The Murder of Carmine Galante: Setting the Stage to Cripple the American Mafia

Dustin Rhodes

On July 12, 1979, at approximately 2:45 p.m., Carmine Galante - head of the Bonnano
Family - was in the middle of eating lunch with a few of his mafia associates when three men
with ski masks carrying automatic rifles and shotguns entered the restaurant. What are you
doing? asked Galante moments before gunshots rang out. A man who once thought he was
untouchable now laid upon the floor with blood flowing into a drain next to his legs. His head
propped up sideways among the wall, with a cigar still hanging from his mouth, the leader of the
Bonnano family was pronounced dead on the scene.1 There are few speculations amongst his
death, however, one thing was for certain, Galante refused to share the control of the heroin
trafficking operation and the profits derived from it.2
Despite the glorification of organized criminal syndicates in movies such as The Godfather,
Goodfellas, and The Departed, the American mafia became one of the most brutal organizations
to press its superiority and dominance in the criminal underworld and in the heroin trafficking
market. The mafia took hold in America in the early 20th century as Italian immigrants, mainly
Sicilian, immigrated to America looking to fulfill the American Dream. While heroin trafficking
was not usually a business venture for these criminal syndicates, it did cripple the mafias
structure and allowed the federal government to do something that was thought to be impossible:
it allowed them to infiltrate the mafia. Questions were raised after the murder of Galante. Why
did other bosses see Galante as a threat? What was happening within the criminal enterprise to
1 Ferretti, Fred. Godfather III: Don Shot-press wounds itself. The Chronical.
2 Lubasch, Arnold. (1986) Slaying of Galante in 79 is Detailed at Mob Trial. New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/10/09/nyregion/slaying-of-galante-in-79-is-detailed-at-mob-trial.html
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create such havoc that a boss would be assassinated? How did this lead to the federal government
crippling the mafia organization? By examining the murder of Galante and the business he was
involved in can answer these questions.
The topic is important to the history of the United States because the mafia was so
sophisticated that they were able to make deals with police and government officials. This is the
first time that such an organized criminal enterprise went undetected for decades in America until
the recognition by the federal government that such an organization existed. The mafias
involvement in heroin trafficking is underestimated. While the mafia was known for its control
of labor unions, and racketeering schemes including extortion and murder, it is also known that
the mafia created a monopoly on heroin trafficking which eventually crippled the organization.
The murder of Carmine Galante crippled the Bonanno Family and allowed the FBI
to do something which was thought of as impossible to carry out: infiltrating the mafia and
substantially crippling the criminal enterprise. Former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani
ruthlessly attacked the mafia. The Bonanno Family was known on the streets as being the
heroin family. 3 When the murder occurred, journalists and news anchors created several
different stories on why he was murdered. In an article written in 1979 by Fred Ferretti of The
Chronical, the author summarized several news reports from Time, The Post, and several news
outlets. Rumors circulated around Galantes murder that he wanted to become the boss of all
bosses, that he refused to step down from his position, and an NBC organized crime expert
listed theories of drugs and other social menaces.4 Technically, the reports were not incorrect.
Galante controlled the heroin market and refused to let the other mafia families in on the narcotic
3 The Mafia-Going Global. National Geographic. 2005. Television.
4 Ferretti, Fred. Godfather III: Don Shot-press wounds itself. The Chronical.
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operation. His greed on the heroin market caused his murder and also led to the powerful
structure crumbling on the Bonanno Family and the Commission, a group consisting of all the
leaders of the Mafia families that governed the business of its criminal empire.
According to the president's Commission on Organized Crime in 1983, F.B.I. director
William Webster testified that there were approximately 1700 made members of Cosa Nostra
in the United States. Across the country, there were approximately 24 organized crime families.
Cosa Nostra, which translates to our thing, is headed by a boss who oversees the operations of
the family and take a cut of the revenue produced by the organization. They also provide defense
attorneys and money to their associates and their families when they are in need. Bosses are the
most vital part of the family as they provide bribes to police, and corrupt politicians. They also
settle disputes with different families.5 These disputes are settled among what the Mafioso calls,
the Commission.
