100 Fun Facts About Mafia

What is the traditional code of silence that is a fundamental part of Mafia honor?

Omertà is an unwritten code of silence that dictates members must never reveal any information about Mafia activities or members to authorities or outsiders. Violating omertà results in severe repercussions, often including death.

What charge finally sent Al Capone to prison in the 1930s?

Tax evasion. Capone was convicted in October 1931 on five counts of federal income-tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years, a case built by Treasury agents rather than on his bootlegging or killings.

Which two New York Mafia bosses fought the early-1930s Castellammarese War?

Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano fought the 1930–31 Castellammarese War; Masseria was shot dead in a Coney Island restaurant in April 1931 and Maranzano was murdered that September.

What 1970 U.S. federal law was a significant tool for prosecuting organized crime figures?

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO Act) was enacted in 1970 and has been instrumental in allowing prosecutors to target and dismantle organized crime syndicates by focusing on patterns of criminal activity.

On which Mediterranean island is the Mafia organization widely believed to have originated?

The Sicilian Mafia, also known as Cosa Nostra, is an Italian criminal society and organization originating on the island of Sicily, dating back to the mid-19th century.

Who set up 'The Commission' in 1931 to govern the American Mafia by vote?

Lucky Luciano created the Commission in 1931 after Maranzano's murder, replacing the 'boss of all bosses' with a ruling panel of the five New York families plus Chicago's Al Capone and Buffalo's Stefano Magaddino.

What was the Gambino crime organisation originally called when the Five Families were set up in 1931?

Vincent Mangano ran it from 1931 until he disappeared in 1951, allegedly on the orders of his underboss Albert Anastasia.

Which director created The Godfather trilogy?

Francis Ford Coppola directed 'The Godfather' (1972), 'The Godfather Part II' (1974), and 'The Godfather Part III' (1990), films widely acclaimed for their depiction of a fictional Mafia family.

In an American Mafia family, the head is called 'the Don' or by what other nickname?

Godfather. The boss of an American Mafia family is the Don or Godfather; beneath him sit the underboss and the consigliere, while capos each run a crew of soldiers.

The 1980s 'Pizza Connection' trial exposed a heroin ring run through pizzerias, linking the Sicilian Mafia to which US city's crime families?

New York City, where the trial ran 17 months in Manhattan federal court, one of the longest in US history, with Rudy Giuliani's office prosecuting. The pizza parlours were fronts for moving heroin and cash.

Joseph Valachi's 1963 Senate testimony first publicly acknowledged which organization?

La Cosa Nostra. Valachi, serving life for killing a fellow inmate in 1962, told the Senate's McClellan Committee in October 1963 that the organization called itself 'Cosa Nostra', the first member ever to do so publicly.

Which Murder, Inc. hitman turned informer in 1941, then died falling from a Coney Island hotel window while under police guard?

Abe 'Kid Twist' Reles, 'the canary who could sing but couldn't fly', as the papers put it. His testimony sent several members to the electric chair; the group is believed to have carried out 400 to 1,000 killings.

In which year was Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, who vanished in July 1975, declared legally dead?

1982, seven years on, the traditional waiting period for a missing person. His body has never been found, and FBI wiretaps caught mobsters refusing to discuss the hit even in private.

Angelo Bruno, murdered in 1980 after 21 peaceful years as boss, ran which East Coast city?

Philadelphia, where Bruno was known as 'the Gentle Don' for keeping the peace, and where his shotgun murder set off a war for succession. The Commission had installed him in 1959.

Per the OED, the Mafia's code of silence may take its name from a rare Spanish word meaning what?

A rival theory traces it to the Latin humilitas, 'humility', though the word's geographical spread does not support that well.

In which year was mob boss Louis 'Lepke' Buchalter executed at Sing Sing?

1944. Buchalter, convicted of ordering the 1936 killing of garment trucker Joseph Rosen, died in Sing Sing's electric chair on 4 March 1944, the only major American mob boss ever executed.

Which of New York's Five Families was originally known by the name Gagliano?

Lucchese. Tommy Gagliano ran the family quietly from 1931 until his death in 1951, when his underboss Tommy Lucchese took over and the family was renamed for him.

Frank Lucas, who inspired 'American Gangster', operated mainly in which New York neighborhood?

Frank Lucas was an American drug lord who operated in Harlem, New York City, during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was known for establishing a direct drug pipeline from Southeast Asia.

