The Man Who Built the NYC Mob From Sicily

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They say he only killed one man
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personally
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with his own hands.
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Here is what the legends say.
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[clears throat] They say he invented the
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pizza, the protection payment that every
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business in Sicily learned to accept as
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the cost of [music] staying open. They
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say he could walk into any room in
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Palamo and conversation would stop. They
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say he brought the Sicilian way of doing
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things to the streets of New York,
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planted a seed, and watched it grow from
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3,000 mi away. They say he was arrested
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69 times and convicted exactly zero.
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They say all of this, but here's the
0:43
thing about legends. [music] Legends
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don't need evidence. Legends don't
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require documentation.
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Legends live in the space between what
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happened and what people [music] needed
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to believe happened. Veto Casio Pharaoh.
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Don Veto Cashio Pharaoh. The man they
1:02
called the boss of bosses before that
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title meant anything in America? Was he
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everything the stories claim? Was he the
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architect of transatlantic organized
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crime? the man who drew the blueprint
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that Lucky Luchano and Carlo Gambino
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would later build upon. Or was he
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something else entirely? A provincial
1:25
Sicilian boss whose legend grew larger
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than his actual reach, inflated by the
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same forces that needed him to be more
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than he was. The truth, as it usually
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does in these stories, lies somewhere in
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the shadows between [music] the myth and
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the court records. And the court records
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in this case are remarkably thin. What
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you're about to hear is based on
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documented history. Some conversations
1:53
have been recreated for narrative
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purposes. Where the record is clear,
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we'll follow it. Where it isn't, and
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there's a lot of empty space in this
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story, [music] we'll acknowledge the
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uncertainty because the uncertainty
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might be the most honest thing about
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Veto Casio Pharaoh. He was born in 1862
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in a small town [music] in the province
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of Palamo called Bicquino.
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Bisquino,
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a hill town, dusty streets, the kind of
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place where everyone knew everyone and
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certain families had been important
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since before anyone could remember.
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Sicily in the 1860s was not exactly part
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of Italy. It had only recently been
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absorbed into the new Italian nation,
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and the absorption was incomplete. The
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government in Rome was far away. The
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law, as administered by Rome's
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representatives, felt like foreign
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occupation to many Sicilians. Into this
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gap stepped older forms of authority,
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family structures, patronage networks,
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mutual aid societies that provided what
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the government could not or would not.
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And at the edges of these networks, men
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who understood that power flows toward
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those willing to use force. The word
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mafia was already in use. Its origins
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are disputed. Some connect it to Arabic
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words meaning protection or refuge.
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Others trace it to local dialects. What
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matters is what it meant in practice. A
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system of relationships, favors owed,
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respect demanded, silence maintained.
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Young Veto grew up watching this system
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operate. His family was connected. How
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connected exactly remains unclear. The
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documentation from this period is sparse
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at best. What we know is that by his
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early 20s he had aligned himself with
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groups operating in the agrarian economy
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of western Sicily. [music] This was not
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glamorous crime. This was crop theft,
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cattle rustling, [music] extortion of
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landowners who held vast estates and
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employed peasant labor. The targets were
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wealthy. The methods were direct. pay
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for protection from the very people
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threatening you. And somewhere in this
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period, Veto Casio Pharaoh either
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developed or refined an insight that
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would shape organized crime for the next
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century. The insight was simple.
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Violence is a tool, not a goal.
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According to historians who have studied
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this period, what distinguished certain
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Sicilian operators from common bandits
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was systematization.
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[music] Bandits rob and disappear. But a
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properly organized protection system
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creates ongoing relationships.
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The payment becomes regular,
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predictable, almost like a tax. And if
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the payment is reasonable, if the
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protected party can afford it without
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going bankrupt, then the relationship
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becomes sustainable. The landowner pays,
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the crops aren't burned, the cattle
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aren't stolen. Everyone knows the rules
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and over time the payment stops feeling
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like extortion and starts feeling like
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insurance. [music] Did Veto Casio
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Pharaoh invent this? Probably not. The
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practice predates him, but the legends
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credit him with perfecting it with
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turning chaotic shakedowns into
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something more elegant. A system where
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the hand that collected the pizza was
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seen almost as a service provider.
