Ppia In The 1920's

The passing of the eighteenth amendment provided an opportunity for Lucania to recruit some new meat. Lucania became one of the “Big Six” of bootlegging along with Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel (“Luciano”, n.d.). His bootlegging gang grew throughout the 1920’s. Lucania and his friends recruited new Jewish gang members, including Louis “Lepke” Buchalter, nicknamed “Lepke” by his mother, Abner “Longie” Zwillman, another Jew, and Zwillman’s partner, Willie Moretti (Gosch, 1975). These unscrupulous characters dominated the illegal liquor trade on the East Coast (“Luciano”, n.d.). Lucania was also an associate of Arnold Rothstein, also known as the Big Bankroll, who had bootlegging and gambling operations (“Luciano, n.d.). As Lucania was becoming more popular, he was recruited as a gunman by crime boss, Joe Masseria.
The recruitment to Joe Masseria’s gang, resulted in jealousy from another crime boss competing for Lucania’s attention, Salvatore Maranzano. There was no letup of the pressure from both Salvatore Maranzano and Joe “the Boss” Masseria for Lucania to make a decision and join one or the other (Gosch, 1975). Charles was sure that sooner or later, more sooner than later, Maranzano and Masseria would have a war (Gosch, 1975). The two would never be happy until one of them got rubbed out (Gosch, 1975). “To me, the whole thing was a matter of …show more content…
With his rivals vanquished, Luciano focused on improving how criminal gangs did business. He sought to create a national organized-crime network to quell any conflicts, manage disputes, and establish guidelines between the different operations. In addition to the heads of the five families, he brought in other crime figures from across the country including Chicago’s, Al Capone. This new entity, sometimes known as the Commission, took organized crime to a new