Michael (Mike Bruno) Consolo: Bonanno Family “Money Man”

Michael (Mike Bruno) Consolo was a soldier in the Bonanno Family and a devoted minion of Lilo Galante , overseeing a gambling operation and other rackets in the Bayonne area in Northern New Jersey with fellow Bonanno veteran Joseph (Bayonne Joe) Zicarelli . He would meet his fate as one of the last fatalities of the vicious Banana War of the late 1960s.

Michael (Mike Bruno) Consolo -- aka Mike Locaso and Anthony Leo -- was born in 1903 in Siracusa, Sicily. He was naturalized in 1944. In the early 1940s, he relocated from Manhattan’s Lower East Side to 37-13 13th Avenue in Astoria. Later, he moved to 36-52 29th Street in Astoria.

He would later relocate to and reside for years at 61-05 76th Street in the Rego Park section, all in Queens. The home's estimated value in 1960 was $35,000. He also had a residence in New Jersey at 35 East 25th Street in the Bayonne area, where he also operated.

Michael (Mike Bruno) Consolo

He frequented Manhattan's “Little Italy” section, particularly Mulberry and Hester Streets.

Mike Consolo stood 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighed 173 pounds. He had black hair, dark brown eyes, and a stout build. He was a dapper dresser who always drove Cadillac sedans.

FBI # 285487, NYCPD # B-59684, NJSP # 399012

The FBI had long considered Consolo an underworld power. He was identified early on as an inducted Mafia member, operating as a “soldier” in the Carmine Galante regime. By the late-1950s, he was thought to have risen to capo and into a top leadership position.

His activities included policy rackets, narcotics, alcohol bootlegging, strong-arm enforcer, and murder.

Consolo’s lengthy criminal record starts way back in 1915 and sported arrests in both New York and New Jersey for the following:

1915 -- juvenile delinquency (2.5 years)

1921 -- robbery (pled to disorderly conduct)

1923 -- parole violation (1 year)

1923 -- vagrancy

1924 -- robbery

1925 -- attempted robbery

1930 -- armed robbery (2.5 years)

1930 -- attempted grand larceny

1935 -- armed robbery

1945 -- unregistered alcohol still (6 months)

1947 -- federal liquor law violations

1949 -- criminal inquiry

1951 -- homicide (first degree)

1955 -- detained for investigation

1958 -- operating a numbers bank

1959 -- engaging in a policy operation

1960 -- policy (1 year, suspended)

Side Note: Consolo had originally been indicted for murder in 1946. He went “on the lam” for a while until circumstances relating to this case took a turn to his liking. He then turned himself in. The murder case was subsequently dismissed.

Mike was generally not known to engage in any legitimate business ventures. He was strictly a street hood, comfortable operating the rackets. However, as he got older, he acquired an interest in the L.M.T. Cleaners Corp., a dry cleaning firm with branches in both Brooklyn and Manhattan. He was listed as the vice president of the company. He was also said to have held ownership in a chromium-plating firm.

Consolo was a very well-known and respected mafioso. He numbered among his close associates the top figures in the American underworld, including Joseph (Joe Bananas) Bonanno , Vito Genovese, Frank (Frankie Carroll) Garofalo, Carmine (Lilo) Galante, Vincent (Vic) Cotroni , Joseph (Bayonne Joe) Zicarelli, Salvatore Giglio, Philip Barese, Frank Nuccio, Gaetano (Tony) Lisi, Angelo (Little Moe) Presinzano, Frank Presinzano, Anthony Peraino, Robert Vastola, and Anthony Boccamino. Most of these men were all well-known gangsters and mafiosi from various Families.

In 1947, he was charged and convicted of being a principal in an extensive liquor bootlegging ring that operated several alcohol stills in Suffolk County on Long Island. A 750-gallon still in Copiague and a 500-gallon still in West Islip, where 6,000 gallons of mash were found.

Consolo was nabbed with Frank Nuccio while driving a truck loaded with 5-gallon cans of 180-proof alcohol to the gang's headquarters up in the Bronx. Consolo would plead out to a six-month federal prison term. Nuccio was given a suspended sentence.

In 1949, he was one of three notorious Bonanno hoods indicted for the gangland murder of a small-time gangster named Anthony (Babe) Imperiale. The other two, Family soldiers and ex-convicts Gaetano Lisi and Moe Presenzano, were apprehended by city homicide detectives. Consolo, who was 45 years old at the time, slipped a police dragnet, and a nationwide alarm was immediately issued for Consolo’s arrest.

They were accused of the 1946 murder of Imperiale after numerous witnesses said that they were the three men who entered a tenement building with the victim a few minutes before his body was found in a hallway with four .38 caliber slugs in it. The Assistant District Attorney described the alleged assailants as well-known cold-blooded gunmen. Over 30 witnesses were questioned before the suspects were picked up.

Consolo would eventually turn himself in, but not before he knew the evidence was faulty, ensuring that the case would be thrown out and dismissed.

In the mid-1950s, he was identified by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) as a suspected linchpin in a vast heroin network operating from Sicily through Canada into North America, with the ultimate destination being New York City for eventual domestic distribution to various cities throughout the United States.

This combine was tied the Cotroni decina headed by Vincenzo (Vic the Egg) Cotroni -- a powerful Calabrian-born Bonanno capo -- to what authorities said was the Galante-Zicarelli organization of the Bonanno Family.

He operated as a devoted minion of Lilo Galante, overseeing a gambling operation and other rackets in the Bayonne area in Northern New Jersey with fellow Bonanno veteran (Joe Bayonne) Zicarelli. They based operations out of the Club Hoo-Ha in Bayonne and Frankie’s Auction Market in Lodi.

And although already in his mid-60s by the advent of tensions leading up to the Banana War that ravaged the streets of New York in the years starting in 1966 to about 1969, by his reputation alone as a veteran mob strategist and old-time feared gunsel, he became a threat and no one to trifle with.

At approximately 9 p.m. on April 2, 1968, Consolo was accosted right in front of his home at 76th Street in Middle Village after returning from parking his car across the street to comply with alternate side of the street parking regulations. The killers lay in wait for him that evening, knowing he would exit his home at a certain time to move the automobile.

He was hit six times, twice in the head and four times in his back. Whoever did the job wanted to make sure he was dead so as not to worry about retribution.

He had been subpoenaed to a grand jury investigating the gang warfare. It is believed that while in the courthouse lobby, he greeted, shook hands, and kissed several hoods of the opposing Bonanno or Sciacca faction. Police theorized that Consolo may have been killed because it was thought that he may have “jumped fences” and had gone over to the other side. Paranoia ran deep during the gang war, and mobsters were wary of everyone, friends and foes alike.

In any case, Consolo's (by that time a Family “Capo di decina”) murder was thought to have been a major blow to Joe Bonanno’s faction. He was a policy racket kingpin known as a “money man,” a top revenue producer for Bonanno who was said to be helping Joe finance the war.

Michael (Mike Bruno) Consolo was 64 years old. He would be one of the last fatalities of the vicious and hard-fought “Banana War” before Don Giuseppe (Joe) Bonanno and his son Bill would throw in the towel, relinquishing his position as Family Boss and retiring in exile to Tucson, Arizona , where he would live in seclusion for the rest of his life.

Until next time..."The Other Guy"

Michael (Mike Bruno) Consolo on Mob Fireside Chat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CVbt_-aSaA&t

Michael (Mike Bruno) Consolo: Bonanno Family “Money Man”

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