Editing Frank Costello (section)

=== Alliance with Luciano ===
[[File:Lucky Luciano mugshot.jpg|left|200px|thumb|[[Lucky Luciano|Charles "Lucky" Luciano]]'s mugshot]]
While working for the [[Morello crime family|Morello gang]], Costello met [[Lucky Luciano|Charlie "Lucky" Luciano]], the [[Sicily|Sicilian]] leader of [[Manhattan]]'s [[Lower East Side]] gang. The two Italians immediately became friends and partners. Several older members of Luciano's mob family disapproved of this growing partnership. They were mostly [[Mustache Pete|old-school ''mafiosi'']] who were unwilling to work with anyone who was not Italian, and skeptical at best about working with non-Sicilians. To Luciano's shock, they warned him against working with Costello, whom they called "the dirty [[Calabria]]n."<ref name="MafEnc">{{cite book |title=The Mafia Encyclopedia |url=https://archive.org/details/mafiaencyclopedi00sifa |url-access=registration |last=Sifakis |first=Carl |year=1987 |publisher=Facts on File |location=[[New York City]] |isbn=0-8160-1856-1 }}</ref>

Along with Italian American associates [[Vito Genovese]] and [[Tommy Lucchese|Tommy "Three-Finger Brown" Lucchese]], and Jewish associates [[Meyer Lansky]] and [[Bugsy Siegel|Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel]], the gang became involved in robbery, [[theft]], [[extortion]], [[gambling]] and [[narcotics]]. The Luciano-Costello-Lansky-Siegel alliance prospered even further with the passage of [[Volstead Act|Prohibition]] in 1920. The gang went into [[bootleg alcohol|bootlegging]], backed by criminal financier [[Arnold Rothstein|Arnold "the Brain" Rothstein]].<ref name="five families book">{{Cite book | title = The Five Families | date = 13 May 2014 | publisher = MacMillan | isbn = 9781429907989 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=5nAt6N8iQnYC | access-date = 2008-06-22 }}</ref><ref name=Stolberg119>Stolberg, p. 119</ref>

The young Italians' success let them make business deals with the leading [[Jewish-American organized crime|Jewish]] and [[Irish mob|Irish criminal]]s of the era, including [[Dutch Schultz]], [[Owney Madden|Owney "the Killer" Madden]] and [[Bill Dwyer (mobster)|William "Big Bill" Dwyer]]. Rothstein became a mentor to Costello, Luciano, Lansky and Siegel while they conducted bootlegging business with Bronx beer baron Schultz. In 1922, Costello, Luciano, and their closest Italian associates joined the Sicilian crime family led by [[Joe Masseria|Joe "the Boss" Masseria]], a top Italian underworld [[crime boss]]. By 1924, Costello had become a close associate of [[Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan|Hell's Kitchen]]'s Irish crime bosses Dwyer and Madden. He became involved in their [[rum-running]] operations, known as "[[The Combine (group)|The Combine]]"; this might have prompted him to change his last name to the Irish "Costello."

In 1925, Costello became a U.S. citizen.<ref name="costello coronary" />

On November 19, 1926, Costello and Dwyer were indicted on federal bootlegging charges. They were accused of bribing two [[United States Coast Guard|U.S. Coast Guardsmen]], presumably so that they would not disturb the unloading of liquor from boats in [[New York Harbor]]. The largest boat in the Combine fleet could carry 20,000 cases of liquor.<ref name="bootlegging indictment 1926">{{cite news|title=33 MEN ARE INDICATED AS RUM IMPORT RING|url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1926/11/19/98407382.html?pageNumber=18|access-date=18 October 2014|newspaper=New York Times|date=November 19, 1926}}</ref> In January 1927, the jury deadlocked on the bootlegging charges for Dwyer and Costello.<ref name="liquor ring trial">{{cite news|title=COSTELLO JURORS CLEAR 8, SPLIT ON 6 IN LIQUOR RING TRIAL|url=http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1927/01/21/118638578.html?pageNumber=1|access-date=18 October 2014|newspaper=New York Times|date=January 21, 1927}}</ref>

In 1926, Dwyer was convicted of bribing a Coast Guard official and sentenced to two years in jail. After Dwyer was imprisoned, Costello and Madden took over the Combine's operations. This caused friction between Madden and a top Dwyer lieutenant, [[Vannie Higgins|Charles "Vannie" Higgins]], who believed he should have been running the Combine instead of Costello. Thus, the "Manhattan Beer Wars" began between Higgins on one side, and Costello, Madden, and Schultz on the other. At this time, Schultz was also having problems with gangsters [[Jack Diamond (gangster)|Jack "Legs" Diamond]] and [[Vincent Coll|Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll]], who had begun to rival Schultz and his partners with Higgins's help. Eventually, the Costello-Madden-Schultz alliance was destroyed by New York's underworld.

In the late 1920s, [[Johnny Torrio]] helped to organize a loose cartel of East Coast bootleggers, the [[The Combined (Group)|Big Seven]], in which a number of prominent gangsters, including Costello, Luciano, [[Longy Zwillman]], [[Joe Adonis]], and [[Meyer Lansky]] played a part. Torrio also supported creation of a national body that would prevent the sort of all-out turf wars between gangs that had broken out in Chicago and New York. His idea was well received,<ref>Howard Abadinsky, ''Organized Crime'', Cengage Learning, 2009, p.115</ref> and a [[Atlantic City Conference|conference was hosted in Atlantic City]] by Torrio, Lansky, Luciano and Costello in May 1929; the [[National Crime Syndicate]] was created.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/press/atlantic_city/years-ago-the-mob-came-to-atlantic-city-for-a/article_3d2aedaa-856e-5e81-8e5a-9db020bed549.html?mode=image&photo=0 | title=80 years ago, the Mob came to Atlantic City for a little strategic planning | date=13 May 2009 | publisher=Press of Atlantic City | access-date=August 6, 2012}}</ref>