WESTSIDE MOB



CATALANOTTE/LAMARE/TOCCO COMBINE


The Westside Mob consisted primarily of three seperate underworld gangs under the direction, supervision and leadership of Sam Catalonotte. Following the elimination of the leaders of the fuedist Gianolla, Bosco and Vitale gangs in 1920, Catalonotte "a key lieutenant of Tony and Sam Gianolla," emerged as the undisputed king of Michigan's Italian underworld. Catalonotte appointed specific areas of operation for the surviving members of the Gianolla gang giving Chester LaMare the operational rights to Hamtramck, Joe Tocco "the notorious downriver beer baron," received Catalonotte's blessings in Wyandotte while Sam supervised the entire organization from Detroit. Catalonotte conveyed the need for co-operation amoung the various factions of the Italian underworld so well that he became known throughout Michigan as the king of Detroits little Sicily.

Catalonotte led Detroit's secret society into a new age with the formation of the Pascuzzi combine. This was the name all of Detroit's bootleg gangs worked under as a cohessive unit, instead of several splinter groups fighting each other for control of bootlegging, gambling, narcotics, prostituiton and other rackets. Catalonotte led his Westside mob into a profitable and lasting alliance with the River Gang who had already formed an alliance with the Eastside Mob under the direction of Angelo Meli, Vito William Tocco and Angelo Meli. The decline of the Westside mob was the result of several occurances beggining with a sweeping Grand Jury indictment charging several members of the Pascuzzi Combine with bribing Customs Border Patrol Inspectors in 1928, expediated by the death of Sam Catalonotte in February of 1930, concluding with the murder of Chester LaMare in his home in February of 1931.


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