While Pendergast and Lazia were in control of the politicians, the prostitution, and the gambling going on in the city, there were other Mafia factions at work in Kansas City.
The DiGiovanni brothers, Peter and Joseph, were born in Sicily during the 1880s. Joseph, the younger, arrived in Kansas City in 1912 and immediately became involved in Black Hand extortion. In 1915, police arrested Joseph and more than a dozen other men for their participation in a Black Hand ring that was extorting money from Italian families and businessmen in the North End. A diligent Italian detective, Louis Olivero, had worked with the terrified victims of the gang and was able to gather enough information to make the arrests. Shortly after the arrests were made Olivero was murdered and the victims he had cultivated as witnesses refused to testify against the gang.
During World War I the DiGiovanni gang was involved with James Balestrere in a black-market sugar operation. When the war ended, they found themselves with an abundance of expensive sugar. According to investigators, Joseph conspired to get rid of it by torching the warehouse where the sugar was stored. His amateurish attempt in this arson left his face and hands terribly scarred. For years he would maintain that he was injured in a gas explosion. He would also maintain the nickname "Scarface."
When Prohibition went into effect, the gang found themselves right back in the sugar business again. This time it was the corn-sugar trade and they made a handsome profit selling it to alky cookers who quickly turned it into alcohol. The DiGiovanni brothers and their partner Balestrere were considered, along with Frank "Chee Chee" DeMayo, to be the top bootleggers in Kansas City.
In Ed Reid�s classic tale, Mafia, he discusses how the DiGiovanni gang and Balestrere operated during the 1920s:
"It was Scarface DiGiovanni who dictated whether or not an individual bootlegger could go into business in Kansas City, and he even laid down the law about "ice" or graft payments to local police. Balestrere was apparently less powerful in this early period, though he functioned as the Mafia judge, settling disputes of all kinds among Italians. They seldom went to court in those early days of the sharpest terror. Instead they went to Balestrere and his kangaroo court. He summoned witnesses, held informal hearings and his judgment was widely feared and respected. Scarface appeared to be head man of the Mafia in Missouri, with Balestrere tops in Kansas City."
In addition to arrests for extortion and bootlegging, Joseph DiGiovanni was charged with kidnapping and narcotics, but never convicted. In 1929, a kidnapping charge included the rape of a young lady. During the 1930s, he helped organize a profitable narcotics ring. It was broken in 1942 when seven men were convicted, including Joseph DeLuca, one of the DiGiovanni�s chief lieutenants.
At the trial one of the government�s witnesses was Carl Caramussa, a former member of the gang. In 1919, Caramussa�s 11-year-old brother was murdered by Paul Catanzaro, who was grabbed by a group of bystanders and nearly beaten to death. Catanzaro avoided conviction for the killing after witnesses were scared off. He later found work with the DiGiovanni family. When Carl Caramussa testified in 1942, Catanzaro sat in the courtroom and gave him the "Mafia death sign," until police threw him out. Caramussa changed his name and went into hiding after the trial. However, gunmen caught up with him in Chicago in June 1945 and murdered him.
During the same trial, Joseph DeLuca�s girlfriend was arrested and charged with jury tampering. She was convicted after Thomas Buffa, another defendant, testified against her. Buffa, who at one time had ties to organized crime in St. Louis, was murdered in Lodi, Calif., in 1946.
Joseph DiGiovanni and his older brother Peter, nicknamed "Sugarhouse Pete," were partners in the Midwest Distributing Company, one of the largest wholesale liquor firms in the city. The concern possessed the exclusive franchise rights for all Seagram�s liquor products for Jackson County, which includes Kansas City. On Dec. 21, 1943, 12 men involved with the company were arrested in an interstate black-market liquor ring. Among those arrested was Charles Binaggio, a gang member on the rise. The charges included violation of federal liquor laws and failing to keep proper records.
The case was dismissed in January 1944 after a U.S. attorney decided that Alcohol Tax Unit agents did not have sufficient evidence; a claim that baffled the agents. Later, several of the defendants traveled to New York City to testify against Jacob Fried, who was involved in the company that was supplying the illegal whiskey. He was convicted.
During the Kefauver hearings held in Kansas City in 1950, Joseph DiGiovanni was called to testify and denied that he had ever heard of the Mafia. After a few more unacceptable answers, Kefauver recommended to the committee that he be indicted for perjury. Like many of the witnesses who were charged with contempt of Congress, he avoided indictment.
James Balestrere was a kind of shadowy figure in the Kansas City underworld. Born in Sicily in 1891, he immigrated to Milwaukee in 1903 where it was said that he joined "several hundred members" of his family. Of Balestrere, author Ed Reid states, "In the probe of rackets in Kansas City by federal agents and grand juries from 1936 to 1940, agents of the government named him as the most powerful and influential man of Sicilian origin west of Chicago."
During Prohibition Balestrere was involved in bootlegging and owned a speakeasy that was said to be losing money. He remedied that by having an arsonist burn it to the ground. Although he was befriended by politicians (from both parties), law enforcement officers, city officials, and gangsters, investigations of Balestrere failed to reveal any illegal activities.
The "Crime Committee Report" published after the Kefauver hearings were complete stated, "The two men believed to be the leaders of the Kansas City Mafia," were James Balestrere and Joseph DiGiovanni. Kefauver wrote of Balestrere, "He played dumb and represented himself to us a poor old jobless fellow who lived on a little income from a piece of business property and on a few dollars given him by his children."
Balestrere told the committee that he needed a job after Prohibition ended � he had gone out of the business of selling sugar to bootleggers � so he approached Tom Pendergast. Balestrere testified that Pendergast gave him a cut of a keno gambling game where he walked in once a month and picked up a check for $1,000. In addition, Balestrere told the committee that Charles Binaggio had offered him a piece of a gambling operation called the Green Hills. Balestrere, the godfather of Binaggio�s only child, replied, "I am not much in the gambling business. I don�t know much about it." One month later he said Binaggio gave him $5,000 he claimed was won.