crim­i­nals for years.19

Lupo returned to New York in late 1909 to face his cred­i­tors. Before any charges were bought, he was arrest­ed with Giuseppe Morel­lo in con­nec­tion with a large coun­ter­feit­ing scheme.

Counterfeiting

The Morello Gang

The Morel­lo Gang’s early focus was on coun­ter­feit­ing US cur­ren­cy. A dan­ger­ous occu­pa­tion that would result in them becom­ing the focus of the New York Secret Ser­vice branch, with agents spe­cial­ly trained to detect bogus bills and covert­ly track street push­ers with the hope of cap­tur­ing the coun­ter­feit manufacturers.

After trav­el­ing from New Orleans to New York, Sicil­ian Calogero Mag­giore was arrest­ed in June 1900, along with Giuseppe Morel­lo, for dis­trib­ut­ing coun­ter­feit five-dollar notes from an East 106th Street head­quar­ters. Cor­re­spon­dence found on Morel­lo con­nect­ed him to New Orleans and other US cities, but he was even­tu­al­ly dis­charged due to lack of evi­dence.20 

In 1902, Joe Pet­rosi­no, of the NYPD, received an anony­mous let­ter about a coun­ter­feit coin plant in New Jer­sey. The inves­ti­ga­tion led to the arrest of Vito Cas­cio­fer­ro, “prob­a­bly the most pow­er­ful Sicil­ian cosca (clan) leader of the age.21 

Petrosino’s tip-off led to the cap­ture of a gang thought to be respon­si­ble for 75 per­cent of coun­ter­feit coins in the region. The arrests includ­ed Vito Cas­cio­fer­ro; Stel­la Frauto, an expe­ri­enced female coun­ter­feit­er; Andrea Romano, the owner of the Prince Street saloon; and Sal­va­tore Clemente, who became an invalu­able infor­mant to the Secret Ser­vice through the next thir­ty years.22

Vito Cascioferro / Salvatore Clemente

Cas­cio­fer­ro man­aged to escape con­vic­tion after some wit­ness­es failed to iden­ti­fy him and oth­ers failed to appear at all.23 The fol­low­ing year, he was tracked around the city by Secret Ser­vice agents. They observed his meet­ings with many Ital­ian coun­ter­feit­ers, pri­mar­i­ly Giuseppe Morel­lo and mem­bers of his gang. In March 1903, he was seen try­ing to arrange pas­sage back to Sici­ly before he dis­ap­peared from the city.24

The alliances that the gang formed in these coun­ter­feit­ing schemes show a mixed bunch. The 1900 arrests list a mix­ture of Ital­ians and Irish crim­i­nals, and the gang in 1902 had been led by a woman. Work­ing with already estab­lished gangs in New York was a neces­si­ty like­ly born from the tech­ni­cal and net­work require­ments of the coun­ter­feit­ing business.

In April 1903, the dis­cov­ery of a body stuffed into a bar­rel led to the cap­ture of Morel­lo and Lupo. The gang’s coun­ter­feit­ing efforts ceased and did not start up again until 1908 when they began a scheme print­ing hun­dreds of thou­sands of fake dol­larsA scheme that would send the pair to Atlanta Penitentiary.

Real Estate & Groceries

The Morello Gang - The Ignatz Florio Co-Operative Association Among Corleonesi
The Ignatz Florio Co-Operative Association Among Corleonesi

Giuseppe Morel­lo start­ed a real estate com­pa­ny in 1902, ‘The Ignatz Flo­rio Co-Operative Asso­ci­a­tion Among Cor­leone­si’, the com­pa­ny was involved in the con­struc­tion and sell­ing of prop­er­ties in New York. The names list­ed on the incor­po­ra­tion as direc­tors were Anto­nio Milone — a man who would later be involved with their coun­ter­feit­ing schemes; Marco Macalu­so, father of 1960s Luc­ch­ese Fam­i­ly “con­sigliere” (advi­sor) Mar­i­ano Macalu­so; and Frank Badala­to, who would later own the hay and grain store locat­ed next to infa­mous East 108th Street prop­er­ty known as the “Mur­der Sta­bles”.25

