Detroit Combination
| Founded by | Vito Adamo |
|---|---|
| Founding location | Detroit, Michigan, United States |
| Years active | 1908-present |
| Territory | The surrounding metro area, Michigan, Windsor, Ontario and Toledo, Ohio |
| Ethnicity | "Made men" are of Italian descent, other ethnicities are "associates" |
| Membership | 45 made men , more than 400+ associates |
| Criminal activities | Racketeering, gambling, labor unions, murder, loan-sharking, narcotics trafficking, smuggling, fraud and money laundering |
| Allies | Five Families, Chicago, Cleveland, Kansas City and St. Louis crime families |
| Rivals | The Purple Gang (extinct) and other various gangs for territory. |
The Detroit Partnership, also known as the Detroit crime family, Detroit Combination, Detroit Mafia, or Zerilli crime family (pronounced [dzeˈrilli]) is an American Mafia crime family based in Detroit, Michigan.
The first dominant Mafia leader to be recognized in the Detroit area was the older of two brothers originally from the Alcamo, Sicily area. Born in 1881, Vito Adamo and his brother Salvatore, two years his junior led a gang of Black Hand extortionists, thieves and beer runners and were the first Italian criminals in their area to control the smuggling of immigrants into the Michigan area. Vito Adamo resided in the Wyandotte area while the brothers ran a profitable criminal enterprise based in the Little Italy section of Detroit that extorted grocers and other merchants. Their biggest money maker was their control of illicit liquor, mainly beer within the Italian community. The Adamo brothers operated quietly as old world Sicilian mafiosi usually did and were not recognized by law enforcement outside of the Little Italy area until roughly 1912 when a rival group of Sicilian criminals who had also settled in the Wyandotte area just before the start of the 20th century began their rise within Detroit's Italian underworld.
The Gianolla brothers were originally from Terrasini, Sicily and had been content for roughly the first decade of the 20th century with being grocers and fruit peddlers. The second born of three brothers, Antonio "Tony" Gianolla was a charismatic natural leader, while his younger brother Salvatore "Sam" Gianolla served as the gang's enforcer. The eldest and wisest brother, Gaetano Gianolla served as the adviser or consigliere of the group.
The Gianolla brothers first came to the attention of authorities in late 1911 when their grocery store was raided and police confiscated $2,000 worth of stolen olive oil. Weeks later the mutilated corpse of a former Gianolla associate by the name of Sam Beundo was found charred and left in a field. Beundo had allegedly tipped off law enforcement to the stolen merchandise found in the basement of the Gianolla store. The gruesome murder of Beundo established the Gianolla brothers as a feared force within the Italian underworld.
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Wikipedia