The New York mafia is divided into five families: The Bonannos, The Genovese, The
Lucchese, The Colombo, and the Gambinos. The mafia is the most organized criminal empire the
world has ever known. Every family is governed by a board of directors known as the
Commission. The Commission consisted of the leaders of the five families of New York. The
primary aim of the Commission was to create stability and handle disputes between the families.6
In actuality, the Commission was not established to handle disputes between different families, it
was created to keep the interests of the mafia bosses. The Commission wanted to have a unified
criminal organization in which was controlled by the top bosses in the country. In 1931, the
5 Dickie, John. A History of the Sicilian Mafia: Cosa Nostra. (Great Britain, UK. Palgrave Macmillan,
2004) 137.
6 Dickie, John. A History of the Sicilian Mafia: Cosa Nostra. (Great Britain, UK. Palgrave Macmillan.
2004) 18.
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Commission established itself in America. Before the creation of the Commission, the structure
of the mafia was controlled by a single dictator, or capo di capi (boss of bosses).7After a series of
murders between 1931 and 1938 where several capo di capis were murdered, the structure of the
American mafia would be changed. According to Joe Bonanno, giving this title to just one,
could swell the head of the elected person and induce him to commit unjustifiable atrocities.
During the fall of 1931, the title of boss of bosses was replaced with the commission imitating
the same organizational structure of the Sicilian mafia in Italy. The founding members were
Tomasso Gagliano, Charles Lucky Luciano, Vincent Mangano (Mangano Family), Joseph
Bonanno, Joseph Profaci, Al Capone, and Steve Magadino.8 All were bosses of their own family.
The mafia often tried to disassociate themselves with narcotic trafficking. For example, Frank
Costello laid out a no-drug policy for his family and attempted to institute that same policy on
other families. During the 1980s, the Bonanno family was kicked out from the commission for
their involvement with heroin trafficking.9 Just because the Commission laid out a policy of not
being involved in the narcotic trafficking business did not mean that families honored it. Even
though the Commission laid out a no drug policy, many translated this policy to mean do not
get caught. While the Commission clearly stated its position, they gladly accepted the wealth
that was acquired from it. After all, making money is the goal of organized crime syndicates. The
narcotic operation within the mafia created a big divide among the families. For example, during
1962-1969, a war broke out between mafia families over a heroin deal that went bad between
7 Hortis, Alexander. The Mob and the City: The Hidden History of How the Mob Captured New York.
(Amherst, NY. Prometheus Books. 2014) 71.
8 Hortis, Alexander. The Mob and the City: The Hidden History of How the Mob Captured New York.
(Amherst, NY. Prometheus Books. 2014) 95-97.
9 Gouldin, L. P, & Jacob, J. P. 1999. La Cosa Nostra: Final Chapter. Crime and Justice. vol. 25. 153.
Chicago. University of Chicago Press.
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families in New York and families in Sicily. In February 1962, the La Barbera brothers and the
Grecos were all members of an operation that financed a shipment of heroin from Egypt, and
delivered to the Sicilian coast. When the packages arrived in Brooklyn, New York, the ones
collecting the drugs suspected to be more heroin than what arrived. The man overseeing the
operation Calcedonio Di Pisa, was charged by the Commission of stealing heroin. This led to allout war between the families which had a drastic impact as over 2,000 individuals were arrested,
and the organization itself went into hiding with many bosses whom left Italy and settled in other
countries such as Switzerland and the United States.10 After the French Connection occurred in
the early 1970s, a new man rose into the ranks of the Mafioso and created a heroin monopoly;
Carmine Galante. A man who would soon make millions from heroin trafficking and led the
mafia down a road that would be hard to recover from.
Galante was a feared man. During his confinement, Galante, an underboss and killer for the
Bonanno family, and a convicted narcotics mastermind roamed the prison with immunity,
fearless of even the toughest black leaders. Whenever he approached a pay phone with a long
line of inmates waiting to use it, he would bull his way through the line and shout Get off the
fucking phone, nigger! It was something that would have not been tolerated from any other
white prisoner.11
The federal government led a successful assault against illegal narcotic trafficking. In 1971,
President Nixon declared a war on drugs. A year later, police forces made a huge victory when
they broke up the Marseille base heroin operation known as the French Connection. This had a
10 Dickie, John. A History of the Sicilian Mafia: Cosa Nostra. (Great Britain, UK. Palgrave Macmillan.
2014) 250.
11 Sifakis, Carl. 2005. Mafia Encyclopedia. 3 ed. (New York: Facts on File, Inc. 2005) 293.
5

