Frank Iaconi (c. 1895 – July 14, 1956) was an Italian American gangster who reigned as

crime boss A crime boss, also known as a crime lord, Don, gang lord, gang boss, mob boss, kingpin, godfather, crime mentor or criminal mastermind, is a person in charge of a criminal organization. Description A crime boss typically has absolute or nearl ...

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...

, from the days of

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...

through 1953. Though part of the Patriarca family's territory, Worcester was in fact a fiefdom of the

Mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...

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

. Iaconi enjoyed police protection, allegedly because he focused on gambling and forbade large-scale dope-dealing and prostitution. Worcester was considered such a safe-haven for organized crime that the Mafia bosses held a conference there in 1950. That was the same year that Iaconi ran afoul of the

Kefauver Committee The United States Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce was a special committee of the United States Senate which existed from 1950 to 1951 and which investigated organized crime which crossed state borders in the U ...

investigating organized crime. Iaconi's testimony before the committee led to Committee Chairman

Estes Kefauver Carey Estes Kefauver (; July 26, 1903 – August 10, 1963) was an American politician from Tennessee. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1939 to 1949 and in the Senate from 1949 until his d ...

have Iaconi's tax returns examined, which led to an

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory ta ...

investigation of Iaconi. In February 1953, Iaconi was indicted for failing to pay $217,875 in taxes on $350,000 in revenue from racketeering and for

money laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...

. After pleading guilty, he was imprisoned at Danbury Federal Prison for 11 months. He died from natural causes soon after being released.

References

Bibliography

* Ford, Beverly and Schorow, Stephanie. ''The Boston Mob Guide: Hit Men, Hoodlums & Hideouts''. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2011. . * Puleo, Stephen. ''The Boston Italians: A Story of Pride, Perseverance, and Paesani, from the Years of the Great Immigration to the Present Day''. Boston: Beacon Press, 2007. . * Silverman, Mark and Scott Deitche. ''Rogue Mobster: The Untold Story of Mark Silverman and the New England Mafia''. Strategic Media Books, 2012. .

External links

The American Mafia – New England Crime Bosses

{{DEFAULTSORT:Iaconi, Frank Genovese crime family Patriarca crime family Culture of Worcester, Massachusetts 1956 deaths American gangsters of Italian descent Year of birth uncertain