Agnello became a powerful underworld leader in New Orleans' Little Palermo in the later 1860s. His gang of transplanted Palermitani came into conflict first with a community of immigrants from Messina and later with a local gang led by Joseph Macheca (a New Orleanian who happened to be Sicilian by birth).
After a bitter feud, Agnello appeared to have defeated his rivals. However, he was ambushed and killed in front of Macheca's fruit store in 1869. His brother Joseph continued a losing struggle for some years before he, too, was murdered.
The organization of Agnello's Mafia group was copied by Macheca in his own gang. The Macheca organization later gave way to a Mafia-like organization run by the Matranga family.
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