Million Bucks in Suitcase | Boardwalk Empire
Channel: RELTO
Date: 26/12/2022

With the death of Maranzano, Luciano became the dominant crime boss in the United States. He had reached the pinnacle of the underworld of the United States, setting policies and directing activities along with the other Mafia bosses. His own crime family controlled lucrative criminal rackets in New York City such as illegal gambling, extortion, bookmaking, loansharking, and drug trafficking. Luciano became very influential in labor union activities and controlled the Manhattan Waterfront, garbage hauling, construction, Garment District businesses, and trucking.

Although there would have been few objections had Luciano declared himself capo di tutti capi, he abolished the title, believing the position created trouble between the families and made himself a target for another ambitious challenger.[36] Instead, Luciano chose to quietly maintain control through the Commission by forging unofficial alliances with other bosses. However, Luciano did not discard all of Maranzano's changes. He believed that the ceremony of becoming a "made man" in a crime family was a Sicilian anachronism. However, Genovese persuaded Luciano to keep the title, arguing that young people needed rituals to promote obedience to the family. Luciano remained committed to omertà, the oath of silence, to protect the families from legal prosecution. In addition, he kept Maranzano's structure of five crime families in New York City.[25]

Luciano elevated his most trusted Italian associates to high-level positions in what was now the Luciano crime family. Genovese became underboss and Costello consigliere. Adonis, Michael "Trigger Mike" Coppola, Anthony Strollo, Willie Moretti and Anthony Carfano all served as caporegimes. Because Lansky and Siegel were non-Italians, neither man could hold official positions within any Mafia family. However, Lansky was a top advisor to Luciano and Siegel a trusted associate.

Later in 1931, Luciano called a meeting in Chicago with various bosses, where he proposed a Commission to serve as the governing body for organized crime.[37] Designed to settle all disputes and decide which families controlled which territories, the Commission has been called Luciano's greatest innovation.[25] Luciano's goals with the Commission were to quietly maintain his own power over all the families, and to prevent future gang wars; the bosses approved the idea of the Commission.[38]

The Commission was originally composed of representatives of the Five Families of New York City, the Buffalo crime family, and the Chicago Outfit; later, the crime families of Philadelphia and Detroit were added, with smaller families being formally represented by a Commission family.[38] The Commission also provided representation for Jewish criminal organizations in New York.[39]

The group's first test came in 1935, when it ordered Dutch Schultz to drop his plans to murder Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey. Luciano argued that a Dewey assassination would precipitate a massive law enforcement crackdown; the national crime syndicate had enacted a hard and fast rule stating that law enforcement and prosecutors were not to be harmed. An enraged Schultz said he would kill Dewey anyway and walked out of the meeting.[40] Murder, Inc leader Albert Anastasia approached Luciano with information that Schultz had asked him to stake out Dewey's apartment building on Fifth Avenue. Upon hearing the news, the Commission held a discreet meeting to discuss the matter. After six hours of deliberations the Commission ordered Lepke Buchalter to eliminate Schultz.[41][42] On October 23, 1935, before he could kill Dewey, Schultz was shot in a tavern in Newark, New Jersey, and succumbed to his injuries the following day.[43][44]

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