Frank Costello

Frank Costello, born Francesco Castiglia in Calabria in 1891, ran the Luciano crime family for decades and earned the title "The Prime Minister of the Underworld" for the way he cloaked violence in diplomacy. He rose to power through Prohibition, helped build the National Crime Syndicate that stitched Italian-American criminal organisations into a national network, and preferred to work in the shadows, buying influence over politicians and police rather than spilling blood. That elusiveness carried him through the 1950s Kefauver Hearings largely unpunished. In 1957 he survived an assassination attempt ordered by Vito Genovese, then retired, living quietly until his death in 1973.