Ignatius Lanzetta

Ignatius Andrew "Frank Pius" Lanzetta (July 12, 1903 – after 1960) was an American criminal and member of the Lanzetta Brothers gang, who ran bootlegging, drug trafficking, and bookmaking operations. He and his brothers were often incorrectly called the Lanzetti brothers.

Early life Ignatius Lanzetta was born in South Philadelphia to Italian immigrant parents Ignatius Andrea Lanzetta, a liquor dealer from Roseto Valfortore, and Michelina Luisi from Castelluccio Valmaggiore.

Prohibition His oldest brother Leo formed the Lanzetta Gang with Ignatius and their other brothers in the early 1920s. Ignatius, Leo, and another brother Pius ran the gang. The brothers controlled bootlegging in Little Italy.

They were allied with Italian gangsters Michael Falcone and Louis "Fats" Delrossi and their rivals included: Polish mob boss William Michael Cusick, Sicilian Mafia and Bruno crime family boss Salvatore Sabella, Jewish mob boss Max "Boo Boo" Hoff, and Italian Mafia made man and rival dope peddler and bootlegger Joseph Bruno.

The Lanzetta brothers ran their gang with extreme violence and expanded into drug trafficking and numbers writing.

Family trouble Leo and Ignatius killed rival Joe Bruno on August 18, 1925, at 8th and Catherine Streets. Four days later, as Leo left a barber shop at 7th and Bainbridge Streets, an unknown assailant killed him in retaliation for Bruno's murder.

Willie was found with his head in a burlap bag with a bullet in his brain on July 2, 1939.

Along with his brother Lucien and their mother, he moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he worked in the auto industry. He married Arlene Kramer Walbeck in a Lutheran ceremony in 1945. They divorced in 1960 in Florida.

Boardwalk Empire In the first season of the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, Ignatius Lanzetta and his brothers are the inspiration for Nucky Thompson's main rivals the D'Alessio brothers. In the series, Ignatius is the inspiration for Ignacious D'Alessio, the co-leader of the D'Alessio gang. In the series, his brothers are: Leo, Matteo, Lucien, Sixtus, Pius, and another brother in Philadelphia who is a dentist; the brothers also have several more sisters. In the last episode of season one, Ignacious and Pius are killed by freelance killer Richard Harrow with a sawed-off shotgun in November 1920.