Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised

The Apalachin meeting  was a historic summit of the American Mafia held at the home of mobster Joseph “Joe the Barber” Barbara, at 625 McFall Road in Apalachin, New York

November 14, 1957

Allegedly, the meeting was held to discuss various topics including loansharking, narcotics trafficking, and gambling, along with dividing the illegal operations controlled by the recently murdered Albert Anastasia.

An estimated 100 Mafiosi from the United States, Italy, and Cuba are thought to have attended this meeting.

Immediately after the Anastasia murder that October, and after taking control of the Luciano crime family (renamed the Genovese crime family) from Frank Costello, Vito Genovese wanted to legitimize his new power by holding a national Cosa Nostra meeting.

on the second of may 1957, frank castello head of the luciano  crime family   had enjoyed dinner  with friends in an eastside resturant

he took a cab to his apartment the majestic on the fashionable upper west side of new  york central  park

as the  castello entered the lobby a large man stepped out  ot the shadows raised his  arm.”this is for you”

this organized hit on  a top mafia boss would  signal the rise of  the most dangerous gangster in america  vito genovese.

vito  geneves was never anything but a homicide maniac, probably the most  despicable gangster ever to run the streets of this city .

 but genovese’s rise world also  be a major truning point in the history of mafia.

his actions would bring down the full force  of FBI on the mob.

genovese arrived in new york  from naple when he was 15 years old joined  by  thousands of other italian  imigrants  to hit the city shore  at the turn of the  century.

genovese  grew up  in the slums of new york, from the beginning  he was involved n  these terrifying streets games violence ruled and he never changed.

genovese  was a product of the gehto of new york city.

he was constantly , everything had to be out of the barrel of a gun that was genovese.

police records show that over the next 10 years  genovese was charged with shooting a man in Queens running down and killing a man in brooklyn.

having a loaded revolver tucked into his belt on the lower  east side and murdering another hoodlum .

vito genovese give you a great  example of what he hid .

he fell  in love with a women named anna,who was married to someone else,genovese and his thugs threw her of the roof so he could married her and he married.

this apetite for killing did not go unnoticed  by mid 120s genovese was a hitman for the greatest mafia boss of them all charles ‘lucky ‘ luciano.

vito genovese  rode to the top by  intimidation and the guy wh allowed him to do that was lucky luciano.

lucky lucioano used  vito genovese as his intimidator.

luciano may have lookedvery cultivated but he needed a hitman and when he neededhitman one of the first people he turned to was vito genovese.

by 1931 genovese was acknowledged as lucky luciano’s right- hand man  and underboss and was one of the key hitmen sent  by luciano to kill  rival boss  Giusepi masseria.

such was his reputation that genovese was  known as don vito.

the great vito.

and in  1936 genovese got the chance to take the top job when mafia boss luciano was convicted on prostitution charges..

and sent to prison for 50 years.

when lucky was convicted and sentenced  to a long prison term  vito concidered himself to be the heir of parent.

but things didn’t go to plan, genovese’s now also found himself being pursued.

vito genovese had been involved in a murder in the early 1930s and somehow had managed to beat the rap.

the victim had been one of genovese’s gangsters who had demanded too big a share of a crooked card game.

now an informer came forward and pointed the finger at genovese as the man who ordered the hit.

just as he was about to take control of the luciano family ,genovese was forced to flee to Italy to escape the murder  charge and the electric chair.

with genovese out of the picture luciano sent word from his prison cell for frank costello to step in as boss .

jsut like genovese, frank costella was born in italy, he was  four years old when he arrived in east harlem with his parents in 1900.

his father ran a grocery shop and from an early age costello despite his humbleness,he loathed the way his father was willing to settle for a life of poverty.

costello chose the streets  rather than work with his father and joined one of the violent gangs of new york, in 1915 costella was arrested and sentence to a year in jail for carrying a gun.

but this event changed him and would make him a very different man to genovese, on his release, costello decidedto use his brains not bullets to get ahead.

the people that he wored with were prone to violence  almost by definition and he understood that murders were bad for business.

he would never be  a kind of hitman goon a muscleman type, he was a gentleman  gangster, he was never going tobe a thug.

and  he also latched on to something called slot machines ,by the 1930s  frank costello was known to the underworld as king of the slots

his illegal one- armed bandit machines were grossing $ 500.000 a day, he made millions

and established him as somebody who was known as  an earner not a guy who goes out and has to commit hits or violent crime.

