L'histoire Complete de la Mafia - Tommy Lucchese
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TVTranscription
00:00 Tommy had a gift to make money. He was a genius of crime. He knew exactly what to do.
00:07 Tommy Lucchese understood that controlling trade unions was a trick, just like holding legal businesses.
00:15 There were fake matches. There was never as much corruption in boxing as when the mafia was involved.
00:24 The Lucchese were one of the most famous families of crime in the country. Tommy Lucchese was capable of killing anyone who came in his way.
00:34 He killed without fear.
00:39 [Music]
00:59 New York, one evening in 1934.
01:03 David Rubinoff, a famous violinist, enters a restaurant. Inside, he notices a well-known person sitting at a table.
01:13 The mafia man, Tommy Lucchese.
01:16 When the guy saw Lucchese, he suddenly liquefied.
01:21 So Tommy invited him to his table.
01:26 Rubinoff is afraid, because he owes 10,000 dollars to Lucchese. At that time, it was a considerable sum.
01:34 It's the Great Depression. A toothbrush costs 5 cents and a piece of bread, almost nothing.
01:40 The musician borrowed money from Lucchese to buy a Stradivarius violin, but never fully repaid his debt.
01:49 The Russian violinist knows he's in deep shit, because Tommy Lucchese is not a man to whom promises are made.
01:56 Rubinoff explains to him that he has money problems, but that he will pay him soon.
02:01 The answer pleases Lucchese, who grabs his hand.
02:08 Tommy says to him, "You have delicate hands. What a shame it would be if something happened to your hands."
02:17 Lucchese then invites him to follow him in a alley behind the restaurant to talk.
02:22 Rubinoff is terrified.
02:25 He said to him, "Tommy, I'll bring you the money tomorrow morning, I swear."
02:30 And Tommy said, "Well, see you tomorrow then."
02:34 And Rubinoff speaks. The next day, he repays his debt completely.
02:40 As always, Tommy Lucchese got what he wanted.
02:45 The odd thing about Tommy Lucchese's success is that he didn't have a job.
02:50 He was only 1.60 meters tall, and he probably didn't weigh more than a hundred and fifty kilos.
02:57 But don't be fooled by a pyramid. He could kill anyone who came in his way.
03:04 [Music]
03:16 1910, New York. Ellis Island is the gateway to America for millions of immigrants.
03:23 Lost in the middle of this crowd is a young 11-year-old Sicilian.
03:29 "Gaetano Lucchese," says Tommy.
03:32 [Music]
03:33 His family is living in an apartment in the East Harlem neighborhood.
03:37 [Music]
03:40 At the time, Italian gangs were the law in the streets.
03:43 They robbed the neighborhood shoppers.
03:46 Those who refused to pay didn't make any money.
03:49 They were preying on their own community, the Italians.
03:55 And these gangs were more violent than the others, more willing to murder and intimidate people.
04:01 [Music]
04:02 Tommy's father is an honest worker who works the concrete day after day.
04:07 [Music]
04:09 Every day, little Tommy watches his father kill himself at work,
04:13 while the thugs on his street easily make a lot of money with their raids.
04:17 [Music]
04:19 As a teenager, he started hanging out with a gang of young delinquents who called themselves the Gang of the 107th.
04:25 [Music]
04:28 Tommy got mixed up with these delinquents, with these street kids,
04:33 kids who would run around robbing peddlers.
04:35 Anything that wasn't nail-biting, they would just break into,
04:40 burglaries, stealing goods off trucks, anything that was easy money.
04:47 [Music]
04:49 Tommy acts under the orders of his gang leader, a young Sicilian named Charles Luciano, also known as "Lucky."
04:55 [Music]
04:57 But the teenager's parents disapprove of his activities, and push him to find a stable job.
05:02 Young Tommy obeys.
05:04 [Music]
05:06 He got a job in a machine factory that made industrial machines.
05:11 But he had an accident one day, and a machine cut his thumb and index finger with his right hand.
05:16 He ended up with three fingers.
05:19 [Music]
05:22 The accident convinced the young man that a respectable job could not bring him any good.
05:27 He resigned and went back to his gang.
05:31 Very soon, the rumors of his illegal activities came back to his parents.
05:36 They were furious against him, because he had clearly chosen to live in illegality.
05:43 The whole family was upset because Tommy was risking to cover for him with shame and dishonor.
05:50 Tommy's father slams the door.
