Michael (Gumba Mike) Genovese: Brother of the Boss

Michael (Gumba Mike) Genovese was the brother and the closest and most trusted confidante of the most notorious and powerful mafia boss in the U.S. -- Vito Genovese.

Michael (Gumba Mike) Genovese - aka The Wise Man - was born on December 6, 1906, in Tufino, near Naples, Italy, and immigrated to the United States with his parents and brothers. The family settled in Ozone Park, Queens.

By the late 1920s, Mike had joined his brother Vito, who had left the family home years earlier after a fallout with their father. By that time Vito was knee-deep in the rackets and had started a new life in Lower Manhattan.

Michael (Mike Gumba) Genovese

By the time Michael Genovese was naturalized in 1938, he was shoulder to shoulder with Vito, and himself active in the underworld and was residing in an apartment building at 131 Riverside Drive, in Downtown Manhattan.

In 1966, when summoned before a Manhattan grand jury empaneled to probe the underworld, he gave his addresses alternately as 15 West 11th Street in Manhattan, and 198 Bayville Avenue, in Bayville, Long Island.

Still later, he bought a sprawling home on Langdon Avenue, in Upstate Irvington, New York, as well.

He was the younger brother of the notorious Camorrista, turned mafioso Vito Genovese. They had a third brother named Carmine, who was basically a legitimate guy, and the owner-operator of Carmine’s Bar & Grill, at 104 Bayard Street, in Lower Manhattan.

Gumba Mike was officially inducted as a ‘soldier’ in his brothers Mafia borgata during the many years Vito served as Lucky Luciano’s underboss.

But in reality, Mike was so much more than that. As the boss’s brother, he was held in much higher regard and wielded power far above that of a mere soldier.

Mike served as his brother's closest confidante and trusted aide. He was the one man whom Vito entrusted with his finances and entire bankroll. Especially during the decade from the mid-1930s, until the mid-1940s, while Vito was out of the country hiding from Brooklyn Homicide detectives for the murder of a smalltime hoodlum named Ferdinand (The Shadow) Boccia.

Gumba Mike was also known to control the purse strings for much of the borgata's finances while Vito was away, and had his brother's trust to control and manage Vito’s personal fortune as well.

He was ostensibly the ‘executive secretary’ of the Greater New York Wastepaper Removal & Packers Association, based in Lower Manhattan.

Mike also controlled the related labor union for the scrap-metal, and private waste paper industry, Local # 958 - Waste Material Handlers, Sorters, and Trimmers Union (Independent).

He also controlled the V. Genovese Trading Company, a junk and scrap metal business, and the Colonial Trading Co., both located at 567 Washington Street, for over ten years while Vito was away ‘on the lam’ in Italy.

Vito was the president and an owner of record in the Erb Strapping company on the westside. He also held ownership in a wastepaper removal firm at the same address. So Mike’s position in the association, and operation of the above waste and scrap companies, greatly helped facilitate his brother’s strength and domination over that industry.

Side Note: Vito bought into Erb Strapping for a mere $245, receiving a 49% stockholder interest in 1955. Between 1955 to 1960, Vito collected $40,000 in salary. After Vito’s jailing that year, Michael took possession of his interest, and from 1962 to 1968, Mike collected another $130,000 in salary. The Erb family eventually bought Genovese’s interest out for $160,000, payable at a rate of $20,000 a year until 1977....the two brothers had earned $330,000 for an investment of $245 .

Mike was also a principal in a large private loan and funding company that gave out ‘aggressive’ business loans and held second mortgages on various properties and businesses in the greater New York metropolitan area. This company was largely a ‘front’ for a major usurious money-lending (shylock) operation run by Mike and his brother Vito.

On both June 8, and December 1, 1964, Mike was subpoenaed to testify before the State Commission of Investigation, at 270 Broadway. It was covered by all the newspaper reporters and cameramen, who snapped his photo as Genovese exited the courtroom.

The probe was delving into New York’s vast loanshark racket, and Mike was subpoenaed and questioned about his ties to the mafia, and his suspected deep involvement in the usury rackets.

For his part, Gumba Mike pled his Fifth Amendment privilege to every one of the 26 questions prosecutors asked of him.

