Carbo was born in Agrigento, Sicily on August 10, 1904. Carbo was sent to the New York State Reformatory for juvenile delinquents at age eleven. Over the next ten years, Carbo would be in and out of prison on charges including assault and grand larceny. During this period, Carbo was arrested for the murder of a taxi driver who refused to pay protection money. Pleading not guilty, Carbo claimed self-defense. He eventually agreed to a plea bargain of manslaughter in exchange for a reduced sentence of two to four years in prison. After serving 20 months in prison, Carbo was released.
During the 1940s, Carbo became a boxing promoter, working along with Ettore "Eddie" Coco, James "Jimmy Doyle" Plumeri, Frank "Blinky" Palermo, Harry "Champ" Segal and Felix Bocchicchio. The group was known as "The Combination", together they were highly successful in fixing high-profile boxing matches. Carbo eventually became known as the "Czar of Boxing". In a 2002 interview with The Observer, Budd Schulberg talked about Carbo and his partner Palermo and their involvement in a 1954 welterweight championship fight.
...Frankie Carbo, the mob's unofficial commissioner for boxing, controlled a lot of the welters and middles... Not every fight was fixed, of course, but from time to time Carbo and his lieutenants, like Blinky Palermo in Philadelphia, would put the fix in. When the Kid Gavilán-Johnny Saxton fight was won by Saxton on a decision in Philadelphia in 1954, I was covering it for Sports Illustrated and wrote a piece at that time saying boxing was a dirty business and must be cleaned up now. It was an open secret. All the press knew that one - and other fights - were fixed. Gavilan was a mob-controlled fighter, too, and when he fought Billy Graham it was clear Graham had been robbed of the title. The decision would be bought. If it was close, the judges would shade it the way they had been told.
Saxton was managed by Blinky Palermo. After losing his title to Tony DeMarco in 1955, he would regain it in a 1955 title match against welterweight champ Carmen Basilio, another fight considered to be fixed.
By 1959, Carbo and his partner Blinky Palermo owned a majority interest in the contract of heavyweight boxer Sonny Liston, who went on to win the World Heavyweight Championship in 1962. From the start of his pro career in 1953, Liston had been "owned" by St. Louis mobster John Vitale, who continued to own a stake in the boxer. At the time Palermo and Carbo acquired their interest in Liston, the notorious Carbo was imprisoned on Rikers Island, having been convicted of the undercover management of prize-fighters and unlicensed matchmaking. According to both FBI and newspaper reports, Vitale and other mobsters "reportedly controlled Liston's contract", with Vitale owning approximately twelve percent. Liston fought 12 fights under the control of Carbo and Palermo.