with genovese gone  frank costello was a very powerful man, he was now the head of the new york mafia ,the largest mob family in america with more then 400  soldiers beneath him.

costello easily fill luciano’s shoes and  continued to add billions of dollars to the family’s fortunes.

 far away in Italy genove esd just trying to make his way, it said  that when he fled the US on the murder charge, he had $750,000 in his trunk genovese was going to need it.

benito mussolini the head of  the national fascist party in  Italy was fiercely against the sicilian mafia.

but genovese would soon discover that he was open to officers 

genovese cottoned up to benito mussolini by providing money,providing donations to fascist buildings and he even managed to pull of a hit for mussolini in  new york.

there was a newspaper which had been a persistent critic of mussolini .

he went to vito genovese who got worred to his killers in new york and they murdered the editor.

a reward for  genovese donations and services mussolini gave him an italian knighthood.

but of course mussolini was known for shooting mafiosos and so he could never really relax.

in 1943 mussolini was overthrown so genovese  quickly switched sides and became  an interpreter and adviser to the US military  government.

they thought  he was doing them afavor what he was really doing he was running a black marketerring scheme

he was stealing supplies from army bases by corrupting army officers and selling it on the black market in italy.

bur for all his sicilian success genovese was still wanted for the card game killing and the new york  police had new  evidence implicating  him.

a man called peter latempa   had come forward claiming had heard genovese  planning the murder.

he was now held in protective custody as  chief witness against  genovese.

the amerian authorities finally in Naples  in august 1944.

genovese was brought back to new york to face the murder charge but had no  intention of taking the rap.

 on the 16th of january 1945 latempa complained that he was suffering from a gallstone problem ,he was  given painkillers by his guards.

2 hours later he was dead.

a toxicologist who had examined his body reported that he had been given enough sedatives to kill eight horses.

with latempa out of the way there was no case against genovese

the judge told him:

” i cannot speak for the  jury but i believe if there was a shred of corroborating evidence you would  been condemned  to the  chair, by  devious means you have thwarted justice time and time again”

genovese was  aquitted.

vito genovese wasback on the streets,but he was not the boss, the man in charge was still his old rival frank costello and he was thriving.

frank costello fashioned himself as a non gangster, he fashioned himself as a businessman, sometimes bordering on aristocracy.

he mixed with politicians ,congressmen,journalists ,authors,judges, cops and city  councilors.

with his connections costello developed a reputation as the boss who could bridge the legitimate world and the mob.

the salvation army even made him their vice chairman

genovese could only watch from the sidelines as costello  became a real new york player.

genovese was intimidated by costello’s intelligence ,he knew that costello could get with words what he could only get out of gun and he was jealous of that.

such was his power that before a judge could be appointed it had to be cleared by frank  costello.

he didn’t just know judges and  DA’s and politicians  he bought them .

potential male candidates  in the democratic party went to see him hat in hand and asking for his blessings, he was  an absolute  corruptor .

when the mafia gets control of your political and judicial system when they’re deciding what bills are passed they’re deciding how justice is needed out,then you’re in danger.

frank costello even though dressed well looked  civilized looked cultivated was one of the most  in dangerous mafiosi in american history.

costello became known as the prime minister,that title was given to him by the media, they made frank costello the american winston  church in the underworld.

that doesn’t mean he was boss of bosses, there was no such position but as a prime minister is in most  countries he was the first among equals and sometimes  a little more equal than they were.

genovese seemed to be out of it but he realized that costello  was making a big mistake ,he preferred to deal only with the big guys but ignored the little guys.

frank costello neglected the troops , frank costello only concerned himself with the capos  and the capos is  italian for captain.

members of crews that have been loyal complained they had been neglected that  costello didn’t favor them.

genovese saw this  resentment as his opportunity to begin undermining costello’s  leadership.

the soldiers the button men  in the family knew that vito  genovese was  the real deal where as costello was a person who was a little out of  touch.

vito  genovese  never lost sight of the fact that he was a criminal and and frank costello lost sight of that fact

frank costello started to believe his own imagery,his own myth

everybody knew genovere wanted  frank’s job but he couldn’t take the job.

the other bosses wouldn’t have allowed that as long  as frank was riding high , frank had the connections ,genovese  did not have the connection.

so what he does is he begins to make sure he’s strong that his rackets are beginning to produce moeny so he has both money and he has soldiers and he has hit men in case there’s a real showdown.

now genovese was waiting and hoping costello would make a wrong move he wouldn’t have to wait long.

