6. Getting Rid of the Boss and Creating the Chicago Outfit
Juggling the books, which were regularly inspected by Colosimo, started getting tricky, and when Colosimo started getting suspicious, Torrio struck first. He called in an NYC colleague, Frankie Yale, who shot Colosimo dead in May of 1920. Within hours of Colosimo’s death, Torrio took over his empire, creating what became known as The Chicago Outfit. He became the city’s biggest Mafioso and one of its most powerful criminal kingpins.
As the Outfit expanded its operations from its base in Chicago’s South Side, it came into conflict with the Irish-American North Side Gang. After initial attempts at peaceful coexistence failed, Torrio ordered the murder of the North Side boss in November, 1924, sparking a bloody gang war. In retaliation, Torrio was ambushed outside his apartment with a fusillade of gunfire, taking bullets to the jaw, lung, abdomen, groin, and legs. Severely wounded, he was spared from a kill shot to the skull when the assassin’s gun jammed.
