Johnny Torrio, an Italian-American mobster whose strategic mind helped shape organized crime in the United States, engineered the rise of Al Capone and built one of Chicago’s most powerful criminal empires during the Prohibition era. Born in Italy in1882 and raised in New York City, Torrio started as a street gang leader before being recruited to Chicago in1909 by Big Jim Colosimo, a prominent brothel owner who was married to Torrio’s aunt. Torrio took over Colosimo’s business operations and assembled a formidable gang force to counter threats from extortionists and rival criminals. When Prohibition took effect in1920, Torrio pushed the gang to enter bootlegging, but Colosimo refused.
Their dispute ended violently in May1920, when Colosimo was gunned down at his restaurant after receiving a phone call from Torrio about a shipment. Frankie Yale, a New York associate of Torrio, was suspected by Chicago police of carrying out the murder, though he was never formally charged. Other theories suggested Al Capone or Colosimo’s dissatisfied ex-wife orchestrated the killing. With Colosimo gone, Torrio assumed leadership of the city’s largest organized crime operation, with Capone as his right-hand man.
Seeking to avoid destructive gang wars, Torrio brokered territorial agreements and created a cartel that controlled most bootlegging gangs in Chicago by1920. The arrangement included the North Side gang, led by Dean O’Banion, though tensions simmered beneath the surface. In1924, the Genna brothers, associated with Torrio’s gang, began operating a liquor business inside North Side territory. O’Banion sought Torrio’s help as a dispute resolver, but found him unhelpful.
The North Side gang retaliated by hijacking beer shipments, escalating the conflict. In May1924, police scheduled a raid on the Zieben brewery, a business O’Banion partly owned. Before the raid, O’Banion approached Torrio, claiming he wanted to leave the underworld and move to Colorado, and offered to sell his share for a million dollars. Police, including the police chief, arrived the morning of the deal and forced the transaction to close,arresting Torrio,O’Banion, and others.
Torrio was charged with bootlegging,a repeat offense carrying a mandatory prison sentence. He soon realized O’Banion had conned him, defrauding him of five hundred thousand dollars. Torrio would have sought revenge immediately, but Mike Merlo, leader of a Sicilian labor union, persuaded him to hold off. Merlo had a personal stake in keeping peace among Chicago’s gangs.
On November 8,1924, Merlo died of cancer. Two days later, three men entered O’Banion’s flower shop, pretending to buy flowers for Merlo’s funeral, and shot O’Banion dead. Frankie Yale, John Scalise, and Albert Anselmi were believed to have carried out the murder on Torrio’s behalf. Following O’Banion’s death, Hymie Weiss took control of the North Side gang, supported by Vincent Drucci and Bugs Moran.
They made revenge against O’Banion’s killers a top priority, as Weiss had been a close friend of O’Banion. In January1925, Capone was ambushed but escaped unharmed, though shaken. Twelve days later, Torrio and his wife Anna were ambushed outside their home by Weiss,Drucci,and Moran on January24. Torrio was shot multiple times and nearly died.
After recovering, he handed control of the gang to Capone and fled to New York, effectively resigning from direct mob leadership. He later relocated to Italy with his mother and wife in late1925, staying out of direct criminal operations. Torrio left behind a criminal enterprise generating about70 million dollars annually from prostitution, illegal gambling,and alcohol. In1928, as Benito Mussolini intensified pressure on the Italian mafia, Torrio returned to the United States.
He helped form the Big Seven,a loose cartel of East Coast bootleggers that included Lucky Luciano, Joe Adonis, Frank Costello,and Meyer Lansky. He also advocated for establishing a national organization to prevent the kind of gang turf wars that had erupted in Chicago and New York. His proposal gained support,and Torrio,Lansky,Luciano,and Costello hosted a conference in Atlantic City in May1929, resulting in the founding of the national crime syndicate. On April16,1957, while waiting for a haircut in Brooklyn, New York City, Torrio suffered a heart attack.
He died in a nearby hospital several hours later.