05:52 [Music]
05:54 He finds himself in an apartment and joins his new family, the gang of the 107th.
06:00 Tommy makes the street his kingdom.
06:03 He robs and steals in all of East Harlem.
06:06 It was a kind of juvenile crime, quite common in the street at that time.
06:10 Tommy did nothing original.
06:12 But from the start, he seemed to be a little bit smarter than his companions.
06:16 And he was quite naturally a leader.
06:19 In 1917, Tommy Lucchese was 18 years old.
06:22 He had the idea to impose a racket to the merchant under the guise of a showcase cleaning service.
06:28 He would go to a merchant who had a beautiful showcase and he would tell him about the merits of his team,
06:35 saying, "You will not find a better shopkeeper than my guys."
06:39 If the merchant refused, his showcase would end up in pieces and it would cost him hundreds of dollars.
06:46 While he would have had to pay 50 dollars a week to have it cleaned.
06:49 And therefore, the people in the neighborhood quickly got the message.
06:54 If he wanted to keep their showcase clean and clean at the same time,
06:58 he had to appeal to the service of the Lucchese company.
07:01 Money started to flow in the pockets of young Lucchese.
07:06 It was his first incursion in the world of organized crime,
07:09 to the antipodes of the honest worker that is his father.
07:13 But Tommy was not an ordinary thug.
07:16 He was constantly looking for new ways to extort money.
07:19 Tommy had a gift to make money.
07:22 He was a genius of crime.
07:25 He knew exactly what to do.
07:27 In the early 20's, a formidable sponsor of the mafia, Joseph Maceria,
07:34 gave the hand to Lucchese and his boss, Lucky Luciano.
07:38 Maceria held a manathan with an iron hand, and in the street, he was called Joe the Boss.
07:43 He knew how to recognize the talent of a criminal.
07:47 So he decided to hire Lucchese and Luciano as a man of the hand.
07:51 They seized the opportunity.
07:54 It is estimated that Tommy committed 30 murders for his new boss.
07:57 He took a lot of money since his racket case on the showcases.
08:01 He was a very good player.
08:05 Despite the bodies he left in his cellar, Lucchese avoided prison.
08:08 He enjoyed a reputation of a brutal man, and played to intimidate potential witnesses.
08:13 In 1921, Tommy was 22 years old.
08:19 He was arrested while driving a luxurious car that he had just stolen.
08:23 He will owe his nickname to the police officers who put him under the locks.
08:27 He was arrested in the morning of the 22nd of January,
08:30 and he was taken to the police station.
08:33 He will owe his nickname to the police officers who put him under the locks.
08:36 When he arrived at the police station, we looked at his fingerprints,
08:42 as the procedure in these cases wanted.
08:44 It was there that one of the inspectors who was in charge noticed his mutilated right hand.
08:50 At the time, there was in the baseball team of the Chicago Cubs
08:55 a fabulous thrower named Mordecai Brown, nicknamed Three Fingers.
09:02 The police officer then nicknamed Tommy Three Fingers Brown Lucchese.
09:05 He never liked that nickname, but he was stubborn with it.
09:10 For the first time in his life, the justice condemns him.
09:14 But his stay in prison will not change his mind.
09:19 He is looking for fortune and power, and he is ready to kill anyone who stands in his way.
09:24 [Music]
09:31 At the beginning of the 1920s, Tommy Lucchese could have killed anyone in the East Harlem neighborhood,
09:36 without any punishment.
09:37 No one would have dared to testify against him.
09:41 He was almost untouchable until he was arrested for car theft and sent to prison.
09:51 Until he got arrested, he had always escaped justice.
09:54 It turns out that this will be his only and only stay in prison.
09:57 The Sing Sing prison is located on the outskirts of Ludson, in northern New York.
10:14 It is one of the oldest and hardest penitentiaries in the country.
10:18 The worst mafiosi are imprisoned there, so Tommy can easily find his bearings there.
10:23 Thirteen months later, Lucchese is released on parole.
10:31 He returns to New York, free.
10:35 The madness of the 1920s took over his old East Harlem neighborhood.
10:46 To reduce alcohol consumption, the Congress amended the American Constitution to incorporate prohibition.
10:53 But in the streets of New York, people continue to drink and crime is exploding.
10:58 Lucchese sees an opportunity there.
11:03 Alcohol may be illegal now, but the demand is still there.
