Frank Costello Research Paper

468 Words2 Pages

Grant Anderson
Mrs.Monk
History Through Media
13 October 2015
Frank “The Prime Minister” Costello Frank “The Prime Minister” Costello was born in Italy on January 26, 1891. Costello arrived to New York City with his Immigrant Caribbean Parents and grew up in East Harlem. Like many other immigrants and soon to be mobsters his father had been there for a couple years finding opportunity for work. Like so many of his New York cronies, Costello escaped the poverty of immigrant life by running booze. He came to be the head of the 104th Street Gang, a young group of Italian hoodlums. At the end of Prohibition, he invested in gambling enterprises, earning millions from slot machines and casinos. Frant went to prison in 1915 for carrying a concealed weapon. After his release he allied himself up with Lucky Luciano the head of the Luciano crime family. Throughout the 1920’s the gang branched out into bootlegging and gambling operations in New York, Florida, Louisiana, and other states. Frank …show more content…

He was known of the “Prime Minister of the Underworld” the amount of political pull he had in the democratic party he was choosing who he wanted to elect. At the same time of the arrest for Costello’s tax evasion his rival Vito Genovese. Started to take over New york and Costello’s Casinos, political contacts, and the bootlegging until the prohibition ended during the 1940’s. After his release from prison Costello survived a hit by Vincent "The Chin" Gigante the Genovese soldier in 1957. Frank Costello saw this as the time to retire. That same year, Costello was convicted of contempt of a grand jury. He would serve many sentences over the next several years. Vito "Don Vito" Genovese the one who ordered the hit on Costello, became the Luciano crime family 's new boss in 1957. After he came to power the “family” name was changed to the Genovese crime

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