Pri­mar­i­ly a bank­ing and real estate com­pa­ny, the com­pa­ny bought and sold mul­ti­ple prop­er­ties in New York before begin­ning con­struc­tion of its own ten­e­ments in the Bronx. Shares in the com­pa­ny were sold to south­ern Ital­ians with the expec­ta­tion of div­i­dends, but the com­pa­ny ran into seri­ous finan­cial prob­lems around the time of the 1907 Bankers’ Panic. Anx­ious investors threat­ened to kill Morel­lo, con­trac­tors and lenders start­ed legal action against the busi­ness. To pay off his debts, Morel­lo, along with Lupo, start­ed a coun­ter­feit­ing plant in High­land, New York. The plan would even­tu­al­ly land them both in prison.26

At around the same time as the The Morel­lo Gang’s con­struc­tion trou­bles, Lupo began a huge fraud scheme using his whole­sale net­work. He built an impres­sive chain of whole­sale gro­cery stores dur­ing his time in New York. William Flynn, chief of the Secret Ser­vice in 1914, described how Lupo used his net­work of busi­ness­es:27

The small Ital­ian gro­cers of the dis­trict were forced to buy their sup­plies from this store. If they did not their estab­lish­ments were in dan­ger of being wrecked by bombs or burned. Even worse, their chil­dren might be kid­napped or them­selves slain. By intim­i­dat­ing the local gro­cers into trad­ing at their whole­sale store, Lupo and Morel­lo accom­plished a dou­ble pur­pose. They swelled their so-called legit­i­mate prof­its and were able to get rid of some of the coun­ter­feit money.

Black Hand Activities

It was often report­ed in sen­sa­tion­al arti­cles that Morel­lo was the “Head of the Black Hand.” While he was found with let­ters con­nect­ing him to extor­tion of wealthy Ital­ians, no arrests were made as a result28, but there are some con­nec­tions that can be made.

Anto­nio Comi­to, a wit­ness who tes­ti­fied against Morel­lo and Lupo, recalled a story told to him by Nick Sylvester. Although Sylvester was a low-ranking mem­ber of the gang, he had black­mailed a man on Mott Street using threat­en­ing let­ters. This, he told, was done along with Giuseppe Morello’s half-brother and son.29

He was a fool and told the police. We did not know that though and when he failed for a third time to give up the money we went there late one night and threw a big bomb through the win­dow of his store … We were arrest­ed but it had been dark and we had arranged things so care­ful­ly, even hav­ing the let­ters writ­ten by oth­ers and never hav­ing him see or know us, that there being no eye wit­ness­es a good lawyer who helps us much in New York got us free.

In 1906, John Boz­zuf­fi, a suc­cess­ful New York banker who had acted as a pub­lic notary for Morel­lo, was fac­ing demands for $20,000 for the return of his son. The boy man­aged to escape and iden­ti­fied his cap­tor as Ignazio Lupo. Lupo was taken into cus­tody but soon released due to a lack of evi­dence. An unre­lat­ed inves­ti­ga­tion into a Mafia killing in Par­tini­co, Sici­ly, led to the dis­cov­ery of a “direct con­nec­tion of the Sicil­ian Mafia with the Black Hand of New York.” Papers found in the home of Nun­zio Minore linked him direct­ly to the Boz­zuf­fi kid­nap­ing, the US Black Hand and the Sicil­ian Mafia. 30

In 1909, when Morel­lo was arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with coun­ter­feit­ing, a series of Black Hand let­ters were found at his home.

Structure & Power

The Morello Gang - Antonio Comito

Anto­nio Comi­to, who appeared as a wit­ness in 1910, spoke about Morello’s lead­er­ship:31

The leader — a one armed man named Morel­lo … One alone never car­ried out the orders of the ‘supe­ri­ors’. To do so took to great an amount of courage. Such work was always done by three or four, direct­ed by a ‘cor­po­ral’, who was put in charge of the ‘work’ at hand by the head — called the ‘Pres­i­dent’. He, from a dis­tance direct­ed the exe­cu­tion of the four mem­bers’ work. Always from a dis­tance so that should their work be dis­cov­ered by the police it would be easy for him to make an imme­di­ate report. The ‘head’ would inform all the other mem­bers and they would hold coun­sel and delib­er­ate what to do. Under false names mem­bers of the organ­i­sa­tion have even appeared as wit­ness­es for the pros­e­cu­tion only to go upon the stand, refute all their pre­vi­ous state­ments and deny their abil­i­ty to attach the defen­dant in any way with the case in hand.

