1962 in organized crime

Events
  • Former leader of the Philadelphia crime family, Salvatore Sabella dies.
  • John Saupp is mistakenly killed by fellow inmate and New York mobster Joe Valachi, who had intended to kill New York mobster Joseph DiPalermo, while imprisoned at Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.
  • Carmine Galante convicted for drugs charges.
  • January 26 - Lucky Luciano dies of a heart attack in Naples, Italy, while meeting with Hollywood producers to discuss a movie based on his life. Possibly, as some theorize, the result of poisoning.
  • April 8 - Genovese crime family Capo Anthony "Tony Bender" Strollo, a former gunman and lieutenant in the Maranzano crime family and head of criminal operations in Greenwich Village since 1931, disappears.
  • June 6 - Joe Profaci dies of cancer. The Gallo-Profaci War continues however as brother-in-law Joseph Magliocco takes over the Profaci crime family following Profaci's death.
  • On June 13, Simone Scozzari underboss of the Los Angeles crime family is deported to Italy.
  • October 27 - On a flight from Sicily to the Milan Linate Airport, the Saulnier jetplane of Enrico Mattei crashes in the surroundings of the small village of Bascapè in Lombardy. Together with Mattei, his pilot Irnerio Bertuzzi and the American Journalist William McHale also died. Mattei was the president of Italy’s national oil company Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (ENI). Under his direction ENI negotiated important oil concessions in the Middle East as well as a significant trade agreement with the Soviet Union. Official inquiries declared that the plane crash was an accident, but some Mafia turncoats – among the Tommaso Buscetta – have suggested that a special agreement had been achieved between the Cosa Nostra and "some foreigners" for the elimination of Mattei. The Italian Minister of Defense, Giulio Andreotti, was responsible for the accident investigation. Evidence was immediately destroyed at the crash site. Flight instruments were put into acid.
  • December 26 - Sicilian Mafia boss Calcedonio Di Pisa is killed on the Piazza Principe di Camporeale in Palermo while walking to a tobacco kiosk. The brothers Salvatore and Angelo La Barbera are blamed for the killing, which was probably carried out by Michele Cavataio. Considered to be the start of the First Mafia War

Arts and literature

Births

Deaths
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