James Napoli
American mobster (1911–1992)

James "Jimmy Nap" Napoli (November 4, 1911 – December 29, 1992) was a New York mobster who was a Caporegime in the Genovese crime family. From the 1950s to the 1980s, he controlled one of the largest illegal gambling operations in the United States, reputedly earning up to $150 million annually.
Napoli was known as a "Gentleman's Gentleman". Intelligent and well-respected, Napoli maintained ties to most of the major crime families.
Jimmy Nap used Crisci’s Restaurant as a base for his job activities.
In 1969, Napoli was indicted for fixing several boxing matches. In the 1970s, Napoli reportedly operated the largest numbers operation in the United States. By 1976, the operation allegedly employed 2,000 people and grossed over $150 million a year. Napoli apparently ran this huge operation from a lounge in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. In 1978, Napoli was convicted for gambling and sentenced to five years in federal prison.
“James Napoli” enters the record as american mobster (1911–1992). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what James, Napoli and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6140286. VIAF identifies the subject as 182036757. The Library of Congress control number is n2011050455. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1911, 1992, 1969 and 1976.
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This entry incorporates text from “James Napoli” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.