huge impact on the supply of heroin in the United States. It led to a heroin famine on the streets
because that is how much heroin was being supplied from French laboratories. However, victory
was short lived all because of Galante. In 1974, two years after the French Connection,
Galante was released from prison. He would soon transform the heroin narcotic business into a
global enterprise. While the Bonanno family was experiencing a crisis without leadership,
Galante stepped in to fill that gap. He moved the heroin business to his homeland in Sicily.
Pakistan was the lead supplier and shipped partly refined opium through Turkey which was then
received off the coast of Sicily where a speedboat would meet and deliver the heroin.12 Because
of Galantes connections in Sicily, he built a monopoly on heroin trafficking in the United States
between the Bonanno family and Zips, or Sicilian immigrants in which he helped bring in to
operate his heroin empire.
The F.B.I. long denied existence that such an elaborate, and sophisticated criminal empire even
existed. It wasnt until the Kefauver Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in
Interstate Commerce which was televised in 1951 that resurrected a fear that the federal
government did not want to admit, that the mafia did indeed exist. Even though J. Edgar Hoover,
director of the F.B.I., still refused to admit the existence of the mafia, the effects of the hearings
were severe. The Federal Narcotics Control Act was passed in 1956 stipulating a minimum four
year sentence for drug-related offenses. In response, the Commission laid out the no drug
policy. Earlier before that edict, one in every three members of the Bonanno family was arrested
for narcotic violations. In October 1957, a series of meetings was held in Palermos Grand Hotel
des Palms took place. Those who attended those meetings were Joe Bananas, Camillo Carmine
Galante, and other leaders of the Bonanno Family. Charles Lucky Luciano was also part of that
12 The Mafia-Going Global. National Geographic. 2005. Television.
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meeting. While some denied that the meeting even took place, it indeed did take place and drugs
were the topic of conversation.13 The mafia not only had a moral dilemma to address when it
came to flooding communities with a deadly drug, they were wanting to shy away from the
business because of the federal government tough crackdown on drug offenses. However,
because the business made men wealthy, this no drug policy was taken as just do not get
caught.14 After all, the main goal to the mafia is to make money. Rudolph Giuliani published in
an article that the heroin trafficking enterprise earns approximately 70 billion dollars annually.15
When Galante was released from prison in 1974, after serving 22 years for narcotics, he needed
to establish dominance in the criminal underground. He wished to unify the mafia into one
distinct entity instead of having five different families. In other words, he wanted to be the capo
di capi of the mafia. According to Victor Riesel, a writer for the Ludington Daily News, the plan
was to unify the mafia under the Commission and control as many as eight mafia families from
New York to Philadelphia. He wished to go back to the days of Luciano when the Commission
had more power.16 In order to do this, Galante got back into narcotic trafficking. Illegal drugs
would bring in millions of dollars which would attract new members to the mafia. Before his
imprisonment, Galante was sent by the boss of the Bonanno family to Canada to control
operations of the French Connection in the early 1950s. Heroin was created in labs in Marseilles,
13 Dickie, John. A History of the Sicilian Mafia: Cosa Nostra. (Great Britain, UK. Palgrave Macmillan.

