Bonanno crime family

The Bonanno crime family (Italian: [boˈnanno]) is an Italian American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City within the criminal organization known as the American Mafia. The family's operations have also extended into New Jersey, Florida, California, Arizona, and Montreal. The Bonanno family has historically been one of the smallest of the Five Families, and was seen as the most brutal of the New York families during the 20th century.

The family was known as the Maranzano crime family until its founder Salvatore Maranzano was murdered in 1931. Joseph Bonanno was awarded most of Maranzano's operations when Charles "Lucky" Luciano oversaw the creation of the Commission to divide up criminal enterprises in New York City among the Five Families following the Castellammarese War. Under the leadership of Bonanno between the 1930s and 1960s, the family was one of the most powerful in the United States. By the 1960s, the Bonnano family held significant interests in the Fulton Fish Market, the Garment District, and Kennedy International Airport. Additionally, the family maintained close ties to the Sicilian Mafia, with whom it orchestrated the importation of billions of dollars' worth of heroin into the United States during the mid-to-late 20th century.

However, in the early 1960s, Bonanno attempted to overthrow several leaders of the Commission, but failed. Bonanno disappeared from 1964 to 1966, triggering an intra-family war colloquially referred to as the "Banana War" that lasted until 1968, when Bonanno was forced into exile by the Commission and subsequently retired to Arizona. Carmine Galante, a former top lieutenant of Bonanno, took control of the family in the mid-1970s. After challenging the Gambino family for control of New York's drug trade, Galante was killed in 1979 in a Commission-approved assassination. During the 1980s, Philip Rastelli headed the organization and put down an insurrection by a competing faction within the family by ordering the massacre of three rival capos—Philip Giaccone, Al Indelicato and Dominick Trinchera—in 1981.

Between 1976 and 1981, the family was infiltrated by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent Joseph Pistone, who went undercover using the alias "Donnie Brasco". This resulted in the Bonannos becoming the first of the New York families to be expelled from the Commission. Consequently, the Bonnano family was the smallest and weakest of the Five Families during the 1980s. It took until the 1990s for the family to recover, a process overseen by Joseph Massino, who became the new boss upon the death of Rastelli in 1991. Despite these issues, by the dawn of the new millennium, the Bonanno family had not only regained their seat on the Commission but had also become the second-most-powerful family in New York after the Genovese family. However, a rash of convictions during the early 2000s culminated in Massino himself becoming a government witness in 2004, the first boss of one of the Five Families in New York City to turn state's evidence.