Top 20 Most Famous Mobsters Of All Time 

Top 20 Most Famous Mobsters Of All Time 

Organized crime has been a huge existential crisis in the world for years. These criminals have used violence and intimidation to get to their victims. While they often operate in the shadows, these mobsters have nevertheless achieved a level of fame for themselves through their heinous crimes.

This article highlights the top 20 most famous mobsters of all time. Most of these people are very powerful in the crime world and are often very feared. They have engaged in extensive illegal activities from gambling, prostitution, extortion and even murder. Not only have they left a lasting impression on their victims but also captured the wider public attention. Let’s delve into the criminal mastermind of these famous mobsters and their most notable crimes.

1. Al Capone

Al Capone known by the nickname Scarface, was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit. Capone revelled in attention, such as the cheers from spectators when he appeared at baseball games. He made donations to various charities and was viewed by many as a modern-day Robin Hood.

Federal authorities became intent on jailing Capone and charged him with twenty-two counts of tax evasion. His seven-year reign as a crime boss ended when he went to prison at the age of 33.

2. John Gotti 

FBI New York, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

John Gotti was an American gangster and boss of the Gambino crime family in New York City. He ordered and helped to orchestrate the murder of Gambino boss Paul Castellano and took over the family shortly thereafter, becoming boss of what was described as America’s most powerful crime syndicate.

Gotti and his brothers grew up in poverty and turned to a life of crime at an early age. At his peak, Gotti was one of the most powerful and dangerous crime bosses in the United States. During his era, he became widely known for his outspoken personality and flamboyant style, which gained him favour with some of the general public.  In 1992, Gotti was convicted of five murders, conspiracy to commit murder, racketeering, obstruction of justice, tax evasion, illegal gambling, extortion, and loansharking. He received life in prison without parole. Read 10 Things You Probably Didn’t know about Italian Gangster John Gotti. 

3. Lucky Luciano

Lucky Luciano was an Italian-born gangster who operated mainly in the United States. Luciano started his criminal career in the Five Points gang and was instrumental in the development of the National Crime Syndicate. 

In 1936, Luciano was tried and convicted of compulsory prostitution and running a prostitution racket. He was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison, but during World War II an agreement was struck with the Department of the Navy through his Jewish Mob associate Meyer Lansky to provide naval intelligence. In 1946, for his alleged wartime cooperation, his sentence was commuted on the condition that he be deported to Italy.

4. Meyer Lansky

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Meyer Lansky known as the Mob’s Accountant, was an American organized crime figure who, along with his associate Charles Luciano, was instrumental in the development of the National Crime Syndicate in the United States. Lansky developed a gambling empire that stretched around the world.

Lansky additionally had a strong influence on the Italian-American Mafia and played a large role in the consolidation of the criminal underworld. Despite nearly 50 years as a member of organized crime, Lansky was never found guilty of anything more serious than illegal gambling. He has a legacy of being one of the most financially successful gangsters in American history. 

5. Bugsy Siegel

Bugsy Siegel was an American mobster who was a driving force behind the development of the Las Vegas Strip. Siegel was influential within the Jewish Mob. He also held significant influence within the Italian-American Mafia and the largely Italian-Jewish National Crime Syndicate. Described as handsome and charismatic, he became one of the first front-page celebrity gangsters.

His time as a mobster was mainly as a hitman and muscle, as he was noted for his prowess with guns and violence. In 1941, Siegel was tried for the murder of a fellow mobster Harry Greenberg, who had turned informant. He was acquitted in 1942. In 1947, Siegel was shot dead by a sniper while in California.

6. Carlo Gambino

New York Police Department ニューヨーク市警察。撮影者名称までは不明, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Carlo Gambino was a Sicilian-American crime boss of the Gambino crime family. After the Apalachin Meeting in 1957 and the imprisonment of Vito Genovese in 1959, Gambino took over the Commission of the American Mafia until his death from a heart attack in 1976. 

During more than 50 years in organized crime, he served only 22 months in prison for a tax evasion charge in 1937.

7. Frank Costello

Frank Costello was an Italian-American crime boss of the Luciano crime family. While Costello was still a boy, his brother introduced him to gang activities. At 13, he had become a member of a local gang and started using the name Frankie. Costello committed petty crimes and went to jail for assault and robbery.