In the Sicilian Mafia, what is a 'mandamento'?

A district of several neighbouring families. A mandamento groups roughly three adjacent Mafia families under a capomandamento, who holds a seat on the provincial commission above the individual family bosses.

Sociologist Diego Gambetta famously described the Sicilian Mafia as a cartel of what?

Private protection firms. In The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection (1993), Gambetta cast mafiosi as sellers of protection where the state fails to enforce contracts, with criminals as their most reliable clients.

Which Chicago gang leader retired in 1925 and handed his operation to Al Capone?

Johnny Torrio. After North Side gunmen nearly killed him in January 1925, Torrio retired and handed the Chicago Outfit to his 26-year-old protégé Al Capone.

A famous 1957 mob summit was raided by police in which small New York town?

Apalachin. On November 14, 1957, state troopers raided Joseph Barbara's estate at 625 McFall Road in Apalachin, and some 60 mafiosi were detained as others fled through the woods in their suits.

Under the RICO Act, how many years in prison can each count carry?

Up to 20 years. Each RICO count carries a maximum 20-year sentence, or life where the underlying racketeering act itself allows life, plus forfeiture of any property gained through the enterprise.

Which nickname did John Gotti earn after three 1980s trials ended in acquittals?

The Teflon Don, because charges never stuck through three acquittals between 1986 and 1990. The coating wore off in April 1992, when a jury needed about fourteen hours to convict him on every count.

Gambino boss Paul Castellano was shot dead in December 1985 outside which Manhattan restaurant?

Sparks Steak House on East 46th Street, where Castellano and underboss Thomas Bilotti were gunned down on 16 December 1985 as they arrived for dinner; John Gotti's crew organised the hit.

Which underboss turned state's evidence in November 1991 and testified against John Gotti?

Sammy 'the Bull' Gravano, Gotti's underboss, admitted nineteen murders yet entered witness protection after testifying in 1992, then blew his cover running an ecstasy ring in Arizona, where he was arrested in 2000.

John Gotti died in 2002 in a federal prison medical centre in which state?

Missouri. Gotti died of throat cancer at 61 on 10 June 2002 in the federal prison medical centre at Springfield, Missouri, ten years into the life sentence imposed in 1992.

Al Capone's 'Scarface' nickname came from a knife attack by whose brother?

A woman he had insulted: Frank Galluccio slashed Capone three times across the left cheek at Coney Island's Harvard Inn after Capone made a crude remark about Galluccio's sister Lena.

How many victims died in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929?

Seven. Gunmen dressed as police lined up seven men linked to Bugs Moran's North Side Gang against a garage wall at 2122 North Clark Street, Chicago, on 14 February 1929 and machine-gunned them.

Capone was moved to which newly opened federal penitentiary in August 1934?

Alcatraz. The island prison in San Francisco Bay took its first federal inmates in August 1934, and Capone arrived on 22 August that month, one of its earliest and most famous prisoners; he left in January 1939.

Which Las Vegas hotel-casino did Bugsy Siegel open, unfinished, on 26 December 1946?

The Flamingo. Siegel opened it half-built on 26 December 1946 with costs past $6 million; within minutes of his murder in June 1947, three of Meyer Lansky's associates walked in to announce new management.

Bugsy Siegel was killed in June 1947 by a sniper firing through the window of a mansion in which city?

Beverly Hills. Siegel was shot through the window of 810 North Linden Drive, the home of his girlfriend Virginia Hill, who was conveniently in Paris at the time.

Sicily's Maxi Trial of 1986-87 put how many mafiosi in the dock?

475 defendants stood trial from February 1986 to December 1987 in a purpose-built bunker courtroom beside Palermo's Ucciardone prison; 338 of them were convicted, many on the testimony of pentiti who had broken omertà.

Judge Giovanni Falcone was killed in 1992 by a highway bomb near which Sicilian town?

Capaci. On 23 May 1992 a bomb buried under the A29 motorway near Capaci killed Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo and three bodyguards; his colleague Paolo Borsellino died in a car bomb 57 days later.

Sicilian boss Bernardo Provenzano was finally arrested in 2006 after how many years on the run?

43 years. Provenzano had been a fugitive since 1963 when police found him on 11 April 2006 in a farmhouse outside Corleone, running the organisation through typewritten notes called pizzini.

