What Was the Mafia Commission? The Board of Directors of Crime
Mobsters DailyThe Mafia Commission was the governing council of the American Mafia, created by Lucky Luciano in 1931: a board of directors for organized crime, made up of the bosses of New York's Five Families plus Chicago and Buffalo, that settled disputes, approved hits on bosses, and controlled who could be made. It replaced the old system of one supreme boss — and it ran for half a century.
Why Luciano built a board instead of a throne
The Commission was born from a war. The Castellammarese War ended in 1931 when Salvatore Maranzano had himself crowned boss of all bosses — and Luciano, who had helped him win, had him killed within months. Luciano had no interest in wearing the same target. Instead he abolished the title and built a council, a story told in our history of how Lucky Luciano invented the modern Mafia. The Five Families of New York each held a seat, alongside the Chicago Outfit and Buffalo's Stefano Magaddino. No boss could be killed without a Commission vote. Family membership books opened and closed by its word. Disputes between families went to the table instead of the street.
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How the board actually governed
In practice the Commission worked like the thing it imitated: a corporate board with veto power. It ratified new bosses, arbitrated territory and racket disputes, and acted as the underworld's supreme court. Its authority rested on a simple calculation — defying the board meant facing every family at once. That structure kept a rough peace for decades and let the mob run national enterprises, from Las Vegas skim operations to heroin pipelines, with something like corporate governance. The families it ruled are mapped in our account of the trial that finally broke that leadership.
The trial that put the board in prison
The end came through RICO. In February 1985, federal prosecutors indicted the Commission itself as a criminal enterprise — the board, as a body, was the defendant. The Mafia Commission Trial convicted the bosses of the Genovese, Lucchese, Bonanno and Colombo families in November 1986, and in January 1987 they received 100-year sentences. Gambino boss Paul Castellano had been murdered in December 1985, before he could stand trial. The Commission still exists in weakened form, but it never recovered its old authority.
Frequently asked questions
When was the Mafia Commission created? In 1931, after the murder of Salvatore Maranzano ended the Castellammarese War and Luciano reorganized the New York families.
Which families sat on the Commission? New York's Five Families — Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese — plus the Chicago Outfit and, for decades, Buffalo.
Did the Commission Trial end the Mafia? No, but it decapitated it: the sitting bosses of four families went to prison for effectively life, and the board's national authority collapsed.
Keep reading: The Five Families: How New York's Mafia Carved Up the City · Mafia Ranks, Explained: Associate, Soldier, Capo, Boss · What Is Omerta? The Mafia's Code of Silence, Explained
From the shop: Shadows of the Underworld — the real mob history behind the legends, in one book for your shelf.
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