Charles "Lucky" Luciano (/ˌluːtʃiˈɑːnoʊ/ LOO-chee-AH-noh,[1] Italian: [luˈtʃaːno]; born Salvatore Lucania [salvaˈtoːre lukaˈniːa];[2] November 24, 1897[nb 1] – January 26, 1962) was an Italian-born gangster who operated mainly in the United States.

Although he was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison, an agreement was struck with the U.S. Department of the Navy through his Jewish Mob associate, Meyer Lansky, to provide naval intelligence during World War II.

[11] In 1906, when Luciano was eight years old, his family emigrated to the U.S.[12] They settled in New York City, in the borough of Manhattan on its Lower East Side, a popular destination for Italian immigrants during the period.

To salvage his reputation, Luciano bought 200 expensive seats to the Jack Dempsey–Luis Firpo boxing match in The Bronx and distributed them to top gangsters and politicians.

Rothstein took Luciano on a shopping trip to Wanamaker's Department Store in Manhattan to buy expensive clothes for the fight.

Luciano was shocked to hear traditional Sicilian mafiosi lecture him about his dealings with close friend Costello, whom they called "the dirty Calabrian".

[29][30][31] In October 1929, Luciano was forced into a limousine at gunpoint by three men, beaten and stabbed, and strung up by his hands from a beam in a warehouse in Staten Island.

While they played cards, Luciano allegedly excused himself to go to the bathroom, at which point gunmen—reportedly Anastasia, Genovese, Adonis and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel—entered the restaurant.

[37] Ciro Terranova drove the getaway car but legend has it that he was too shaken up to drive and had to be shoved out of the driver's seat by Siegel.

[33] With Masseria gone, Maranzano reorganized the Italian-American gangs in New York City into Five Families headed by Luciano, Profaci, Gagliano, Vincent Mangano and himself.

[31] Several days later, on September 13, the corpses of two Maranzano allies, Samuel Monaco and Louis Russo, were retrieved from Newark Bay, showing evidence of torture.

The October 15 disappearance of Joe Ardizonne, head of the Los Angeles crime family, would later be regarded as part of this alleged plan to quickly eliminate the Mustache Petes;[41] the idea of an organized mass purge, directed by Luciano, has been debunked as a myth.

His own crime family controlled lucrative criminal rackets in New York City such as illegal gambling, extortion, bookmaking, loansharking, and drug trafficking.

He became very influential in labor union activities and controlled the Manhattan Waterfront, garbage hauling, construction, Garment District businesses, and trucking.

Although there would have been few objections had Luciano declared himself capo di tutti capi, he chose to abolish the title, believing the position created trouble between the families and made himself a target for another ambitious challenger.

Genovese ultimately persuaded Luciano to keep the ceremony, arguing that young people needed rituals to promote obedience to the family.

In June 1935, New York Governor Herbert H. Lehman appointed Dewey, a United States Attorney, as a special prosecutor to combat organized crime in the city.

[55] Sixteen men and 87 women were arrested; however, unlike previous vice raids the arrestees were not released, but taken to Dewey's offices where Judge Philip J. McCook set minimum bails of US$10,000, far beyond their means to pay.

[59] On April 17, after all of Luciano's legal options had been exhausted, Arkansas authorities handed him to three NYPD detectives for transport by train back to New York for trial.

The party arrived in New York on April 18, and Luciano was arraigned and jailed the following day after failing to post the US$350,000 bond set by McCook.

[33] Dewey ruthlessly pressed Luciano on his long arrest record and his relationships with well-known gangsters such as Masseria, Terranova and Buchalter.

[65][66] In his book Five Families, longtime New York Times organized-crime columnist Selwyn Raab wrote that a number of scholars have questioned whether Luciano was directly involved in the bonding combination.

According to Raab, there was evidence that Luciano profited from prostitution and several members of his family ran a protection racket that ensnared many of New York's madams and brothel keepers; however, he wrote that several Mafia and legal scholars believed that it would have been out of character for a crime boss of Luciano's stature to be directly involved in a prostitution ring.

[76] On January 3, 1946, as a presumed reward for his alleged wartime cooperation, Dewey reluctantly commuted Luciano's pandering sentence on condition that he not resist deportation to Italy.

[80] In October 1946, Luciano secretly relocated to the Cuban capital of Havana, first taking a freighter from Naples to Caracas, Venezuela, then a flight to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, before flying to Mexico City and doubling back to Caracas, where he took a private plane to Camagüey, Cuba, finally arriving on October 29.

The three topics under discussion were: the heroin trade, Cuban gambling and what to do about Siegel and his floundering Flamingo Hotel project in Las Vegas.

The year before, the United States Army Criminal Investigation Division had shipped Genovese from Italy to New York to face trial on his 1934 murder charge.

[91] On June 9, 1951, Luciano was questioned by Naples police on suspicion of illegally bringing $57,000 in cash and a new American car into Italy.

On May 2, following Genovese's orders, Vincent Gigante ambushed Costello in the lobby of his Central Park apartment building, The Majestic.

To avoid antagonizing other Mafia members, Luciano had previously refused to authorize a film, but reportedly relented after the death of Lissoni.