October 2023 issue contents - Columns
Lanza's NY firms may have been Mafia fronts
By Michael O'Haire and Matt Ghiglieri
Before founding the San Francisco Mafia, Frank Lanza spent over a decade in Manhattan, engaging in very profitable business ventures that may have been Mafia fronts.
Lanza was accused of no crimes during his years in New York. However, his close personal relationships with Nicolo Schiro, a Mafia boss in Brooklyn in 1912, and a lesser known Mafia member Carmelo Naso, are reasonably well documented.
Once he headed west in 1919, law enforcement authorities understood him to be an underworld boss. One report by the pre-FBI “Bureau of Investigation” even charged that Lanza organized a Black Hand presence in Colorado. His New York relationships, the dramatic financial success of his endeavors and his quick climb to the level of boss suggest that Lanza was a well connected and active mafioso while in New York.
Magazine page count: eight.
Images: four.
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