On February 3, 1946, 48-year-old Charles Lucky Luciano sat in a prison cell on Ellis Island and waited to be deported to Sicily.

He had arrived at Ellis Island as a boy 40 years earlier when his family moved from Sicily to America. Now, after spending

10 years in prison on charges related to running a prostitution business, he was being shipped

back to Sicily. As sad as he was to leave, the punishment was a blessing compared to finishing his prison sentence,

which would have kept him confined for another 20 to 40 years.

While he was in prison, World War II had started,

and the American military had made a secret deal with Luciano to ensure that the ports of New York

remains safe from Nazi spies and saboteurs. When the war was over, Luciano used the deal to

negotiate his release. He successfully gained his freedom, but only on the condition that he had

to leave the U.S. forever. Now, as he sat in his cell and waited for deportation, some old friends arrived to see him off.

Meyer Lansky, Luciano's best and oldest friend, showed up with acting boss Frank Costello.

Luciano had chosen Costello over Vito Genovese

to run the crime family while Luciano was in prison. Costello had done a good job, but now that

Luciano was a free man, it was time to talk business, even in a somber situation like the one they

were in now.

Luciano said he was still the head of the family, but since he was going to have to rule from afar,

Costello would remain in charge of the day-to-day operations.

Meyer-Lansky would oversee the bulk of Luciano's business investments, and Luciano wanted them to spread the word to the other bosses. Just because

he wasn't in America, that didn't mean it was open season on his territory. Much of Luciano's

firmness was to avoid power-hungry individuals within the Luciano family, especially Vito

Genovese. Genevese was Luciano's ambitious underboss,

who had fled the U.S. right before World War II to avoid a murder indictment.

...