The Joseph (Joe Socks) Lanza Regime

One of the most legendary and infamous Mafia groups to ever operate in the United States was the notorious criminal gang that controlled the Lower Manhattan waterfront and docks, taking over the famous Fulton Fish Market and piers located along the Lower East Side. From the 1920s forward, this Cosa Nostra network would control all organized crime generated by New York’s multimillion-dollar-a-year seafood industry.

Giuseppe Lanza, who was to become infamous around the waterfront and throughout police circles as Joe Socks, or Socks Lanza, was one of the original Mafia powers in the organized crime network that later became known as the Salvatore (Charlie ‘Lucky’ Luciano) Lucania Family.

A powerfully built man, from 1917 forward Lanza racked up a long series of arrests and convictions for such offenses as grand larceny (twice), burglary, homicide by gunshot, petty larceny, gun possession, Sherman Anti-Trust Law Violations, coercion, criminal conspiracy, extortion (thrice), and violating state election laws.

By the 1930s, “Socks” Lanza was solidly in command of underworld operations at the Fulton Fish Market, and his name had become synonymous with waterfront racketeering in New York City.

FBI #785896, NYPD #B-65346

On the Waterfront

During those early years, Lanza and the hoodlums who operated under his tutelage and direction built up one of the largest, most prolific, and durable criminal networks to ever operate in Manhattan — or anywhere else in the country, for that matter.

And although by the mid-1940s “Socks” Lanza was eventually jailed on a state rap for conspiracy and extortion and serving out a 7.5-to-15 year penitentiary term in Upstate New York, from the mid-1920s through at least the 1980s the criminal fiefdom he helped build continued to maintain an ironclad grip on nearly every money-making racket or business in that section of the city, extracting Cosa Nostra’s “tribute” from fellow hoodlums and legitimate businessmen alike who operated along the waterfront. Lanza’s crew controlled nearly everything.

Their power was derived mainly through Lanza’s pervasive infiltration of and control over several key labor unions he either first created or later infiltrated to better maintain control of waterfront businesses. By controlling the labor force that supplied various businesses and companies with dock workers at the Fulton Fish Market, the Mafia gained a virtual stranglehold over the entire waterfront.

Several union locals, in particular, played a key role in this effort. One was the United Seafood Workers Union, Local #359. The other was the International Longshoremen’s Association, Local #856 (ILA). These two labor organizations allowed Lanza and his goons to maintain firm control over nearly all waterfront workers.

The Fulton Fish Market

As time went on, Lanza and his boys also formed several business “association” trade groups, which all businesses operating on the docks or doing business along the waterfront were compelled to join under threats of intimidation, beatings, sabotage, arson, or worse.

By controlling both a company’s management and labor force, Lanza and his Mafia superiors, like Lucky Luciano and Vito Genovese, were able to virtually control everything and anything that moved on or through the docks.

This ironclad control over labor and management provided Socks Lanza and his men with unprecedented and almost limitless opportunities for criminal plunder, including raking off monthly union dues for their personal use, the ability to falsify or inflate labor-union expense accounts, pay themselves bloated union salaries, and pilfer the union’s treasury using various forms of embezzlement from its seven-figure pension and welfare fund.

The mob’s pervasive control over these unions also opened up a whole new swathe of extortionist “tribute” schemes like shaking-down fish mongers and trucking firms either delivering seafood to or hauling from the market, charging illegal parking fees, stealing a portion of seafood from each crated shipment, known as “tapping” the crates, and opening up sealed shipments to steal other types of valuable cargo like guns and munitions.

Their tight control of the waterfront also enabled Cosa Nostra to expand significantly into smuggling rackets. In the coming years and decades, certain New York Mafia Families specialized in secreting loads of heroin, cocaine, and other types of contraband into the United States through the piers.

Over the years, ancillary racket activities have included monopolies on the sale and supply of heavy equipment to stevedoring companies on the piers, such as Hi-Lo’s, as well as steel racks, baling hooks, and other tools and equipment used by pier workers. Cargo-container repair companies also became targets of racketeering.

Key Players

Key instigators of this “waterfront dock infiltration” included such notorious characters as Rosario “Saro” Mogavero and Michelino “Big Mike” Clemente , both of whom at one time or another served as salaried labor “union officials” for ILA Local #856.

Other important waterfront racketeers included Luciano Family members Philip “Philly Katz” Albanese, Carmelo “Charlie Bananas” Coppolino, Carmine Russo, Joseph “Joe Beck” Lapi, and Harry “Bons” Bonsignore. Years later, the Romano brothers rose to positions of importance.

Although for all intents and purposes, “Socks” Lanza was always the most important -- and the most notorious -- waterfront boss of this faction, in the years following Lanza’s imprisonment and subsequent retirement, other crew members were appointed to step up and fill the void Lanza left behind.

Fulton Fish Market

Arguably the most important of these men was Rocco “The Old Man” Pellegrino, a contemporary of Lanza and one of the original and most influential figures of the Luciano/Genovese Family, as well as the acknowledged Mafia “boss” in Westchester County, N.Y.

