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I was born in Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Italy, to Salvatore Bonanno and Catherine Bonventre. My father, the 26 year old Salvatore, took my mother and I to the United States. We settled in Brooklyn where my father operated a bar/restaurant. My father was summoned by his brothers to return to Castellammare because our Bonanno family business was being threatened by a rival family. As a consequence my family returned to Sicily. My father died and my mother made me an orphan at the age of 15. The next year I enrolled in a nautical college in Palermo.
Many years later I returned to America and before long, I affliated myself with the neighborhood mafiosi. At first, I started off small as a bootlegger and illegal lottery runner. But it wasn't long before I started to get noticed; everyone in Brooklyn began to recognize me as a man with superior organizational skills and quick instincts.
I eventually climbed my way up to the top and my family's underbosses were Frank Garofalo, John Bonventre and Carmine Galante. Our illegal activities such as loan sharking, bookmaking, numbers running and control of prostitution prospered. Although my family was smaller than the other New York organizations it was by far the most efficiently operated.
My large cash position gleaned from crime allowed me to make many profitable real estate investments during the depression. My legitimate business interests included areas as diverse as the garment industry, cheese factories and funeral homes. By the time I became a US citizen in 1945 I was a multimillionaire.
