Johnny Torrio (Giovanni Torrio) was an American gangster. It was born in Orsara, close to Naples, in 1882, and died in New York in 1957. Called the Fox (the fox), it has builds the modern criminal empire of Chicago in the years 1920, launched the career of Al Capone, and was one of the originators of the Trade union of the crime.

New York

He immigrated at the two years age with his mother, a widow. Teenager, after several odd jobs (of which that of bouncer), it ends up becoming chief of a small band in Lower East Side. It gained sufficient money to open a room of billiards sheltering of the clandestine activities (plays, ready usurers). Noticed by Paul Kelly, chief of the Five Points Gang, it became number 2 about it. With its contact, he learned how to adopt an appearance of businessman distinguished and it direction from the diplomacy. Parallel to legal businesses, Torrio grows rich with the lotteries, the bets, the loans usurers, the holdups, the Prostitution and the traffic of Opium. Among the children who carried out his commissions, he noticed Al Capone and made it engage as barman and bouncer in a bar had by, Frankie Yale, associated of Torrio and caïd of Brooklyn.

Chicago

In 1909, it was requested by his/her aunt, Victoria Moresco, to help her husband Big Jim Colosimo with Chicago, against the racket of the Mano Nera . Its men managed to get rid some in their tightening a trap. He became then the manager and number 2 of the empire of closed houses of Colosimo, which did not prevent it from remaining faithful to his wife, Jewish named an Anna Jacob. He opened his own house of master key and play, the Deuces Furnace in 1919. Installed to Chicago, he entrusted to Frankie Yale the management of his business in New York. When the Prohibition was founded, Torrio immediately perceived the immense profits which could be concerned; it pressed Colosimo to be implied in the bootleging . In front of the reserve of this last, Torrio, after approval of would have associated with Colosimo (the Genna brothers and the Aiello brothers), suggested with Frankie Yale coming to cut down it with Chicago, in 1920. He inherited then his brothels and houses of play, and added hundreds of clandestine bars to it. Al Capone, arrived in 1918, became its lieutenant.

The war of the gangs

The team ( The Outfit ) extended her domination on the southern districts (South Side) of Chicago. In its expansion, it ran up against the gang of the north, directed by the Irishman Dion O' Banion. Initially, Torrio tried to get along with him. But tensions relating to the territorial rights between the brothers Genna and O' Banion was intense, and this last doubled Torrio on the repurchase of a brewery, so that Torrio its murder ordered, which was made by a team of killers ordered by Frankie Yale, on November 10th 1924. A war of the gangs followed with the friends of O' Banion (Hymie Weiss, Bugs Moran). In January 1925, Moran made fire on Torrio, which, wounded, was left there by miracle. Once restored, it purged one year of prison for violation of the Prohibition.

The retirement

When it left, apparently shocked by the criminal escalation of violence (or perhaps the pressure of its lieutenant), it decided " raccrocher" , leaving its heritage to Al Capone and left in Italy. It returned to the the United States to the beginning of the year 1930. Regarded by its pars as a " sage" respected, he played a decisive part during the development of the Commission, of which there would have remained an influential adviser. He was then quoted like witness at the time of the lawsuit of Al Capone. He withdrew himself with New York and died in the hospital after an heart attack in his barber in 1957.

Internal bond

• Maffia Italian-American