11:07 Tommy still works for Joe Masseria, a man with a temper tantrum,
11:14 who aggravates the levels of the mafia by eliminating all his rivals.
11:17 Masseria is all-powerful in the organization,
11:21 and he refuses to collaborate with gangsters who would not be Italian.
11:25 Tommy and the members of the young generation
11:29 nicknamed all the members of the old guard like Masseria "the moustache pits".
11:33 Masseria wants to produce very poor quality handcrafted gin and sell it to the drunkards of the neighborhood.
11:39 For him, the smuggling of alcohol is a weekly activity.
11:43 Lucchese and Lucchino are enraged to see this market with enormous potential pass under their nose.
11:48 The young generation started to think that it was stupid to stay in small profits.
11:55 For them, money was elsewhere, in the pockets of the rich,
11:59 who before the prohibition spent fortunes to buy the best whisky.
12:03 They did not risk buying this scoundrel of smuggling.
12:07 They thought it was crazy.
12:09 They wanted Masseria to understand that the lucrative market was in the city,
12:13 in the drunk neighborhoods of Manhattan.
12:16 Masseria does not want to hear anything to the despair of Lucchese and Lucchino.
12:21 Yet if he hates their ideas, he can not ignore the call for money.
12:25 The plan of the two men is simple.
12:30 They want Masseria to let them illegally import quality alcohol to the United States,
12:35 to sell it then to the "spikizzi", the illegal bars.
12:39 Everybody drank. The general public found this stupid law.
12:43 And it was not a problem to break this law.
12:47 The alcohol trade is a huge market for which Lucchese is ready to work with Jewish gangsters.
12:54 He would work with any ethnic group.
12:58 He had no prejudice against working with Jewish gangsters.
13:01 People like Lucchese said, "Look, these Jewish gangsters could give us lessons on certain points."
13:07 "We need them, and they need us."
13:09 Towards the end of the 1920s, Masseria declares war on one of his rivals, Salvatore Maranzano.
13:17 The two parishes want to have their hands on all organized crime in New York.
13:23 Nearly a hundred gangsters perish in gunfights.
13:28 Tommy Lucchese and Lucchi Lucchiano fight alongside their leader Masseria,
13:32 but they want this war to stop.
13:36 For Lucchiano, sowing corpses in the streets was only a bad ad.
13:40 It attracted the attention of the city government and federal authorities.
13:45 Bloodshed is bad for business.
13:50 For Lucchiano, Masseria made his time.
13:53 With Lucchese, they devise a machiavellian plan to take control of the New York mafia by force,
13:59 first eliminating Masseria, then his rival Maranzano.
14:05 Lucchese was the mastermind.
14:07 He gained the trust of one by pretending to betray the other,
14:10 when in fact he was betraying both sides.
14:12 The plan is ingenious.
14:15 Lucchese secretly meets Maranzano and hides.
14:20 Lucchiano's mission is to eliminate Masseria
14:23 to allow Maranzano to reach the top of the New York mafia.
14:31 On April 15, 1931, in a restaurant in Coney Island in Brooklyn,
14:35 four armed men attack Joe Masseria.
14:38 They really did shoot him.
14:44 He was killed instantly.
14:47 In the photos of the crime scene,
14:52 we can see a pickaxe placed in Masseria's hand.
14:55 It's a sign of bad luck in some circles.
14:58 [Music]
15:03 Once Masseria is eliminated, Lucchese and Lucciano close their trap on Maranzano.
15:08 It's to Lucchese that the task of organizing his murder comes back.
15:13 Lucchese observed and he eventually found the flaw.
15:18 Presenting himself as a disappointed member of Lucciano's gang,
15:22 Tommy infiltrates Maranzano's organization.
15:25 He learns very quickly that his boss fears a tax cut from the IRS, the American tax office.
15:31 Tommy's great strength in his job was his ability to decrypt people's personalities
15:37 to find flaws in their carapace.
15:40 When he was in his office in the building of the Grand Central station,
15:44 Maranzano forbade his bodyguards to carry guns on them.
15:48 He wanted to avoid an arrest for illegal weapons,
15:51 in case the tax office showed up.
15:54 On September 10, 1931, four men show up in Maranzano's office and say they belong to the IRS.
16:01 These men show up in Maranzano's office, they say they are tax agents.
16:09 They haven't announced it.
16:12 And even stranger, they arrive the day Lucchese is there.
16:15 Of course, it's a ruse, and these men are the killers behind Lucchese's money.
