Nicolo "Cola" Schiro (born Nicolò Schirò;[a] Italian pronunciation: [nikoˈlɔ skiˈrɔ]; September 2, 1872 – April 29, 1957) was an early Sicilian-born New York City mobster who, in 1912, became the boss of what later become known as the Bonanno crime family.

Schiro's leadership of the mafia clan would see it orchestrate the "Good Killers" murders, control gambling and protection rackets in Brooklyn, engage in bootlegging during Prohibition, and print counterfeit money.

[10] Schiro ran his mafia clan conservatively, conducting its criminal activity primarily among the Sicilian immigrant community.

[14][15] In 1919, the Bureau of Investigation reviewed a list of Black Hand suspects in southern Colorado compiled by the sheriff of Huerfano County.

[16] On November 11, 1917, two Schiro gangsters, Antonio Mazzara and Antonino DiBenedetto were shot to death near the intersection of North 5th and Roebling streets in Brooklyn.

Giuseppe's cousin, Pietro Buccellato, worked at the Ford Motor Company factory in Highland Park, Michigan and Schiro arranged with Detroit mafia boss Tony Giannola to have him murdered.

[23][24] In August 1921, a barber named Bartolo Fontana turned himself into the New York police, confessing to a murder a couple of weeks prior in New Jersey.

[25] Some of the victims were connected to the Buccellato mafia clan in Castellammere del Golfo,[28] while others had complained after being cheated in gambling rackets run by the Schiro gang.

Morello had made a deal with Schiro, his earlier ally against D'Aquila, to kill Loiacano's supporters with people unfamiliar to them.

Francesco Puma was murdered on a New York street while out on bail awaiting trial, with a stray bullet from the shooting also hitting a seven-year-old girl.

[31] Several Schiro gangsters became mafia bosses in other cities – Frank Lanza in San Francisco, Stefano Magaddino in Buffalo, and Gaspare Messina in New England.

[40] On August 2, 1922, Secret Service agents arrested Schiro gangster Benjamin Gallo, along with four others, for operating a sophisticated counterfeiting plant at a bakery on Rockaway Avenue in Brooklyn.

[41][42] Future boss Joseph Bonanno illegally immigrated to the U.S. during the mid-1920s,[43] soon joining the Schiro gang as a protege of Salvatore Maranzano.

[45] Bonanno's second cousin, Vito Bonventre, remained a leader within Schiro's gang following his arrest and release during the "Good Killers" affair.

[46] Maranzano, a Castellammare del Golfo-born son-in-law of a Sicilian mafia boss in Trapani, had joined the Schiro mafia clan in the mid-1920s and helped it create an extensive bootlegging network in Dutchess County, New York, along with a ring providing fraudulent immigration and naturalization documents to Italians smuggled into the United States.