Frank Abbatemarco

Organized Crime Figure. Known as “Frankie Shots”, he was a Captain in the Profaci Crime Family (today the Family is called the Colombo Family). He had one of the largest bookmaking and loan sharking operations in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. He was shot and killed in a bar in Brooklyn, New York City, New York at age 59.

Abbatemarco was a policy bank (numbers) operator for the Profaci crime family during the 1940’s and 50’s and was the capo of “Crazy Joe” Joe Gallo and his brothers. He was the Gallo brothers’ mentor in the mob.  One of New York’s many policy operators, Frank Abbatemarco was obligated to pay a certain amount of money or “taxes” in the form of protection money. However, suffering financial losses, he had fallen into debt by the late 1950s. When Joe Profaci demanded Abbatemarco pay $50,000 in “back taxes”, Abbatemarco was unable to raise the money and was killed by Profaci gunmen near Cardiello’s Tavern on November 4, 1959. He was the father of Anthony Abbatemarco known as “Tony Shots”, who later became a high ranking member of the Colombo crime family. Frankie Shots murder sparked a bloody gang war that would last for decades between the Gallo Gang and the Profaci, later Colombo crime family, culminating in the murder of Crazy Joe Gallo in April of 1972 outside of Umberto’s Clam House.