Johnny Torrio

Prohibition-era gang boss Johnny Torrio was born Giovanni Torrio in Irsina, Italy. When Johnny was two years old his father died, and his mother left Italy for New York City. Torrio got his start in the criminal underworld at an early age, working as a bouncer in several Manhattan dives. He eventually joined a street gang and within a short time was the gang's leader. His leadership abilities resulted in the gang accruing a considerable amount of money, and the savvy Torrio opened up a legitimate pool hall as a front for the gang and a place they could meet and plan their criminal activities, such as gambling and loan-sharking. His abilities brought him to the attention of the leaders of the notorious Five Points Gang, among whose members were a squat Brooklyn gangster named Al Capone. Capone and Torrio developed a close, and lifelong, friendship, with Capone looking to Torrio as his mentor. Torrio had a mentor, too, in Five Points boss Paolo Vaccarelli (aka Paul Kelly), who taught him invaluable lessons about how to survive and prosper in organized crime. One of them was to stop acting, dressing and swearing like a street thug and adopt a more diplomatic, conservative way of doing things, a lesson that Torrio took to heart, he earned the nickname "The Fox" because of his slyness at getting what he wanted and keeping out of the spotlight at the same time. Torrio's gang branched out into legitimate businesses, among the first to do so, but its main sources of income were prostitution, the numbers racket, truck hijacking and drug-trafficking. One of Torrio's mob associates was a squat killer named Frankie Yale. At a time when Capone and Torrio were in trouble with the New York authorities (Capone was facing a murder charge and looking at some considerable prison time), Yale suggested they take off for Chicago until the heat died down. Torrio owned some brothels and bars in Chicago and in 1919 took Capone with him to work his places as a bouncer/bartender.

When Prohibition went into effect in 1920, Torrio immediately saw the huge profits that could be made in smuggling, making and manufacturing illegal liquor, and tried to persuade Chicago gang boss Jim Colosimo to get in on the ground floor, but Colosimo didn't think the heat he would draw from the police and rival mobsters was worth it, and refused. Not long afterward, Torrio invited Colosimo to a meeting in Colosimo's restaurant. After Colosimo arrived and sat down at a table, a squad of gunmen showed up and shot him dead. Torrio, Capone and Yale were suspected of the killing, but nothing was ever proven and they were never arrested for it. Torrio took over Colosimo's vast criminal holdings and entered the bootlegging business. The Capone-Torrio mob prospered, raking in millions from bootlegging, prostitution, loan-sharking and gambling. They controlled criminal activity in the Loop, the city's main business district, and the ethnic areas of the South Side. However, one area they did not control was the city's prestigious Gold Coast, including the wealthy lakefront area. That was controlled by Irish gangster Charles Dion O'Bannion and his North Side gang. The Torrio/Capone and O'Bannion gangs entered into a somewhat uneasy truce, but it didn't last long because Torrio and O'Bannion hated each other. O'Bannion was also having trouble with a vicious and extremely violent Italian gang led by the notorious Genna brothers. The Gennas wanted to kill O'Bannion and wipe out his mob, but Torrio stopped them because he didn't want the heat that a full-fledged gang war would bring. However, when Torrio discovered that O'Bannion had cheated him out of more than $500,000 in a bootlegging deal, he gave the Gennas the go-ahead to kill O'Bannion. Unfortunately for Torrio, he was right about the possible repercussions from O'Bannion's murder. O'Bannion's allies in the North Side gang waged a brutal war against the combined Torrio/Capone/Genna forces, known as The Outfit.

Murders were followed by reprisal murders, and on January 24, 1925, several of O'Bannion's mobsters spotted Torrio's car on the street and opened fire on it. Torrio was hit at least five times; the would-be assassins thought he was dead so they left the scene. Torrio survived, but eventually decided to leave Chicago. Three of the six Genna brothers were soon murdered, and the gang war continued for several more years, eventually resulting in the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre. When Torrio recovered from surgery for his wounds, he went to prison for a year, having been convicted of several charges of violating the Volstead Act (Prohibition). Upon his release from prison he was a changed man. The assassination attempt had deeply affected him, and he was troubled by the continuing and escalating violence he saw in the underworld. He decided to retire. He gathered his wife and mother and moved to Italy, leaving Capone in charge of his holdings.

Torrio stayed in Italy for several years, returning to the US in the 1930s to testify at Capone's income-tax-evasion trial. While in New York he met with gang boss Lucky Luciano and suggested that Luciano and other crime bosses stop their internecine wars and create one syndicate, a conglomerate of the various gangs that would work together for the good of the organization. Luciano liked it and took the idea to the other New York bosses. Eventually the idea took fruition, and an organization known variously as "The Outfit", "The Syndicate", "The Commission" and a host of other names was formed that consisted not only of the bosses of the New York gangs but of gang bosses from across the US.