The 1952 testimony of Vito Genovese’s estranged wife Anna, which she gave during her divorce proceeding, was also submitted into the public record. She stated that Mike received $500 every week for years, as his share of Vito’s extensive illicit Italian-lottery racket.

The probe uncovered Genovese’s close connections to the First National Service and Discount Corp., of 475 Fifth Avenue, which the SIC said, “was a loan shark operation, and its principal operating force was Julio (Julie Peters) Gazia.

The SIC further stated that “The name Genovese is woven throughout the fabric of First National’s story. Julio Gazia is related by marriage to Vito and Mike Genovese. The corporate books clearly indicated that “M.G.” was code for Mike Genovese, who had invested money in First National, and profited handsomely on his investment.”

Investigators said that Genovese was a one-third partner in the operation.

A cooperating witness called “Mr. X” to hide his true identity testified before the commission that the firm was started up in October 1960, with less than $31,000 invested by its partners, who he identified as Genovese underboss Thomas (Tommy Ryan) Eboli, Colombo capo Nicholas (Jiggs) Forlano and his partner Charles (Ruby) Stein, who were two of the biggest shylocks in New York City, and soldier Michael Genovese.

Just 25 months after they made their investments, the firm’s books showed a profit of $150,000 in available cash and assets, and another $469,000 in outstanding loans and interest due.

Mr. X said the mob backers would loan their money to Gazia at 1% per week interest (52% annually), and he, in turn, would lend out their money at rates of up to 5% a week ‘vigorish,’ or interest.

Michael (Gumba Mike) Genovese

Another witness was Frederick Pittera, who made the mistake of borrowing from Gazia. He borrowed $28,000 in 1961 for his fledgling company named Spectronics, based in Virginia. By 1962, he had paid over $25,000 in interest, and still owed the original $28,000.

The mob ended up forcing him to turn over 90% of his company stock to them after he’d fallen behind in ‘vig’ payments.

Genovese and Eboli quickly installed soldier Dominick Ferraro to run the company. Within several months time, Ferraro had milked the company dry, ‘busting it out’ for all it was worth, and forcing it into bankruptcy.

This testimony appeared in all the local papers the following day. It was one of the first times that Genovese had truly ever been exposed for the public to see who he was. For that matter, it was truly the first time that Mike had even come under law enforcement’s microscope at all.

For much of his career, he had largely stayed in the shadow of his older brother Vito.

Mike Genovese didn’t even have a police record. He had never been arrested in his entire lifetime. His brother had made sure to make him earn but largely kept him safely on the sidelines of any police exposure, or underworld dangers.

The year before, during the testimony of Genovese Family informer Joe Valachi in 1963, before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, he named Michael Genovese, aka “Gumba Mike,” as a crime Family soldier. It was the first time that Mike had ever been named a mafioso or racketeer.

Mike’s name was added to the official FBI chart created by Valachi for the government, of the full borgata’s membership as he knew it, for the Vito Genovese Crime Family.

From that moment forward, the FBI carried Mike Genovese as a full-fledged mafia member, not just the brother of a mafia member. That change in designation would haunt Mike afterward.

He became a target for investigators, and soon he started receiving grand jury subpoenas, and a FBI and law enforcement scrutiny that he wasn’t used to getting.

After Vito’s death in federal prison in 1969, while serving a 15-year sentence for heroin trafficking, Mike continued as a semi-active Family soldier. He was believed to be very wealthy, and very independent in his movements, befitting his status as the brother of the most powerful mafioso and Capo-Familia in the entire United States.

But he was already getting on in years, and he slowly chose to fade from view, and into retirement.

Michael (The Wiseman) Genovese passed away in 1977. He was eighty years old. Mike had outlived his older, 72-year-old brother Vito, by eight years.

More importantly, ‘Gumba Mike’ had never served even a single day behind bars during his eighty years on this earth....He truly had be given the perfect nickname...’The Wiseman’

Until next time...’The Other Guy!’

Michael (Gumba Mike) Genovese: Brother of the Boss

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Michael (Gumba Mike) Genovese: Brother of the Boss

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