He held strict control over the policy game (numbers racket), employing Neapolitan and Sicilian street gangs as his enforcers.

[3] A Naples court had sentenced Gallucci in 1883 for breaking parole, resisting arrest and perjury and in 1885 for assault and attempted extortion.

[11] In April 1898, he was arrested in New York in connection with the murder of Josephine Inselma (or Giuseppina Anselmi), who was portrayed as Gallucci's companion by the police.

[13] Gallucci's apprehension took place while he was operating a fruit wagon in the neighborhood; he was described as "a young grocer and expressman, with a store at 172 Mott Street".

New York City Police Department detective Joe Petrosino, who was in charge of the investigation, urged his superiors to inquire for more information in Italy.

[8][10] Vincenzo was shot in New York City on November 20, 1898, supposedly on orders from an Italian "secret society similar to the Mafia".

[15] They did not attract much attention because, "as a class, they rob their own people, and the Italian scheme of 'fix it myself' interferes to throw the police off the scent.

[12] He became the undisputed boss of Little Italy following the imprisonment of the Sicilian-American mafia leaders Giuseppe Morello and Ignazio Lupo on counterfeit charges in 1910.

He was one of the biggest moneylenders and held strict control over the policy game (numbers racket), employing Neapolitan and Sicilian street gangs as his enforcers.

[5][12][23] Gallucci ran what was supposed to be the New York office of the Royal Italian Lottery, which in fact was a front for his own policy game selling thousands of tickets every month throughout Harlem.

[23] The political patronage of Tammany Hall controlled the city's police and bureaucracy that handed out the construction contracts and licenses.

"[20] According to Salvatore Cotillo, who would become the first Italian-born Justice of the New York Supreme Court and who grew up in Italian Harlem, "to Gallucci all people were either hirelings or payers of tribute.

"[5][27] According to Cotillo's biographer, Gallucci boasted that situations could be arranged with the police; that murder could be contracted out and stories circulated that witnesses disappeared.

[27][28] When Gallucci was arrested for carrying concealed weapons, Cotillo was asked to testify as a character witness on his behalf, but refused.

As to other authorities, they did not trouble themselves at all about it, so much so that in nine cases out of ten any Italian committing a crime was nearly sure of going unpunished if he only escaped a few days from arrest.Under these circumstances Gallucci could easily deny the charges against him.

"I have been accused of being interested in horse thieves, blackmailing, extortion from shop keepers, bomb explosions, kidnapping of children and other crimes, including murder," he told a reporter from the New York Herald who claimed to know him.

"[31] Giosue's elder brother, Gennaro Gallucci, was shot dead on November 14, 1909, in the back room of the family bakery.

Gennaro arrived in New York from Italy in December 1908, having escaped from prison after serving 23 years of a life sentence for murdering two men.

[32][33] Soon after his arrival, the police began receiving complaints about extortion practices, but when the plaintiffs were told that they had to confront him in court, they dropped the charges.

Immigration officials began efforts to deport him to Italy,[34] but the courts, oblivious of his criminal background, released him with a suspended sentence.

[23] In 1911, the gang of Neapolitan "black handers" run by Prisco gunned down several members of Gallucci's entourage because he refused to make "protection" payments.

[35] At least six "mysterious street murders" and ten shootings followed Prisco's slaying, which, according to some press reports, were the result of a war between the "Russomanno-Gallucci" and "Prisco-Buonomo factions".

In July 1913, more than 40 arrests were made, including Gallucci, Russomanno, and Gallucci’s bodyguard, Generoso "Joe Chuck" Nazzaro, around Mulberry Bend and in upper Harlem to suppress illegal gambling known as the policy game; a charge led by Assistant District Attorney Deacon Murphy and Deputy Police Commissioner George S.

The Neapolitan Del Gaudio brothers, who had connections with the Brooklyn based Navy Street gang, were involved in illegal gambling in East Harlem, but Gallucci allegedly denied them permission to operate a lottery.

Nicolo Del Gaudio, brother to Gaetano, owned a barber shop on East 104th Street, which had been proposed as a meeting place between Prisco and Gallucci.

[6][38] With Gallucci's prestige beginning to wither, he scrambled to maintain control as the war continued with the remnants of Prisco's old gang.

[51] Gallucci refused to talk to the police, saying he would settle the issue himself, but he died at Bellevue Hospital three days later, on May 21, of a bullet wound in the abdomen.

The alleged killers were Gallucci's former bodyguards Generoso "Joe Chuck" Nazzarro and Tony Romano, with the help of Andrea Ricci, of the rival Navy Street gang from Brooklyn.

[47] The money for the hit was probably provided by Coney Island Camorra boss Pellegrino Morano, in an effort to take over Gallucci's rackets.

[3] The subsequent fight over those rackets with the Camorra gangs from Brooklyn is known as the Mafia-Camorra War, and would eventually elevate Vincenzo and Ciro Terranova to "boss" status in the Harlem underworld.