Kansas City crime family
| Founded by | Joseph DiGiovanni |
|---|---|
| Founding location | Kansas City, Missouri, United States |
| Years active | 1912–present |
| Territory | Kansas City metropolitan area and the entire states of Missouri, and Nebraska, as well as Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. |
| Ethnicity | "Made men" are Italians, Italian Americans, the other ethnicities are only associates |
| Membership (est.) | 15 made members, 50+ associates. (2010 estimate) |
| Criminal activities | Racketeering, extortion, gambling, loan sharking, skimming, waste management, narcotics, bookmaking, and bribery |
| Allies | Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, Cleveland and St. Louis crime families. |
| Rivals | Various gangs over Kansas City, including their allies. |
The Kansas City Crime Family, also known as Civella crime family (pronounced [tʃiˈvɛlla]), is a Mafia family based in Kansas City, Missouri.
The Italian-American organized crime family began when two Sicilian mafiosi known as the DiGiovanni brothers fled Sicily to Kansas City, Missouri, in 1912. Joseph "Joe Church" DiGiovanni and Peter "Sugarhouse Pete" DiGiovanni began making money from a variety of criminal operations or rackets shortly after their arrival.
Their fortunes greatly improved with the introduction of Prohibition, when they became the only group bootlegging alcohol in Kansas City. Their rackets at this time were controlled by John Lazia, who later became the leading figure when the organization expanded. The gang was given virtually a free hand to operate by their boss Joseph Cesario head of the Cesario Machine that controlled Kansas City's government at the time. Under Cesario, Kansas City became a wide-open town, with absolutely no alcohol-related arrests being made within city limits during the entirety of Prohibition. The DiGiovanni family directly benefited from this absent law enforcement.
When Prohibition ended in 1933, the family, although already involved in various rackets, allegedly began extorting bars. On July 10, 1934, Lazia was assassinated, probably on the orders of his underboss, Charles Carrollo, who ruled as boss until his arrest in 1939 for tax evasion. His underboss Charles Binaggio then became the new boss and expanded the family's areas of labor into racketeering. With the help of Binaggio, Forrest Smith was elected in the Missouri gubernatorial race of 1948, and he took office on January 10, 1949. Binaggio was seen as a liability to the Mafia's nationwide commission, and it was decided that Binaggio should be killed. He was assassinated on April 6, 1950, and his successor Anthony Gizzo died of a heart attack in 1953.
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