Two other very important mafiosi who later served as crew leaders were the aforementioned Rosario Mogavero and Joseph Lapi , both of whom were eventually elevated to serve as “capo di decina” over Lanza’s former crew.

Side Note: During World War II, Joseph (Joe Socks) Lanza allegedly played a key role in a highly controversial series of incidents that indirectly led to Family boss Charlie Luciano’s prison term being commuted in January 1946. Then-NYS Governor Thomas E. Dewey granted Luciano “executive clemency” subject to Luciano agreeing to leave the U.S. voluntarily and never return. Subsequently, Luciano was deported back to his native Italy.

The circumstances surrounding Luciano’s pardon revolved around a secret deal worked out between the U.S. Navy and Luciano’s lawyers in an effort to prevent Nazi infiltration and potential enemy sabotage along the piers. Once agreed to, Luciano allegedly sent out orders to members of New York City’s Mafia — and the faction led by Socks Lanza in particular — to use their considerable influence along the New York docks to aid the United States Government in preventing any sabotage by Hitler’s forces.

A Potpourri of Labor Rackets

Collectively, the wide variety of racket schemes Lanza’s crew orchestrated became a multimillion-dollar-a-year windfall that continuously lined the pockets of Lanza and his men, and, by extension, the coffers of New York’s organized crime.

But Lanza’s vast underworld power didn’t end there. Through an ambitious crew of like-minded individuals, who applied similar “time-honored” Mafia methods, Socks Lanza and his minions were able to infiltrate and overtake many unions servicing other industries over the years. This allowed Lanza and the mob to exercise racket control over various other types of businesses in The Big Apple.

Good examples of this were Local #966 and Local #202 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; IBEW Locals #1922 and Local #1430 of the International Union of Electrical Workers (AFL-CIO); Local #11 of the Restaurant, Bartenders & Hotel Workers Union International (AFL-CIO), and the Long Island Federation of Labor, which was a coalition of labor unions representing several industries in Nassau and Suffolk Counties out on Long Island.

Fulton Fish Market

In addition to the various Lanza crew members who employed corrupt union practices on the waterfront, this particular Cosa Nostra regime also included a long list of members who specialized in labor-union racketeering in many other industries.

A key example was Ignazio Agone, better known throughout the underworld as Joe Curly, who served for years as the “Assistant to the President and Special Coordinator” of Local #11, a significant local affiliated with the International Restaurant & Bartenders Union International.

Another was crew associate Daniel (Danny) Kapilow, a former professional prizefighter turned gangster who was later installed as Vice President of another key local of the Restaurant Workers Union.

Another notable figure was the notorious John (Jack) McCarthy, who, throughout his lengthy career as a labor racketeer and pension-fund embezzler, held several key union positions, including “Business Agent” and “Organizer” of various locals affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Street Rackets

Aside from their prolific labor union racketeering activities, many other soldiers and associates of this crew concentrated their focus elsewhere. These were the men whom Lanza counted on to generate revenue from other sources, such as the more traditional “street” rackets, and they were no slouches either.

Through the years, this particular faction of Charlie Lucky’s Family became known for the diversified range of criminal activities they engaged in. These included horse and sports bookmaking, policy-numbers, and floating dice and card games, shylocking, armed robberies, bank robbery, jewel heists from Manhattan’s Diamond District, warehouse cargo theft, truck hijacking, the counterfeiting of U.S. currency, handling stolen and counterfeit stocks, bonds and other securities, smuggling of heroin into the country for wholesale redistribution, garbage carting racketeering, the illegal disposal of toxic waste, strong-arm work and contract murder as ordered from time to time by the Family hierarchy.

Inside the Fulton Fish Market

Lanza’s crew also made significant inroads into other legitimate segments of New York’s economy, such as strong-arming their way into business partnerships, particularly with restaurants and nightclubs.

A few good examples of this type of infiltration were when soldier Frankie “The Bug” Caruso, along with fellow Lanza crew member Joe Lapi, secretly took a “piece” of Midtown Manhattan’s popular Pygmalion Restaurant, located at 1068 2nd Avenue.

The FBI says that Caruso also held an ownership interest in the New York Carting Company, a major garbage collection firm located at 643 E. 13th Street, Manhattan.

Joe Lapi was also said to have been a partner in the Latona Undertakers Inc., a funeral parlor located at 236 Mulberry Street, in the heart of Manhattan’s Little Italy neighborhood.

Through his shylocking activities, soldier Joe “Curly” Agone was said to have also gained a foothold in several other popular restaurants and bars on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

The Fulton Fish Market Crew

What follows below is an extensively researched hierarchy chart listing most of the known members and associates of this legendary crew. Button Guys named 144 men: 23 FBI-documented “inducted” soldiers, 8 “proposed” future soldiers, and another 113 “associates” who ranged from corrupt politicians and lawyers, to labor officials and hoodlums of every size and stripe. We also included a pictorial rogues gallery featuring over 30 unique mugshots we think you’ll enjoy.

The Joseph (Joe Socks) Lanza Regime

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