16:21 They lined up everyone against a wall, and they took out their guns.
16:25 Lucchese had developed a way to tell them who Maranzano was.
16:30 With a nod of his head, he named them the godfather.
16:33 They stabbed him, and shot him.
16:35 It was finished.
16:36 Maseria and Maranzano are now part of the old story.
16:42 Lucchese and Lucciano have the free will to create their empire.
16:47 The rule is simple. Either you walk with Lucchese, or you end up six feet underground.
16:52 In 1931, Tommy Lucchese and Lucchi Luciano have coldly eliminated the old guard of the New York mafia,
17:03 these men they had nicknamed "The Mustache Pits".
17:06 The two ambitious young men control the organized crime in the city.
17:16 They can finally realize their project and change the face of their organization.
17:21 The strongest symbol of this new era will be Lucchese's success.
17:25 Lucciano has a new vision.
17:39 He asks the gang leader to stop the gut wars and work hand in hand.
17:46 His strategy is simple.
17:48 He plans to entrust a criminal activity sector to each family he manages independently.
17:54 The operation of the mafia as we know it today was born in 1931,
17:59 when Lucciano founded the five families of the New York mafia.
18:02 According to him, the best chance of survival of the organization
18:07 was not to attract attention and to expand our economic empire.
18:13 Lucciano will push his system a notch further.
18:16 Each family will have a clear hierarchy with only one leader.
18:20 The hierarchy structure of the mafia is simple.
18:24 You have a godfather, a sub-boss, a counselor,
18:29 and soldiers who have many associates.
18:33 The godfathers were virtually out of reach of the justice.
18:36 They never pressed the trigger, they never roughed up anybody.
18:40 Most of the time, it was impossible to accuse them of association of criminals.
18:44 For a man like Lucchese, very careful of discretion,
18:48 the creation of the five families represents an ideal cover to do business.
18:52 All the godfathers pledged allegiance to Lucciano,
18:55 who in turn was able to show gratitude to the meeting of his right arm forever.
18:59 As a reward, Lucciano entrusted a very important post to Lucchese in one of the five entities.
19:07 Tommy was the number two of a very powerful family of the Italian pegra, the Gagliano family.
19:13 At 32, Tommy Lucchese became one of the most powerful mafias in New York.
19:19 Unlike Lucciano, who lives in a sumptuous suite of chic neighborhoods on Park Avenue,
19:26 Lucchese installed his small family in a modest neighborhood house in New Jersey.
19:30 He does not want to be paid attention to his activity.
19:34 [Music]
19:39 During the first half of the 1930s, Lucchese and Lucciano look ahead and think about the post-prohibition.
19:46 We're going to have to have some source of income to replace it,
19:52 and it's got to be something big because it's a lot like the big market of alcohol,
19:56 which is hundreds of millions of dollars.
19:59 In 1933, their forecast was verified.
20:03 It's the end of the prohibition.
20:05 [Music]
20:11 But Lucchese has everything planned.
20:14 He already has additional income thanks to his Jewish associates,
20:18 and above all, he is insistently working on the market of the Kacher chicken.
20:23 During the 1930s in New York, the Kacher chicken market was very developed,
20:29 ultra competitive, and very disorganized.
20:32 [Music]
20:34 Lucchese discovers the existence of a small union specialized in the heart of the sector.
20:39 Unlike the conventional slaughterhouses, for a chicken to be Kacher,
20:44 it must absolutely be killed by hand by a very small number of certified rabbis.
20:48 They were the only ones who had the right to prepare and kill the chickens.
20:58 It was a job that was passed from father to son, so it took 20 or 30 years to get into the job.
21:04 So if these guys were on strike, it was terrible.
21:08 It was impossible to call a temporary agency to find substitutes.
21:12 It didn't work that way.
21:14 Lucchese acts in subordination and takes control of the union,
21:19 then very quickly of the entire market.
21:21 He simply created a cartel to manage a monopoly.
21:27 They controlled each element of the Kacher meat business.
21:29 The slaughter, the transport, the distribution.
21:33 Lucchese sets the prices and contractual modalities.
21:40 The irony is that these different interlocutors make these efforts
21:44 because they guarantee them work all year.
21:47 They were rather satisfied.
21:50 Before, they could go bankrupt in one season
21:53 if their competitors decided to lower their price by 2 cents per pound.
21:58 Lucchese promised them regular activity as long as they cooperated, of course.
