Massino was a protégé of Philip Rastelli, who took control of the Bonanno family in 1973. Rastelli spent most of his reign in and out of prison, but was able to get the assassination of Carmine Galante, a mobster vying for power, approved in 1979. Originally a truck hijacker, Massino secured his own power after arranging two 1981 gang murders, first a triple murder of three rebel captains, then his rival Dominick Napolitano. In 1991, while Massino was in prison for a 1986 labor racketeering conviction, Rastelli died and Massino succeeded him. Upon his release the following year, he set about rebuilding a family that had been in turmoil for almost a quarter of a century. By the dawn of the new millennium, he was reckoned as the most powerful Mafia leader in the nation. Massino became known as "The Last Don", the only full-fledged New York boss of his time who was not in prison.