Comi­to also recalled a con­ver­sa­tion between him­self and Anto­nio Cecala from the gang:32

I want you to know all my friends my friends for they are all mem­bers of the organ­i­sa­tion. That one [Morel­lo] is the leader. I want to know with whom you are deal­ing. He is pres­i­dent of the Cor­leone Soci­ety [Ignatz Flo­rio Co-Operative] and has in his power, four build­ings, amount­ing in value to over one hun­dred thou­sand dollars.

Morel­lo knows how much money he has given to detec­tives, when and where it was given and the names of those who have taken it. He has always got­ten out of every­thing in which he was impli­cat­ed … When the order is given to arrest Morel­lo, police­men whom he had fed always will warn him and he will hide.

There are twen­ty of us who have organ­ised this affair. Oth­ers high­er up in famous places know of it. They will receive their share. Should any­thing slip and we get into trou­ble there will be thou­sands of dol­lars for lawyers and we will be freed … We are big, big­ger than you know. You will know per­haps, later on, about the many branch­es of our soci­ety, and how it is pos­si­ble for us to do things in one part of the coun­try or world and have the other half of the affair car­ried out so far away that no sus­pi­cion can pos­si­bly come to us. After you have obeyed and seen some inkling of our power, you will be glad to become one of us.

As well as enjoy­ing the pro­tec­tion of cor­rupt NYPD offi­cers, the gang is sup­posed to have held some polit­i­cal influ­ence. In 1903, after the col­lapse of the ‘Bar­rel Trial’ against the gang, Secret Ser­vice records noted a con­ver­sa­tion between Pietro Inz­er­il­lo and one of their under­cov­er agents. Dur­ing the con­ver­sa­tion Inz­er­il­lo claimed that his release from the trial was due to the actions of Con­gress­man Tim­o­thy Sul­li­van.33

In June 1912, whilst Morel­lo and Lupo were try­ing to secure their release from prison, William Flynn of the Secret Ser­vice was inter­viewed about the gang’s polit­i­cal power:34

Mr. Flynn was asked if the band had any polit­i­cal influ­ence. His answer was: ‘The strongest I know of. It is almost Impos­si­ble to com­bat it. It comes from both polit­i­cal par­ties.’ He then was ques­tioned as to whether this influ­ence would be strong enough to swing a Con­gres­sion­al Inves­ti­ga­tion of the Secret Ser­vice in the hope of crip­pling it. ‘It is pos­si­ble,’ said Mr. Flynn.

Speak­ing about the gang, Flynn was also quot­ed in 1912:35

These bands are pro­tect­ed by money and by polit­i­cal influ­ence. I do not blame either polit­i­cal party exclu­sive­ly. Both pro­tect these bands for one rea­son or anoth­er. Of course, besides being able to col­lect thou­sands of dol­lars from Ital­ians and Sicil­ians, they are able to sway hun­dreds of votes by ter­ror­is­ing cit­i­zens. The police are to a cer­tain extent pow­er­less because of the pow­er­ful back­ing these men get from politicians.

Downfall

Ignazio Lupo Mugshot 1910
Ignazio Lupo mugshot (1910)

Lupo and Morel­lo were released from Atlanta Pen­i­ten­tiary in 1920. Morel­lo had lost close fam­i­ly to the gang feuds dur­ing his incar­cer­a­tion, includ­ing his half-brother Nico­la and his son Calogero. Upon his release, he quick­ly elim­i­nat­ed Sal­va­tore Loia­cano, who had risen to lead the Morel­lo Crime Fam­i­ly. Morel­lo had dis­ap­proved of his han­dling of the clan, pos­si­bly due to Loiacono’s sub­or­di­na­tion to boss of boss­es Toto D’Aquila. The killing sparked the begin­ning of a bit­ter three-year feud among the D’Aquila, Morel­lo and Schi­ro Fam­i­lies.36

