Salvatore D'Aquila
1873 to Oct. 10, 1928.
"Toto," "Tata"
Palermo-born D'Aquila ran a cheese importing business in New York when he wasn't occupied with the day-to-day business of one of the more successful Mafia organizations.
D'Aquila became boss of all bosses in the U.S. Mafia some time after the jailing of Ignazio Lupo and Giuseppe Morello in 1909. (There is some suggestion that he wasn't the first to try for that open office.)
D'Aquila allegedly meddled extensively in the business of other American crime families. He is believed to have inserted his own loyal followers as spies into other families. (See: Gentile, Nick, Vita di Capomafia.)
While D'Aquila did not succeed in uniting all of the city's Mafiosi, he did not have a serious open challenge for about a decade, when Giuseppe Masseria and former D'Aquila henchman Umberto Valenti opposed him with the support of Morello (just out of prison) and others. D'Aquila had earned their enmity by proclaiming a death sentence against the former boss of bosses and all who followed him.
Valenti and D'Aquila set aside their differences and cooperated in a war against Masseria. Masseria survived the momentary setback and succeeded in an assassination of Valenti.
Not much is known about D'Aquila. It appears he lost much of his authority to Masseria in the early 1920s and then was eliminated by Masseria forces (or allies) in 1928.
While a number of D'Aquila loyalists sided with Brooklyn Castellammarese leader Salvatore Maranzano, the old D'Aquila unit was officially taken over by Masseria supporter Al Mineo and his right-hand man Steve Ferrigno.
After the deaths of Mineo and Ferrigno, the unit was run by Frank Scalise during the later Castellammarese War and was then turned over to Vincent Mangano in the 1931 underworld reorganization. It survives to this day as the Gambino Family.
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