Ignazio Lupo

Ignazio Lupo , also known as Ignazio Saietta and Lupo the Wolf, was a SicilianAmerican Black Hand leader in New York City during the early 1900s. His business was centered in Little Italy, Manhattan, where he ran large extortion operations and committed other crimes including robberies, loansharking, and murder. By the start of the 20th century, Lupo merged his crew with others in the South Bronx and East Harlem to form the Morello crime family, which became the leading Mafia family in New York City.

Ignazio Lupo was born in Palermo, Sicily, to parents Rocco Lupo and Onofria Saietta. The word lupo means wolf in Italian thus the moniker Lupo the Wolf literally translates to Wolf the Wolf. Ignazio Lupo has sometimes been referred to by his mothers maiden name as Ignazio Saietta, but his actual surname was Lupo. From agehe worked in a dry goods store in Palermo. In October 1898, he shot and killed a business rival named Salvatore Morello, according to Lupo in selfdefense after Morello attacked him with a dagger during an argument in Lupos store. Lupo went into hiding after the killing and on the advice of his parents eventually fled Italy to escape prosecution. After stops in Liverpool, Montreal and Buffalo he arrived in New York in 1898. On March 14, 1899, Lupo was convicted in absentia of willful and deliberate murder, reportedly due to the testimony of the clerks who worked in his store. Lupo would never serve out the Sicilian sentence, though he would one day return to Sicily.

Source: Wikipedia