Whom did Benito Mussolini appoint Prefect of Palermo in October 1925 to crush the Sicilian Mafia?

Cesare Mori, the 'Iron Prefect', besieged whole villages such as Gangi in 1926 and jailed thousands of suspects, which is why many mafiosi welcomed the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943.

Lucky Luciano was convicted in 1936 of what offence?

Compulsory prostitution: in June 1936 Luciano was convicted on 62 counts of running a vice ring and given 30 to 50 years, a sentence commuted in 1946 in return for deportation after his wartime help to the Navy.

Where did Lucky Luciano die of a heart attack in January 1962?

Naples Airport. Luciano collapsed with a heart attack at Capodichino on 26 January 1962 while meeting American producer Martin Gosch about a film of his life; he had lived in Italy since his 1946 deportation.

Which country did Meyer Lansky flee to in 1970 to escape tax-evasion charges?

Israel. Lansky arrived in 1970 and sought citizenship under the Law of Return, but Israel's Supreme Court refused him in 1972 and he was sent back to the United States; his estate at his 1983 death was modest.

Which character in The Godfather Part II is based on Meyer Lansky?

Hyman Roth, the ailing Miami gambler played by Lee Strasberg, was modelled on Lansky; Lansky reportedly phoned Strasberg afterwards to say he could have made him more sympathetic.

Boston mobster Whitey Bulger led which crew?

The Winter Hill Gang, the Somerville-rooted Irish-American crew Bulger came to dominate by the early 1980s; he was also an FBI informant from 1975, then spent 16 years as a fugitive before his 2011 arrest.

Which actor played Whitey Bulger in the 2015 film Black Mass?

Johnny Depp played Bulger in Black Mass (2015), with Joel Edgerton as FBI handler John Connolly; Jack Nicholson's Frank Costello in The Departed was only loosely inspired by Bulger.

Goodfellas is adapted from which 1985 nonfiction book?

Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family, Nicholas Pileggi's 1985 account of Lucchese associate Henry Hill, who spent 25 years in Paul Vario's crew; Pileggi co-wrote the screenplay with Martin Scorsese.

How many episodes of The Sopranos were made across its six seasons?

86 episodes ran on HBO from January 1999 to June 2007, when the finale cut to black mid-song; the series won 21 Primetime Emmys.

Which pork store served as a key location for Tony Soprano's crew?

Satriale's Pork Store in Kearny, New Jersey, was the crew's hangout and back-room office; the real storefront was demolished in 2007 after the show ended.

Which 1863 play about a Palermo prison gang is thought to have popularised the word 'Mafia'?

I mafiusi di la Vicaria, an 1863 Sicilian-dialect play by Giuseppe Rizzotto and Gaspare Mosca set in Palermo's Vicaria prison; oddly, the word 'mafia' never appears in the script, though it shows a boss, an initiation and omertà.

Which turncoat's 1984 testimony to Giovanni Falcone became the backbone of the Maxi Trial?

Tommaso Buscetta, extradited from Brazil in July 1984, gave Falcone the first insider account of Cosa Nostra's structure; he turned after the Corleonesi murdered many of his relatives, including two sons.

Which clan, led first by Luciano Leggio and then Salvatore Riina, won the Second Mafia War?

The Corleonesi, the clan from Corleone under Luciano Leggio and then Salvatore Riina, crushed the Palermo families of Bontade and Inzerillo in the 1981–83 war, leaving Riina as 'boss of bosses'.

In which year was Sicilian boss of bosses Salvatore 'Totò' Riina finally arrested in Palermo?

1993. Carabinieri seized Riina in Palermo traffic on 15 January 1993 after more than two decades as a fugitive; he died in custody in 2017 serving multiple life sentences.

Which Sicilian bandit carried out the 1947 Portella della Ginestra May Day massacre?

Salvatore Giuliano. His band opened fire on a May Day crowd at Portella della Ginestra on 1 May 1947, killing eleven; Mafia bosses and landowners were long suspected of backing the attack.

Judge Paolo Borsellino was killed by a car bomb on 19 July 1992 on which street?

Via D'Amelio, outside his mother's apartment block, where a car bomb killed Borsellino and five bodyguards, among them Emanuela Loi, the first Italian policewoman to die on duty, 57 days after Falcone.

Which Corleone boss was nicknamed 'the Tractor' for mowing down his enemies?