22:04 Everyone benefited from it.
22:06 Merchants, slaughters, transporters.
22:09 Not to mention Lucchese himself.
22:12 The customers are the big losers in the cartel.
22:16 The margins were all reported on the sales price.
22:21 So those who wanted to eat Kacher didn't have a choice.
22:23 Did he worry about the price running away from the customers? No.
22:27 Where would they find their Kacher chicken?
22:31 They had no other choice.
22:33 They paid.
22:37 It was the very first tax to the real mafia.
22:42 But Tommy Lucchese is still not satisfied.
22:49 He is now heading to one of New York's most profitable markets
22:52 and is going to seize it by force.
22:55 Tommy Lucchese has always had a sense of business.
23:01 Under the prohibition, he was lucky in the smuggling of alcohol.
23:07 In 1933, he ruled without sharing on the Kacher chicken market.
23:12 Lucchese has always favored intelligence over brute force to get to his ends.
23:19 Over time, New York's textile district
23:22 became the national center of clothing creation and manufacturing.
23:26 At one time, this district in the heart of Manhattan
23:29 produced more than a third of the clothes bought in the United States.
23:33 It was between 1920 and 1930 that Tommy Lucchese
23:40 threw his own weight on this activity.
23:43 [Textile District]
23:45 Lucchese has always had ties to the textile world.
23:54 Already under the prohibition, he was the one who provided alcohol to clothing manufacturers.
24:00 When he had to receive buyers for their products,
24:06 they went to see Tommy and asked him if he could provide them with alcohol
24:09 so they could receive the customers well.
24:11 And they always bought super quality.
24:14 Tommy is always present, and thanks to the mountains of money that alcohol brings him,
24:20 he starts a new activity.
24:22 He becomes a smuggler.
24:24 After the 1929 stock market crash, many Americans lost their economies.
24:31 Many turned to the mafia.
24:39 The money loan literally exploded during the Great Depression
24:43 because it was a direct source of money for all those who couldn't go borrow from banks.
24:48 Of course, interest rates are exorbitant,
24:53 but Lucchese doesn't hesitate to use violence or intimidation to convince bad payers.
24:58 The Depression also hit the businesses that needed treasuries to go back.
25:07 Banks were closing one after the other, and merchants needed money.
25:11 They didn't necessarily have reserves like the banking institutions,
25:14 well, for those who still had loans to lend.
25:17 With the fortune he had under the prohibition,
25:21 Lucchese had a lot of means to give a hand to all clothing manufacturers.
25:25 He also figured out that every season, two or three times a year,
25:31 many of these manufacturers were short on cash.
25:35 When they had finished their spring line and they tried to have summer line collections,
25:39 they had no money.
25:41 And then Tommy came along and said,
25:44 "Hey, I have a solution for you.
25:47 "You need money? I've got a lot. I don't know what to do with it."
25:50 And he becomes the main lender for the clothing industry.
25:56 Lucchese takes over the stock market with so-called short-term,
26:01 but exorbitant interest rates.
26:04 In doing so, Tommy knows that borrowers won't be able to pay him back in time,
26:08 and they'll be caught.
26:10 It was one of the most lucrative loans ever invented.
26:16 If the conditions for repayment are draconian,
26:20 it's to ensure a very comfortable return on investment to the lender, Tommy Lucchese.
26:25 Often, these people were able to pay back in time,
26:30 so he doubled his interest rates and it continued over time.
26:34 And at the height of the Depression in '30s,
26:36 he was making a net annual benefit of $5 million.
26:39 Lucchese uses his activity as a lender
26:42 to invite each clothing manufacturer and take control of their business.
26:46 Eventually, a lot of these businesses couldn't pay the money back.
26:51 As a result, they got a new partner.
26:53 And they got a new partner very quickly,
26:56 and they started calling the shots.
26:59 Lucchese had the reputation of being a very affordable lender.
27:03 "You can't pay? No problem."
27:05 "I take a part of your business, I take a lot of it."
27:09 Tommy has got dozens of businesses he can control,
27:12 sometimes officially, sometimes unofficially.
27:16 With his combination, Lucchese becomes the king of clothing designers.
27:25 The next step is to put the whole sector under his control.
27:29 He takes control of the "Coupeur des Toffs" union,
27:32 a corporation that can, by making a strike, block the whole economy.
27:36 Thanks to this new coup de force,
27:38 Lucchese is able to impose his rates on all his competitors.