in 1950 an ambitious democrat senator from tennesseen named  Estes Kefauver headed a committee to investigate organized  crime in america.

kefauver callled on more than 600 gangsters underworld figures, politicians and policemen to testify before them,the country was transfixed as the hearing hit the headlines and television channels.

many of the witnesses refused to say anything, but not frank costello, he agreed to answer questions

he thought he could go on the witness stand and come out as a gentleman as a real businessman and that he had this kind of outlook or outward appearance that he wouldn’t look  like  hoodlum.

and costello buld as the most influential underworld leader in america became the star  attraction.

but then costello made a miscalculation ,he suprised everybody by insisting that his face shouldn’t be shown on television.

and the committee instructed the broadcasters to respect his request the only  option left open for the TV crews was to film his hands.

and the subsequent images of costello’s testimony became known as the hand ballet

whenever the questions about his criminal ctivities got too tough or too near the knuckle ,costello would rub  his palms together  tighten his fingers  grip a glas of wather,drum on  the table in front of him or crumple and tear piece of paper.

and allthough  the television cameras were not allowed to show costello’s face ,the newsreal  cameras and press photographers had no such  restrictions.

” i pay my taxes”  that was his answer.

now ,in his mind he thought that was  enough, he didn’t think that he had to join the army  of the marine corps” i pay my taxes” everybody pays their taxes if they ‘re working for their country. but he was the original superstar made by television.

ridiculed and humiliated costello finally refused to answer  any further questions and produced a note from his  doctor.

costello had been publicly destroyed  by the  exposure and he left the kefauver committee hearings as the justice department’s number one target.

once he failed, everybody went after him ,  he was indicted for tax  evasion ,he was indicted for lying to  congress 

when you are the prime minister,the man who can work the miracles and  all of the sudden you fall off your horse and  fall in your face your not  prime minister anymore.

frank costello paid the price of television by him appearing  in front of the kefauver committee hearing and it being televised that was the beginning of the end of frank costello .

in fact , that was the beginning of the end of the mob it took many many  years  and frank costello was the beginning of it becaues it brought the attention of the general public to what the mob was actually doing.

but for one  mobster costello’s failure was was good news, vito genovese.

and he was going to make the most of it.

one of the things he does,he starts bumping off  killing  costello’s hitmen.

the first on his list was one of costello’s top hitmen william  willy moore  moretti.

moretti  had grown up with costello in  east harlem and was now a feared new jersey racketeer with his own army  of 60 soldiers.

he was  also one of costello’s strongest suporters

but this planned execution wasn’t just  buisness ,it was highly personal.

moretti had been promoted to costello’s underboss,his second in command, this meant that genovese  had been bumped down to just the captain of his old crew.

genoves had chosen his target well,moretti was suffering from advanced syphilis which was spreading to his brain.

this had the worrying effect of freeing up his speeech and it was now feared that he would start talking to the press.

genovese used this to  his advantage,because of moretti’s condition  he approached the commisssion, the mafia’s board of director’s and  ask  for their permission for a mercy killing.

the commission was set up by lucky luciano in 1931 as a democratic system for dealing with all the mob’s affairs.

it operated by strict rules,no boss could be hit without the commission’s  permission and they gave it  to him .

the hit would take place on the morning of the 5th of october 1951 as ordinary new yorkers went about their business.

genovese had now made it clear it quite clear to costello that he wascoming after him and costello was in no position to fight back.

he was locked in continual combat with the US  authorities over  contempt  of court and failure to pay his taxes.

over the next 6 years costello was in and out of jail, when he came out on bail in march  1957 genovese finally decided to  strike.

genovese  many  many times tried to get the okey of the commission to kill costello,but the commission wouldn’t give it.

so genovese decided to hit castello anyway …….

genovese  now studied costello’s routine,the 66 year old costello took cabs or walked to his various meetings around the city like he’d always done without  the aid of bodyguards or bulletproof cars.

it made him an easy  target .

other bosses had an army of bodyguards around them  ,costello said if they’re going to kill  you that’s the first one they bride.

genovese gave the contract to vincent giganti who was a former prize fighter who beame genovese’s chauffeur.

he was a real thug tough guy ,he was the mirror image of genovese. genovese  liked him for that, he was just a ruthless killer.

on the evening of may the 2nd 1957,frank costello enjoyed  dinner with some friends in  an eastside  resturant.

after the meall he took a cab to his apartment,castello lived in a very upscale apartment that overlooked central park .

it was known as the majestic apartment.

costello was sosure of himself, even though he knew genovese  was around.

