Corleonesi network (New York City)
 Giuseppe Morello in 1902; the network extended through kin, compaesani and criminal associates | |
| Origins | |
|---|---|
| Founding Location | New York City |
| Territory | East Harlem, Manhattan Lower Manhattan |
| Profile | |
| Structure | Compaesani, kinship and criminal network |
| Activities | Counterfeiting Extortion Fraud Murder |
| 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. 1892–1910 (formative network) |
| Dissolution Cause | Federal convictions and organizational reconfiguration |
The Corleonesi network is a retrospective description for the hometown, kinship and criminal relationships connecting Sicilian immigrants from Corleone in New York during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 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.
Migration and organization
Giuseppe Morello was born in Corleone in 1867 and reached the United States in the early 1890s. His relatives and compaesani moved through New York, Louisiana and Texas before the family established itself in East Harlem.[1] Business and family institutions—including the Ignatz Florio Co-operative Association—helped immigrants from Corleone obtain work, housing and credit while also connecting men later implicated in Morello's criminal operations.[2]
Morello's counterfeiting network 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.[3] The membership was therefore not exclusively Corleonese, and the compaesani network should not be mistaken for the complete membership chart of the later Morello organization.
Sicilian and New York connections
Italian investigations connected Morello with the Corleone Mafia cosca associated with Paolino Streva and other Sicilian men of respect.[1] 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. Later New York Mafia families retained Corleonese members and kinship links, but that personal continuity does not make every later faction the same compaesani 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.[4]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 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. 54–56.
- ↑ Critchley, Origin of Organized Crime, pp. 46–55.
- ↑ Critchley, Origin of Organized Crime, pp. 69–71.