For many years, the different families in New York, as in other cities, had been battling it out amongst themselves for power in money. Many of the younger "lieutenants" in these organizations saw this as a waste. They saw the possibilities of what could be achieved if the pooled as of their resources together, so to speak. In 1929, talks were held among the major bosses on the East Coast about the possible formation of a "Commission" to head up all the families in New York.
Charles "Lucky" Luciano and Meyer Lansky were two of the major planners and developers in the early phases of the Commission's formation. The first man to somewhat take charge was Maranzano. Maranzano created five families to be directly under him, headed up by Joseph Bonnano, Vincent Mangano, Charlie Luciano, Joseph Profaci and Tom Gagliano. Eventually, paranoia would be Maranzano's undoing. He didn't trust some of his lieutenants, so he devised a plan to have them killed. When some of them got wind of this, they did what one could call a "preemptive strike", and had him killed.
When Maranzano died, the role of leader was given to Lucky Luciano. Luciano didn't want to really be a "shot-caller" percept, though. He wanted the Commission to run like a board of a corporation, where everyone to join and have a say in matter. Decisions of the board, though, would be left only to those members of direct Sicilian lineage. Slowly, families from all across the country became apart of this Commission, also known as the Syndicate, or "La Cosa Nostra"
The Syndicate also started to spread its arms to business ventures outside of the normal woman and bootlegging. Especially with the end of prohibition, other means of financial gain were needed. These fields including money laundering, pressuring businesses and the rich for bribes, and eventually drugs. But the move that the Mafia would become famous for was there move to the West...Las Vegas.