he came home one night, walked into his lobby and was  met by gigante.

gigante raised  his gun and yelled’ this is for you frank ‘ 

costello wascovered with blood  when he reached the roosevelt hospital but the bullet had only shaved  his skull.

ne of genovese’s top soldiers joe valachi later  observed  that gigante had  wasted a whole month practicing.

there some debate on whether giganti missed him on purpose or he  just missed him at of an epis..

some  choose the ladder,he just missed him .

but there’s a rule in the mob;

” if you try and you miss , you don’t try again.”

 the doorman of the majestic identified gigante as castello’s hitmen gigante quickly gave  himself up

and was put on trial  for attempted murder.

this was a very dangerous  time for genovese,if costello confirmed it was gigante,police would come after him.

but at the trial costello  observed  the mafia rule of – the code of silence and told the jury that he didn’t recognize gigante,

gigante was acquitted and as he left the court he walked over to costello held out his hand and said” thanks ,frank”.

genovese knew that castello alive posed a grave threat to him and he heard that he was secretly meeting with the lord

high executioner of murder incorporated Albert anastasia.

guns, ice picks and strangling ropes ,was his stock in traid.

he was a though ruthless man  not at all like costello  who was his good friend.

if there had been a move against  costello with anasastasia still alive  there would have  been a counterattack by anastasia.

genovese  decided to strike first,the problem was getting to anastasia.

he lived in a new jersey mansion guarded by ferocious dogs and barbed wire fences and always traveled with bodyguards ,genovese needed somebody on the inside and he approached carlo gambino.

on the morning of october 25th 1957 at 10:15 am, albert anastasia walked into a barber shop in midtown manhattan

his bodyguards parked the car in an  underground garage and then took a walk.

anastasia closed his eyes and relaxed into the barbers chair.

two men in suits with scarves covering their lower faces walked up behind him…….

anasasia was literally blasted out of the chair.

genovese now sprang into action,  he immediately announced that he was the head of the family and straight away he turned on his old adversary frank costello.

frank knew what it meant his time was over his reign was complete that if he didn’t surrender or abdicate he was going to be assassinated.

genovese stripped costello of all his gambling assets and interests in;

las vegas, florida ,the caribbean and new york.

he only allowed costello to live on the one condition that he’d get out and never be involved with the rackets again .

costello sent a message to vito genovese;

” don vito, it’s yours, you’re in control”

genovese had don it.he was now the boss of the largest mafia family in  new york.

but  he was also in deep trouble,blinded by ruthless ambition he had ordered two hits on two mafia leader without the okay  from their governing body- the commission .

and he had done something  else that  some commission members found  uncomfortable, genovese had also moved big time….

into drug dealing.

gonvese always thought that narcotics was a good deal for the mob.

within the luciano family  he was in charge of drug trafficking.

but congress had recently passed though new drug laws and many mafia bosses were  worried about the  consequences.

drugs brought heat ,and what i mean by heat is that if you dealt drugs and you got bagged and you’re facing a lot of time in jail, you’re going to roll you’re going to become a rat.

you could get up to 30 years in prison .

the mafia  heads around the country,now  feared that genovese was a loose cannon who didn’t play by the rules and his trud trafficking operations  could bring the FBI down on them

to save his skin genovese requested a meeting of the cmmission to explain his recent actions in new york.

the commission was not supposed to call another national convention which will be held every 5 years for four more years but genovese insisted that the bosses from all the other families and new york families had to assemble because of these important developments in new york.

and he wanted  them to know  that he was a boss of a family so they picked the same place thay had met the previous year there had been a national  convention in a small town in upstate new york known as appalachin.

it would prove to be the biddest mistake of genovese life……

November the 14th 1957

more than 60 senior mafia bosses with their advisor and body guards  traveled from Cuba, Italy , and from all over the United States to a Hiltop estate in a small sleepy hamlet called appalachin.

