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Angelo Granelli | |
Biographical Information | |
Aliases | The Trojan |
Gender | Male |
Born | May 2, 1924 Hell's Kitchen, New York, United States |
Died | August 8, 1972 Rockaway, Queens, United States |
Affiliation | Corleone crime family Trapani crime family |
Title(s) | Soldier |
Angelo "the Trojan" Granelli was a Corleone Soldier who worked with Rocco Lampone and Aldo Trapani in the 1940s and 1950s.
Biography[]
Granelli was born in a rough Hell's Kitchen neighborhood to Alberto Granelli, a bricklayer, and Lucia Lupe, a garment designer. Granelli was raised a devout Roman Catholic, and made the Holy Cross Church in Hell's Kitchen his place of hanging out. Granelli befriended Michael Corleone in Catholic school and Granelli was made a Soldato by Vito Corleone in 1946 following the murder of Oscar Zavarelle, who had assaulted his sister, and who was an explosives racket racketeer. He also plotted out the murders of Plinio Ottaviano, Leon Grossi, and Jack Fontana, which destroyed the racket chain and weakened the Straccis. It was around this time that Granelli made his safehouse in New Jersey his home with his wife Antonietta, and worked for Rocco Lampone.
Granelli plotted the death of Salvatore Stracci but could not assist personally because he was assigned to some jobs against the Straccis in New Jersey, while Stracci's hit was in Little Italy. Granelli ceased his war with the Straccis after Stracci's death in 1955 and worked instead with the narcotics distribution business. When Aldo Trapani, the hitman who had carried out the Stracci hit list, became the Don of New York, he was present at his promotion ceremony and became the leader of the Trapani drug trafficking operations in Jersey City, before his arrest in 1959. He was sent to jail and released in 1969.
Death[]
Granelli lost the protection of Dominic Corleone, the successor of Aldo after 1959, when he gave him only small shares of his vast drug running profits, and he eventually turned to some shady businessmen for help. One of these, Dwayne Wygan, used loansharks to gather lots of Granelli's money, leaving him in debt. When he refused to pay these debts, Wygan personally killed him, heading into his small household on Newark Avenue and blasting him with a shotgun. His death left drugs out of the picture drawn by the Trapanis, cutting their profits down.