Bernardo Provenzano earned 'u tratturi', the Tractor, in the 1960s for cutting down rivals during Corleone's feud with Michele Navarra's faction; he later became 'the Accountant' for his quieter, business-first style.

Where was fugitive boss Matteo Messina Denaro finally arrested in January 2023?

A private clinic in Palermo: Messina Denaro was seized on 16 January 2023 at the La Maddalena clinic, where he had been receiving cancer treatment under a false name, after 30 years as a fugitive.

The 'Ndrangheta crime syndicate originated in which Italian region?

Calabria, the toe of Italy, where the 'Ndrangheta grew out of the 19th-century picciotteria; its name is traced to the Greek andragathía, 'manly virtue', and its basic units are 'ndrine.

Sacra Corona Unita, sometimes called the 'Fourth Mafia', is based in which region?

Apulia (Puglia). The Sacra Corona Unita was founded in 1983 by Giuseppe 'Pino' Rogoli while in prison and is strongest around Brindisi, Lecce and Taranto, trafficking across the Adriatic.

Albert Anastasia was shot dead in a Manhattan hotel in 1957 while doing what?

Getting a haircut. Two gunmen shot Anastasia in the barber's chair at the Park Sheraton Hotel on 25 October 1957; Carlo Gambino, who then took over the family, was widely believed to have arranged it.

Joe Colombo was shot in 1971 at an Italian Unity Day rally held where in Manhattan?

Columbus Circle, where Jerome Johnson shot Colombo three times at the 28 June 1971 rally of his Italian-American Civil Rights League; Colombo survived paralysed until his death in 1978.

Bonanno boss Carmine Galante's nickname 'Lilo' is Italian slang for what?

A stubby cigar: 'Lilo' came from the cheap cigars Galante always chewed. He was killed on Commission orders on 12 July 1979 as he finished lunch on the patio of a Bushwick restaurant, still clenching one.

Joseph Bonanno's 1983 autobiography was published under what title?

A Man of Honor, Bonanno's own 1983 memoir, which prosecutors later used to question him about the Commission; Gay Talese's 1971 Honor Thy Father, built on interviews with his son Bill, had angered him.

FBI agent Joseph Pistone infiltrated the Bonanno family under what alias?

Donnie Brasco, and Johnny Depp played him opposite Al Pacino in the 1997 film. J. Edgar Hoover had long resisted letting agents go undercover at all, for fear they would be corrupted.

Which Genovese boss feigned insanity for decades, earning the nickname 'the Oddfather'?

Vincent 'the Chin' Gigante wandered Greenwich Village in a bathrobe and slippers mumbling to himself, a performance dubbed the 'Bathrobe Defense'; in 2003 he admitted the insanity had been an act.

Frank Costello, who retired after being wounded in 1957, was known by what nickname?

The Prime Minister of the Underworld, for his political connections at Tammany Hall; after Vincent Gigante's bullet grazed his head in May 1957, Costello refused to identify him and soon ceded the family to Vito Genovese.

The 1950-51 Kefauver crime hearings were chaired by a senator from which state?

Tennessee. Senator Estes Kefauver's committee sat in 14 cities and heard more than 600 witnesses, and its televised 1951 New York sessions with Frank Costello gave millions their first glimpse of organised crime.

Roughly how much was stolen in the 1978 Lufthansa heist at JFK Airport?

About $5.9 million: $5 million in cash plus $875,000 in jewellery, taken from the Lufthansa cargo terminal at JFK on 11 December 1978, then the largest cash robbery in US history; Goodfellas dramatised it.

Who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Goodfellas (1990)?

Joe Pesci, whose acceptance speech was five words: 'It's my privilege. Thank you.' The film had six nominations, and his was its only win.

Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather was first published in which year?

1969. Puzo's novel came out in March 1969 and spent 67 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list; it is credited with introducing consigliere, caporegime and omertà to English readers.

Who appeared at the 1973 Oscars to decline Marlon Brando's award for The Godfather?

Sacheen Littlefeather, an actress and activist, took the stage in Brando's place on 27 March 1973; he boycotted in protest at Hollywood's treatment of Native Americans, declining his second Best Actor Oscar after On the Waterfront.

Casino's Ace Rothstein is based on Frank Rosenthal, who ran which Las Vegas casino?

The Stardust. Rosenthal ran the Stardust and its sister Argent casinos for the Chicago Outfit in the mid-1970s despite never holding a gaming licence; the film renames it the Tangiers.

