Although the port city of Baltimore, Maryland is a bustling and thriving metropolis with a current population topping 600,000 residents (in 1950 they had 950,000) and has a greater metropolitan regional population of over 2.8 million, this vibrant city never had a full-blown ‘resident’ Mafia Family to call their own.
There have been many gangsters and racketeers active on Baltimore’s streets spanning over 70 years, but the majority of those underworld figures were either of Jewish lineage or various other ethnicities operating as independent racketeers devoid of any central command, so to speak.
And although the Italian underworld would eventually gravitate to the city and become active as well, it wasn’t until the 1940s that New York’s old Vincent Mangano Family first officially planted their flag on its soil to stake a claim to the territory.
Family underboss Francesco (Don Cheech) Scalici personally oversaw the decision to expand into the State of Maryland and hand-selected several key soldiers from his own Bronx-based regime to relocate out to Baltimore for the purpose of spearheading new territory and expanding their borgata’s reach and influence.