2014) 233-234.
14 The Mafia-Going Global. National Geographic. 2005. Television.
15 Giuliani, Rudolph W. 1985. Organizing Law Enforcement as well as Organized Crime. (November).
712. Public Administration Review. Vol. 45. Wiley. American Society for Public Administration.
16 Riesel, Victor. July 26, 1979. Mafia Still Runs Powerful Government. Ludington Daily News.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?
nid=110&dat=19790726&id=PLUvAAAAIBAJ&sjid=edwFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2043,7686585&hl=en
7

France and smuggled into New York and Canada. When the federal government severed the
French Connection, there was a heroin drought in New York. Galante stepped in to solve that
problem. He worked with labs in Sicily to turn morphine into heroin in which they received from
Turkey. In order to smuggle in heroin traffickers used food products such as cheese. One
technique was using olive oil cans with fake bottoms. The top of the can would be the olive oil
while the bottom part was pure heroin. Galante added another technique to traffic heroin. He set
up a scheme to smuggle heroin through pizza parlors. Most of the pizza parlors in New York was
owned by Zips. The biggest money making scheme that the Bonanno family involved itself in
was heroin trafficking through pizza parlors. In one police bust where narcotic agents seized
heroin wrapped in pizzeria aprons, the amount seized equaled to $487,000 worth of drugs.17
Galante was murdered because he refused to share the derivatives that heroin trafficking brought.
The amount of money accumulated from narcotics allowed the Bonanno family to become
powerful, but at the same time caused a crisis. Galante created a division between the
Commission and the Bonanno family.
When Nixon authorized the development of assigned task forces to combat
drug trafficking under the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement, it gave
power to the federal government to tackle organize crime syndicates. In
1982, after making revisions to the proposal of such a task force, the
operation was underway.18 After the murder of Galante, the Bonanno family
was experiencing another leadership crisis. During this time, F.B.I. agent, Joe
17 Brandt, Charles, and Pistone, Joseph D. Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business. (Pennsylvania: Running
Press, 2007) 127-129.
18 Giuliani, Rudolph W. 1985. Organizing Law Enforcement as well as Organized Crime. (November)
715. Public Administration Review. Vol. 45. Wiley. American Society for Public Administration.
8

Pistone, was infiltrating the infamous mob and working his way to a made
man. Under this program, Joe Pistone adopted to the name Donnie Brasco.
In the early 1970s, R.I.C.O., the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
Organizations Act, specifically targeted organized criminal syndicates.
According to 18 U.S. Code 1961 Racketeering Activity means (A) any act
or threat involving murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson, robbery, bribery,
extortion, dealing in obscene matter, or dealing in a controlled substance or
listed chemical.19 The R.I.C.O. Act became the primary tool to prosecute
over a hundred members of the New York mafia. In order to get evidence to
prosecute individuals in the mafia, the government had to do two things:
recognize the mafia existed, and pass legislation allowing them to enact
certain procedures to gather evidence such as wiretapping.
In 1970, the federal government recognized the existence of such a
criminal enterprise when Congress passed the Organized Crime Act. These
acts allowed the federal government to enact measures to combat organized
criminal activities. The legislation lays out a series of proposed laws and
punishments to those in violation of the federal act. These two acts became
paramount in the investigation of the mafia during the 1980s. During the
early years of the war on drugs, government officials and police forces
concentrated their efforts on petty street dealers. The problem is that drugs
were still infiltrating the United States in mass quantity. In order for this plan
to work, the government needed to go after the top bosses in the narcotic
19 Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organization. 18 U.S. Code (1961). Chapter 96 1968.
9