Sam Giancana was shot dead in 1975 days before he was due to testify to which Senate body?

The Church Committee, then probing CIA–Mafia collusion in plots to kill Fidel Castro; Giancana was shot in the basement kitchen of his Oak Park, Illinois home on 19 June 1975, days before his appearance.

Dutch Schultz was fatally shot at the Palace Chop House in 1935 in which New Jersey city?

The Commission ordered the hit after Schultz defied it by plotting to kill prosecutor Thomas Dewey; he died the next day.

Which gambler, nicknamed 'The Brain', was widely accused of fixing the 1919 World Series?

Arnold Rothstein, 'The Brain', bankrolled the 1919 Black Sox fix in the popular telling; he mentored Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky and was shot in November 1928, reputedly over an unpaid poker debt.

The December 1946 mob summit in Havana, convened by Lucky Luciano, met at which hotel?

Luciano had slipped into Cuba on an Italian passport after a coded note reading 'December-Hotel Nacional' reached him in exile.

Which Corleonesi hitman pressed the detonator that killed Judge Falcone in May 1992?

Giovanni Brusca, who confessed to between 100 and 200 murders for Riina, set off the motorway charge by remote control; in January 1996 he had turncoat's son Giuseppe Di Matteo, 14, strangled and dissolved in acid.

Salvo Lima, a politician murdered by the Mafia in 1992, had been mayor of which city?

Palermo, where Lima was mayor in 1958–63 and 1965–68 during the 'Sack of Palermo' building boom; a Christian Democrat close to Giulio Andreotti, he was shot on 12 March 1992 as Cosa Nostra turned on its political friends.

Activist Peppino Impastato, murdered in 1978, mocked the Cinisi boss through what medium?

A pirate radio station: on his free station Radio Aut, Impastato lampooned Cinisi boss Gaetano Badalamenti as 'Tano Seduto'; he was murdered on 9 May 1978, and the 2000 film I cento passi told his story.

Libero Grassi, killed in 1991 for publicly refusing to pay pizzo, made what products?

Underwear and pyjamas. Grassi's Sigma factory in Palermo employed about 100 people; after his open letter 'Dear Extortionist' ran in the Giornale di Sicilia in January 1991, he was shot dead that August.

The Addiopizzo movement launched in 2004 with stickers designed to mimic what?

Obituary notices. In June 2004 a group of graduates planning to open a pub pasted death-notice-style stickers across Palermo overnight, reading 'A whole people that pays pizzo is a people without dignity'.

Mafia banker Michele Sindona died in prison in 1986 after drinking coffee laced with what?

Potassium cyanide. Sindona, 'The Shark', drank the poisoned coffee in Voghera prison on 20 March 1986, two days after a life sentence for ordering the murder of liquidator Giorgio Ambrosoli, and died two days later.

'God's Banker' Roberto Calvi was found hanging beneath which London bridge in 1982?

Calvi belonged to the P2 masonic lodge, whose members called themselves 'black friars', fuelling theories the location was a symbolic warning.

Which 2006 book by Roberto Saviano exposed organised crime in Naples?

Gomorrah (2006), Saviano's account of the Camorra's Casalesi clan, whose death threats put him under police escort from October 2006; Matteo Garrone's film followed in 2008 and a TV series ran from 2014 to 2021.

In the 1986 Mafia Commission Trial, most convicted bosses received how many years?

100 years. In January 1987 Judge Richard Owen sentenced bosses Anthony Salerno, Carmine Persico and Tony Corallo and most of their co-defendants to 100 years, effectively life for men in their 60s and 70s.

Which prosecutor, later a presidential candidate, personally tried Lucky Luciano in 1936?

Assistant DA Eunice Carter built the prostitution case; a decade later Dewey, as governor, commuted the sentence on condition of deportation.

Vito Genovese, namesake of a Five Family, died in 1969 where?

In federal prison: Genovese died of a heart attack on 14 February 1969 while serving the 15-year narcotics sentence imposed in 1959, having run the family from behind bars for a decade.

Who won his only Oscar as Jim Malone, the veteran Irish cop who teaches Eliot Ness 'the Chicago way' in The Untouchables?

Sean Connery, playing an Irish beat cop with an unmistakable Scottish accent, which the Academy forgave. Brian De Palma directed from a David Mamet script.

