Carmine Romano (August 21, 1935 – January 28, 2011) was a New York mobster and captain in the

Genovese Crime Family The Genovese crime family, () also sometimes referred to as the Westside, is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the American M ...

who controlled the

Fulton Fish Market The Fulton Fish Market is a fish market in Hunts Point, a section of the New York City borough of the Bronx, in New York, United States. It was originally a wing of the Fulton Market, established in 1822 to sell a variety of foodstuffs and p ...

distribution center in

Downtown Manhattan Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...

Mob control of Fulton Fish Market

Beginning in the 1920s, the Fulton Fish Market had been controlled by mobsters. Unloading crews would extort "parking fees" and kickbacks from out of town fish companies. If a company refused to pay, the unloaders would let the fish spoil. Mob employees and mob-controlled companies received special benefits. The Market’s security force operated a

protection racket A protection racket is a type of racket and a scheme of organized crime perpetrated by a potentially hazardous organized crime group that generally guarantees protection outside the sanction of the law to another entity or individual from viol ...

for retail shops and vehicles located on the margins of the Market waterfront.

Prison for Romano

Authorities made some small efforts to clean up the corruption. In the late 1970s, Romano was removed from the leadership of the seafood union for extorting wholesalers and enforcing a

cartel A cartel is a group of independent market participants who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the market. Cartels are usually associations in the same sphere of business, and thus an alliance of rivals. Mos ...

. Finally, in 1981 Mob boss Romano was shifting control into New Jersey to his younger crew. Herman Weiner took control of operations in New Jersey and was untouched for many years. Later in 1982 Romano was convicted of racketeering and sent to prison for 14 years. However, Genovese domination of the market continued. Before going to prison in 1981, Romano tried to intimidate the current non-mob owner of Carmine's restaurant into selling it back to Romano's uncle. According to court documents, Romano and associates visited the owner on the morning of January 21, 1981. They began their visit by breaking glasses, smashing all the windows, mirrors, tables, and chairs, throwing food around, destroying the coffee and cigarette machines, and yanking the stove out of the wall. Finally, they robbed the cash register and left. Despite this attempt at intimidation, the owner refused to sell it back.

Cleanup of Fish Market

In 1994, new mayor Rudy Giuliani launched a campaign to end mob control of the market. Through civil suits and new regulations, the city expelled mob employees and vendors and ended the extortion rackets against honest seafood vendors. The Genovese family retaliated with arson and

wildcat strike The wildcat is a species complex comprising two small wild cat species: the European wildcat (''Felis silvestris'') and the African wildcat (''F. lybica''). The European wildcat inhabits forests in Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus, while the ...

s, but were unable to stop the city.

Aftermath

In 1999, Romano was released from prison and moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he was the owner of Hygrade Ocean Products. In November 2005, the City of New York moved all seafood wholesale operations to a new facility in Hunts Point in the

Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

and permanently closed the Fulton Fish Market. Romano died January 28, 2011, in New Bedford.

External links

Southcoasttoday.com Fulton today By JOHN DOHERTY
* ttp://www.city-journal.org/html/11_1_how_to_run.html City-journal.org How To Run the Mob Out of Gothamby Steven Malanga * http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/content/printVersion/128681

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Romano, Carmine 1935 births 2011 deaths American gangsters of Italian descent Genovese crime family