18. Carmine “The Cigar” Galante
Carmine “The Cigar” Galante (1910 – 1979) was a Bonano family boss, who earned his nickname because he was seldom seen without a cigar. Diagnosed as a psychopath by prison psychiatrists while incarcerated in the 1930s, Galante had formed a juvenile street gang in the Lower East Side in his early teens, and became a leading mob enforcer by the time he was twenty. He had a cold dead-eyed stare that scared both gangsters and cops, and by 1940, the NYPD suspected him of involvement in over 80 murders.
Contra the myth that the mafia was anti drugs, the mob were the main importers of narcotics into the US until the rise of the South American cartels. By the 1950s, Galante was a major drug trafficker, which earned him a 20 year sentence in 1962. Released in the mid 1970s, he rose to de facto command of the Bonano family, but his psychopathic ways alienated everybody. On July 12th, 1979, while having an open patio lunch in a Bushwick restaurant, three hitmen, wearing ski masks, walked up to the patio and opened fire with shotguns and pistols, killing Galante and two underlings. He died with a cigar in his mouth.
