The National Crime Syndicate was the name given to an organized crime syndicate, set up in the 1930's, by Charles "Lucky" Luciano and based out of New York City.

After the Castellamarese war and the death of Salvatore Maranzano, Luciano found himself to be a dominant figure in the shady world of the Cosa Nostra. Rather than make himself a prominent public figure like Al Capone , or an underworld emperor like Maranzano sought to do, Luciano would instead seek to get the bosses of America's five biggest organized crime families together.

While the era of Prohibition was coming to a close, there were still many lucrative illegal activities for the five families to divide up, including prostitution, racketeering, and gambling. Rather than risk turf wars over these, Luciano decided to establish a territory system. Under the territory system Luciano created, which activities the various crime families were spelled out, as well as where.

The heads of the various crime families, of different ethnic backgrounds, would meet to decide who had the rights to the various territory. This meant that, rather than the families starting wars against each other, they could concentrate on business. When a new business came along, or if another family wanted a particular territory, the families would meet to negotiate a deal.

By spelling out who had the rights to which territory, if one family grew ambitious and over-stepped the line, they would not just declare war on one, but rather all the other families—a very dangerous proposition. Similarly, an outsider encroaching on the turf of one of the families would be declaring war on the rest of the syndicate.

Luciano's National Crime Syndicate saw the American mob get further entrenched in the post-prohibition era.