business. According to Giuliani, the reorganized task force would have a new
goal. Instead of going after the petty deals which would require a force of
100,000 to 200,000 personnel, they would target the high level dealers and
their organization.20 Giuliani and his team of investigators planned to take
out the Commission of the mafia. In order for this plan to succeed, they had
to use wiretapping to record conversations of top level mafia members. In
1970, Congress passed a bill to allow federal wiretapping to suspected
individuals involved in organized crime known as The District of Columbia
Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act. According to the act, Congress
specified the federal crimes for which wiretapping and electronic surveillance
were authorized. The emphasis was on crimes intrinsically serious or
characteristic of the operations of organized crime.21 To achieve this,
Pistone had to go undercover into the criminal underworld.
A twenty-seven year veteran of the F.B.I. Joseph D. Pistone, or Donnie Brasco, spent six of
those years undercover inside of the Bonanno Family. The goal of Pistone was infiltrate the
mafia and allow the federal government to wiretap suspected individuals involved in organized
crime in order to prosecute them under the R.I.C.O. Act. When he first became involved with the
Bonanno Family, Galante was in charge. Galante thought he was above the commission. The
Commission wanted to eliminate Galante from the equation because Galante thought he was
above the other bosses on the Commission. His power came from the trafficking empire he

20 Giuliani, Rudolph W. 1985. Organizing Law Enforcement as well as Organized Crime. (November)
715-716. Public Administration Review. Vol. 45. Wiley. American Society for Public Administration.
21 Organized Crime Control Act of 1970. 91st Cong., 2d sess. (September 30, 1970).
10