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Almost by the 1890s he had risen. How
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high is difficult to say. Records from
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this period describe him as a man of
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influence in western Sicily. Someone
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whose name opened doors whose
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disapproval closed them. But the picture
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remains frustratingly incomplete. What
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is documented is that he ran into
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trouble with Italian authorities.
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[music]
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In 1898, he was accused of involvement
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in the kidnapping of a baroness. The
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evidence was circumstantial, but the
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attention was unwelcome. And so, like
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many Sicilians of his era, both the
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legitimate and the otherwise, he looked
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west America. By 1901, Vto Casio Pharaoh
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had arrived in New York. Here, the
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legend and the evidence diverge most
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sharply. According to the mythology that
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developed over the next century, his
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American sojourn was transformative.
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He supposedly connected with the Mllo
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gang, the preeminent Italian criminal
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organization in New York at the time. He
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supposedly taught them Sicilian methods.
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He supposedly laid the foundation for
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what would become the American Kosa
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Nostra. The evidence for this thin
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circumstantial
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[music] based largely on later claims
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and retrospective analysis. What we know
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for certain he was in New York. He did
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interact with Italian immigrants, many
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of whom were from Sicily. He did [music]
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spend time in the neighborhoods where
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the Molo organization operated. [music]
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Everything else is inference. The Mlo
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gang was real enough. Led by Guusep Mlo,
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Joe SCP pay Morel Lo and his fearsome
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brother-in-law Ignazio Lupo Eganh CEO
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Loo Oop known as Lupo the Wolf. This
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organization dominated the Italian
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criminal underworld of early New York.
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Counterfeiting [music]
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extortion. The Blackhand letters that
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terrorized Italian immigrants. [music]
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Did Casio Pharaoh advise them,
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collaborate with them, bring
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organizational methods from Sicily?
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[music] Some researchers suggest exactly
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this. They point to the sophistication
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of the Mlo operation, its structure, its
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methods. They argue that an experienced
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[music]
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Sicilian hand must have guided the
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development. But this argument has a
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weakness. It assumes American Italian
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criminals needed [music] instruction. It
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assumes they couldn't have developed
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these methods themselves, learning from
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their environment, adapting to American
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conditions. The truth may be simpler.
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The truth may be that Casio Pharaoh was
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one immigrant among thousands, connected
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to the criminal world, but not
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necessarily its architect. The legend
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[music] elevated him. The legend needed
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a founding father figure, and a man who
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would later become powerful in Sicily
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fit the narrative perfectly. We don't
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know how long he stayed. Some accounts
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say until 1904.
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Others are less specific. [music] What
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we know is that at some point he
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returned to Sicily and then things
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changed. The veto Casio Pharaoh who
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returned from America, assuming the
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timeline the legends suggest is
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accurate, was [music] different from the
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provincial figure who had left. Maybe he
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had learned something in New York. Maybe
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he had made connections that would serve
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him later. Or maybe he had simply
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matured, reached the age where ambition
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becomes calculation.
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Whatever the reason, his rise after
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returning to Sicily [music] was rapid.
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Within a decade, he had become one of
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the most powerful men in western [music]
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Sicily, not through any official
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position. He held no title. He ran no
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business that appeared in commercial
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registries. His power was of the older
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kind, the kind that doesn't require
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documentation because everyone already
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knows. How did he build this power? The
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accounts [music] describe a man who
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understood appearances. Unlike later
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American bosses who would flaunt their
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wealth, Casio Pharaoh cultivated the
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image of a gentleman. [music] He dressed
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well but not ostentatiously.
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He attended church. He was seen as a
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mediator, a resolver of disputes, a man
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whose words settled arguments. The
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violence that enforced his position was
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kept at a distance. Others did that
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work. His hands, if the legends are
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true, remained clean, [music]
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almost clean. There was one exception.
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One murder he allegedly committed
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personally, and it involves the most
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tragic figure in this story, Jusp
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Petraino. [music] Joe SCP Pro Petro.
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In America, they called him Joe. He was
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born in 1860 in a small town near Seno.
