Salvatore Lucania was born on November 23, 1897 in Lercara Friddi, Sicily. His parents, Antonio and Rosalia Lucania, had four other children: Bartolomeo (born 1890), Giuseppe (born 1898), Filippia (born 1901), and Concetta. When Charlie was 10 years old (1907), the family migrated to the United States. They settled in New York City, on the Lower East Side at 265 East 10th Street. The neighborhood was a popular destination for Italian immigrants at the time.

While a teenager, he started his own gang. Unlike the other street gangs whose business was to pickpocket, mug, and steal, Lucania decided to offer protection to the Jewish youngsters who were picked on by their Italian and Irish counterparts. He would charge each one ten cents per week.

By the age of 20, he was well integrated into the crime scene in the Lower East Side, being involved in theft, extortion, and drug trafficking (for which he served a six - month prison term in 1916). He also became life long friends with Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky.

On January 17, 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified and prohibition lasted until the amendment was repealed in 1933. The Amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcoholic beverages. As there was still a substantial demand for alcohol, this provided criminals with an added source of income. Around this time, Luciano worked for Arnold Rothstein.

Luciano had plans to expand both his territory and profits by collaborating with other gangsters to cut down the cost of political protection and reduce the likelihood of hijacked shipments. However, Joe "The Boss" Masseria prevented Luciano from taking this path.

By 1921, Luciano had met many Mafia leaders, including Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, his longtime friend, business partner, and eventually Sottocapo through his involvement in the Five Points Gang. Together they began a bootlegging operation.

By 1925, Luciano was grossing over $12 million a year; however, he was netting much less each year due to the high costs of bribing politicians and police. Luciano and his partners ran the largest bootlegging operation in New York, one that also extended into Philadelphia. He imported scotch whisky directly from Scotland, rum from the Caribbean, and whisky from Canada. He was also involved in gambling.

At an early age Luciano had established himself as a creative criminal on the Lower East Side and eventually became a top aide to crime boss Joe Masseria who was involved in a prolonged turf war with rival crime boss Salvatore Maranzano during the 1920s.

Masseria was a Mustache Pete, an old school mafioso who wanted to preserve the old Mafia ideals of honour, tradition, respect and dignity. Luciano and his contemporaries who had started their criminal careers in the United States were known as the Young Turks. Like the original Young Turks of the Ottoman Empire, they formed a young and ambitious group which challenged the established order. The Mustache Petes would not work with anyone who was not Italian or Italian American, and were even skeptical of working with anyone who was not Sicilian or Sicilian - American. Luciano believed that as long as money was being made, the family should deal with anyone. He was therefore shocked to hear old mafiosi lecturing him about his dealings with close friend Frank Costello whom they called "the dirty Calabrian."

What became known as the Castellammarese War raged from 1928 to 1931, resulting in the death of as many as 60 mobsters. The war was nominally between Maranzano and Masseria. In truth, however, there was a third, secret faction, made up of Luciano and several other Young Turks from both the Masseria and Maranzano factions. In addition to Luciano, this group included Frank Costello, Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia, Joe Adonis, Joe Bonanno, Carlo Gambino, Joe Profaci, Tommy Gagliano and Tommy Lucchese. They believed the Mustache Petes' greed was pushing them to the fringe while the Irish and Jewish gangs got rich. Luciano was already making plans to get rid of the Mustache Petes and form a national crime syndicate in which the Italian, Jewish and Irish gangs could pool their resources and turn organized crime into a lucrative business for all.

In 1929, Luciano was forced into a limousine at gun point by three men, beaten and stabbed, and dumped on a beach on New York Bay. He somehow survived the ordeal but was forever marked with a scar and droopy eye. His survival earned him the name Lucky although he may already have earned this nickname in his younger days because of his luck at avoiding police. After his abduction Luciano found out through Meyer Lansky that the attack had been ordered by Masseria's enemy, Salvatore Maranzano. In an ironic twist Luciano later cut a secret deal with Maranzano in which he agreed to engineer Masseria's death in return for being made Maranzano's second - in - command. This deal would end the famous Castellammarese War.

Luciano kept up his end of the bargain when he invited Masseria and two other associates to have lunch in a Coney Island restaurant. When they finished their lunch, they decided to play a game of cards. At that point Luciano stepped into the men's washroom. While Luciano was in the washroom, four gunmen -- Bugsy Siegel, Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia and Joe Adonis — walked into the restaurant and shot and killed Masseria and the other two associates. Luciano then took over Masseria's crime family.

