Nicola Gentile

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cover of Nicola Gentile memoirs "Vita Di Capomafia"
Cover of Nicola Gentile memoirs "Vita Di Capomafia"

Nicola Gentile (Siculiana, June 12, 1885 - November 6, 1966) was a Sicilian mafioso and an organized crime figure in New York City during the 1920s and 30s. He was also known for publishing his memoirs which, violating the mafiosi code known as omerta, revealed many details of the Sicilian underworld. Gentile was born in Siculiana, a small village on the south coast of Sicily in the province of Agrigento. He immigrated to the United States arriving in New York at age 18, in 1903. Gentile fled the country in 1937 while out on US$ 15 000 bail after an arrest for heroin trafficking and returned to Sicily to become a boss in the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. In the US he was known as "Nick" and in Sicily as "Zu Cola" (Uncle Cola).

Contents

[edit] Arrival in the United States

After Nick Gentile arrived in the United States from Sicily in 1903 he quickly associated with the Black Hand during the early 1900s, Gentile would become a leader in America's early mafia and would later serve as a confidant for New York mobsters throughout the early part of the 20th century up until the Castellammarese War and the subsequent formation of New York's Five Families under Charles "Lucky" Luciano in 1931. Gentile traveled the country as a troubleshooter and negotiator, known as the messaggero or substituto, relaying messages between crime families and mediating disputes and became part of New York Mafia Family led by Vincent Mangano and Joe Biondo, which later became known as the Gambino Family.[1]

During Prohibition, Gentile was briefly involved in bootlegging as head of criminal syndicates in Kansas City, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. In 1920 there is an attempt made on Gentile's life by his rival in Cleveland, mafia boss Joseph "Big Joe" Lonardo. Gentile leaves for Sicily, but not before he meets with his New York allies. He decides to align himself with New York mafia bosses Umberto "Rocco" Valenti and Salvatore Mauro against Salvatore "Totò" D'Aquila and Joe Lonardo who back mafia boss, Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria in his bid to gain control of the Morello crime family in which Rocco Valenti and Joe Masseria are both high level members.[citation needed]

Gentile returns to the United States after several months in Sicily. His allies Mauro and Valenti are gunned down by Masseria forces in 1920 and 1922 ending the conflict and making Joe Masseria one of the top mafia bosses in New York. Gentile continues his criminal career in New York now aligning himself with the crime group of Charles "Lucky" Luciano which includes Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, along with Jewish allies Meyer Lansky and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.[2] Gentile becomes involved with Luciano's narcotics operations as a liaison between Sicilian and Italian-American drug traffickers before his arrest in New Orleans in 1937. Soon after his arrest Gentile fled the country while out on US$ 15 000 bail and returned to Sicily.

[edit] Return to Sicily

In Sicily, Gentile rose to a high level position in the Sicilian Mafia. Nick Gentile's power and influence grew after the invasion of Sicily in 1943 (Operation Husky as he helped the military set up its civil administration – the American Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT) – in the Agrigento province and became involved in intelligence and the Sicilian separatist movement. Later he became an important canvasser for politicians from the Christian Democrat party (DC – Democrazia Cristiana), who quarrelled for his support.[1]

Gentile later supported Christian Democrat Giuseppe La Loggia, who would become president of the autonomous region of Sicily from 1956-58, and is the father of Enrico La Loggia, a member of Forza Italia and a minister in the second government of Silvio Berlusconi.

When Lucky Luciano was extradited to Italy in 1946 he once again teamed up with Gentile in organizing drug routes to the US. Gentile had very good connections with well-known drug traffickers in Sicily. His son was married to the daughter of Pietro Davì, one of the leading figures in cigarette smuggling and illicit drug trade in Palermo in the 1950s.

Gentile provided information to the KGB, through journalist Leonid Kolosov, during the Cold War[3] and remained a prominent figure in the Sicilian underworld throughout 1960s.

[edit] Memoirs

In 1963 Gentile wrote down his memoirs, "Vita Di Capomafia", with the help of Italian journalist Felice Chilanti. This forgotten book already describes the internal organization of the Mafia, or "l'onorata società" (the Honoured Society) as Gentile calls it, more than 20 years before Tommaso Buscetta emerged as the first pentito who broke with omertà and told Cosa Nostra's inside story. Gentile was already more explicit than Buscetta in his first confessions. Gentile undiffidently talked about his links with politicians for whom he acted as a canvasser.

The FBI used Gentile's information to corroborate the testimony of former mobster turned government informant Joe Valachi in 1963. The memoirs were shown to American Mafia turncoat Joe Valachi who vouched for its accuracy and said Gentile 'wrote just the way it is'.[4][5]

Gentile's fellow mafiosi didn't appreciate his candor and sentenced him to death, but the Catania Mafia clan who had to kill him declined to do so, according to pentito Antonio Calderone. At the end of his days, Gentile was a pitiful figure who only survived through the pasta which his neighbours gave him.[6]

[edit] Biography

  • (Italian) Gentile, Nick & Felice Chilanti (1963), Vito di capomafia, Rome: Editori Riuniti.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b The Rothschilds of the Mafia on Aruba, by Tom Blickman, Transnational Organized Crime, Vol. 3, No. 2, Summer 1997
  2. ^ The American Mafia: Mafia Chronology Section III 1920-31, by Thomas P. Hunt, 2002-07
  3. ^ KGB spies' book reveals stories behind espionage, Associated Press, October 1, 1998
  4. ^ Messick, Lansky, p.49
  5. ^ Mafioso's memoirs support Valachi’s testimony, New York Times, April 11, 1971
  6. ^ (Italian) Arlacchi, Gli uomini del disonore, p. 158 ; Dickie, Cosa Nostra, p. 231.
  • (Italian) Arlacchi, Pino (1992). Gli uomini del disonore. La mafia siciliana nella vita del grande pentito Antonio Calderone, Milan: Mondadori ISBN 88-04-35326-0
  • (Italian) Caruso, Alfio (2000). Da cosa nasce cosa. Storia della mafia del 1943 a oggi, Milan: Longanesi ISBN 88-304-1620-7
  • Dickie, John (2004). Cosa Nostra. A history of the Sicilian Mafia, London: Coronet, ISBN 0-340-82435-2
  • Messick, Hank (1973). Lansky. London: Robert Hale & Company, ISBN 0-7091-3966-7
  • Scott, Peter Dale (1993). Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. Berkeley: University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-08410-1

[edit] External links