the bosses of the five families, particularly luciano, began to grow tired of maranzano's arrogance and the way he ran the mafia. maranzano realized this and planned to have luciano and his "consigliere" and "underboss", vito genovese and frank costello, as well as others, killed. maranzano did not act quickly enough and was killed by men dressed as police officers, on the orders of luciano and his friend, a jewish gangster from florida named meyer lansky. luciano then became the head of the new york mafia, but not in the way maranzano was; he helped the five families run their business but he did not control them or call himself the "boss of bosses". the five families were kept.