Maranzano then made Luciano his number two, and set up the Five Families of New York. The newly formed families were headed by Maranzano, Luciano, Profaci, Gagliano and Vincent Mangano. Maranzano promised that they would all be equal and all be free to make money. However, while Maranzano was slightly more forward thinking than Masseria, at heart he was still a Mustache Pete. He showed this at a later meeting of the crime bosses in Upstate New York, when he declared himself capo di tutti capi (Boss of all Bosses). He also whittled down the rackets of the rival families in order to strengthen his own family. Luciano appeared to accept this, though in reality he was merely biding his time before getting rid of Maranzano as well — as he'd planned all along.

Maranzano soon realized that Luciano was a threat, and hired Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll, a notoriously violent Irish gangster, to kill him. However, Lucchese alerted Luciano that he was marked for death. When Maranzano ordered Luciano and Genovese to come to his office at 230 Park Avenue in New York City on September 10, Luciano suspected they wouldn't come out alive. He had four Jewish gangsters pose as government agents and show up at Maranzano's office. While two of the "agents" disarmed Maranzano's bodyguards, the other two stabbed Maranzano multiple times before shooting him.

Luciano now had businesses throughout the country. His longtime friend Meyer Lansky served as his right - hand man and adviser. When Dutch Schultz decided he was going to kill Manhattan District Attorney Thomas Dewey, in direct violation of Luciano's orders, Schultz was executed instead.

Luciano had reached the pinnacle of America's underworld, directing criminal rules, policies and activities along with the other family bosses. He ran a powerful crime family which now bore his name, and he controlled lucrative criminal rackets such as gambling, bookmaking, loan - sharking, drug trafficking and extortion. Luciano was very influential in labor and union activities and controlled the Manhattan Waterfront, garbage hauling, construction, Garment Center businesses and trucking.

Luciano abolished the title of Capo Di Tutti i Capi, insisting that the position created tension and trouble between the families. He felt that the ceremony of being 'made a soldier' in a family should be done away with. Meyer Lansky however, urged him against it, arguing that young people needed rituals to cling to. Luciano also stressed the importance of the omertà, the oath of silence, and kept the organizational structure that Maranzano had instituted.

Luciano, under the urging of Johnny Torrio, set up the Mafia's governing body, organizing the Commission with the Mafia family bosses. The Commission settled all disputes between families and has been called Luciano's most important innovation. The Commission decided which families controlled which territories. If an individual was to be a "made man", his boss had to first go before the Commission and receive their approval.

The Commission was originally composed of representatives of the Five Families of New York City, the Philadelphia crime family, the Buffalo crime family, Los Angeles crime family and the Chicago Outfit of Al Capone; later, the Detroit crime family, Kansas City crime family were added. All Commission members were supposed to retain the same power and had one vote, but in reality some families and bosses were more powerful than others.

Luciano elevated his most trusted and loyal family members to high level positions in the Luciano crime family. The feared Vito Genovese became his Underboss, while Frank Costello was his consigliere. Michael "Trigger Mike" Coppola, Anthony Strollo, Joe Adonis, and Anthony Carfano all served as caporegimes. Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel were both unofficial advisors to the Luciano family.

Luciano's reign was relatively short lived. Special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey, a future Republican presidential candidate (later Luciano himself affirmed that the Commission had done everything they could in order for Dewey to become President in exchange for Luciano's return to the US), singled out Luciano as an organized crime ringleader and targeted him, along with others. Luciano had previously voted against Dutch Schultz's proposal to assassinate Dewey after Schultz became the repeated target of Dewey's investigations.

In a raid by Dewey of 80 New York City brothels, hundreds of arrested prostitutes agreed to turn state's evidence in exchange for not receiving prison time. Three of them implicated Luciano as the ringleader, who made collections, although David "Little Davey" Betillo was in charge of the prostitution ring in New York, and any money that Luciano received was from Betillo. But Dewey had also managed to persuade the staff at The Waldorf - Astoria Hotel to lie and say that Luciano's gangster friends had often come to his room.

It is believed by almost all mob experts that Dewey framed Luciano, since Mafia did not bother with prostitution, and also Luciano meeting with hookers to collect money seemed absurd, considering his position as boss. Before he could get Luciano into court for trial, Luciano escaped to Hot Springs, Arkansas, the renowned gangster haven established by famous gangster Owney Madden. An Arkansas judge remanded Luciano to a state prison for extradition, but a local paid - off police detective bailed Luciano out of jail after only four hours. Dewey then sent detectives to Arkansas to spirit Luciano back for trial.

Dewey's efforts succeeded in Luciano being convicted on charges as leader of one of the largest prostitution rings in American history in 1936 and sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison, along with Dave Betillo and others. Dewey exposed Luciano for lying on the witness stand, through direct quizzing and records of telephone calls; Luciano also had no explanation for why his federal income tax records claimed he made only $22,000 a year, while it was obvious to onlookers that he was a wealthy man.

