TAMPA’S FIRST MAFIA BOSS
Sicilian Black Hand activities have existed in Tampa and Ybor City since the early 1900s, with loose-knit groups of criminals shaking down merchants and running illegal gambling. The Sicilian groups worked mainly in their communities along with Cuban and Anglo gangs. By the time of Prohibition, the Sicilian gangs merged into a more formalized Mafia family, and the boss was Ignazio Italiano.
Only a little was written about Italiano during his reign as boss. Part of that was because he was in the shadows, allowing Charlie Wall, the “Dean of the Underworld,” to take up the spotlight as the face of organized crime in the City. But Italiano’s reputation in the underworld was well known. A confidential informant told the FBI that he knew Italiano as “the old-time head of the Mafia in Tampa.”
Ignazio Italiano was born on May 13, 1860, in Villabate, a municipality in the Palermo province of Sicily. He moved to Santo Stefano, where he lived before immigrating to the United States. He departed out of Naples aboard the steamship lahn. Italiano arrived at Ellis Island on October 28, 1903. Sometime after that, he left for Tampa.
In Tampa, Italiano made a name for himself as a wholesale grocery business owner. He was a well-known fixture in the Ybor Italian community and a member of the la Sicilia Club and the Italian Club.
But in December of 1928, his name appeared in newspapers nationwide for a very different reason. He was among the suspected bootleggers and gangsters arrested at the Statler Hotel in Cleveland. Italiano’s presence at one of the first significant meetings of organized crime figures reflected his importance in the underworld.
One of those arrested with Italiano was Joe Profaci, a friend of Italiano’s from Sicily who later became boss of one of the New York Mafia’s Five Families. Italiano maintained that he was attending the Statler meeting to visit Profaci and discuss the purchase of olive oil from Profaci’s company. Profaci later echoed those sentiments to the Kefauver Committee in 1951:
Halley: Did you know Ignacio (sic) Italiano?
Profaci: That is right.
Halley: You went to Cleveland to see him?
Profaci: Yes
Halley: Was Italiano in the olive oil business?
Profaci: He was in the grocery business. I was selling to him too.
Ignazio Italiano died at the Tampa Municipal Hospital on August 11, 1930. Services were held at the Italiano residence, continuing with his burial in a standalone tomb at the l’Union Italiana Cemetery. His successor as boss of the Tampa Mafia was Ignazio Antinori.
Postscript:
In 1954, Italiano’s son Anthony went to New York City to meet with Mafia figures too, according to an informant, “straighten things out with the mob.” Anthony and his companion Dominic Ferrara were never heard from again.
Scott M. Deitche is an author specializing in organized crime. He has written seven books and more than 50 articles on organized crime for local and national publications. He has been featured on the History Channel, A&E, Discovery Channel, AHC, C-SPAN and Oxygen Network. In addition, he has appeared on dozens of local and national news shows, as well as more than 40 radio programs. His latest book is Hitmen: The Mafia, Drugs, and the East Harlem Purple Gang. For more information about Scott, visit his page at HERE