While working for the Morello gang, Costello met Luciano, the two Italians immediately became friends and partners.  The gang went into bootlegging, backed by criminal financier Arnold Rothstein. The young Italians’ success let them make business deals with the leading Jewish and Irish criminals of the era. During his retirement, Costello was still known as the Prime Minister of the Underworld. He still retained power and influence in New York’s Mafia and remained busy throughout his final years. Read about 15 of the Most Famous Italian Gangsters. 

8. Vito Genovese

Phil Stanziola, World Telegram staff photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Vito Genovese was an Italian-born American mobster who mainly operated in the United States. Genovese rose to power during Prohibition as an enforcer in the American Mafia. Genovese helped the expansion of the heroin trade to an international level. 

Genovese took part in the Castellammarese War and helped shape the rise of the Mafia and organized crime in the United States. He would later lead Luciano’s crime family, which was renamed the Genovese crime family in his honour. In 1959, his reign was cut short as he was convicted on narcotics conspiracy charges and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

9. Sam Giancana

Sam Giancana was an American mobster. From the 1940s through the 1950s, he controlled illegal gambling, illegal liquor distribution, and political rackets in Louisiana. In the early 1940s, Giancana was involved in Chicago’s African-American lottery payout system for the Outfit. 

During the 1960s, he was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency in a plot to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Conspiracy theorists consider Giancana along with Mafia leaders Santo Trafficante Jr. and Carlos Marcello to be associated with the assassination of John F. Kennedy.  In 1965, Giancana was convicted of contempt of court, serving one year in prison. Giancana was murdered in 1975.

10. Tony Accardo

Associated Press, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Tony Accardo was an American longtime mobster. In a criminal career that spanned eight decades, he rose from small-time hoodlum to the position of day-to-day boss of the Chicago Outfit in 1947, to ultimately becoming the final Outfit authority in 1972.

Accardo moved the Outfit into new operations and territories, greatly increasing its power and wealth during his tenure as boss. Accardo developed a variety of profitable rackets, including gambling, loansharking, bookmaking, extortion, and the distribution of untaxed alcohol and cigarettes. 

11. Joseph Bonanno

Joseph Bonanno was an Italian-American crime boss of the Bonanno crime family. Bonanno took control of most of the crime family, and at age 26, Bonanno became one of the youngest-ever bosses of a crime family. In 1963, Bonanno made plans with Joseph Magliocco to assassinate several rivals on the Mafia Commission.

When Magliocco gave the contract to one of his top hit men, he revealed the plot to its targets. The Commission spared Magliocco’s life but forced him into retirement, while Bonanno fled to Canada. In 1964, he briefly returned to New York before disappearing until 1966. Later in life, he became a writer, publishing the book A Man of Honor: The Autobiography of Joseph Bonanno in 1983. Read more about 10 Famous 1960s American Gangsters And Mobsters. 

12. Angelo Bruno

Ada Becchi Collidà, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Angelo Bruno was a Sicilian-American mobster, notable for being the boss of the Philadelphia crime family for two decades until his assassination. Bruno was known as the Gentle Don due to his preference for conciliation over violence, in stark contrast to his successors.

Bruno forbade family involvement in narcotics trafficking, preferring more traditional Cosa Nostra operations, such as bookmaking and loansharking. However, Bruno did permit other gangs to distribute heroin in Philadelphia. Bruno preferred to operate through bribery and soft power rather than murder. In 1980, Bruno was killed by a shotgun blast to the head as he sat in his car in front of his home.

13. Joseph Colombo

Joseph Colombo was the boss of the Colombo crime family, one of the Five Families of the American Mafia in New York City. In 1963, Bonanno crime family boss, Joseph Bonanno made plans with Joseph Magliocco to assassinate several rivals on The Commission. Magliocco gave the contract to one of his top hit men, Colombo, who revealed the plot to its targets.

As a reward for turning on his boss, Colombo was awarded the Profaci family. His only prison term would come in 1966 when Colombo was sentenced to 30 days in prison for contempt of court by refusing to answer questions from a grand jury about his financial affairs.

14. Joe Masseria

New York Police Department, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Joe Masseria was an early Italian-American Mafia boss in New York City. He was the boss of the Genovese crime family, one of the New York City Mafia’s Five Families, from 1922 to 1931. 