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His family immigrated when he was a
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child. He grew up on the streets of New
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York, the child of immigrants in a city
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that didn't exactly welcome them. And
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then he became a cop. The NYPD of the
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late 1800s was not kind to Italian
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officers. Petraino faced discrimination,
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mockery, the assumption that no Italian
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could be a real American lawman, but he
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was stubborn, brilliant in his own way,
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and absolutely relentless. He made
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himself an expert on Italian crime. He
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learned the networks, the names, the
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methods. He understood [music]
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things that his fellow officers couldn't
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grasp. The cultural codes, the
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hierarchies of respect, the ways that
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old country structures replicated
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themselves in new world tenementss. By
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1905, he was leading the Italian squad,
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a specialized unit dedicated to breaking
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the power of the Blackhand extortionists
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who terrorized immigrant communities. He
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was by any measure the most effective
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Italian American law enforcement officer
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of his generation. He was also
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inevitably a marked man. The Black Hand
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wasn't a single organization.
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The term described a method extortion
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letters signed with a black handprint
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[music]
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threatening violence against those who
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refused to pay. Various groups used the
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technique, but they all had one thing in
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common. They feared Joe Petraino. He had
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arrested too many of them, deported too
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many of them, disrupted too many of
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their operations, and he was getting
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closer to something bigger. A systematic
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understanding of how the criminal
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networks in New York connected to the
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power structures back in Sicily. In
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1909, the NYPD made a decision that
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would prove fatal. They sent Petraino to
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Italy. The mission was supposed to be
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secret. He was to gather records on
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Italian criminals who had immigrated to
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America, information that could be used
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for deportations.
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He traveled under an assumed name. He
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told [music] almost no one of his
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destination, but somehow the secret
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leaked. On the evening of March 12th,
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1909, Joe Petraino was shot and killed
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in the Pisa Marina in Palamo. He was 50
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years old. The killing was brazen, a
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public square. Multiple witnesses,
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[music]
13:45
though none remarkably, saw anything
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clearly enough to identify the shooter.
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The message was unmistakable.
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Even the most dangerous policeman in
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America could be reached. Even in the
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heart of a major city, [music] even when
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everyone was watching, no one was ever
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convicted of the murder. But the legends
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and some investigators point to Veto
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Casio Pharaoh. [music] According to one
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famous account, Casio Pharaoh was
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attending a formal dinner on the night
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of the killing. At some point during the
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meal, he excused himself, was gone for
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approximately an hour, then returned to
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finish his dessert. [music] Where did he
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go during that hour? The story suggests
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he personally traveled to the Paza
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Marina and shot [music] Petraino
14:35
himself. The dinner guests, prominent
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and respectable, would later swear he
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had been present the entire evening. an
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alibi constructed in real time. Is this
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true? Honestly, we don't know. The story
14:51
appeared in various forms over the
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years, [music] growing more detailed
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with each telling. Casio Pharaoh himself
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allegedly confirmed it near the end of
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his life, supposedly telling an
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interviewer that Petraino was the only
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man he ever killed with his own hands.
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But the source for this confession is
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murky. The interviewer's account cannot
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be independently verified and the tale
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has the feel of something too perfect,
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too cinematically structured [music] to
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be entirely trusted. What we can say is
15:26
this. Petraino's murder was almost
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certainly ordered by someone with
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significant power in Sicily. [music]
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Casio Pharaoh by 1909 was one of the
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most powerful men in the Sicilian
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underworld. The motive existed. The
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capability existed. The opportunity, if
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he had advanced warning of Petraino's
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arrival, existed. Did he pull the
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trigger? Did he order someone else to?
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Did he simply allow the murder to happen
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when others proposed it? The questions
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remain open and they will likely remain
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open forever. What happened after
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Petraino's death tells us something
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about the state of law enforcement in
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that era. The investigation went
16:13
nowhere. Italian authorities blamed
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American secrecy for compromising the
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mission. American authorities blamed
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Italian corruption for allowing the
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killer to escape. The Blackhand
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operators in New York celebrated openly
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[music] and Veto Casio Pharaoh according
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to all accounts continued his rise. The
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next decade and a half represented the
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height of his power. He was by most
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accounts the dominant figure in the
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Sicilian mafia. Not a boss of a single
16:48
organization but a boss of bosses. a man
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whose approval was needed for
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significant operations whose mediation
16:57
settled disputes between rival factions.
