Schiro crime family
 Nicolo “Cola” Schiro in a 1923 United States passport photograph | |
| Origins | |
|---|---|
| Founding Location | Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York City |
| Territory | Williamsburg and Brooklyn |
| Lineage | |
| Predecessor(s) | Williamsburg Gang (formative DiGaetano-led phase) Castellammaresi network |
| Successor(s) | Maranzano family Bonanno crime family |
| Profile | |
| Structure | Sicilian Mafia borgata heavily oriented toward Castellammarese kinship networks |
| Activities | Counterfeiting associations (early phase) Extortion and protection Bootlegging Vendetta violence and murder |
| Politics | |
| Leader | Sebastiano DiGaetano (reported c. 1909/10–1912) Nicolo “Cola” Schiro (1912–1930) |
| Notable Members | Vito Bonventre Stefano Magaddino Bartolo DiGregorio Gaspar Milazzo Giuseppe Bonanno |
| Activity | |
| Status | Reorganized under Maranzano and Bonanno |
| Years Active | c. 1909–1930 (DiGaetano and Schiro leadership period) |
The Schiro crime family was an early Sicilian-American Mafia borgata based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Historians conventionally name it for Nicolo “Cola” Schiro, who led from 1912 to 1930, but the organization appears to have taken form before his accession under Sebastiano DiGaetano.[1]
Formation
[edit]David Critchley describes the family as exclusively Sicilian and heavily attuned to interrelated mafiosi from Castellammare del Golfo. Kinship and birthplace ties developed as immigrants settled near one another in Williamsburg, while links extended to Castellammarese networks in Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago and other cities.[2] The Gaspar Milazzo faction in Detroit maintained strong links to Schiro's milieu but operated as an independent local group. This structure arose from migration and recruitment, not from a documented corporate merger of blood families or routine command over every out-of-town formation.
Warner, Santino and Van't Reit cautiously date Sebastiano DiGaetano's leadership of the formative Williamsburg organization to approximately 1909 or 1910. Schiro succeeded him in March 1912.[1] The former “Schiro Gang” label is therefore best understood as an imprecise name spanning the transition rather than a separate organization that merged to create the family.
Good Killers and family networks
[edit]The Magaddino and Bonventre families were blood and marriage networks from Castellammare del Golfo. Particular members became important mafiosi and supplied interstate relationships, but the families themselves were not criminal organizations that formally merged into Schiro's borgata.
The 1921 Good Killers investigation exposed vendetta and kinship connections involving members or associates from these families. Hunt and Tona interpret the Good Killers as a crew or enforcement arm within a wider Castellammarese formation, while Critchley states that the evidence does not prove such an enforcement-arm relationship.[3][4]
Consequently, the family is not described as the product of a four-way merger among a Schiro gang, Good Killers, Magaddinos and Bonventres. The evidence supports an existing Williamsburg borgata drawing personnel from overlapping Castellammarese migration, blood-family and criminal networks.
Later succession
[edit]Schiro left the field around 1930 amid pressure from Giuseppe Masseria. Salvatore Maranzano assumed control of the existing family during the Castellammarese War. After Maranzano's 1931 murder, Giuseppe Bonanno inherited the surviving organization, conventionally beginning its Bonanno phase.[5]
This succession involved leadership change and wartime reorganization. “Schiro,” “Maranzano” and “Bonanno” are conventional leadership labels, not evidence that an entirely new corporation was created at each transition.
References
[edit]- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Richard Warner, Angelo Santino and Lennert Van't Reit, “Early New York Mafia: An Alternative Theory”, Informer: The History of American Crime and Law Enforcement, May 2014, pp. 52–61.
- ↑ David Critchley, The Origin of Organized Crime in America: The New York City Mafia, 1891–1931 (New York: Routledge, 2009), pp. 212–230.
- ↑ Thomas Hunt and Michael A. Tona, “The Good Killers: 1921's Glimpse of the Mafia”.
- ↑ Critchley, Origin of Organized Crime, pp. 218–223.
- ↑ Critchley, Origin of Organized Crime, pp. 178–191.