Joseph "Baldie" LoPiccolo (April 28, 1918 – May 21, 1978) was an American criminal and member of the New York Gambino crime family and a capo under

Santo Trafficante, Jr. Santo Trafficante Jr. (November 15, 1914 – March 17, 1987) was among the most powerful Mafia bosses in the United States. He headed the Trafficante crime family and controlled organized criminal operations in Florida and Cuba, which had p ...

's criminal organization. His specialty was

narcotics trafficking The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs through ...

Early years

Born in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, Illinois, on April 28, 1918, LoPiccolo was the son of Felipo and Margherita LoPiccolo. He had two brothers, Anthony and Frank, and two sisters, Loretta and Carmella.

Drug trade

LoPiccolo moved to New York City and joined the Gambino family. As a

made man In the American and Sicilian Mafia, a made man is a fully initiated member of the Mafia. To become "made", an associate first must be Italian or of Italian descent and sponsored by another made man. An inductee will be required to take the oa ...

, he was involved in narcotics,

illegal gambling Gaming law is the set of rules and regulations that apply to the gaming or gambling industry. Gaming law is not a branch of law in the traditional sense but rather is a collection of several areas of law that include criminal law, regulatory law, ...

loansharking A loan shark is a person who offers loans at extremely high interest rates, has strict terms of collection upon failure, and generally operates outside the law. Description Because loan sharks operate mostly illegally, they cannot reasonably ...

, and the

vending machine A vending machine is an automated machine that provides items such as snacks, beverages, cigarettes, and lottery tickets to consumers after cash, a credit card, or other forms of payment are inserted into the machine or otherwise made. The ...

business. During the 1940s and 1950s, LoPiccolo established a narcotics distribution system throughout

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, becoming one of the largest drug traffickers during the post-

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

period. In August 1958, LoPiccolo was convicted of violating federal narcotics laws and sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment. He served his sentence at

Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary The United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth (USP Leavenworth) is a medium security U.S. penitentiary with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp in northeast Kansas. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the Unite ...

in Leavenworth, Kansas.

Release and demise

After his release from prison, LoPiccolo returned to criminal

References

*The Editors of Newsday, ''The Heroin Trail''. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1975.

External links

AmericanMafia.com - Joey LoPicollo
by Scott M. Deitche
familysearch.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lopiccolo, Joseph 1918 births 1978 deaths American gangsters of Italian descent Gambino crime family