Lupo, Morel­lo and other allies made a short trip to Paler­mo in late 1921.37 The rea­son for their voy­age was later described in a con­fi­den­tial Secret Ser­vice report:38 

When Lupo and Morel­lo were con­vict­ed fif­teen or six­teen years ago on our coun­ter­feit­ing case, new lead­ers arose. Since that time they have grown very strong and very pop­u­lar. Upon the release of Lupo and Morel­lo they tried to come back into power, but the new orga­ni­za­tion here in Amer­i­ca would not per­mit this. Con­se­quent­ly, Lupo and Morel­lo and a few of their old ‘stand­bys’ went to Sici­ly, tak­ing it up there with the main head­quar­ters endeav­our­ing to be put back in power. They also refused … since that time Morel­lo has moved to the West Side and both he and Lupo are liv­ing behind bars and shut­ters. Their assas­si­na­tion is expect­ed momentarily.

Fur­ther detail was given in the mem­oirs of Mafioso Nico­la Gen­tile. He explained that Lupo, Morel­lo and ten oth­ers had been con­demned to death by boss of boss­es Sal­va­tore D’Aquila at a meet­ing of the US Mafia’s Gen­er­al Assem­bly. “It was a ques­tion of power. D’Aquila was a very author­i­ta­tive fig­ure and that meant that those who didn’t sup­port him were con­demned to death.39 

The Morello Gang - Giuseppe Morello
Giuseppe Morello mugshot (1910)

Giuseppe Morel­lo kept a low pro­file after his release from Atlanta Pen­i­ten­tiary. This was most­ly due to the feud with D’Aquila. A con­se­quence of Morello’s cau­tion was a sep­a­ra­tion between his activ­i­ties and the Secret Service’s net­work of spies. Although he was report­ed to be still active in coun­ter­feit­ing40 the Secret Ser­vice did not con­nect him direct­ly to any of their inves­ti­ga­tions. The war­ring fam­i­lies made tem­po­rary peace in August 1923 after a large con­fer­ence at High­land, New York. It was agreed that Lupo would be brought back into the Fratel­lan­za – but Morel­lo was still to be exclud­ed.41 

Con­flict between the Mafia Fam­i­lies flared-up again in 1928. Fifty-year-old Mafia leader D’Aquila was killed dur­ing a fam­i­ly visit to a doctor’s office in Man­hat­tan. The assas­si­na­tion was ordered by Giuseppe Masse­ria, who replaced D’Aquila as the new boss of boss­es, with Giuseppe Morel­lo as his sec­ond in com­mand. Masseria’s reign was brief. Both he and Morel­lo were killed in the “Castel­lam­marese War,” a vio­lent strug­gle for con­trol of the Mafia which began just two years later.42 Morel­lo was killed in August 1930 in Harlem at East 116th Street, bring­ing the career of the first boss of the US Mafia to an end.43 

Lupo, who had relo­cat­ed back to Brook­lyn in 1927, drift­ed back into his old habit of extort­ing store own­ers. Fol­low­ing Frankie Yale’s death, he acquired con­trol of the Brook­lyn bak­ery rack­et and was also sus­pect­ed run­ning pol­i­cy games in the area. He was arrest­ed at his son’s bak­ery and returned to Atlanta Pen­i­ten­tiary in 1936 as a parole vio­la­tor. He was to serve the remain­ing twen­ty years on his 1910 coun­ter­feit­ing sen­tence.44 Lupo died in 1947 three weeks after his early release from Atlanta. He was later made the sub­ject of the first episode of “Trea­sury Men in Action,” a pop­u­lar 1950s tele­vi­sion series based on the US Trea­sury Depart­ment.45 Ciro Ter­ra­no­va, the last remain­ing broth­er of the Morel­lo fam­i­ly, remained a fig­ure in orga­nized crime until he passed away in 1938.46

The Secret Service’s pen­e­trat­ing inves­ti­ga­tions into Lupo and Morel­lo, and the expo­sure the press gave to their vio­lent exploits, pro­vide a detailed thread through New York’s early Mafia his­to­ry. The Secret Service’s recruit­ment of inform­ers had ulti­mate­ly led to the pair’s down­fall. Their impris­on­ment and loss of power in 1910 had been due to a case built around the tes­ti­mo­ny of Anto­nio Comi­to. Although Comi­to was an out­sider to the group, a lack of orga­ni­za­tion­al secu­ri­ty had put him in direct con­tact with the US Mafia’s lead­er­ship.47 