27:42 Tommy Lucchese understood that taking control of the unions was the golden goose.
27:49 By taking them over, he had a safe income.
27:52 If they went on strike, what would happen?
27:55 Everything would stop.
27:58 You can't do clothing without these people.
28:01 Like with the chicken, Lucchese controls a crucial part of the production chain.
28:06 The manufacturers pay him to let them work.
28:10 That is what made it beautiful.
28:15 The manufacturers didn't complain.
28:19 Why?
28:20 Because Tommy told them that he would only pay the surplus on the price and that the American citizen would pay.
28:27 At the same time, Lucchese is a low-key player on the "Routier" union,
28:32 whose trucks transport the clothes.
28:34 He told them, "From now on, you call on only one transport company and you accept the rates.
28:41 If you don't like it, carry your clothes on your own.
28:46 Or on horseback."
28:49 Lucchese seems capable of corrupting anyone, even at the city hall.
28:55 Very soon, he decides to put his salt in New York's political life.
29:02 While the vast majority of Americans have trouble getting by during the Great Depression,
29:12 the mafia man Tommy Lucchese makes a profit by plundering New York's clothing industry.
29:18 All without ever drawing attention to him, because Lucchese likes discretion.
29:26 It was hard to take it into account.
29:30 In the street, you wouldn't see a factory or clothing store sign saying that the mafia was controlling it.
29:38 Almost everything was in the background.
29:42 Lucchese never exposed himself and coerced the police to remain as white as snow.
29:47 These mobsters could walk into a police station and lay off the wine pots
29:53 that were making $10 a week.
29:56 And they could be acting the same way as the politicians who were not under the same supervision as they are today.
30:04 [Lucchese's "The Man Who Killed the World"]
30:08 Lucchese has made a name for himself by taking control of the entire business sector.
30:17 But he knows that politicians are just as easily manipulated.
30:21 Tommy understood for a long time that corruption was an essential tool in organized crime.
30:29 And so he was courting people who were corrupt,
30:33 and he knew that people who were corrupt were in a position to be very, very helpful.
30:39 In 1945, Tommy moves to the top.
30:45 During the election campaign for the presidency of the City Council,
30:49 he supports Vincent Impelliteri, a dark-eyed notary.
30:53 The Sicilian Impelliteri is a novice.
30:56 He is a good candidate, but he doesn't even know if he can run for office.
31:01 However, he has a weighty asset, Lucchese.
31:04 Impelliteri is elected, and Tommy holds the presidency of the City Council in his hands.
31:11 Then, in 1950, a police corruption case provokes a scandal
31:16 that pushes Mayor William O'Dwyer to resign.
31:20 Impelliteri wins an early election and takes his place.
31:24 He turns out to be one of the worst mayors New York has ever known.
31:28 He was incompetent, but the mafias didn't care. They still had this pipeline to City Hall.
31:33 One evening, journalists surprise Impelliteri by having dinner with Lucchese.
31:38 The mayor of New York is sitting at the same table as a mafia. Annoying.
31:43 When the journalists went to ask him if he knew who he was having dinner with,
31:47 the mayor said, "Oh, I know who he is. He's in the textile, isn't he?"
31:50 By playing the naive, the mayor avoids the scandal.
31:54 Lucchese also corrupted the police.
32:00 Tommy gives her the peace of mind to close her eyes and let her do her business without any punishment.
32:05 Now, with that, do you think that New York police would do anything to track down Tommy Lucchese?
32:14 Not very much. That's how he protected himself from any possible prosecution.
32:20 In 1951, Lucchese has been the second in the Gagliano family for nearly 20 years.
32:26 His role is to supervise the criminal organization's current affairs.
32:33 In February 1951, Don Gagliano dies of natural causes.
32:39 Lucchese, his designated successor, becomes the new godfather of the family.
32:46 He was among the most admired people in the organization.
32:50 Tommy Lucchese had a gift to make money.
32:54 His success and his success in the racket of the cashier chicken or the textile had marked the environment and he was highly respected.
33:04 Lucchese promotes himself by changing his lifestyle.
33:11 His wife Conchetta and he leave their New Jersey suburbs and build a house in a hilly neighborhood of Long Island, Lido Beach.
33:18 Very quickly, his neighbors notice that they receive prestigious guests.
33:23 They were always surprised to see so many politicians, police chiefs, judges and people from high places at Lucchese's.
