Constantino Paul Castellano was an American crime boss who succeeded Carlo Gambino as head of the Gambino crime family of New York City. Castellano ran the organization from 1976 until his assassination on December 16, 1985.

Carlo Gambino was a Sicilian-born American crime boss who was the leader and namesake of the Gambino crime family of New York City. Following the Apalachin Meeting in 1957, and the imprisonment of Vito Genovese in 1959, Gambino took over the Commission of the American Mafia and played a powerful role in organized crime until his death from a heart attack in 1976. During a criminal career that spanned over fifty years, Gambino served only twenty-two months in prison for a tax evasion charge in 1937.