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
1Warn­er, San­ti­no, Van‘t Riet. Early New York Mafia An Alter­na­tive The­o­ry. The Informer. May 2014. Thomas Hunt. 
2Warn­er, San­ti­no, Van‘t Riet. Early New York Mafia An Alter­na­tive The­o­ry. 42 – 43
Critch­ley, David (2009) The Ori­gin of Orga­nized Crime in Amer­i­ca: The New York City Mafia, 1891 – 1931. New York: Rout­ledge. 52
3Gen­er­al Records of the Depart­ment of State, 17632002. Numer­i­cal Files, 19061910. M862 Roll 845. Giuseppe Morel­lo crim­i­nal record.
Flynn, W. J. (1919) The Bar­rel Mys­tery. New York: The James A. McCann Com­pa­ny. 243 – 261
4U.S. Cir­cuit Court of Appeals for the Sec­ond Cir­cuit, The Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca vs. Guiseppe Cal­ic­chio et al, Tran­script of Record. Ciro Ter­ra­no­va testimony
5U.S. Nation­al Archives and Records Admin­is­tra­tion (here­after referred to as NARA), RG 87, Daily Reports of Agents, (here­after referred to as DRA). William P. Hazen. Vol. 5 (Mar 181899
6NARA, RG 87, DRA. William P. Hazen. Vol. 9 (Jun 9, 12, 18, 28 1900)
Critch­ley. The Ori­gin of Orga­nized Crime in Amer­i­ca. 58
7Real estate record and builders’ guide (1900) Vol.66. New York: F. W. Dodge Corp. 589
8Guiseppe Cal­ic­chio et al, Tran­script of Record. Ciro Ter­ra­no­va testimony
9Warn­er, San­ti­no, Van‘t Riet. Early New York Mafia An Alter­na­tive The­o­ry. 90
10NARA, RG 87, DRA. William J. Flynn (Jan 4, 1903)
The Evening World (Jul 24, 19021
11U.S. Cir­cuit Court of Appeals for the Sec­ond Cir­cuit, The Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca vs. Giuseppe Cal­ic­chio et al. 450462
12Man­hat­tan mar­riage cer­tifi­cate 251 (1903)
13The Bal­ti­more Sun (Apr 17, 19038
14Warn­er, San­ti­no, Van‘t Riet. Early New York Mafia An Alter­na­tive The­o­ry. 7
15Flynn, W. J. (1919). The Bar­rel Mys­tery. New York: The James A. McCann Com­pa­ny. 28
Frank Mar­shall White (1913). A Famous Tragedy of the Black Hand. Pearson’s Mag­a­zine. Vol. 30.
The Brook­lyn Daily Eagle (Jan 12, 190420
16New York Times (Nov 13, 1909)
New York Times (Dec 5, 1908)
The Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca vs. Giuseppe Cal­ic­chio et al. 
17The Wash­ing­ton Post (May 3, 1914) 8
NARA, RG 87, DRA. William J. Flynn. Vol. 8 (Feb 14, 161903
18Black, Jon (2014). The Gro­cery Con­spir­a­cy. https://www.gangrule.com/articles/the-grocery-conspiracy
19Brook­lyn Cit­i­zen (Jul 19, 1903)
Brook­lyn Daily Eagle (Apr 13, 1914)
New York Tri­bune (Apr 14, 1914)
The Lloyd Sealy Library of John Jay Col­lege of Crim­i­nal Jus­tice, Trial Tran­scripts of the Coun­ty of New York. Court of Gen­er­al Ses­sions 1883 – 1927. #1857 Philip S. Sait­ta (1914 – 320)
Black, Jon (2014). The Gro­cery Conspiracy
20NARA, RG 87, DRA. William P. Hazen. Vol. 9 (Jun 9, 12, 18, 28 1900
21Critch­ley. The Ori­gin of Orga­nized Crime in Amer­i­ca. 40
