Informer columnist composes first book

Justin Cascio, who regularly contributes "Mafia Genealogy" columns to Informer, is the author of the just released book, In Our Blood: The Mafia Families of Corleone. The book is available now through Amazon in hardcover, paperback and ebook editions (links below).

While the Mafia criminal society is traditionally viewed as a hierarchical organization, Cascio argues that Mafia networks are largely based on kinship ties. 

Cascio, who publishes his own Mafia Genealogy website in addition to his frequent Informer contributions, devoted years of research into his first book-length project. He notes that pivotal figures in Mafia history, including present-day mafiosi, have direct genealogical ties to one another and to the earliest recorded gangs in Corleone, Sicily. In addition to bloodline and marriage connections, some mafiosi also linked through the significant religious/family role of godparent. 

Cascio discusses dozens of gangland figures in the United States and Sicily as he analyzes family-based networks that include thousands of individuals. Along the way, he tackles some of the lingering questions about the Mafia: How old is the criminal society? Where was it formed? How did it spread from Sicily to the U.S.?

For the benefit of researchers, Cascio has provided references supporting his assertions. The hardcover and paperback editions of In Our Blood weigh in at 390 pages. The Kindle ebook is rated by Amazon at a print length of 532 pages. 

Transcontinental mafiosi

October 2021 issue contents - Feature

Trail of blood

Mafia murder of Barnett Baff linked Corleone, East Harlem and the ghettos of Los Angeles

By J. Michael Niotta, PhD

This particular case remains pertinent to the early history of the Mafia in America for several reasons: it involves the relatively undocumented youthful activities of two future crime family bosses, Gaetano Reina and Jack Dragna; it sheds light on the inner workings of New York’s Italian gangs amid a power struggle following the imprisonment of Mafia leaders Giuseppe Morello and Ignazio Lupo; and, lastly, it highlights a link between East Coast and West Coast Mafia clans... 

See what else is in Informer's October 2021 issue.

Early NYC Mafia issue now a Kindle e-book

An Informer issue devoted to a groundbreaking discussion of the evolution of the early New York City Mafia is now available as an Amazon Kindle e-book. It is our hope that this will allow a wider audience for the "alternative theory" presented by Mafia historians Richard Warner, Angelo Santino and Lennert Van`t Riet.

Click to preview this issue on Amazon (US).

Sicilian hometown allegiance and kinship ties may have played larger roles in early Mafia development than previously thought. Using government records, other archival sources and published accounts, the writers follow offshoots of established Sicilian underworld organizations from Palermo, Corleone and Castellammare del Golfo as these propagate in a new land. The writers define relationships among and within the developing crime families and explore factional frictions through two early Mafia wars.

The discussion is accompanied by photographs, maps, charts and timelines. More than two hundred endnotes are provided.

This Informer issue was first released in print and PDF electronic editions (through MagCloud) in May 2014, and those editions remain available. It is the third Informer issue to be made available as a Kindle e-book.

Mafia Genealogy: 'Capitano' Di Carlo

August 2017 contents
Features

Mafia Genealogy:

'Capitano' DiCarlo: 

Architect of Leggio's Mafia

By Justin Cascio

"Regarded as an architect of the Sicilian Mafia after World War II, Angelo Di Carlo was born in Corleone, Province of Palermo, Sicily. In his youth, he served in an artillery unit during Italy's colonial war in Libya. There he earned the military rank that became his nickname, 'Capitano.'"

Thirteen pages, two images, endnotes.

Preview / purchase electronic and print editions through MagCloud.

October 2016 issue of Informer

October 2016 Issue Contents
Editorial

A highly regarded sculptor of granite was shot to death at a 1903 meeting of socialists in Vermont. Elia Corti joined a growing list of martyrs to the radical leftist cause of anarchism, championed by Vermont-based newspaper editor Luigi Galleani.

A short time after the death of Corti, followers of Galleani engaged in a war of terror against leading figures of capitalism and the government of the United States. The little-remembered fight involved government abuses of individual rights, wholesale deportations of foreigners deemed to be threats and a series of anarchist bombings that climaxed with a deadly explosion on Wall Street.

In this issue, Thomas Hunt looks at the Corti killing (Link) and the anarchists’ conflict with the U.S. (Link).

