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Frank Vinci

Franco "Frank" Vinci (1885–) was the Don of the Vinci crime family, one of the oldest and most powerful Mafia families in New York City. A revered and influential boss, Vinci was known for his low-key attitude and firm grip on illegal businesses along with his consigliere Leo Galante. He headed his organization during two gang wars, one during the 1930s against the rival Moretti family and another in 1951 with the New York City Triads.

Biography[]

Vinci was born to an Italian family in Sicily in 1885. His relatives were part of a long line of influential mafiosi, and Vinci immigrated to New York City in 1908 along with his close friend Leo Galante, where he quickly set up extortion, blackmailing and smuggling operations as a founding member of a Black Hand gang. Despite being detained by authorities in 1910, he was let out after substantial "community contribution" and in 1920, he and Galante gained control of the Port of New York, supervising all illegal alcohol smuggled through the waterfront during Prohibition. Vinci held influence over the port dockworkers union, and he also owned the Mona Lisa bar in Manhattan, which he used as his base of operations. After Prohibition ended in 1933, Vinci lost his main revenue stream and fought over what little criminal opportunities left with the Moretti crime family led by Tomaso Moretti, leading to a bloody two-year war between the families. Ultimately, Moretti was killed in 1933 after Galante worked out a deal with Moretti's capo Carlo Falcone and they planted a bomb under his car, with Falcone succeeding Moretti at the head of his own organization. In 1951, Vinci attended the making ceremony for Falcone's underlings Vito Scaletta and Joe Barbaro, advising them not to enter the drug market as it was against their policies. Scaletta and Barbaro didn't heed his counsel, however, as they both entered into a drug trafficking partnership with the Chinese Triads, but it didn't last; they ambushed the Triads' hangout after their associate Henry Tomasino was killed for being an informant, and killed their enforcer Zhe Yun Wong after interrogating him, kicking off a war with the Vinci family which the Triads believed was behind the attack. Vinci had to hold a sitdown with the other families' bosses to resolve matters, and in order to confirm his suspicions about their involvement in the Triad shootout, he kidnapped Scaletta and Barbaro and held them captive at a construction site hoping they would fail under pressure, but they both denied any knowledge of it, leading Vinci to order his men to kill them; Scaletta and Barbaro killed his subordinates, however, and escaped. Vinci petitioned the Commission to sanction a hit on them, but Galante, who was close with Scaletta, organized a truce with the Triads and agreed to an end of hostilities as long as Scaletta killed Falcone, who had recently been discovered dealing in narcotics; Scaletta shot him dead at his observatory, and the Vinci family became the undisputed most powerful criminal organization in the city.

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