Luciano continued to run the Luciano crime family from prison and his prison cell, relaying his orders through his first acting boss, Vito Genovese. Genovese had quickly lived up to his feared reputation for violence, and soon fled to Naples, Italy, in 1937 to avoid a murder indictment. The Family's third most powerful member, Consigliere Frank Costello became the new Sottocapo and overseer of Luciano's interests. It is a mystery to most organized crime historians just who it was that had replaced Costello as the family consigliere. The only hint to the Costello successor came from Joe Valachi. Valachi was a former soldier in the Genovese Family and the first major Mafia informer in the United States. Valachi mentions, in the book The Valachi Papers, written by Peter Maas, a certain "Sandino," as the Family counselor. The mysterious "Sandino" was whispered about at a meeting Valachi attended with his Capo, Anthony "Tony Bender" Strollo.

Luciano was imprisoned in Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, where co-defendant Dave Betillo prepared special dishes for Luciano in a special kitchen set aside by authorities. He would use his influence to help get the materials to build a church at the prison, which became famous for being one of the only freestanding churches in the New York State correctional system and also for the fact that on the church's altar are two of the original doors from the Victoria, the ship of Ferdinand Magellan.

During World War II, the U.S. government reportedly struck a secret deal with the imprisoned Luciano. United States Army Military Intelligence knew that Luciano maintained good connections in the Sicilian and Italian Mafia, which had been severely persecuted by Benito Mussolini. Luciano considered himself to be a loyal American who was devoted to Sicily, the Mafia, and the United States alike. His help was sought in providing Mafia assistance to counter possible Axis infiltration on U.S. waterfronts, during Operation Avalanche, and his connections in Italy and Sicily were tapped to furnish intelligence and ensure an easy passage for U.S. forces involved in the Italian Campaign. Albert Anastasia, who controlled the docks, promised that no dockworker strikes would arise. Both during and after the war, the U.S. military and intelligence agencies reputedly also used Luciano's Mafia connections to root out communist influence in labor groups and local governments. In return for his cooperation, Luciano was permitted to run his crime empire unhindered from his jail cell.

Luciano would later say that his contribution to the war effort had been a sham, designed purely to obtain his release from prison. The enemy threat to the docks, he said, had been manufactured by the sinking of the SS Normandie directed by Anastasia's brother, Anthony Anastasio. The Normandie, a French passenger vessel, which had been seized by the U.S. under the right of angary, was being refitted as a troop ship in New York harbor. Furthermore, said Luciano, he did next to nothing to help the war effort in Italy.

In 1946, as a reward for his presumed wartime cooperation, Luciano was paroled on the condition that he depart the United States and return to Sicily. He accepted the deal, although he had maintained during his trial that he was a native of New York City and was therefore not subject to deportation. He was deeply hurt about having to leave the United States, a country he had considered his own ever since his arrival at age ten. During his exile, Luciano used to meet US military men during train trips throughout Italy, and he enjoyed being recognized by his countrymen and tourists, taking photos and even signing autographs for them.

Although Luciano was paroled from prison on the condition that he permanently return to Sicily, he secretly moved to Cuba, where he worked to resume control over American Mafia operations. Meyer Lansky started investing heavily in a Cuban hotel project.

In 1946, Lansky called together the heads of all the major Families, claiming that they were going to see Frank Sinatra perform. Luciano had three topics to discuss: the heroin trade, Cuban gambling, and what was to be done about Bugsy Siegel. The Conference took place at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba and lasted a little more than a week.

One of the main topics for discussion at the Havana Conference was ordering a hit on Siegel, who was unaware of this meeting. Meyer Lansky, who several times owed his life to Siegel when they were young, took a stand against the hit. He begged the attendees to give Siegel a chance by waiting until after the casino opening. Luciano, who believed Siegel could still turn a profit in Las Vegas, Nevada, and pay back what he owed the Mafia investors, agreed to postpone the hit.

To placate his investors, Siegel opened Flamingo Las Vegas, his still unfinished casino, on the star studded night of December 26, 1946, although he did not have as many Hollywood celebrities with him as he had hoped. Soon the Flamingo ran dry of entertainers and customers; it closed after only two weeks in order to resume construction. The fully operational Flamingo re-opened in March 1947. Still dissatisfied, the casino's gangster investors once again met in Havana in the spring of 1947 to decide whether to murder Siegel. Luckily for Siegel, the Flamingo had just turned a profit that month. Lansky again spoke up in support of his old friend and convinced Luciano to give Siegel one last chance. However, when the Flamingo still failed to turn a profit, Siegel's fate was sealed; he was killed by four shots fired through a window at his girlfriend's California home in June 1947.

The deposed Luciano asked that he be declared Capo Di Tutti i Capi. His old friends and business associates agreed that he deserved the title; all except Vito Genovese, who wanted the title for himself and is rumored to have leaked Luciano's whereabouts to the government. Luciano reportedly took him into a room and beat him severely for his betrayal.

