Name: 10 Crime Bosses Who Maintained Power in Prison
Uploaded: 2025-05-23T05:11:06.000Z
Duration: 12 min 57 s
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Despite his business acumen, Guzman is not always successful at staying ahead of the law.

Relative clauses (Restrictive vs. nonrestrictive)

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at crime syndicate leaders who were confirmed to be active in their organizations even while behind bars.

In 1986, the Maxi trial in Palermo handed Salvatore Toto Rina a life sentence in absentia.

Salvatore Toto Rina, one of the most violent and feared godfathers in the history of the Sicilian Mafia. The farmer's son from the town of Corleone took control of the Cosa Nostra in the 1970s and ruled with an iron fist for almost two decades.

It would be nearly seven more years before the Sicilian Mafia chief was captured, but this would not be the end of his notoriously cruel rampage. The detained Rina and other bosses ordered a series of terrorist attacks to assassinate or intimidate witnesses.

He also ordered more strategic hits, including the kidnapping and eventual murder of an informant's 12-year-old son.

Rina's criminal career finally came to an end when he was moved to solitary confinement for the remainder of his life. Until then, the brutality that could only be contained by extreme measures earned him the nickname La Belva, the Beast.

Caught on wiretap in early 2017, Rina made clear his reflections on a life of crime, saying he regretted nothing.

Drug kingpin Rafel Edmund III was key to the expansion of the crack epidemic into Washington,

D.C. The resulting violence earned the city the reputation as the murder capital of the U.S.

Edmund's conviction in 1990 merely provided business opportunities. He collaborated with fellow high-profile inmates at the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary to continue trafficking.

When he was caught in 1996, 30 years were added to his life sentence.

Though the oversight and this gesture were scandalous, Edmund became a government informant to protect his mother. After multiple arrests and years in witness protection, he died shortly after being released in 2024. Despite some good coming out of Edmund's second downfall, there's no accounting for the damage he caused even locked away.

Much of the story of the Bishnoi Gang takes place behind bars. The namesake was a petty criminal who cultivated connections in jail in the early 2010s. By the time he was finally sent to prison in 2014, Lawrence Bishnoi had built an empire well beyond Punjab. He then continued to lead some 700 associates in international smuggling, murder, and political corruption.

He became something of a celebrity in 2018 when he made a press statement threatening actor Salman

Khan outside of a courthouse. Continued operations even after multiple transfers have not curbed that hubris. Once an ambitious student from an affluent family, Bishnoi is an alarming testament to what a great mind is capable of in prison. Vincent the Chin Gigante, the Genovese crime

This low-level enforcer was in and out of jail before his 1959 conviction only strengthened bonds with cellmate Vito Genovese, the mentor he aided in his takeover of the Luciano family two years prior. Vincent the Chin Gigante went on to become a powerful New York boss who evaded trial with public displays of mental unfitness.

He's said to be one of the most powerful mobsters in America. His lawyers say he's insane, but tonight it appears Gigante will finally be brought to justice.

After the ruse fell apart in 1997, he continued to run the Genovese crime family from prison.

Andrew Gigante acted as his father's attaché until they were both indicted on racketeering and obstruction charges in 2002. The Chin's shocking guilty plea formally put an end to a criminal career that spanned decades and sometimes thrived in prison.

Carmine Persico, the Columbo crime family

Nicknamed Immortal, Carmine Persico was practically unstoppable as boss of the Columbo crime family. He was believed to still be in charge after he began his tenure in prison in 1973 before receiving a permanent sentence in 86. Persico collaborated with John de Ross then, and after the latter's release in the wake of the Third Columbo War.

What followed was years of power struggles and restructuring under Persico's supervision.

The verdicts ensured that Carmine Persico would never again be a free man, but being behind bars didn't mean giving up control of the family.

A government informant even testified that he took contracts out on the FBI agents and prosecutors responsible for his imprisonment. Though the open secret of his influence reportedly declined through the years, Persico was the official boss of the Columbo family from 1973 to his death in 2019. That's Carmine's M.O. Carmine never relinquished control, whether he was in prison, whether he was on the lam or in the courtroom representing himself.

Rafael Acutelo's run with Neapolitan street gangs ended when he was incarcerated for murder in 1963.

