Carmine (Lilo) Galante: Bonanno Family Tsunami

Carmine (Lilo) Galante of the Bonanno Family was one of the most powerful bosses in Cosa Nostra -- A Mafia Tsunami who met an untimely end in a Family power struggle. Aside from narcotics trafficking, he was involved in other activities as well and had a host of associates to help him along the way.

Camillo (Lilo) Galante -- aka Carmine Galante and The Cigar -- was born on February 21, 1910, in New York’s East Harlem in the Little Italy district. His family hailed from the borgata’s ancestral homeland of Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily. He lived his early life in Downtown Manhattan, and later, he relocated to various addresses in the neighborhood.

After marrying, he and his wife moved to 274 Marcy Avenue in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, a Sicilian stronghold where many fellow Bonanno members resided.

Carmine Galante

He had a nephew named James Galante, whom he would later bring into the Family fold.

Lilo stood 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighed 165 pounds. He had brown eyes and thin grey hair. It was said that Galante had an extremely forceful and domineering personality. One prison psychiatrist labeled him a paranoid schizophrenic personality with pronounced homicidal tendencies.

FBI # 119495, NYCPD # B-66994

His arrest record dated to 1921, when he was only 11-years-old, and included:

1922 -- juvenile delinquency

1924 -- juvenile delinquency

1925 -- grand larceny

1926 -- petty larceny

1930 -- robbery

1931 -- attempted robbery

1943 -- suspicion of homicide

1943 -- parole violation

1947 -- operating an alcohol still

1947 --assault

1959 -- federal narcotics law violations

His activities included heroin smuggling and wholesale distribution, strong-arm enforcer and torpedo, bootlegging, gambling, and extortion.

He traveled extensively to New Jersey, Upstate New York, Miami, Montreal, and overseas to Sicily and France.

Galante reportedly held interests in the Rosina Costume Co. of Brooklyn and the Latimer Shipping Co. in Lower Manhattan over the years. After being paroled in 1974, Lilo was part owner of the L&T Drycleaners on Elizabeth Street in Little Italy.

He was, first and foremost, primarily a torpedo and top enforcer for the Family. His reputation was such that he was thoroughly well-known for his viciousness and had little compunction about committing homicides as ordered by the hierarchy.

He was the prime suspect in the contract murder of Carlo Tresca, the popular anti-fascist editor who was shot squarely in the face on a Manhattan street in 1943.

It was said that Benito Mussolini himself had requested Tresca’s murder and that as a favor to the dictator, mob boss Vito Genovese ordered the hit, sending instructions from Italy to America to have it carried out.

A young up-and-coming Lilo Galante and his lifelong sidekick, Joseph (Joe Beck) DiPalermo handled this important contract personally.

This murder would garner widespread attention, becoming front page news across the world. And it would catapult Galante to the attention of the authorities as never before.

If Lilo was first and foremost an enforcer, certainly running a close second was his affinity for heroin.

His compunction for drug trafficking was his lifelong obsession and primary occupation, and he was good at it. So good, that he was considered among the most important and highly-placed international heroin traffickers in the world.

Even after having been convicted in a massive heroin conspiracy in 1959 with the likes of Vito Genovese and other top mafiosi and having been sent to the penitentiary for 20 years, serving 12 before making parole, he was still able to immerse himself almost immediately into the thick of things, re-establishing various connections, drug pipelines, and routes into the United States.

After being released in 1974, before one year was out, Lilo Galante had catapulted himself to the top of the Bonanno Family heap.

He became the top “banana” as it were, the recognized first among equals, and the boss of a massive Sicilian heroin pipeline now flooding the metropolitan area with the purest of white powder.

Taking the Boss' Seat

It was a fact not lost on all of Cosa Nostra and federal authorities alike, that Carmine (Lilo) Galante was making up for having lost over a decade in prison.

He took back what was rightfully his, and re-established the Bonanno Family’s preeminence as one of the five powers that be in the underworld and the leader in international narcotics smuggling.

He was a highly respected, but more importantly, a highly feared mafioso!

And nobody, but nobody dared get in his way lest they and anyone associated with them be killed like sheep gone to the slaughter!

The other four New York Family bosses remained silent for fear of starting a confrontation with him.

