sales, the family regrouped and built a lucrative bootlegging operation in Manhattan. In 1920, both Morello and Lupo were released from prison and Brooklyn Mafia boss Salvatore D'Aquila ordered their murders. This is when Giuseppe "Joe" Masseria and Rocco Valenti, a former Brooklyn Camorra, began to fight for control of the Morello family. On December 29, 1920, Masseria's men murdered Valenti's ally, Salvatore Mauro. Then, on May 8, 1922, the Valenti gang murdered Vincenzo Terranova. Masseria's gang retaliated killing Morello member Silva Tagliagamba. On August 11, 1922, Masseria's men murdered Valenti, ending the conflict, as Masseria took over the Morello family. The Castellammarese era During the mid-1920s, Masseria continued to expand his bootlegging, extortion, loansharking, and illegal gambling rackets throughout New York. To operate and protect these rackets, he recruited many ambitious young mobsters, including future heavyweights Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Frank Costello, Joseph "Joey A" Adonis, Vito Genovese, and Albert Anastasia. Luciano soon became a top aide in Masseria's organization. By the late 1920s, Masseria's main rival was boss Salvatore Maranzano, who had come from Sicily to run the Castellammarese clan. Their rivalry eventually escalated into the bloody Castellammarese War. As the war turned against Masseria, Luciano, seeing an opportunity to switch allegiance, decided to eliminate him in 1931. In a secret deal with Maranzano, Luciano agreed to engineer Masseria's death in return for taking over his rackets and becoming Maranzano's second-in-command. Adonis had joined the Masseria faction, and when Masseria heard about Luciano's betrayal, he approached Adonis about killing Luciano. However, Adonis instead warned Luciano about the murder plot. On April 15, 1931, Masseria was killed at Nuova Villa Tammaro, a Coney Island restaurant, while playing cards with Luciano, who allegedly excused himself to the bathroom, when four gunmen (Anastasia, Genovese, Adonis, and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel) shot Masseria to death then escaping in a car driven by Ciro "The Artichoke King" Terranova. It was reported that Terranova was too nervous to drive, so Siegel took the driver's seat and drove the car out of the crime scene. With Maranzano's blessing, Luciano became his lieutenant and took over Masseria's gang, ending the Castellammarese War. Between August 1 and 3, 1931, Maranzano called a meeting where crime bosses met at Nuova Villa Tammaro in Coney Island for a bacchanalian banquet to celebrate the death of Masseria right on the spot where he was murdered and another one on Washington Avenue at