Frank Abbatemarco was popularly called by his associates as ‘Frankie Shots’. It was in 1899 that he was born and grew up with Gallo family in Brooklyn’s Red Hook place. There is not much knowledge related to his early childhood days. However, he got arrested in during the late 1920s several times on narcotic charges.
His life as a Mafia
He was into racketeering by early 1930s for Joseph Profaci, the new appointed Brooklyn’s boss and enjoyed immense success. Dollars in thousands were kicked every week by Abbatemarco for the family boss. During the late 1940s and early part of 1950’s, he got a better position as a capital within the Profaci Mafia family and was among the family’s biggest earners and was in charge of several rackets in South Brooklyn. During his peak, he pulled around $7,000 in a day and a year about $2.5 million.
His joining the Gallo team to avoid payment to Profaci
However, the late 1950’s saw disgruntle among the Mafia members in the Profaci Mafia family. The reason was because of the huge demands being made by Profaci as tribute demands. An additional monthly tribute of $25 was made by Profaci from every family member that had to be paid to him directly, which became the tipping point. It was seen by the family members as a means for Profaci to have his extravagant lifestyle to be funded with. Joe Gallo along with his crew members in the early part of 1959 denied tribute payments to boss, leading to a feud and all out war. At the same time, the rackets of Abbatemarco also started to falter because of frequent raids conducted by the law enforcement officials. For a short time, he agreed to Gallo to avoid making payments to Profaci.
The late tribute or back taxes of Abbatemarco by 1959 October had amounted to $50,000 and still he was convinced by Gallo to stick to his decision of not paying up Profaci, which turned to be a bad advice. On 4th November 1959 night, when he was at the cousin’s saloon, he was shot at by two men fully armed and getting killed on spot. It was only after his murder that Gallo and his team had started to kidnap the top shots of Profaci family in retaliation of the murder, which led to the Gallo-Profaci war that lasted until the death of Profaci on 6th June 1962.