The party game Mafia (aka Werewolf) was created in 1986 by a student at which university?

Moscow State University, where psychology student Dmitry Davidoff devised the game in spring 1986; it spread from classrooms to dorms and summer camps across the Soviet Union before reaching the West in the 1990s.

Las Vegas's Mob Museum, which opened in 2012, is housed in a former what?

Post office and courthouse. The 1933 federal building, which hosted a Kefauver hearing in 1950, was sold to the city for $1; the museum opened on 14 February 2012, the anniversary of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

Al Capone died in 1947, his mind ruined by syphilis, at a Palm Island mansion in which state?

Florida: he had bought the house between Miami and Miami Beach in 1928 from Clarence Busch of the Anheuser-Busch brewing family, for $40,000. Neurosyphilis had left the former boss of Chicago badly debilitated.

The 1986 TV special 'The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults' was shot at which Chicago hotel?

The Lexington Hotel on South Michigan Avenue, Capone's headquarters from 1928 until his 1931 conviction; Geraldo Rivera's live special drew about 30 million viewers to find empty bottles and dirt, and the building came down in 1995.

Meyer Lansky, the mob's money man, spent his final decade quietly in which city, dying there of lung cancer in 1983?

Miami Beach, in a modest home, and despite legends of a hidden fortune he held few assets in his own name and left no substantial estate. The man who supposedly kept the mob's books died looking poor on paper.

Jimmy Hoffa was last seen in 1975 outside a Machus Red Fox restaurant near which city?

Detroit. The Machus Red Fox in suburban Bloomfield Township, where his son's wedding reception had been held, was where Hoffa waited on 30 July 1975 for a meeting with mobsters; his body has never been found.

How many Italian Americans were lynched by a New Orleans mob in March 1891?

11 men. On 14 March 1891 a mob stormed the Parish Prison after a jury failed to convict Italians accused of killing police chief David Hennessy, one of the largest mass lynchings in US history.

Joseph Petrosino, assassinated in Sicily in 1909, was a detective with which force?

The NYPD. Lieutenant Petrosino, head of its Italian Squad, was shot in Palermo's Piazza Marina on 12 March 1909 after being lured to a night-time rendezvous; he had earlier investigated the 1903 'barrel murder'.

Early-1900s extortion letters to Italian immigrants were typically signed with what name?

The Black Hand (La Mano Nera). The first reported case came in Brooklyn in 1903, when contractor Nicola Cappiello was told his house would be dynamited unless he paid $1,000.

Cleveland's Danny Greene was killed by a car bomb in 1977 right after visiting whom?

His dentist. On 6 October 1977 Greene left a dental appointment in Lyndhurst, Ohio, and a bomb in the car parked beside his was detonated; the film Kill the Irishman (2011) tells the story.

Angelo Bruno, the 'Docile Don', was killed by a shotgun blast in 1980 while sitting where?

In his car outside his home on Snyder Avenue on 21 March 1980, by a shotgun blast through the passenger window; driver John Stanfa was wounded, and the killing set off years of bloodshed in the family.

Which nickname did Chicago boss Tony Accardo pick up from a fishing trip?

Big Tuna, after a huge tuna he landed on a fishing trip; Accardo steered the Chicago Outfit as boss or elder statesman from the late 1940s until his death in 1992.

After 16 years on the run, Whitey Bulger was arrested in 2011 in which city?

Santa Monica, California, where agents arrested Bulger and girlfriend Catherine Greig outside their Princess Eugenia apartment on 22 June 2011; he had spent 12 years on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.

Which boss, 'The Last Don', was the first Five Families boss to turn state's evidence?

Joseph Massino, dubbed 'The Last Don' as the only New York boss then free, was convicted in July 2004 after his brother-in-law Salvatore Vitale testified, then flipped, the first sitting Five Families boss to cooperate.

Tommy Lucchese's hated nickname 'Three-Finger Brown' compared his hand to a famous what?

A baseball pitcher: Mordecai 'Three Finger' Brown, the Chicago Cubs ace who pitched with a maimed right hand. A police officer made the comparison when booking Lucchese, who had lost a finger in a machine-shop accident, and the alias stuck.

Tony Soprano's crew belongs to which fictional crime family?

DiMeo crime family, named for jailed boss Ercole 'Eckley' DiMeo in David Chase's HBO series; Tony runs it as acting boss, while the Lupertazzis are the rival New York family.