22The Scran­ton Repub­li­can (Nov 28, 1902). 2
Buf­fa­lo Couri­er (Dec 7, 1902) 2
NARA, RG 87, DRA. William J. Flynn & New York Vol­umes (1902~1930)
Warn­er, San­ti­no, Van‘t Riet. Early New York Mafia An Alter­na­tive The­o­ry. 5
23NARA, RG 87, DRA. William J. Flynn. Vol. 6 (May 29, Jun 41902
24NARA, RG 87, DRA. William J. Flynn. Vol. 6 (Mar 231903
25The Ignatz Flo­rio Co-Operative Asso­ci­a­tion Among Cor­leone­si. Cer­tifi­cate of Incor­po­ra­tion. 1902
Critch­ley. The Ori­gin of Orga­nized Crime in Amer­i­ca. 46
26NARA, RG 87, DRA. William J. Flynn. Vol. 28 (Nov 22, 1909
Flynn. The Bar­rel Mys­tery. 30, 184
NARA, RG 87, DRA. William J. Flynn (Feb 10, 1913) State­ment of Sal­va­tore Cina
Cen­tral Union Gas Co. vs Brown­ing (1911)
John A. Philbrick vs “Ignatz Flo­rio Co-Operative Asso­ci­a­tion Among Cor­leone­si”, et al. (1908)
27Black, Jon (2014) The Gro­cery Con­spir­a­cy. https://www.gangrule.com/events/the-grocery-conspiracy
28El Paso Times (Apr 181903
29Con­fes­sion of Anto­nio Comi­to. Lawrence Richey Papers. Black Hand Con­fes­sions, 1910. Her­bert Hoover Pres­i­den­tial Library.
30New York Times (Mar 7, 8, 1906
Cer­tifi­cate of Incor­po­ra­tion of the Ignatz Flo­rio Co-operative Asso­ci­a­tion Among Cor­leone­si. 1902
The Wash­ing­ton Post (Mar 16, 1906) 1
The Sun (Mar 9, 16, 1906)
St Louis Post Dis­patch (Mar 31, 1907) 2
Chica­go Tri­bune (Apr 1, 1907) 5
Bis­bee Daily Review (Apr 21, 190711
31Con­fes­sion of Anto­nio Comito
32Con­fes­sion of Anto­nio Comito
33NARA, RG 87, DRA. Flynn. Vol.9 (Apr 261903
34The Philadel­phia Inquir­er (Jun 31912
35New York Her­ald. Jun 301912.
36Warn­er, San­ti­no, Van‘t Riet. Early New York Mafia An Alter­na­tive The­o­ry. 63 – 64 
“My ten biggest man hunts. William Flynn” Albu­querque Jour­nal (Mar 131922
37NARA, RG 87, DRA. New York. Vol. 76 (Dec 21921
38NARA, RG 87, DRA. New York. Vol. 80 (Oct 51922
39Critch­ley. The Ori­gin of Orga­nized Crime in Amer­i­ca. 155
 Warn­er, San­ti­no, Van‘t Riet. Early New York Mafia An Alter­na­tive The­o­ry. 6468
40NARA, RG 87, DRA. New York. Vol. 83 (Mar 201923
41NARA, RG 87, DRA. New York. Vol. 85 (Aug 28, 30, 1923) & (Sep 21, 251923
42Warn­er, San­ti­no, Van‘t Riet. Early New York Mafia An Alter­na­tive The­o­ry. 88 – 89
Critch­ley. The Ori­gin of Orga­nized Crime in Amer­i­ca. 157, 181, 185
Bonan­no, Joseph, and Ser­gio Lalli. A Man of Hon­our: the Auto­bi­og­ra­phy of a God­fa­ther. Deutsch, 1983. 100 (morel­lo 2nd in command) 
43New York Times (Aug 16, 1930) & (Apr 16, 19311
44U.S. Nation­al Archives and Records Admin­is­tra­tion, Record Group 204, 230/40/1/3 box 956 (Ignazio Lupo).
Brook­lyn Times Union Thu Jul 16 19362
45Trea­sury Men in Action. (Sep 11, 1950) The Case of Lupo the Wolf.
46St Louis Post Dis­patch (Feb 21, 19383A
47Critch­ley. The Ori­gin of Orga­nized Crime in Amer­i­ca. 50