The membership chart below represents at least two generations of Syracuse’s underworld.
This particular research project was a real deep-dive for our Button Guys team. Nearly one year of research was required because many of the men and events that appear on this chart date back over a century, to the year 1900, or earlier.
Subsequently, we utilized a wide variety of methods and sources to excavate and unearth the information required to compose this one-of-a-kind historical article. It included archives of the FBI, NYSP, SPD, FOIA, INS, IRS, newspapers, public records, NYS incorporation files, city directories, Mary Farrell, and other sources.
The chart lists 161 camorrista, racketeers and gamblers. The attached mugshot gallery boasts 47 photographs, many of which are rare and date back to the early 1900s.
The original Camorra Clan was first founded by the feared Donato Scarafino who first took control of the city through “Black Hand-style” extortion and terroristic methods. In later years, a second generation of men — many of whom were affiliated through both blood and lifelong friendship — came to power, assuming control over the city’s criminal rackets.
In one form or another, the “original” criminal clan was known to have operated from at least 1900, through the late-1930s.
As previously mentioned in our Syracuse Camorra expose, even during his later incarceration, Scarafino’s successor Nick Capozzi maintained control over his gang through secret messages smuggled out of the prison to his lieutenants and other subordinates. After his release from prison in 1923, Capozzi was believed to have maintained his power, but faded into the woodwork, preferring to remain in the background as a respected elder statesman.
Many of the men listed in the chart were among the “original” dyed-in-the-wool camorrista members that first formed the gang. Others listed were active in later years, operating as gamblers and racketeers. Still others on the chart were more loosely connected to the Syracuse mob, serving as peripheral associates, frontmen, or as minor functionaries in one form or another.
But suffice it to say that for over six decades — from approximately 1900 through the 1960s — each of the men listed were affiliated in some way with this criminal network.
