Apalachin Meeting

The Apalachin meeting was a historic summit of the American Mafia held at the home of mobster Joseph "Joe the Barber" Barbara, in Apalachin, New York, on November 14, 1957. Allegedly, the meeting was held to discuss various topics including loansharking, narcotics trafficking, and gambling, along with dividing the illegal operations controlled by the late Albert Anastasia. An estimated 100 Mafiosi members from the United States, Italy, and Cuba are thought to have attended this meeting.Vito Genovese, then head of the renamed Genovese family, initially called the meeting as a way to recognize his new power as capo dei capi.

Local and state law enforcement became suspicious when numerous expensive cars bearing license plates from around the country arrived in what was described as "the sleepy hamlet of Apalachin." After setting up roadblocks, the police raided the meeting causing many of the participants to flee into the woods and area surrounding the Barbara estate. More than 60 underworld bosses were detained and indicted following the raid. One of the most direct and significant outcomes of the Apalachin Meeting was that it helped to confirm the existence of the American Mafia to the public, a fact that some, including Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover, had long refused to acknowledge publicly.

Boss Vito Genovese, who had fled from the United States to Italy to avoid a 1937 murder indictment, was living in Naples at the end of World War II when he was arrested and returned to the United States in 1946 to face trial. Genovese was released from jail after the only witness to the murder, Peter LaTempa, was murdered in his jail cell while awaiting the trial. After his release, Genovese began competing with Frank "The Prime Minister" Costello for control over the biggest and most powerful underworld crime family, the Luciano family of New York. Once Genovese obtained control of the Luciano family, his intentions were to take control of The Commission and the Mafia, but to accomplish this he had to remove the long-established "Conservative Faction," or old guard Mafia, which controlled the Commission.

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