Giuseppe Profaci – The Olive oil king and mafia mobster

Giuseppe Profaci also called Joe in short was born in the Palermo province named Villabate, Sicily, on 2nd October 1897. His early childhood days are not much known, however, he is said to have been associated with Sicilian mafia members, while spending a year in prison in Sicily for theft charges.

His coming to the United States

On 4th September 1921, he started out for the U.S. and boarded a shop that also carried Phillip Mangano and Vincent Mangano (the future Gambino Mafia family boss). On his arrival at the United States, he settled in Chicago, opening up a grocery store. But the business proved to be unsuccessful, which compelled him to move to New York in 1925. Here, ,he took to exporting olive oil and hence got the nick name of ‘Olive Oil king’ and made Long Island to be his territory.

Life as a mafia

He formed his very own gang taking assistance from Vincent Mangano by 19274 and built relationship with other New York gang leaders. His business included bootlegging, counterfeiting and extortion. By 1928, he went on to become the most powerful New York gang.

His rise to power

He along with others was invited to Cleveland’s Statler Hotel on 5th December 1928 to the mafia summit, hosted by Joseph Porello, the Cleveland mafia boss. But by the middle of the meeting, Profaci along with 23 other mafia members were arrested and pressed bootlegging charges. However, Profaci was not fazed with the arrest and by now had become a well recognized mafia boss and built up an empire in New York.

His other activities

Profaci had a powerful gang by 1931 that was involved in narcotics, numbers racket, trafficking, loan sharking and prostitution. During Castellammarese War, he remained neutral and when Lucky Luciano reorganized the mafia members, Profaci was awarded his own family among the five New York Mafia Families, as well as a seat in the Commission.

He still had maintained his business in olive oil, a legitimate business, which thrived during the Second World War. With time, he operated and owned over 20 legitimate businesses, while employing New York citizens, at a time, when being employed was quite difficult. He was very close to Bonanno family and it further strengthened with Rosalie, Profaci’s niece and Salvatore Bonanno married.

He was a devoted Catholic and distributed among Catholic charities, dollars in thousands. In 1950s, he had been sued by the IRS for back taxes amounting to $1.5 million. But he got involved in the 1960s in the Profaci-Gallo war over payment of tributes to mafia boss, which has been termed to be very violent in history.

On 7th June 1962, he died due to cancer.