Charles Luciano Charles Luciano, founder of the national crime syndicate in the 1930's, was born in Sicily in 1897. His family moved to the Lower East Side of New York in 1906, where he was first arrested in 1907. By 1915 Luciano was a member of the Five Points gang, where he trained under John Torrio, and became friends with Al Capone and many other later luminaries of thug life. He started his own prostitution racket in 1920, and by 1925 had such vast control over prostitution in Manhattan that he actually began taking over the whorehouses himself. By 1927 this had made him a millionaire, but where Capone did not bother with taxes, Luciano filed every year. An amount of $22,500 as income from gambling. In 1929 an attempt was ma de on his life, and he was kidnapped, beaten, and stabbed numerous times with an icepick. Miraculously, he survived and when police questioned him about his attackers, he maintained the code of omerta, not identifying who had attacked him . Towards the end of the 20's Luciano was ready to start turning his ideas of a national crime syndicate into reality, and with the help of his friends Lansky and Siegel he was able to get rid of several big players opposed to his plans. At this time the ga ngland war between Salvatore Maranzano and Joe "The Boss" Masseria prevented him from aligning all the gangs, so he had both of them eliminated. By 1935 Luciano was considered 'Boss of Bosses', the number one in command in the syndicate he'd created. By 1 935 also, D.A. Thomas E. Dewey had gathered enough evidence to bring in Luciano on ninety counts of extortion and prostitution. He was sentenced to 30 to 50 years, but rumor has it that when the Allied forces in WW II needed help in their invasion of Sicily, they contacted Luciano and offered him a deal. If he'd contact his Mafia friends there, he would be released under the condition that he would be deported to Italy. Luciano accepted this offer, and lived in Rome for a year. He soon got dissatisfied with the way his affairs were being run in the US, however, and arranged a meeting with Lansky, Siegel, and other bosses in Cuba. At this meeting he got into an argument with Siegel, which res ulted in the latter's murder a few months later. US authorities got wind of Luciano's presence in Havana, however, and forced him back to Italy where he went into forced retirement. Here he considered writing his memoirs and making a movie of his life. In January 1962 he went to the Naples airport to meet an American movie producer who was interested. As he walked up, ready to shake hands, he grabbed his chest, collapsed, and died of a heart attack.

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