33:36 But in the early 50's, the justice system seems to be tightening on the mafia.
33:41 And this time, Tommy can't resort to corruption to avoid his clan being affected.
33:46 In Washington, Senator Estes Kifovert organizes public hearings and forces high-ranking gangsters like Frank Costello to come to testify.
33:56 You must have done some positive things as an American citizen.
34:05 What are they?
34:06 I pay my taxes.
34:09 The hearings are broadcast on television and place the gangsters under the spotlight.
34:14 A situation they had always fled like the plague.
34:17 Can you tell in front of the commission where you have spent the last 6 months?
34:23 I refuse to answer.
34:25 Were you in Chicago?
34:27 I refuse to answer.
34:31 Yet, this time again, Lucchese's ill-discretion serves him and he will never appear before the Kifovert commission.
34:38 But in 1952, he is called to testify before the New York State Investigations Commission.
34:47 At the age of 53, Tommy will be content to invoke the 5th amendment of the constitution which grants him the right not to incriminate himself.
34:57 But 5 years later, all his efforts to remain in the shadows will be in vain.
35:01 In November 1957, in Appalachin, the local police notices that dozens of gangsters gather in the surroundings.
35:11 Among them is Tommy Lucchese.
35:15 When the police arrive at the house, Lucchese and several comrades flee on foot.
35:22 But the case publicly confirms the existence of a crime syndicate of national magnitude.
35:27 The New York and the country's police services have had to admit the existence of an organized structure.
35:35 Despite 40 years spent trying to avoid public attention as much as possible, Tommy suddenly benefits from an advertisement which he would have liked to avoid.
35:47 And in 1963, Joe Vallacchi will deal him a fatal blow, as well as the entire mafia.
35:53 By agreeing to testify before a commission of senatorial investigations, he breaks the Omerta, the law of silence in force in the middle, and reveals the functioning of the organization.
36:04 He names in particular the Lucchese clan as one of the 5 families of the New York mafia, and Tommy as his godfather.
36:15 However, the federal authorities still do not have enough evidence to arrest Lucchese, who continues his activities and also starts to cheat in boxing matches.
36:23 But in this field too, he will receive a bad publicity.
36:27 A scandal around boxing will be the one of the entire national press. Tommy is once again exposed.
36:34 During the 60s, Tommy Lucchese still rides many very lucrative suits.
36:45 One of them will break the house.
36:48 For years, members of the mafia have become passionate about boxing.
37:04 Boxing and the mafia were very close.
37:12 Tommy Lucchese is no exception to the rule and has been sailing in the boxing world for a long time.
37:17 His neighbors in Long Island know it well.
37:21 They were always surprised to see that when a big fight happened, they would talk with Tommy,
37:27 he would always give them good tricks to bet on the winner.
37:32 And every time they followed his advice, they would win.
37:36 Lucchese knew who was going to win.
37:41 The mafia has always been used to trick boxing matches.
37:45 There were always doubts about the fights, rumors of cheating, arrangements.
37:51 They bet a lot of money on boxing.
37:56 Frankie Carbo is Lucchese's confidant in the boxing world.
38:01 The one who puts pressure on managers, coaches or promoters.
38:06 Carbo and his men resort to intimidation, a method more than proven.
38:11 They threatened to kill the recalcitrants, to beat them or break their knees.
38:16 Promoters and managers had no choice.
38:19 In 1964, Carbo arranged a fight between two heavyweights,
38:23 the champion in title, Sonny Liston, and the Olympic champion, Cassius Clay.
38:28 Lucchese's associates have been managing Liston's career for several years.
38:34 Bookmakers and the press were trying to find Liston's favorite.
38:37 People said that Liston was going to kill Clay.
38:41 The press saw him win. I predicted Liston's victory by knockout.
38:46 Most of us did.
38:50 However, rumors were spreading that Carbo played with his influence to arrange the match.
38:57 On February 25, 1964, the two boxers face off in Miami.
39:04 They're watching. Let's go!
39:06 Clay turns around Liston and he's left-handed.
39:09 But Liston tries to reach him.
39:12 During the first six rounds, the fight is correct.
39:16 Then Liston surprises everyone by refusing to resume the fight at the beginning of the seventh round.
39:21 He knew he had to lose.
39:24 And if he got up again from his corner to reach the center of the ring and box,
39:30 there was a high probability that he was going to win.
39:34 Cassius Clay's score is 7-1.