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The pizza system operated smoothly under
17:04
his oversight. Businesses paid. They
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weren't destroyed. The arrangement had
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achieved a kind of stability. Brutal,
17:13
unfair, parasitic, but stable. He was in
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his own territory, something like a
17:19
shadow government. Politicians consulted
17:22
him. Landowners paid him respect. The
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church, according to some accounts,
17:27
treated him as a benefactor. He funded
17:30
charities. [music] He attended weddings.
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He was, by the standards of his world, a
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pillar of the community. 69 arrests,
17:39
zero convictions. The Italian justice
17:42
system simply could not touch him.
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Witnesses developed amnesia. Evidence
17:48
disappeared.
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>> [music]
17:49
>> Prosecutors lost their nerve. And when
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all else failed, he had alibis. Always
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[music] unbreakable. He was arrested for
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theft, released. Arrested for extortion,
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released. Arrested for conspiracy,
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released, arrested for murder, released.
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The pattern continued for decades. Each
18:10
arrest added to his legend. Each release
18:13
confirmed his invincibility
18:15
until Mussolini, the fascist regime that
18:19
took control of Italy in the 1920s, had
18:22
a complicated relationship with
18:24
organized crime. In the north, Mussolini
18:28
presented himself as the force of order,
18:31
the strong hand that would crush
18:33
criminal elements. In the south, in
18:36
Sicily, this project took on particular
18:38
intensity. The man Mussolini appointed
18:41
to break the Sicilian mafia was Cesair
18:44
Mori [music] Chesar A,
18:47
the prefect of Palamo, a man who had no
18:50
patience for the nicities of law. Mory's
18:53
methods were, to put it bluntly,
18:56
authoritarian, mass arrests, [music]
18:59
indefinite detention, pressure on
19:01
families, torture. According to some
19:04
accounts, [music] he didn't need
19:06
evidence in the traditional sense. He
19:08
needed confessions and he found ways to
19:11
obtain them. The mafia of Sicily, which
19:15
had operated with near impunity for
19:17
generations, suddenly found itself under
19:20
assault from a force that didn't play by
19:23
the old rules. You couldn't bribe my you
19:26
couldn't intimidate him. He had the
19:29
backing of a dictator. [music] And the
19:31
witnesses who had stayed silent for
19:33
decades found that silence carried
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[music] its own penalties. Now hundreds
19:39
were arrested. Trials proceeded on
19:42
schedules that made proper defense
19:45
nearly impossible. Convictions came in
19:48
bulk and among those swept up in Mory's
19:51
campaign was veto [music]
19:52
Casio Pharaoh. The charge finally was
19:56
criminal association, not a specific
19:58
murder, not a specific extortion. Simply
20:02
being the kind of man everyone knew he
20:04
was. The trial was by any democratic
20:07
standard a farce. But by that point
20:10
democratic standards no longer applied.
20:13
Mussolini wanted results. Mory delivered
20:17
them. In 1930 after nearly 70 years of
20:21
evading justice. [music] Veto Casio
20:23
Pharaoh was sentenced to prison. He
20:26
would never leave. The accounts [music]
20:28
of his final years are fragmentaryary.
20:31
Prison isolation. the progressive
20:34
breakdown of a man who had controlled an
20:36
empire. Some reports suggest he was
20:39
transferred multiple times, held in
20:42
facilities designed for political
20:44
prisoners rather than common criminals.
20:47
And then in the chaos of World War II,
20:50
his [music] story ends. Some accounts
20:53
say he was executed by fascist
20:55
authorities in 1943 [music]
20:58
as the regime collapsed and old scores
21:01
were settled. Others say he simply died
21:04
of illness, of neglect, of the
21:07
accumulated weight of age and captivity.
21:10
The date of his death isn't even
21:12
certain. 1943, [music]
21:15
maybe 1945.
21:17
The records from that period in that
21:19
place during that war are unreliable at
21:22
best. Somewhere in a Sicilian prison,
21:25
the boss of bosses became just another
21:27
old man who died without headlines.