180 miles  northwest of new york city and far from the prying eyes and surveillance of the city cops .

apalachin was the  home of mafia boss joseph barbara.

his guests would include all the most powerful members of the mafia.

like joseph” joe”  bonanno,carmine galante, Sam Giancana,joe  profaci and at the head  of the table Don vito genovese.

apalachin meeting was a meeting of mobsters from  all over the country .

keep in mind that the mob as we know it today and as it was  reformed in 1931 was 100% control by the five  families in new york.

all the other cities were ancillary that answered to the new york  mobsters.

but local detective  sergeant edgar crosswell of the new york s tate police had been watching the events.

the local police noticed something strange  all these out of towners and dozens of cars were pulling  into one farmhouse in the remote area.

crosswell suspicions had been aroused when he notice that barbara was booking the local hotel.

he had also been tipped off by a local food supllier that barbara had ordered 20 lb of steak 20 lb of veil cutlets and 15 lb of coal cuts that day.

crosswell had been keeping a close eye on barbara as he knew he had mob connections,he called for backup.

crosswell  orderred his troopers to surround the house.

and when the guests got the news, there was blind panic.

some rushed to their cars, others   fled through the woods,ripping their silk suits against the brambles as they ran.

crosswell sent his troopers in after them.

crosswell and his men eventually managed to round up 60 mafia members,including  new york leaders ,profeti, banano, galante and gambino.

everybody had the same excuse that they heard barbara was sick and they all dropped in to see him to pay their respect.

here you had this obvious  convention of italian or ssicilian american mobsters and you couldn’t dismiss it just  as a casual meeting and the claim by all of them  that they went to visit  a sick friend.

nobody could  swallow that.

the justice departement believed  that at least 50 escaped including chigago boss  Sam Giancana.

the  apalachin  was the largest mafia meeting ever rumbled bhy american police and the mob would never hold one of this size again.

far from genovese’s triumphant moment announcing to the commission his ascension to the head of the luciano crime family, he had exposed them all to the authorities.

as a direct result of apalachin , a federal grand jury found 20 mafia members guilty of  conspiracy to commit perjury and to obstruct justice and impose sentences of between three and 5 years.

eventually these were overturned by the  ybuted states court of appeals on the basis of insufficient  evidence.

but the damage had been done, genovese had awakened a sleeping giant.

the FBI.

and hit them like a bombshell.

the apalachin organized crime meeting the meeting of the bosses of america’s orgianized  crime in one location really brought home to the american public and to the FBI  the magnitude of this problem.

up to this point the director of the FBI jay edgar hoover have been reluctant to admit the existence of organized crime in america , he had even written” there was no such thing as organized crime or the mafia”

and the  claim that there was a national crime syndicate was baloney.

all of a sudden ,everything that they had been saying that there was no national organization that crime was essentially local and it was up for local law enforcement to deal with became obviously  incorrect.

they were so brazen ,they were so bold and so powerful that they would have a meeting mich as any large legitimate american corporation would meet to  decide internal issues if you will of their organization.

their direction what they wanted to do in the way of legitimate company would do ,this  really imprinted itself on the american public .

certainly on the FBI.

that was it for the FBI ,  if there was a moment where it was absolutely patently clear that they had a role to do that they had not been performing that was it.

all this changed after apalachin, the FBI  were galvanized into action

hoover immediately commissioned a special reporty to confirm whether the mafia actually  existed.

it declared the truth of the matter is the available evidence makes it impossible to  deny logically the existence of a criminal organization known as the mafia .

which for generations has plagued the low abiding citizens of Sicily, Italy and the United state .

joseph barbara-vito genovese

after the apalachin meeting the  intelligence gathering about organized crime became very much institutionalized inside the FBI.

most of the investigations were intelligence investigations.

where they gathered  information about who they were and the  kinds of activities they were involved with.

as a direct result of the apalachin raid the federal bureau of narcotics was instructed to target vito genovese in their fight against  drugs.

april 17th 1959

the man who had gotten away with murder for so long was finally nailed in  a manhattan federal court.

Don vito  genovese was fined $ 20,000 and sentenced to 15 years in  prison for masterminding an international narcotics syndicate that smuggled heroin and cocain into the United states.

never underestimate the menace that  vito genoveres left with his  departure.

it was he whjo was so instrumental one of the key players in bringing in the scourge of heroin  narcotics into america.

without him it might never have occured ,he opened up these opportunities that the mafia would use widespread distribution into the inner cities of america.

the biggest cities, new york ,chicago.

for the first time you had the mass apeal of a narcotics ,contagion that enveloped the country and one person  who haas to bear  some of that responsibility is Don vito genovese.

vito genovese continued to rule his organization unchallenged from his prison cell.

he died there on february 14th 1969 of a heartattack.

his legacy was that he left  behind the most powerful mafia organization in america that bears his name  to this day.

the vito genovese’s family continues to make millions from its criminal activities.

but left another more damaging legacy to the mob.

genovese exposed the mafia to the FBI  the apalachin disaster would signal the beginning of their crackdown on organized  crime in america.