Joseph Aiello
| Giuseppe Aiello | |
|---|---|
Joe Aiello
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| Born | September 20, 1891 Bagheria, Sicily, Italy |
| Died | October 23, 1930 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
Giuseppe "Joe" Aiello (1891 – October 23, 1930) was a Chicago bootlegger and organized crime leader during the Prohibition era. The leader of his own Sicilian Mafia family, he was best known for his long and bloody feud with Chicago Outfit boss Al Capone.
Aiello masterminded several unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Capone, and fought against his former business partner Antonio Lombardo, a Capone ally, for control of the Chicago branch of the Unione Siciliana benevolent society. Aiello and his ally Bugs Moran are believed to have arranged the murder of Lombardo, which directly led Capone to organize the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in retaliation.
Despite being forced to flee Chicago multiple times throughout the gang war, Aiello eventually took control of the Unione Siciliana in 1929, and ranked seventh among the Chicago Crime Commission's list of top "public enemies". Aiello was killed after Capone gunmen ambushed him as he exited a Chicago apartment building where he had been hiding out, shooting him 59 times. After his death the Chicago Tribune described Aiello as "the toughest gangster in Chicago, and one of the toughest in the country".
Born in Bagheria, Sicily, to father Carlo Sr., Aiello was part of a large and impoverished family of at least nine other brothers and multiple cousins. His mother died when he was a child. In July 1907, at age 17, Aiello emigrated to the United States to join family members already residing there. After arriving in New York City by boat, he worked a series of menial jobs in Buffalo and Utica, New York, before connecting with his father, brothers and cousins in Chicago. The family set up several businesses in both New York and Chicago, including the financially successful Aiello Brothers Bakery, and they become importers of such groceries as olive oil, cheeses and sugar.
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