The eldest of two immigrants from Alcamo, in the region of Sicily, Vito Adamo reigned as the first prominent Italian gang leader in the motor city. While the Adamo dynasty began halfway through the first decade of the 20th century, his gang controlled the flow of illicit liquor in and out of the growing Italian colony until the emergence of the Gianolla gang in 1912. Vito "born in 1881," was assisted in his criminal endeavors by his brother Salvatore two years his junior. Together the Adamo's oversaw a gang of extortionists, theives and killers which under the guise of protection, extorted large sums of money from newly arriving Italian immigrants in the Detroit area.