Anthony Carfano

Anthony Carfano (1895 – September 25, 1959), also known as "Little Augie Pisano", was a New York gangster who became a caporegime, or group leader, in the Luciano crime family under mob bosses Charles "Lucky" Luciano and Frank Costello.

Anthony Carfano was born in November, 1895, on Oliver Street in Manhattan, the son of Giavanni Carfagno and Dongetta Visocchi, both immigrants from Naples, Italy.

By 1920, he had become a hoodlum for Frankie Yale in Yale's south Brooklyn empire. Yale's organization eventually allied with and was finally absorbed by Joe Masseria's Mafia family, making Yale a caporegime or crew leader under Masseria. When Yale was assassinated in 1928, Carfano took over and became a Masseria caporegime.

In the late 1930s, Costello and Joe Adonis sent Carfano to South Florida to expand family operations in that region. Based in Miami, Carfano successfully organized both illegal gambling operations and legitimate spas and hotels, including Miami's Wofford Hotel.

At this time, mob associate and Florida gambling operator Meyer Lansky persuaded the Mafia Commission that both Miami and Miami Beach should be considered "open cities", places in which any crime family in the country could set up operation. Despite Carfano's objections, Costello persuaded him to cooperate with Lansky. By the late 1950s, Carfano had carved out a multimillion-dollar gambling empire in South Florida. Florida crime boss Santo Trafficante, Sr., based in Tampa, controlled the majority of the state, but was closely aligned with the New York bosses and his counterparts in New Orleans.

In the late 1940s, Vito Genovese was extradited from Italy to New York, but managed to escape the murder charges. Genovese now set about retrieving control of the family from Costello. Over the prior decade Genovese had garnered much support from the "blue collar faction" of the crime family, the soldiers who carried out the street level crimes and had felt neglected under Costello's rule, while higher level crime family members within the "white collar faction" led by Costello carried out and oversaw the operations such as union and labor racketeering, stock scams and political corruption.

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