26 Facts About Johnny Torrio

Johnny Torrio had several nicknames, primarily "The Fox" for his cunning and finesse.

Crime journalist Herbert Asbury affirmed: "As an organizer and administrator of underworld affairs, Johnny Torrio is unsurpassed in the annals of American crime; he was probably the nearest thing to a real mastermind that this country has yet produced".

Johnny Torrio was born in Irsina, Basilicata, in Southern Italy, to Tommaso Johnny Torrio and Maria Carluccio originally from Altamura, Apulia.

When he was two his father, a railway employee, died in a work accident; shortly after, Johnny Torrio immigrated to James Street on the Lower East Side of New York City with his widowed mother in December 1884.

Johnny Torrio's gang ran legitimate businesses, but its primary concern was the numbers game, supplemented by incomes from bookmaking, loan sharking, hijacking, prostitution, and opium trafficking.

When Prohibition went into effect in 1920, Johnny Torrio pushed for the gang to enter into bootlegging, but Colosimo stubbornly refused.

Johnny Torrio was shot and killed a few minutes after entering the restaurant by a gunman hiding in the cloak room.

Johnny Torrio headed an essentially Italian organized crime group that was the biggest in the city, with Capone as his right-hand man.

However, many other gangs were active in Chicago at this time, and Johnny Torrio was wary of being drawn into gang wars and tried to negotiate agreements over territory between rival crime groups.

In 1920, Johnny Torrio built an agreement between most of Chicago's bootlegging gangs into a city-wide cartel.

In 1924, the North Side Gang discovered that the Genna brothers, close to Johnny Torrio's gang, were selling their booze in North Side Gang territory.

O'Banion went to Johnny Torrio, who was unhelpful with the encroachment of the Gennas into the North Side despite his pretensions to be a settler of disputes.

Johnny Torrio agreed to buy O'Banion's share and gave him half a million dollars.

Johnny Torrio was indicted on bootlegging charges, a repeat offense for him with mandatory jail time.

Johnny Torrio realized he had been betrayed and conned out of $500,000 by O'Banion.

Johnny Torrio would have immediately attempted to retaliate against O'Banion and the North Side Gang had it not been for Mike Merlo, head of the Unione Siciliana labor organization.

Merlo had a vested interest in keeping the peace between Chicago's gangs, and he convinced Johnny Torrio to forestall any violence against the North Side Gang.

In late 1925, Johnny Torrio moved to Italy with his wife and mother, where he no longer dealt directly with the mob business.

Johnny Torrio left a criminal empire which grossed about $70,000,000 a year from bootleg liquor, gambling and prostitution.

In 1928, Johnny Torrio returned to the United States, as Benito Mussolini began putting pressure on the Mafia in Italy.

Johnny Torrio is credited with helping to organize a loose cartel of East Coast bootleggers, the Big Seven, in which many prominent gangsters, including Lucky Luciano, Longy Zwillman, Joe Adonis, Frank Costello, and Meyer Lansky played a part.

Johnny Torrio supported the creation of a national body that would prevent all-out turf wars between gangs that had broken out in Chicago and New York.

Johnny Torrio's idea was well received, and a conference was hosted in Atlantic City by Torrio, Lansky, Luciano and Costello in May 1929; the National Crime Syndicate was created.

Johnny Torrio was charged with income tax evasion in 1936 and, after several failed appeals, was sent to prison in 1939, serving two years.

In 1940, a property that Johnny Torrio co-owned with Vanella, Jack Cusick, and Capone was sold at auction to satisfy Capone's tax delinquencies.

Johnny Torrio has been portrayed several times in television and motion pictures:.