21:31
>> [music]
21:31
>> 69 arrests, one conviction, and that
21:34
conviction came from a dictator who
21:37
didn't need evidence. What does that
21:39
tell you about Don Veto? [music]
21:42
Possibly it tells you he was
21:43
untouchable. That his system of
21:46
protection, alibis, intimidation,
21:49
corruption [music]
21:50
was so complete that only a force
21:53
outside the law could bring him down.
21:56
Possibly it tells you something else.
21:59
That the legends were always larger than
22:01
the reality. That the man who supposedly
22:04
orchestrated transatlantic crime and
22:07
personally murdered the greatest Italian
22:10
detective of his generation was in the
22:12
end just a provincial boss whose
22:15
mythology outgrew his actual reach. The
22:19
Sicilian mafia continued after his
22:21
death. It evolved. It adapted. It
22:25
developed new structures, new methods,
22:27
new leaders. Some of those leaders had
22:30
known him personally. Others knew only
22:33
the legend. In America, the
22:35
organizations he supposedly influenced,
22:38
if he influenced them at all, grew into
22:41
something far larger than anything he
22:43
could have imagined. The Mlo
22:46
descendants, the Five Families, the
22:49
Commission, an empire that would
22:51
generate billions and reshape American
22:54
society. Did Veto Casio Pharaoh build
22:57
the foundation for that? Or was he just
23:00
one thread in a much larger tapestry
23:03
that needed no single architect? The
23:06
honest answer, we don't know. We know he
23:09
existed. We know he held power in
23:12
Sicily. We know the authorities couldn't
23:14
touch him until an authoritarian strong
23:17
man decided to demonstrate his own power
23:20
by crushing the old order. Everything
23:23
else, the American sojourn, the Petraino
23:27
murder, the foundational role in
23:29
transatlantic crime, exists in that gray
23:33
zone where history shades into
23:35
mythology. Maybe that's appropriate. The
23:39
mafia, after all, has always operated in
23:42
gray zones in the space between
23:45
legitimate and illegitimate, between
23:48
official power and shadow power, between
23:51
what can be proven and what everyone
23:53
knows. Veto Casio Pharaoh lived his life
23:56
in that space. [music] He died in that
23:59
space and his legend continues to
24:01
inhabit that space a century later. The
24:04
Paza where Petraino died is still there.
24:08
It's a public square in modern Palamo.
24:11
Tourists pass through it. Locals sit on
24:14
benches. Nothing marks the spot where a
24:17
brave man was shot down for getting too
24:20
close to the truth. In 1909, the truth
24:24
seemed close, just out of reach. The
24:27
records Petraino sought, the connections
24:30
he was tracing, the names he was
24:33
gathering, all of it pointed towards
24:35
something larger, something that could
24:38
have brought the whole network into
24:39
view. [music] His death ensured that
24:42
clarity never came. Whoever killed him,
24:45
and the evidence points [music] toward
24:47
Casio Pharaoh's orbit, even if it
24:50
doesn't definitively reach his finger on
24:52
the trigger, [music] understood
24:54
something important. Some truths are
24:57
more dangerous than the crimes they
24:59
expose. Some questions are not meant to
25:02
be answered. Maybe that's the real
25:04
legacy of Don Veto, not the Pizzo
25:07
system, though it continues in various
25:10
forms, [music]
25:11
not the organizational methods, though
25:13
they spread across oceans. The real
25:16
legacy is the example, the demonstration
25:19
that power can exist [music] in the
25:21
shadows for decades, untouchable by the
25:24
forces supposedly designed to contain
25:27
it. 69 times they tried. 69 times they
25:32
failed until someone came along who
25:35
didn't care about the rules. Some
25:37
secrets survive the men who kept them.
25:40
Others die in prison cells during wars
25:43
that make old men's deaths unremarkable.
25:46
Don Veto's secrets, the real [music]
25:49
ones, the ones that would tell us
25:51
definitively what he did and didn't do,
25:54
went with him into whatever unmarked
25:56
grave holds his remains. What remains
25:58
[music]
25:59
is the legend. And legends in this world
26:03
have their own kind of power. If this
26:06
story stayed with you, you know what to
26:08
do.

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The Man Who Built the NYC Mob From Sicily

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