On this day, April 15, in 1951, Vincent Mangano, founder of one of the modern Five Families mob organizations, disappeared, making way for the ruthless Albert Anastasia to take the helm of the family.
The Mangano crime family eventually evolved into the Gambino crime family.
Mangano was an old-school boss, one of the “Mustache Petes” committed to maintaining the Sicilian criminal ways.
Mangano grew jealous of his longtime underboss Anastasia, who was also the head of Murder Inc., the infamous gang of hired assassins. Anastasia also favored the new generation of Italian mobsters eager to expand the mafia.
Anastasia is believed to have killed Mangano and his brother, Philip, and convinced the other families that Mangano was planning to kill him first.
Anastasia was murdered six years later while sitting in a barber’s chair.
-Scott McCabe