39:38 The mafia, who bet everything on him, has to make a lot of money.
39:42 In Clay's camp, they deny any irregularity and demand a rematch.
39:47 The following year, on May 25, 1965, the rematch is held in Lewiston, Maine.
39:54 But before the match, rumors of the arrangement are even more persistent.
40:00 In the first round, Clay, who now calls himself Mohamed Ali,
40:03 unhooks a right hook by retreating and hits Liston in the jaw.
40:07 Liston advances. He's hit. And he goes to the mat.
40:13 The blow seems harmless. Yet, Liston collapses in the eyes of the audience.
40:20 He rolls on the ground, then kneels, and then collapses again.
40:27 Today, rumors have not stopped about this fight.
40:31 When Ali hits him, Sonny pretends to accuse the blow and collapses on the ground.
40:37 He preferred to lie down gently, wait for the storm to pass,
40:42 and go get his check later. And that was it.
40:46 I don't agree at all with those who say that this fight was arranged.
40:52 I've seen fights in my life. And I'm ready to swear on my own head
40:56 that this was the most regular one.
41:00 I've seen a very good fight where a boxer clearly dominated his opponent.
41:06 It was not a trick.
41:09 In boxing, as elsewhere, Luke Hazey has always carried out his illegal activities in the shadows,
41:15 avoiding to expose himself carefully.
41:19 But in the mid-60s, his age begins to be felt.
41:23 He suffers from chest pain, malaise, and chronic migraine.
41:28 Tommy withdraws from the usual affairs and spends the clearest time in his villa in Florida.
41:35 At 66, he goes to see his doctor.
41:40 The news is terrible.
41:45 Tommy has a brain tumor and has only one year to live.
41:49 Despite all his money, despite all his power,
41:54 medicine could do nothing for him.
41:58 Luke Hazey breaks the prognosis and hangs on for two years.
42:02 But cancer ends up being right about his tenacity.
42:06 On July 13, 1967, he is diagnosed with a brain tumor.
42:12 On July 13, 1967, Tommy Luke Hazey dies at his home, in Lido Beach.
42:17 He is 68 years old.
42:20 On his deathbed, he said he didn't regret anything.
42:27 More than a thousand people attend his funeral,
42:31 including members of the mafia, judges, and high-ranking politicians.
42:38 After his death, confusion reigns over his succession,
42:42 because Tommy had not officially designated heirs to his criminal empire.
42:47 The godparents of the other families get together and decide to entrust the reins to his former guardian,
42:53 Tony "Ducks" Corallo.
42:56 The only problem is that Corallo has been in prison for extortion for the last few years.
43:04 To ensure the interim, the families appoint Carmine Tramunti as the clan's business manager.
43:09 In the spirit of their deceased boss,
43:12 Corallo's men suddenly set out to New York's Kennedy Airport.
43:16 In 1978, the members of the Luke Hazey clan commit an impressive robbery
43:21 at the terminal of a German company's cargo flights.
43:24 They rob six million dollars in cash.
43:27 At the time, the case was the most important robbery in the history of the United States.
43:34 It would be necessary to wait until the 1980s
43:36 for the FBI to bring down the leaders of the Luke Hazey organization
43:40 through a thorough surveillance.
43:42 By putting a fly in Corallo's car,
43:45 the federal authorities record more than 70 hours of compromising discussions.
43:50 The federal prosecutor is named Rudy Giuliani.
43:53 He will then become mayor of New York.
43:56 The recordings allow him to compromise the five families.
44:00 He indicted all of the five families,
44:03 the sub-bosses, the conciliaries, and the associates.
44:06 Everything he could have done to this indictment.
44:11 Six big-bearded men are sentenced for extortion,
44:16 robbery, and murder.
44:19 They were all convicted,
44:22 and they were all sentenced to a penalty of approximately 100 years in prison.
44:28 The trial cuts the Luke Hazey clan's head
44:30 and marks the end of a glorious era for this family and the mafia.
44:34 This new generation was more brutal.
44:38 They were low-level thugs.
44:40 Nowadays, the mafia is often the front page of the newspapers
44:44 and falls more than before under the blow of justice.
44:47 In this sense, it does not honor the traditions of discretion
44:51 that the gangsters who had revolutionized it had established.
44:54 If Tommy Luke Hazey came back from the dead today,
44:57 I think he would be enraged to see what they did to his empire.
45:01 (dramatic music)
45:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]