When the US government learned of Luciano's presence in the Caribbean, he was forced to fly back to Italy. The US government threatened to stop all shipments of medical drugs to Cuba unless Luciano left.

While exiled in Italy Luciano left his stamp on American organized crime and the larger society for decades to come by making narcotics trafficking one of Cosa Nostra's biggest money making ventures. Between October 10 and October 14, 1957 Luciano oversaw a parley of more than thirty Sicilian and American Mafia leaders to draw up plans for the smuggling and distribution of heroin into the United States. According to Selwyn Raab, an investigative reporter for The New York Times who covered organized crime and criminal justice matters for twenty - five years, it was at the Luciano meeting, held in the Grand Hotel et des Palmes in Palermo, Sicily, that a plan was put into place through which Sicilians were responsible for distributing heroin in the U.S., while the American mobsters collected a share of the income as "franchise fees." Luciano's plan included a scheme to expand the then tiny heroin and cocaine market in the U.S. by reducing the price and focusing on working class black and white urban neighborhoods. In the late 1950s an estimated 50,000 Americans were addicted to heroin, yet just two decades later that number ballooned ten times. Contrary to the myth perpetrated by Hollywood gangster films such as The Godfather, the Mafia was directly responsible for the rampant drug trade in the U.S., and the subsequent social problems that resulted.

After being deported to Italy, Luciano fell in love with Igea Lissoni, an Italian dancer 20 years his junior. They lived together peacefully until they learned that there was a hit contract on Luciano, and the two went into hiding. They changed apartments many times throughout the months and moved from hotel to hotel before the hit was called off.

Barred from Rome after the hit was called off, the two lived together in Luciano's house on Via Tasso in Naples. Igea was reportedly the center of Luciano's life, so when she died of breast cancer in 1958, he began to fall apart, as did his control of the American syndicate and his own projects based out of Italy. After living together for 11 years, there was never any confirmation that the two ever married. If they had, it would have been illegal, since Luciano's deportation barred him from marriage.

During his exile, Luciano missed a major power shift in America. Vito Genovese, who was at one time Luciano's Underboss, had decided that he wanted to take over the Luciano Family. After a botched 1957 assassination attempt on Costello by Vinnie "The Chin" Gigante, Costello stepped down as Don and let Genovese take over. But Genovese wanted to take out his competition.

It was at the famous Apalachin Meeting, later in 1957, that Genovese planned to propose to The Commission that Luciano be stripped of his title as Capo Di Tutti i Capi, and that he be crowned Boss of all Bosses. But he did not count on Carlo Gambino, one of Luciano's protégés, to hold loyalty to his old Boss.

Costello, Luciano, and Gambino met in a hotel in Palermo, Sicily, to discuss their plan of action. Luciano was reportedly told not to promote or participate in films about his life, as it would have attracted unnecessary attention to the mob. He relented after Igea Lissoni died of breast cancer and was scheduled to meet with a movie producer arriving by plane at the Naples Airport. On January 26, 1962, Luciano died of a heart attack at Naples International Airport. Back in 1946 after serving his prison sentence, Luciano had been deported and thus denied entry into the United States, but in death his desire was granted. He was buried in St. John's Cemetery in Queens. More than 2,000 mourners attended his funeral. His longtime friend, Carlo Gambino, spoke at the funeral.

Carlo Gambino was the only other boss besides Luciano to have complete control of the Commission and virtually every Mafia family in the United States. Luciano, unlike many Italian gangsters in the days of his rise to the top, was prepared to do dealings with non - Italians mainly of Jewish descent. As much as it was resented by his fellow Italians, it paid dividends. With the help of his Jewish associates he reinvented the mob into the most powerful crime syndicate the United States has ever witnessed and, in the process, oversaw the golden era of the American Mafia. Lucky Luciano made what was then an unprecedented Mafia coup, facilitating the murders of two of the most feared bosses Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano. At the peak of his criminal career Lucky Luciano's influence was far reaching to the extent that the United States government through the FBI approached him for help in protecting the Navy fleet in New York and with the invasion of Italy to defeat Mussolini in World War 2. Luciano's contribution led to his release from prison in February 1946. In popular culture proponents of the Mafia and its history often debate as to who was the greater between Luciano and his contemporary Al Capone. The much publicized exploits of Al Capone with the Chicago Outfit made him the most famous mobster in American history, however Capone did not command influence over other Mafia families; something Luciano did in creating and running The Commission. For being the Mafia hegemon in the era of landmark mobsters like Albert Anastasia, Frank Costello, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Tommy Lucchese, Carlo Gambino and Vito Genovese all of whom he led, Charles Lucky Luciano is thus considered by many as the most powerful Mafia boss of all time.

TIME magazine deplored Luciano as the "criminal mastermind" among the top 20 most influential builders and titans of the 20th century.