led by Joey Merlino disputed Stanfa's ascension, and by 1992 another war within the family was underway. The war ended in 1994, when Stanfa and most of his supporters were arrested by the FBI, though internecine fighting continued until 1996 and began to involve violence from outside the family until the early 2000s. Merlino subsequently took control of the family and has allegedly been running the family to varying degrees ever since. Inevitably, the Philadelphia family has been weakened over the past thirty years due to internal violence, government turncoats, and law enforcement action following the passage of the RICO Act. Despite this, the family still remains one of the most active and powerful Mafia groups in the country. History The beginning In the early 20th century, several Italian immigrant and Italian-American South Philadelphia street gangs joined to form what would eventually become the Philadelphia crime family. Salvatore Sabella was the first leader of the group that would later bear his name. They busied themselves with bootlegging, extortion, loansharking, and illegal gambling, and it was during the Prohibition era that Sabella and his crew were recognized as members of the wider Sicilian crime syndicate of New York and Chicago. Sabella retired in late 1931. John Avena, Joe Dovi, and the First Philadelphia Mafia War After Sabella's retirement, two of his top lieutenants, John Avena and Giuseppe Dovi, began a five-year war for control of the family. Avena was murdered by members of his own faction on August 17, 1936, and Joseph "Joe Bruno" Dovi became boss of the Philadelphia family. Dovi had good connections with the Chicago Outfit and the Five Families of New York, and he expanded operations outside of South Philadelphia to the Greater Philadelphia Area, including Atlantic City and other parts of South Jersey. Narcotics, illegal gambling, loansharking, and extortion activities provided the family's income, and connections to the Genovese and Gambino crime families grew throughout the 1930s and early 1940s. On October 22, 1946, Dovi died of natural causes at a New York City hospital, and Joseph Ida was appointed by the Commission to run the Philadelphia family and its rackets. Influenced by Vito Genovese Joe Ida ran the family throughout the 1940s and early 1950s. Ida and the Philadelphia organization were heavily influenced by the bosses of the Five Families, especially the Genovese crime family, which sought to control the Philadelphia crime family. Vito Genovese,