Corleonesi network (New York City)
 Giuseppe Morello in 1902; the network extended through kin, paesani and criminal associates | |
| Origins | |
|---|---|
| Founding Location | New York City |
| Territory | East Harlem, Manhattan Lower Manhattan |
| Lineage | |
| Successor(s) | Morello crime family (through the Morello–Terranova organization) |
| Profile | |
| Structure | Paesani, kinship and criminal network |
| Activities | Counterfeiting Extortion (secondary) Violence protecting criminal operations |
| Politics | |
| Leader | Giuseppe Morello (principal New York figure) |
| Notable Members | Marco Macaluso Antonio Cecala Giuseppe and Ciro Terranova |
| Activity | |
| Status | Developed into a more formal Mafia organization |
| Years Active | c. 1901–1910 (visible criminal network; migration antecedents in the 1890s) |
| Dissolution Cause | Federal convictions and organizational reconfiguration |
The Corleonesi network is a retrospective description for hometown, kinship and criminal relationships connecting Sicilian immigrants from Corleone in New York. Scholarly evidence is strongest for a visible network from approximately 1901 to 1910, with migration and criminal antecedents in the 1890s. It formed an important base for Giuseppe Morello's organization but was not a self-named gang, and Corleonese origin alone did not establish Mafia membership. Historian Salvatore Lupo uses paesani—fellow countrymen or townsmen—for people tied to Morello, rather than identifying a formal “compaesani organization.”[1]
Migration and organization
[edit]Giuseppe Morello was born in Corleone in 1867 and reached the United States in the early 1890s. His relatives and paesani moved through New York, Louisiana and Texas before the family established itself in Manhattan.[2] An early cluster occupied streets around Prince, Elizabeth, Chrystie, Mott, Mulberry and Stanton before activity shifted toward East Harlem. The Ignatz Florio Co-operative Association of Corleonesi, incorporated in December 1902 at 630 East 138th Street, connected Morello, Marco Macaluso, Antonio Milone and other Corleonese businessmen through tenement investment and construction.[3] Its business and hometown relationships are evidence of collective identity, but not proof that every participant joined Morello's crimes.
Morello's principal documented enterprise was counterfeiting. His operation drew heavily on trusted Corleonesi: Antonio Cecala acted as a principal distributor, while printers and other specialists participated alongside relatives and associates from additional Sicilian towns.[4] Black Hand extortion was secondary in Critchley's reconstruction and was greatly magnified by contemporary authorities and newspapers. The membership was not exclusively Corleonese, and the paesani network should not be mistaken for a complete membership chart or a “vast criminal network with Morello at its core.”[2]
Sicilian and New York connections
[edit]Italian investigations connected Morello with the Corleone Mafia cosca associated with Paolino Streva and other Sicilian men of respect.[2] In New York, Morello's family relationship with Palermo-born Ignazio Lupo brought the Corleonesi into sustained cooperation with the Palermitani network. The resulting Morello–Lupo organization engaged in counterfeiting, extortion and violence until federal convictions removed Morello, Lupo and several associates in 1910.
The surviving organization splintered and reconfigured after those convictions. The Terranova brothers' later East Harlem circle is sometimes called the 107th Street Mob, although that label describes a neighborhood phase of the Morello–Terranova formation rather than a wholly separate successor. Later New York Mafia families retained Corleonese members and kinship links, but that personal continuity does not make every later faction the same paesani network. Critchley also cautions that early Sicily–America contacts were generally individual and fraternal rather than evidence that the New York group was commanded from Corleone.[5]
References
[edit]- ↑ Salvatore Lupo, The Two Mafias: A Transatlantic History, 1888–2008 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), pp. 21–27.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 David Critchley, The Origin of Organized Crime in America: The New York City Mafia, 1891–1931 (New York: Routledge, 2009), pp. 37–60.
- ↑ Critchley, Origin of Organized Crime, pp. 45–46, 54–56.
- ↑ Critchley, Origin of Organized Crime, pp. 39–55.
- ↑ Critchley, Origin of Organized Crime, pp. 69–71.