established. 22 The Commission saw Galante as an illegitimate boss.23 For that reason, the
Commission set a hit on him involving newly arrived Sicilian immigrants and members of the
Bonanno family itself. His murder created chaos within the Bonanno family. It also served as a
distraction for Pistone. Pistone, gaining close ties with higher members of the Bonanno Family
such as Sonny Black and Benjamin, Lefty Luggiero, allowed him to almost becoming a made
man before having to back out of the investigation after they wanted him to kill someone to be
inducted into the Bonanno Family. Pistones infiltration into the Bonanno family allowed the
federal government to dismantle the Commission and convicted over 100 members of the mafia
under the R.I.C.O. statute. This became known as the Mafia Commission Trials. His testimony
also proved vital for the United States government to prosecute members of the Bonanno family
for smuggling heroin through pizza parlors in New York during the mid-1980s known as the
famous Pizza Connection.
The peculiar aspect of the Galante murder is that when he was having his lunch at the
New York restaurant he was not alone. He was accompanied by two of his bodyguards. Forensics
found five different caliber slugs in Galante, but there were only three gunmen. This means that
two other shooters had to have been involved. The F.B.I. pieced the puzzle together and assumed
that Galantes own bodyguards, Cesare Bonventre and Baldassare Amato were involved in
setting the hit up. This prompted investigators to approach the restaurant and question two other
business partners on the events that occurred. They learned of the hit and what took place. After
that interaction, agents began investigating known spots where the mafioso gathered. Whenever
the Commission assassinates a boss, especially one as powerful as Galante, something big was
22 Pistone, Joseph. Interview. His Life in the Mafia. 2010. Web. December 1, 2015.
23 Brandt, Charles, and Pistone, Joseph D. Donnie Brasco: Unfinished Business. (Pennsylvania: Running
Press, 2007) 142.
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happening in the criminal underworld. The federal government wanted to know why he was
killed. 24
F.B.I. agents Charlie Rooney and Carmine Russo began investigating the mafias
connection with Galantes murder. During their investigation, the key suspect was 43 year old
Salvatore Catalano. They suspected Catalano, who owned a bakery in Queens, New York, of
smuggling illegal narcotics after F.B.I. agents saw mysterious packages being delivered to the
bakery.25 On October 5th, 1986, federal authorities charged 31 men, with 24 men actually being
arrested, with operating an organized crime ring that brought $1.65 billion worth of heroin into
the United States since 1979. Attorney General William French Smith stated that this drug ring
imported at least 330 pounds of heroin a year for the past five years. According to Giuliani, the
main supplier of the heroin was a fifty year old Sicilian, Gaetano Badalamenti, who had to be
extradited from Spain to face federal charges of smuggling narcotics into the United States. The
Pizza Connection case was not just confined to New York. Investigators uncovered that heroin
was being distributed to other cities such as Philadelphia, Chicago, and Newark. The drug
smuggling operation was not confined to the Bonanno family as some members of the Gambino
family was also involved.26 This was the largest drug bust the F.B.I. encountered in the later part
of the 20th century.
During the trial, Judge Pierre N. Leval did not allow testimony of the murder of Galante
to be presented. Leval justified this by stating that testimony about this particular murder did not
24 The Mafia-Going Global. National Geographic. 2005. Television.
25 Ibid.
26 Lubasch, Arnold. (1986). 31 Charged by U.S. with Running a 1.65 Billion Heroin Operation. New
York Times.
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provide evidence of a drug operation, therefore, it would create substantial prejudice. The
defense lawyers saw the Judges motion of dismissal of the murder as a win.27 However,
Pistone was still allowed to testify about his infiltration into the Bonanno family. Anything about
the murder of Galante was dismissed and Pistone could not comment on the murder itself or the
suspected reasons behind the murder. Even though this looked good for Bonventre and Amato,
the suspicion on why Galante, a top mafia figure, was murdered aroused curiosity with
authorities. Pistone played an essential role in the conviction of over a hundred mobsters a few
years earlier in the infamous R.I.C.O. case and he also played a crucial role in the conviction of
mafia members in the Pizza Connection trial. Most of the evidence in the Pizza Connection trial
came from Pistones own testimony, wiretapping, and informants. On March 2, 1987, seventeen
mafia members were found guilty of participating in the United States biggest drug smuggling
operation that the federal government prosecuted. The two ring leaders, Badalamenti and
Catalano, carried the weight of the sentences, more than 30 years in federal prison. Bonventres
body was found in New Jersey, hacked into two pieces and stuffed in a glue drum.28 Amato,
however, is currently serving a life sentence for two murders committed in 1992.29
The murder of Galante only set the precedent of what was to follow. The crisis in the
Bonanno family allowed Pistone to infiltrate the mafia. With the federal governments
crackdown on illegal drug smuggling coupled with the recognition that such a sophisticated
criminal underworld existed, and the federal authorization to wiretap and prosecute suspected
27 Lubasch, Arnold. (1986) Evidence of a Murder Excluded from Pizza Trial. New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/02/06/nyregion/evidence-of-a-murder-excluded-from-pizza-trial.html
28 Sifakis, Carl. Mafia Encyclopedia. 3 ed. 293. (New York: Facts on File, Inc. 2005) 53.
29 Rashbaum, William K. 2006. Mafia Figure Is Sentenced to Life Term in 2 Murders. New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/28/nyregion/28mob.html
13

mafia members the United States government successfully crippled the mafia. The passing of
laws such as R.I.C.O., and the Organized Crime Act gave federal police authorities the power to
go after prominent criminal bosses. The infiltration allowed the federal government to wiretap
suspected members of the criminal underworld and gather evidence for their prosecution.
Pistones deep involvement into the mafia gave prosecutors enough evidence to convict 31
members in the famous Pizza Connection case. The murder of Carmine Galante set that
precedent. With three gunmen and five different shell casings found at the murder scene, the
federal government became curious on why a mafia boss was assassinated. The reason Galante
was killed was not sharing the profits of the drug trade with anyone. His greed on the heroin
monopoly killed him. With members of his own family betraying him, F.B.I. agents Rooney and
Russo began investigating multiple sites where mafia members reportedly gathered. With
wiretapping and informants, the F.B.I. was able to convict over 30 members of the mafia
including the main supplier in Sicily, Badalamenti, who received 45 years in prison and died in
2004. While the mafia still exists and most likely is still involved in drug smuggling, the Pizza
Connection trial and the Mafia Commission trials of the 1980s crippled the mafia and dealt a
huge blow to the criminal underworld. The source of all of their trouble was greed and the heroin
market.

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