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The Castellammarese War was a mob war fought between two major factions of the American Mafia: Joe Masseria's faction and Salvatore Maranzano's faction. The rivalry began in 1929, when Maranzano came to the United States from Sicily to seize control of New York City for his mafia clan, which was based in Castellammare del Golfo. The two sides fought over control of bootlegging operations, the heroin trade, and rackets in the city, and the war was fought as a series of mob hits and shootings. The Masseria family killed Gaetano Reina, leading to Maranzano killing Masseria's war chief Giuseppe Morello; Masseria killed Maranzano ally Joe Aiello, leading to the Maranzanos' murder of Alfred Mineo. As more and more Masseria allies were murdered, Masseria's own men plotted to betray him. Lucky Luciano arranged for Masseria to be murdered in exchange for taking over his operations as Maranzano's new second-in-command, and Masseria was gunned down by Albert Anastasia, Vito Genovese, Joe Adonis, and Bugsy Siegel while eating dinner with Luciano at a Coney Island restaurant. Maranzano reformed New York organized crime, creating Five Families; they were the families of Luciano (the Genovese crime family), Joseph Profaci (Colombo crime family), Tommy Gagliano (Lucchese crime family), Vincent Mangano (Gambino crime family), and Maranzano's own family (the Bonanno crime family). On 10 September 1931, almost five months after the end of the war, Maranzano himself was assassinated, ending the reign of the Sicilian "Mustache Petes" and beginning the rise of the American "Young Turks".

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