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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

5. “The Man Who Can Dodge Bullets“

Born in Menfi, Sicily, Giuseppe Masseria, better known as Joe “The Boss” Masseria (1887 – 1931), fled his homeland as a teenager in 1903 to escape a murder indictment, and emigrated to the US, which had no extradition treaty with Italy at the time. In America, he founded what is today the Genovese crime family, and became New York City’s leading crime boss and kingpin from the early 1920s until his death in 1931. Masseria began his criminal career in the US as an enforcer for the Morello gang in NYC’s Lower East Side. When that gang’s boss was murdered in 1916, Masseria broke off and formed his own splinter group. It was a dangerous career, and in 1922 he miraculously escaped an assassination attempt that injured six bystanders and killed two, plus a horse. That earned Masseria the nickname “The Man Who Can Dodge Bullets”.

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.