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Fascinating Facts About the Birth of the Italian-American Mafia

Khalid Elhassan February 13, 2025 17 min

Mafia - Lucky Luciano, who midwifed the birth of the modern Italian-American Mafia — Lucky Luciano, who midwifed the birth of the modern Italian-American Mafia. The Mob Museum

11. The Nearly-Forgotten Early Mafia Boss: Paul Kelly

Paolo Antonio Vaccarelli, better known as Paul Kelly (1876 – 1936), was an early New York City Mafiosi. He emigrated to the US as a teenager, took up boxing, Anglicized his name to Paul Kelly when he turned professional. Kelly invested his prize money in a string of brothels in the Italian immigrant district east of the Bowerly, then founded the Five Points Gang – the Big Apple’s last dominant street gang. He recruited and gave a start in the criminal life to many youths who eventually became the biggest names in American organized crime, such as Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Seigel, and Meyer Lansky. Kelly’s career was also significant because it marked Italian organized crime’s transition from street gangs and into the organized hierarchical structure of crime families.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.