That was really just the beginning of his criminal career. The young rogue's charisma and business instincts cultivated a huge following among inmates. As they carried

Acutelo's influence beyond prison, the Nuova Camorra Organizzata became one of the most sophisticated and powerful syndicates in Italy. But after the organization was devastated by gang wars, Acutelo was effectively removed from his network after being transferred in 93. By then, his defiance of the penal system was so notorious that it inspired the fictional novel and film

The Professor, titled after Acutelo's nickname. The true story is a chilling enough portrait of a violent mastermind with nothing to lose.

Anthony Gaspipe Casso, the Lucchese crime family

Lucchese underboss Anthony Gaspipe Casso was considered sadistic.

Gaspipe Casso had a reputation in organized crime of being crazy.

I wanted to beat him with the gun after it was empty.

And to be considered crazy in organized crime is a major achievement.

That came back to haunt him after his arrest in 1993.

While detained at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, Casso arranged escape plans and hits.

His orders became so reckless that the family ultimately severed ties.

Casso thus became an informant for the FBI to protect himself at many colleagues' expense.

He was a persona non grata. Nobody in the family would lift a finger to help him.

What was his recourse? One thing, come a rat.

However, the plea deal was nullified by his lack of honesty and cooperation with authorities, as well as continued criminal activity. Casso was sentenced to 455 years in prison in 98, having burned all his connections by trying to keep them inside.

He died in 2020 after failing to secure a compassionate release.

The key to the kingdom is to tell the truth.

And if you decide to lie, then all bets are off.

Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, the Sinaloa Cartel

The legend of Joaquin Guzman's power was cemented by his stints in prison.

To many in Sinaloa, El Chapo is not just a drag trafficker.

He's a hero. They see him as a modern-day Robin Hood.

His leadership of the Sinaloa cartel made him one of the world's most powerful criminals before he was sent to prison in Mexico in 1993.

There, El Chapo delegated his organization to greater power and enjoyed a lavish lifestyle by bribing guards.

They eventually let him walk out of prison in 2001.

The official version, and the one recounted by most journalists, is that he was rolled out in a laundry cart by a lower-ranking prison official.

He was arrested again 13 years later, detained under strict security, and escaped again through a tunnel.

His 2016 arrest and subsequent extradition to U.S. federal custody finally put an end to his influence.

El Chapo's story being unlike any in organized crime, it took a lot to truly lock him away.

Nobody's ever broken out of the Supermax prison here in Colorado.

Since opening in 1994, known as the Alcatraz of the Rockies, this airtight penitentiary has housed the worst of the worst, including billionaire cartel kingpin Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, like the rest here, segregated and on permanent lockdown 23 hours a day.

In 1936, the boss of the Luciano family seemingly ran out of luck when he was sentenced to up to five decades in prison.

Under Luciano, the mafia grew to be bigger than General Motors, and by the time he'd finished, the mob was raking in $40 billion a year.

In fact, Charles' lucky Luciano's influence went a long way over the next decade.

He made orders through acting bosses and acquired luxurious amenities, including a personal chef.

Frank Costello, a highly regarded and well-known figure in New York's underworld, took over the day-to-day running of his empire.

And Costello continued to bring in millions of dollars and increase the family's fortunes while his boss planned his next move.

It was only after a failed appeal two years later that he stepped down from his position.

However, with World War II raging, the Navy tapped Luciano and his organization to help secure the New York waterfront and provide contacts in Sicily.

In exchange, Luciano received deportation to and relative freedom in Italy in 46.

Luciano had served just 10 years of his 50-year sentence when he left American shores on February 10, 1946, bound for Sicily.

Even in apparent defeat, the father of the modern mafia was an effective negotiator.

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Pablo Escobar's influence was such that he could control his own downfall in 1991.

He negotiated his surrender to the Colombian government on the condition that he would only serve five years in a prison he himself designed.

Escobar even handpicked his guards at La Catedral, nicknamed the Catedral of the Colombian Government.

Escobar was the first Colombian to be convicted of a crime in the history of the Colombian government.

In the course of his life, Escobar was a member of the Colombian government and was a member of the Colombian police force.

Escobar even handpicked his guards at La Catedral, nicknamed Hotel Escobar for its luxuries.

The cosy deal required the Medellín Cartel leader to cease all criminal activating but of course, it was business as usual under the security of government corruption.

Escobar's official incarceration was really just to prevent extradition to the U.S.

Following media reports of torture and murder at La Catedral,

Escobar escaped to avoid transfer to a legitimate prison and died in a police pursuit in 1993.

He's such a good narco that he's a machine that makes money after death.

Who are some other criminals whose influence couldn't be locked up with them?

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