Mafia Killer & Junk Dealer “Shorty” Allocco

Known as "Shorty" in the underworld, Dominick Allocco was a prolific narcotics dealer and vicious gunman and contract killer. He was closely tied to members of the Genovese, Gambino, and Lucchese Families and maintained close contact with members of other Families throughout the U.S.

Dominick (Shorty) Allocco was born in New York City on September 20, 1913 to parents Gaetano Allocco and Rosa (nee’ Terricano). He was one of nine children. He had five brothers named Salvatore, John, Frank, Phillip and Anthony, and three sisters named Teresa, Bettina and Maria.

The Allocco children grew up in the “Little Italy” sections East Harlem and Bronx County.

Dominick Allocco

Police records described Allocco as 5 feet 7 inches tall, solidly built at over 190 pounds, with jet-black hair neatly parted and combed straight back -- though it turned salt-and-pepper by his mid-fifties. He had dark brown eyes and a sallow complexion.

He married a local girl named Margaret DePasqua and the newlyweds moved into an apartment they rented in the Bronx. Dominick and Margaret eventually had at least one child we know of, a daughter they named Lois.

Over the years, as Dominick’s fortunes rose and fell according to his circumstances, the Alloccos were forced to move around a bit, but they always stayed around the general neighborhood.

By the early 1960s, Allocco was said to be hanging his hat in a one bedroom high-rise apartment he was then leasing at 737 Southern Boulevard, Bronx.

737 Southern Blvd., Bronx

But during that same time, his wife Margaret was known to be living apart from him in a two-family house, located at 2955 Pearsall Avenue, also in the Bronx. So it appears that the Alloccos may have been estranged from one another by that point in time.

FBI #5130074, NYCPD #E-19941

His known criminal arrest record dates back to at least 1948 when he was already 35 years of age. Allocco was obviously a relatively late bloomer for a mafioso. But he certainly made up for any lost time in the coming years.

Agents for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics who knew him all say that Allocco was a very dedicated hoodlum, but one who seemed to have had a one-track mind.

Because over the next decade -- from 1948 to 1955 -- he would been arrested and jailed on at least three different occasions for selling heroin. In fact, drugs seems to have been the only racket Dominick ever cared to dabble in.

He was nabbed for dealing in narcotics in 1948 and 1951, and again in 1955.

Although he served several jail terms, the longest prison sentence ever handed down to him was after he was convicted on his third trafficking offense in 1959. The judge finally slammed him with a stiff 10-year term to be served in a maximum security federal penitentiary.

A Major Trafficker

Dominick Allocco, better known on the streets as "Shorty," was a prolific wholesale narcotics trafficker. Local and federal authorities described him as a key figure in distributing kilo quantities of heroin to mob-connected dealers across multiple Cosa Nostra families.

Through their informants, the authorities also came to view Shorty Allocco as a vicious gunman and contract killer for the underworld.

In 1956, the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics & Dangerous Drugs wrote in their internal memos that are shared with other field offices around the country that, “Dominick Allocco is considered an important Mafia member who is known for suppling heroin in wholesale quantities to distributors in New York, Detroit, Cleveland and Chicago. He is also reputed to be a trigger man in Mafia killings, including that of narcotics trafficker Joe Franco, who was murdered in 1948.”

The feds went on to note that Dominick Allocco had never been gainfully employed in any legitimate job, vocation, or business his entire life.

A Mafia Soldier?

Although he was never officially listed in any government file or on any FBI chart as a formally inducted soldier of the Mafia, over the years, Allocco had been closely tied to numerous high-ranking mafiosi in at least three New York City Families, including those of Vito Genovese, Thomas Lucchese and Carlo Gambino.

Additionally, he was known to maintain close contacts with a number of known members and associates of several out of state families in furtherance of his drug activities.

His known associates included notorious New York mafiosi like Genovese capo Rosario (Saro) Mogavero, onetime boss of the Fulton Fish Market; Lucchese capo Salvatore (Tom Mix) Santoro, a twice convicted heroin kingpin; Gambino soldier Anthony (Tony the Geep) Sedotto, another convicted heroin peddler; and Genovese Family associate, drug chemist and heroin distributor, Rosario (Sal) Rinaldi.

In Ohio, he was known to do business with a drug trafficker who happened to be an old friend from the Bronx who had since relocated to Cleveland, Nicholas (Nick) Bibbo.

The Clock Stops

Dominick (Shorty) Allocco passed away quietly on Wednesday, July 25, 1973. At the time of his death, Allocco had only recently been paroled and was back living in the old East Harlem neighborhood of his youth, on E.106th Street. Shorty’s passing hardly caused a ripple in New York gangland. Like they say, “Life goes on.”

The rapacious junk trafficker and assassin was only 59 years old.

Until next time…”The Other Guy”

Mafia Killer & Junk Dealer “Shorty” Allocco

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