Mineo Gang
| Origins | |
|---|---|
| Founding Location | New York City |
| Territory | Brooklyn Connections in Manhattan |
| Lineage | |
| Predecessor(s) | Palermitani network |
| Successor(s) | D'Aquila organization (incorporated after an accord, c. 1913) |
| Profile | |
| Structure | Palermitani Mafia faction |
| Activities | Counterfeiting associations Factional violence and murder allegations |
| Politics | |
| Leader | Manfredi “Alfred” Mineo |
| Activity | |
| Status | Ceased to be separately identifiable |
| Years Active | 1911–c. 1913 (as a reported separate faction) |
| Dissolution Cause | Accord and incorporation into D'Aquila's borgata |
The Mineo Gang is a conventional name for an early Mafia faction associated with Palermo-born Manfredi “Alfred” Mineo after his arrival in New York in 1911. David Critchley says Mineo was “allegedly commanding a third faction,” while Nicolo Gentile later identified him as part of Salvatore D'Aquila's borgata.[1] Specialist research based on Secret Service informant Salvatore Clemente's 1912 reports describes a separately led “Brooklyn Manfredi Gang.”[2] The phrase is an official-source description rather than evidence that members publicly adopted it as a formal name.
Formation and Palermitani origin
Mineo was born in Palermo in 1880 and belonged to the wider Palermitani milieu that shaped several New York Mafia coalitions. Regional origin supplied contacts and affinity but did not automatically establish membership or subordination.
Soon after arriving, Mineo was questioned after visiting suspected counterfeiter Carmelo Cordaro. Secret Service reporting later connected Mineo and a Harlem group around Nick Morello to the 1913 killing of Giuseppe Fontana; the report treated the homicide as part of factional conflict.[1] These were investigative associations and allegations, not convictions establishing every member or a formal Mineo command structure.
Accord with D'Aquila
Critchley concludes that Mineo appears to have reached an accord with Salvatore D'Aquila around 1913. Gentile's later account placed Mineo in the D'Aquila borgata.[3] “Absorbed” is useful shorthand for the faction's loss of separate identity, but the evidence supports negotiated incorporation more clearly than conquest.
Mineo's early faction should be distinguished from his later position. After D'Aquila was killed in 1928, Mineo became leader of the former D'Aquila organization, then an ally of Giuseppe Masseria. That later Mineo-led family was the successor administration of D'Aquila's borgata—not a revival of a separately constituted 1911 Mineo Gang.[4]
Mineo and Stefano Ferrigno were killed during the Castellammarese War in 1930. Frank Scalise and then Vincent Mangano subsequently led reorganized successor formations.
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. 36, 156–157.
- ↑ “The Struggle for Control, 1910–1918”, Gang Rule, citing National Archives Secret Service daily reports.
- ↑ Critchley, Origin of Organized Crime, p. 157.
- ↑ Critchley, Origin of Organized Crime, pp. 174, 184–187.