John Gambino

Giovanni "John" Gambino (born on August 22, 1940 in Palermo, Sicily), is an American mobster. He became a made member of the Gambino crime family in 1975 and a capodecina or captain, and head of the crime family's Sicilian faction, appointed by family boss John Gotti in 1986, according to Mafia turncoat Sammy Gravano.

Together with his younger brothers Rosario and Joseph Gambino he formed a faction in the crime family known as the Cherry Hill Gambinos for their country seat in the New Jersey town of that name. Although they were distant cousins of family boss Carlo Gambino, they did not owe him allegiance. They were Sicilian Mafiosi, made men from Palermo, whose father had brought the family to New York in 1964. The Gambino brothers ran the Cafe Valentino on 18th Avenue in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn (later renamed as Cafe Giardino).

The Gambinos hailed from the Passo di Rigano neighbourhood in Palermo, just as the Inzerillo clan, headed by Salvatore Inzerillo. Together the Inzerillo-Gambino Mafia clan formed a transatlantic Mafia family, based in Palermo and New York. The Inzerillo clan had been on the verge of total extermination by Totò Riina and the Corleonesi during the Second Mafia War in Sicily when in 1981 the family boss Salvatore Inzerillo was killed. With the intervention of the Gambinos a deal was worked out that allowed the surviving Inzerillos to take refuge in the US, with the agreement that none of them, or their offspring, could ever return to Sicily. Many went to the New York area and joined forces with the Gambino family. They were dubbed "gli scappati" (the escapees).

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