Emigration
Gambino entered the United States as an illegal immigrant on a shipping boat. He ate nothing but anchovies and wine during the month long trip and joined his cousins, the Castellanos, in New York City. There he joined a crime family headed by Salvatore "Tata" D'Aquila, one of the larger crime families in the city. Gambino's uncle, Giuseppe Castellano, also joined the D'Aquila family around this time.
Gambino also became involved with the "Young Turks", a group of Americanized Italian and Jewish mobsters in New York which included Frank "Prime Minister" Costello, Albert "The Executioner" Anastasia, Frank Scalice, Settimo Accardi, Gaetano "Tommy Three-Finger Brown" Lucchese, Joe Adonis, Vito Genovese, Meyer Lansky, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, Mickey Cohen, and Charles "Lucky" Luciano, one of the future's most powerful Mob bosses. The crew became involved in robbery, thefts, and illegal gambling. But with their new partner, Arnold "The Brain" Rothstein, they turned to bootlegging during Prohibition in the early 1920s. Gambino also made a sizable profit during World War II by bribing Office of Price Administration (OPA) officials for ration stamps, which he then sold on the black market.
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