Giovanni Bonventre

With the end of the Castellammarese War, a major conflict between the Sicilian clans in New York, Bonanno became boss of the reorganized Bonanno family and Bonventre became a caporegime, the captain of a crew of mobsters. That same year, Bonanno and Bonventre purchased a dairy farm near Middletown, New York in the Catskill Mountains. The farm's main product was mozzarella cheese; Bonanno and Bonventre used their mob influence to eventually dominate the production of this cheese in New York State, Wisconsin, and Vermont. Bonventre's other business ventures included a garment factory in Brooklyn. At some point, Bonventre was promoted to family underboss, directly under Bonanno.

In 1950, Bonventre decided to move back to Sicily. However, this move did not end his involvement in the Bonanno family. In 1957, Bonventre attended the abortive Apalachin Conference of American Cosa Nostra leaders in rural Apalachin, New York that was broken up by New York State Police; Bonanno and Bonventre were picked up by police as they tried to escape the meeting site through a field. In September 1957 Bonventre had attended several meetings in Palermo, Sicily with Bonanno and the exiled mob boss Charles "Lucky" Luciano.

In May 1971, Italian Carabinieri police banished Bonventre and 14 other Sicilian Mafia leaders to Filicudi, a 3-mile (4.8 km) island off the coast of Sicily.^[1]

• Bureau of Narcotics, U.S. Treasury Department, "Mafia: the Government's Secret File on Organized Crime, HarperCollins Publishers 2007 ISBN 0-06-136385-5