Joseph ”Big Joe” Lonardo - How his death led to the historic Sugar Wars!

Joseph Lonardo, also known as "Big Joe", was a Sicilian emigrant to the United States who became the first crime boss of the Cleveland crime family, which he structured from a competing number of organized crime gangs. When national Prohibition began in 1920, Lonardo became a dealer in corn sugar, an essential ingredient in the manufacture of corn whiskey. Lonardo became a "sugar baron" by driving other legitimate corn sugar merchants out of business, encouraging home distillation, and using intimidation, murder, and theft to eliminate or drive his criminal competitors out of business. Lonardo transformed his gang, the Mayfield Road Mob, into a powerful organized crime family. He had the support of the D'Aquila crime family of New York City, and engaged in widespread bribery of local judges, police, and politicians. His criminal organization's reliance on low-quality corn whiskey led to a drop in revenues when consumers began favoring better quality, illegally imported liquor. He began demanding unquestioning loyalty while taking little risk, alienating many bootleggers, home distillers, and organized crime figures. Lonardo's control of the Cleveland mafia was usurped in 1927 by underboss Salvatore "Black Sam" Todaro and the Porrello brothers while Lonardo was out of the country. When Lonardo returned to Cleveland, he attempted to regain control of the Cleveland mafia. His bodyguards were arrested as suspects in the Yorkell and Brownstein murders, leaving Lonardo unprotected. On October 13, 1927, he was murdered in a Porrello barber shop, likely on the orders of "Black Sam" Todaro. His death sparked Cleveland's Corn Sugar War.

 

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