And they knew the truth of course - that he was completely correct in his actions and the mob chess moves he made in reaffirming his and his borgata’s position in the underworld.

The other Families had raped and pilfered many Bonanno Family holdings over the years because of their weakened position.

Galante was just taking back what was rightfully due them! He elevated old friends and loyal disciples to positions of power within the Family.

And by sheer force of personality, he won most of the sit-downs over territory disputes or other inter-Family conflicts that arose between Families.

As a famed mob investigator once observed, in referring to other top mob bosses,“the others are all copper, Lilo Galante is pure steel!”..... it was a very astute observation!

Side Note: I remember as a young man in the mid-1970s, one of our family members and close friends discussing Lilo and what was happening in New York at the time. They spoke of him highly and with a reverence reserved for few.

He was a force to be reckoned with. Maybe THE force to be reckoned with!..... his friends puffed their chests out with pride. And his enemies folded like accordions in his presence!

Something had to give!...... and of course it did!

His heavy-handed operating style was not appreciated by some in his own borgata and certainly in some of the other borgatas around the city.

The Gambinos especially felt his wrath.

Gambino underboss Aniello Dellacroce, who operated in the very same neighborhood as Lilo, was especially perturbed by him.

No one to trifle with either, O’Neil was the other major power on the street. He had a reputation similar to Lilo as one of the toughest and most deadly adversaries if he was your enemy.

Famed NYCPD rackets specialist Ralph Salerno once commented that in his career he’d met dozens of deadly mafiosi over the years, but that only two stuck out in his mind as actually making him shake with fear and trepidation... Carmine Galante and Aniello Dellacroce!

He said that in peering into their eyes, each had a dead look - that you instinctively knew that they were born killers, and their eyes bore holes right through him!

THAT’S a big statement to make! Especially for a man like him. And I think it gives the reader real insight into who and what we are discussing here.

The End of the Line

On a sweltering summer’s day in 1979, Carmine Galante was driven to a nondescript little-known Italian Restaurant in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn for a luncheon with a few of his most trusted minions.

After a “pranzo” of pasta, veal, fish, and verdure, all washed down by some nice homemade red wine, Lilo settled in for a smoke of one of his famous cigars and a nice cup of espresso.

Within moments, the restaurant turned into a complete riot scene!

Several men had crashed the luncheon party, racing into the back outside courtyard where Lilo and his associates were, blasting pistols and shotguns at the diners.

Lilo was, of course, the killers' central target sustaining massive .12 gauge shotgun-blasted pellets to his chest and face.

One blast blew out an eye and tore a hole in his upper chest the size of a softball. His dining companions didn’t fare much better.

Leonardo (Nardo) Coppola, a recent immigrant from the borgata’s homeland of Castellammare del Golfo and a Family capo, was shot numerous times in the back and head by pistol fire and shotgun shells.

Giuseppe (Joe) Turano, the restaurant’s owner, Galante's cousin, and a suspected soldier himself, received multiple gunshot wounds..... all were dead before they even hit the pavement!

The killers escaped in seconds in a waiting car with the motor running outside by the curb on Knickerbocker Avenue.

Carmine (Lilo the Cigar) Galante was just 69 years old.

He had been paroled in 1974, and in a mere five-year span, had gone from federal prisoner to Bonanno Family boss and narcotics kingpin to a corpse!

Such is the life of a mafioso!

And he was no ordinary mafioso.... Galante will go down in the annals of organized crime history as one of its most colorful characters!

End Note: While my cousin was serving a jail term in the late 1960s, he became friendly with Lilo who was in the same joint. I don’t remember whether it was in Atlanta or Lewisburg at the time, my cousin was in both.

He said Lilo was THE power in that prison. More than the hacks or any other inmate, Lilo ran the place as his personal fiefdom. And everybody shit when he spoke.

He treated my cousin very well and shared meals and toiletries as needed. Lilo could be a highly volatile individual if you fucked with him, but if he liked you, then you were “in like flint”... my cousin served a good bid in large part because of Galante.

Carmine Galante on Mob Fireside Chat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8WtCvqwMLk

Carmine (Lilo) Galante: Bonanno Family Tsunami

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