Also in this issue:

•   Historian/genealogist Justin Cascio explores 100 years of family links among the leaders of the Corleone, Sicily, Mafia and its U.S. Mafia offshoots. (Link).
•   Book review and notes (Link).
•   In ‘The Warner Files,’ Richard N. Warner discusses the entertaining but flawed history told by Herbert Asbury (Link).
•   100 Years Ago (Link).
•   In ‘Just One More Thing,’ Thomas Hunt tries to track down elusive Providence, Rhode Island, boss Frank ‘Butsey” Morelli (Link).

48 pages including covers and nine pages of advertisements.

Preview / purchase electronic and print editions through MagCloud.


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'Family business' - the Corleone Fratuzzi

October 2016 contents
Features.

'Family business' - the Corleone Fratuzzi

by Justin Cascio

"Nearly all the leaders of the Corleone Mafia for the past hundred years have been related to one another through blood and marriage. The Sicilian Mafia we know today was once many Mafias. Each town, suburb and district of the Province of Palermo, the heartland of the Sicilian mafia, had a local gang and a different leader..."

Twelve and a half pages, one family tree

Preview / purchase electronic and print editions through MagCloud.

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May 2014 Issue of Informer

May 2014 Issue Contents
Editorial

It would be both foolish and profoundly egotistical for any historian to believe that he or she had penned the “final word” on a subject. History is always being revised and expanded. New sources become available. New perspectives are applied to data. One historian's discoveries spark another's discoveries. That, really, is what makes the field of study exciting and alive.

A historian may be of far greater use for attempting to write the first word on a subject or a completely new interpretation of available data. Such an achievement revitalizes the field, as it sends colleagues scrambling to comprehend its ramifications, to compare the new account to source material, to contest its validity or to accept it as part of a foundation for future research.

To date, revisions of early New York Mafia history have focused generally on enhancing the stories within a traditional framework of accepted history. The technological revolution has aided immeasurably our search for more and better data on the formative era of organized crime in New York, and vast amounts of information have come to light in very recent years.

Some of that newly mined information has been absorbed easily into the traditional narrative. But much of it has not fit and has frustratingly resisted incorporation into the old accounts. Those with confidence in the new data have been forced to conclude that the traditional history is somehow inaccurate and/or incomplete.

This entire issue of Informer is dedicated to presenting a single work — a lengthy article by Richard Warner, Angelo Santino and Lennert Van`t Riet —  that attempts to formulate a coherent, new historical theory around all we currently know of the early New York Mafia (PREVIEW). Researching, writing and illustrating it has been an enormous project for them. Preparing it for publication and presenting it in this issue has been no small matter for Informer. But we are satisfied that the efforts are all worthwhile.

While documenting how far our knowledge of the early Mafia has progressed, the article challenges us to see things in a new way, to consider the possibilities presented by recent discoveries and to commit ourselves anew to the exciting work of history.

108 magazine pages, including cover and advertisements.

Preview/purchase print and electronic magazine editions through MagCloud

Preview/purchase Kindle e-book edition through Amazon.

Early NY Mafia - an alternative theory

May 2014 Issue Contents
Feature Article

Sicilian hometown allegiance and kinship ties

may have played larger roles in early Mafia

development than previously thought

The Early New York Mafia:

An Alternative Theory

by Richard Warner, Angelo Santino and Lennert Van`t Riet.

"Much of what has been widely accepted as early New York City Mafia history hinges on a particular interpretation of a small collection of source material. As availability of sources from that early era has improved, additional interpretations have become possible. It now appears that many of the long-accepted 'facts' and the history that has been woven from them may have been flawed. We cannot know what additional revelations the future may hold, so it is unlikely that our analysis of existing materials will be 'the final word' written on this subject. However, it is important to document the additional clues that recently have come to light and to fit a workable interpretation to the new data as a starting point for future research..."

100 pages, including 21 images, 21 maps and tables, and 12 and a half pages of notes.

Preview/purchase print and electronic editions through MagCloud

Boss of bosses despairs in prison

Vol 3, Issue 2, April 2010 Contents

Feature article

Morello prison correspondence, health records

reveal him as brooding, sickly and suspicious

Mafia boss of bosses

despairs in prison

By Thomas Hunt

"Convicted of counterfeiting, Giuseppe Morello and Ignazio Lupo were incarcerated within the United States Penitentiary at Atlanta, Georgia, on February 21, 1910. They were assigned consecutive numbers in the prison register. Morello, whose reign as boss of bosses of the American Mafia was brought to an end by his conviction, became Prisoner No. 2882. His brother-in-law and Mafia lieutenant Lupo became No. 2883. The two men were locked away in separate cells and had very different experiences while in prison."

Twelve pages

Six images

Correspondence chart

Click here to preview or purchase this issue.