Johnny Silk Stockings Guistra: Brooklyn Longshoreman and Laundry Racketeer

Johnny Guistra is recognized as a driving force behind the International Longshoremen's Association in the years until his May 1931 murder. Johnny was also involved in the funeral home racket and began to muscle into the laundry racket in the months leading up to his death. Like fellow gangster Carmelo Liconti, Guistra was from Calabria, Italy. The two of them tried to broker a truce in the Castellammarese War following the brutal slaying of Giuseppe Masseria in April 1931. It cost both of them their lives.