Education
At age 14, Luciano dropped out of school and started working as a shipping clerk, earning $5 per week.
gambler gangster crime boss Bootlegger hitman
At age 14, Luciano dropped out of school and started working as a shipping clerk, earning $5 per week.
1907, he began his first racket. He charged Jewish kids a penny or two for his protection to and from school. If they refused to pay, he would beat them up. One of the Jewish kids, Meyer Lansky, refused to pay. After Lucky failed to beat him up, they became friends and joined forces in his protection scheme. They remained friends throughout their lives.
In 1916, Luciano became a leader of the Five Points Gang, after getting out of reform school for peddling narcotics. By 1920, Lucianos criminal endeavors strengthened and he got involved in bootlegging. His circle of friends included such crime figures as, Bugsy Siegel, Joe Adonis, Vito Genovese, and Frank Costello.
By the late 1920s, he had become a chief aide in the largest crime Family in the country, led by Giuseppe "Joe the Boss" Masseria. As time went on, Luciano became to despise the old Mafia traditions and thinking of Giuseppe, who believed non-Sicilians could not be trusted.
After learning of a plan by Maranzano to kill both he, and Al Capone, Luciano struck first, by organizing a meeting where Maranzano was killed. Lucky Luciano became "The Boss" of New York and immediately began moving into more rackets and expanding their power.
The 1930s were prosperous times for Luciano, now able to break ethnic barriers layed out by the old Mafia and strengthening their reach in areas of bootlegging, prostitution, gambling, loan-sharking, narcotics and labor rackets.
In 1936, Luciano was charged with prostitution and received 30 to 50 years. He maintained control of the syndicate during his incarceration.
In the early 1940s, as the second world war broke out, Luciano agreed to help the military Navel Intelligence by offering information that could help protect the New York docks from Nazi saboteurs in exchange for a move to a better prison and possible early parole.
In 1946, Governor Dewey, who was the prosecutor who originally got Luciano incarcerated, granted commutation of sentence and had Luciano deported to Italy where he resumed his controls over the American syndicate.
Luciano snuck into Cuba and remained there, where couriers were set up to bring him money, one being Virginia Hill. After Frank Costello stepped down as Boss, Luciano's power weakened.
In 1962, he suffered a fatal heart attack in Naples airport. His body was then shipped back to the United States and buried in St. John's Cemetery in New York City.