In 1930, he battled in the Castellammarese War to take over the criminal activities in New York City. The war ended with his murder in 1931, in a hit ordered by his own lieutenant, Charles Luciano, in an agreement with rival faction head Salvatore Maranzano.

15. Albert Anastasia

Albert Anastasia was an Italian-American mobster, hitman and crime boss. Anastasia was one of the most ruthless and feared organized crime figures in American history; his reputation earned him nicknames such as the Earthquake.

One of the founders of the modern American Mafia, and a co-founder and later boss of the Murder, Inc. organization, he eventually rose to the position of boss in what became the modern Gambino crime family. He also controlled New York City’s waterfront for most of his criminal career, mainly through the dockworker unions. Anastasia was murdered in 1957, on the orders of Vito Genovese and Carlo Gambino. Gambino subsequently became the boss of the family.

16. Frank Nitti

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Frank Nitti was an Italian-American organized crime figure based in Chicago. The first cousin and bodyguard of Al Capone, Nitti was in charge of all money flowing through the operation. Nitti later succeeded Capone as acting boss of the Chicago Outfit. Read more about 20 Infamous Gangsters from Chicago. 

Nitti ran Capone’s liquor smuggling and distribution operation, importing whisky from Canada and selling it through a network of speakeasies around Chicago. Despite his nickname, The Enforcer, Nitti used Mafia soldiers and others to commit violence rather than do it himself. In earlier days, Nitti had been one of Capone’s trusted personal bodyguards, but as he rose in the organization, Nitti’s business instinct dictated that he must personally avoid the dirty work, for which hitmen were paid. 

17. Gaspare DiGregorio 

Gaspare DiGregorio was a New York mobster and a high-ranking member of the Bonanno crime family. The Mafia Commission named DiGregorio as the Bonanno family boss, and the DiGregorio revolt led to four years of strife in the Bonanno family, labelled by the media as the Banana War. This led to a divide in the family between loyalists to Bill and loyalists to DiGregorio. 

In early 1966, DiGregorio allegedly contacted Bill about having a peace meeting. Bill agreed and suggested his grand-uncle’s house on Troutman Street in Brooklyn as a meeting site. On January 28, 1966, as Bill and his loyalists approached the house, they were met with gunfire, no one was wounded during this confrontation. The Commission eventually became dissatisfied with DiGregorio’s efforts at quelling the family rebellion, and eventually dropped DiGregorio and swung their support to Paul Sciacca. In 1968, DiGregorio was wounded by machine gun fire and later suffered a heart attack. 

18. Anthony Provenzano

Anthony Provenzano was an American mobster who was a powerful caporegime in the Genovese crime family New Jersey faction. Provenzano was known for his associations with Jimmy Hoffa due to Provenzano’s job as an International Brotherhood of Teamsters president for Local 560 in Union City, New Jersey.

1976, Provenzano was indicted in Ulster County, New York, along with Briguglio and Konigsberg, on charges of conspiracy and murder in connection to the 1961 death of Anthony Castellitto. In June 1978, Provenzano was convicted of murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment in New York.

19. Carmine Persico

Carmine Persico was an American mobster and the longtime boss of the Colombo crime family in New York City from 1973 until his death in 2019. Persico dropped out of high school at age 16. By then he was a leader of the Garfield Boys, a Brooklyn street gang. 

In the early 1950s, Persico was recruited into the Profaci crime family, the forerunner of the Colombo family, by longtime capo Frank Abbatemarco. At first, Persico did bookmaking and loan-sharking, then moved into burglaries and hijackings. During this decade he was arrested over 12 times but spent only a few days in jail. He had been serving 32 years in federal prison from 1987 until his death. 

20. Thomas Pitera

Drug Enforcement Administration, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Thomas Pitera is an American mobster in the Bonanno crime family. Pitera, a soldier and later on a captain of his own crew, was suspected by law enforcement of as many as 60 murders.

Pitera was well known for his use of karate and other martial arts when fighting, a skill he had learned at a young age and which earned him nicknames like Tommy Karate, and The Karate Guy. Pitera is serving a life sentence at USP McCreary in McCreary County, Kentucky.

While all the individuals represented in this article represent a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences, their mobster life is what knits them together. Whether you’re fascinated by their ruthlessness or their mercilessness, these mobsters are sure to leave a lasting impression. Read more about 10 Famous 1930s Gangsters & Mobsters.