THE MYSTERIOUS MR.
MINEO.
Manfredi Mineo : - Born Palermo, Sicily 1880.
USA 1911.
Alias
:- Al Mineo.
When Joe Valachi, and later others, first related the events
of the underworld conflict known as the”Castellammarese War”, the name Al Mineo
was completely unknown. He was just one
of the inconsequential, faceless victims.
Gradually his role in the early history of Cosa Nostra became
clearer. Indeed his importance may, even
now, have been underestimated. His story
may help explain the origins of one of NYC’s five Families.
Unfortunatley, we have little information on Mineo’s life
before he left Sicily. We know he was married to a Maria Colagrande, born
around 1887, and she came with him to NYC.
But, as we will see, he soon stepped into a leadership role in
America. This leads me to suspect he was
already an important Mafioso in Palermo by the time of his emigration in
1911. Within a year of his arrival, a
Secret Service informant stated he led a faction in Brooklyn. This informant was Salvatore Clemente, a
convicted counterfeiter and associate of prominent Mafiosi. He was the Services main source for
Italo-American criminal activities in New York.
According to
Clemente, Mineo’s faction was allied with the Morello/Terranova gang in
Harlem. These two were united in
opposition to the main Sicilian faction, headed by Salvatore D’Aquila, in
Manhattan. D’Aquila had succeeded
Giuseppe Morello as NYC Head in 1910, after Morello was sentenced to 25 years
in prison for counterfeiting. That
criminal activity was a particular favourite of Mafiosi, and had first brought
Mineo to police attention . Shortly
after his arrival in 1911, he was seen visiting a suspected counterfeiter
called Carmelo Cordaro. Cordaro was
later deported.
Conflict between the two factions broke-out in 1913, with
tit-for-tat killings in Manhattan. The
Lomonti brothers, who led the old Morello gang , were killed. While D’Aquila followers like the Giuseppe’s
Fanaro and Fontana also perished. It is
not known if Mineo was involved in the actual violence, although as an ally of the
Morello’s it is possible. The conflict
seems to have stopped by 1915, with the Morello’s under attack from the
Brooklyn based Camorra.
Things had calmed down enough for Mineo to visit Palermo,
via France, in 1915. He called himself a
Merchant, and travelled with his wife.
He listed his brother Corrado, a Doctor, as his nearest relative. We know that he was an importer of fruit,
primarily lemons, and lived somewhere in Brooklyn.
The lack of information on this period is frustrating. For instance, why was the Palermo native
Mineo, an enemy to D’Aquila’s faction whose origins were mainly Palermitani
? Who were his followers, and where in
Brooklyn were they based ? What was his
relationship with fellow Brooklyn based Mafiosi, like Giuseppe Traina, Vincent
Mangano or the Castellammarese Family ?
Very little is known about Mineo, or his faction, during the
next 10-12 years. Apart from further
visits to Italy in 1922, 1927 and 1929, and his Naturalization in 1929, he
disappears from view. Then, after D’Aquila’s
murder in 1928, he suddenly bursts into view as the new head of D’Aquila’s old
Family.
None of our sources, Gentile, Valachi or Bonanno, explains
how this happens. Why should an enemy
become a fellow Family member, or was he from another Family, and forced onto
the old D’Aquila followers ? But what
other Family based in Brooklyn could this be ?
It certainly was not the Castellammarese Family, a very clannish
group. So that only leaves the future
Profaci Family.
There has always been
confusion over the origins of this group.
Originally it was thought to have started with Joseph Profaci, and his
Villabate faction. But recent research
in NARA records, and a mention in Bill Bonanno’s book, suggest that it was
already established by the mid-1920’s and was then headed by Salvatore DiBella. Another possible early leader of this group
was Giuseppe Peraino, a power in South Brooklyn.
Is it possible that Manfredi Mineo was the first head of
this Family ? He led a faction in
Brooklyn as early as 1912, no source gives a location, just Brooklyn. Like Mineo, Salvatore DiBella and Giuseppe
Peraino were from Palermo. Profaci did
not settle in Brooklyn until 1927, and his early followers seem to have been
New Jersey based. Mineo had been an ally
of the Morello gang, and would be the main ally to the Morello’s successor
Joseph Masseria. Possibly Masseria
forced Mineo onto the old D’Aquila supporters, as their leader. This was a tactic he used with the future
Lucchese Family.
But in doing this he may have opened the way for Joseph
Profaci to take-over Mineo’s old faction.
Possible alternative leaders like Peraino, killed in 1930, and DiBella,
retired and died in 1934, were soon gone.
When Mineo took-over the D’Aquila Family in 1928-29, his
closest associate was Stefano Ferrigno.
Like Mineo, we know very little about him. Born in 1900 in Palermo, he arrived in
America in 1922. Married in 1924, he
gained Naturalization in 1929 despite an arrest for Grand Larceny in 1927, and
lived on 39th Street in Brooklyn.
He died with Mineo in 1930 at the height of the “Castellammarese War”. His brother Bartolo was later listed as a
Profaci member, possibly pointing to Stefano being a member of that Family.
In early 1930
Giuseppe Peraino was killed, possibly during a conflict with Albert Anastasia’s
Calabrian gang. Some months later, his
son Carmine Peraino was also murdered,
reportedly by future Profaci members Salvatore Mussachia and Cassandro
Bonasera. Police learned from a
condemned prisoner, that this was ordered by Manfredi Mineo. Now why would two Di Bella/Profaci members murder
the son of a fellow Family member, on the orders of a different Family leader ?
One last possible link, although I can find no familial
connection, is with the future 1960’S FamilY Consiglieri Salvatore Mineo. Manfredi was an importer of lemons, Salvatore’s
alias was Charlie Lemons. Vague I know.
After his murder in November, 1930, Manfredi’s body was
returned to Palermo for burial.
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