Organized Crime Figure. Born in Villabate, in the Province of Palermo, Sicily. Little is known about his childhood, though he is suspected of having ties with the Silician mafia. Giuseppe better known as Joe emigrated to the United States, arriving in New York City in September. He settled in Chicago, where he opened a grocery store and bakery. However, the business was unsuccessful and in 1925 he relocated to New York, where he entered the olive oil import business. In September, 1927, Joe became a United States citizen. At some point after his move to Brooklyn is when he became involved with the Sicilian gangs. Joe attended a mob meeting in Cleveland, Ohio that would make him an organized crime boss in Brooklyn. An important part of the Cleveland meeting, attended by mobsters from Tampa, Florida, Chicago, and Brooklyn, was to appoint Joe as Aquila's replacement so as to maintain calm among the Brooklyn gangs. By 1930, Joe was controlling numbers, prostitution, loansharking, and narcotics trafficking in Brooklyn. When the Castellammarese war finally ended in 1931, top mobster Charles "Lucky" Luciano reorganized the New York gangs into five organized crime families. At this point, Joe was recognized as boss of what was now the Profaci crime family. In 1953, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service sued Joe for over $1.5 million in unpaid income taxes. In 1957, Joe attended the Apalachin Conference, a national mob meeting, at the farm of mobster Joseph Barbara in Apalachin, New York. While the conference was in progress, New York State Troopers surrounded the farm and raided it. At the end of the 1950s, Joe received the first challenge to his authority from capo Joe Gallo and his brothers Larry and Albert, perhaps with encouragement from Gambino crime family boss Carlo Gambino, Joe's main rival on the Mafia Commission. In 1959, Joe's bookmaker Frank Abbatemarco stopped paying tribute to Joe and owed him $50,000. Joe allegedly promised Joseph Gallo, who worked with Abbatemarco, his lucrative rackets if Gallo killed him. After the murder Joe split the bookmaking business, but left nothing for Gallo and his crew. In February 1961, the Gallos and their ally Carmine Persico kidnapped Magliocco, Frank Persico, and capo Joseph Colombo. Joe himself barely escaped capture, being forced to flee New York. Joe then flew to Florida and took refuge in a hospital there. For the next few weeks, the two sides negotiated a hostage release. In return for financial concessions from Joe, the Gallos finally released the four hostages. By 1962, Joe's health was failing. In early 1962, Carlo Gambino and Lucchese crime family boss Tommy Lucchese tried to convince Joe to resign, he refused. In June of 1962, Joe died in South Side Hospital in Bay Shore, New York of liver cancer. He was 64 years old.