[4] Santo was being watched closely by police and made Salvatore "Red" Italiano the acting boss. The most notable boss was Santo Trafficante, Jr. who ruled Tampa and the crime family with an iron fist. [2]. However, while the Latin American drug trade has figured prominently in the sunshine states less savory history, so has the Mafia. After Cuban revolution, the Mafia saw Castro as a threat to their business. The weapon showed up on the x-ray scanner. November 25, 2007, United States House Select Committee on Assassinations, "Deitche, Scott. But in January 1981, on the night of the Las Vegas function, the police raided Knights Court. The chairman cited a confession from Roselli that Trafficantes allies organized a sharpshooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, to take out the President. One of the earliest established Mafia Families in the United States was the criminal network that formed down in Tampa, Florida. Trafficante had already set up Bolita games throughout the city and was a very powerful man. Santo, Jr. was known to have been deeply involved in the CIA efforts to involve the underworld in assassination attempts on Fidel Castro. All Rights Reserved. Milwaukee crime family (Baltistrieri family) Southern United States Alabama. In the mid-2000s, he would say he was a legitimate businessman, citing his ownership of a car dealership, and employment at various restaurants and night clubs over the years. A former soldier in Floridas Trafficante Mafia family was charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud and paying kickbacks in connection with a federal health care program. According to some, he was even involved in the infamous assassination of President John F. Kennedy. 2. The ethnicities of associates mentioned above become clearly evident as you scroll through the membership chart below that reflects associates first and last names. [8] As the new boss LoScalzo maintained control of criminal interests in illegal gambling, prostitution, narcotics, union racketeering, hijacking and fencing stolen goods. Not sure about what is going on in Tampa, though. Button Guys of The New York Mafia. Loscalzo maintained ties to Mafia families in California, New Jersey, and New York as well as being connected to the Sicilian Mafia. Frank Ragano and Santo Trafficante Jr. (right). Antinori took notice of Santo Trafficante and invited him into his organization and together they expanded the Bolita games across the state. In fact, Florida had the dubious distinction of being home to a decades-old Mafia criminal network: the Trafficante Family. However, by the late 1920s, facing little pressure, Sicilian gangsters began setting up lucrative gambling and narcotics rackets. Lucchese crime family 1970s nike inseason tr 9 sherwin williams match for farrow and ball pigeon. His only competitor for criminal rackets in the Tampa Bay area was Italian Mafia boss Ignacio Antinori.[2]. His new attorney general his beloved brother, Robert F. Kennedy went after organized crime with a vengeance. [2]. They raided my apartment, they were looking for money, they tore up all the furniture, they used to come and get me at nighttime, take me out in the woods, trying to tell where I had my money, this and that, until I finally went into hiding.. Lazzara was known in Ybor City as a collector of graft and a worker of rackets for various high-ups among county officials. November 25, 2007, United States House Select Committee on Assassinations, "Deitche, Scott. On July 26, 1999, at 5:01 p.m., 57-year-old Al Polito walked into Gold Coast Check Cashing, a squat, pink, concrete-block building on the corner of Margate Boulevard and U.S. 441, with an FBI microphone strapped to his body. Mamone pleaded not guilty last week and was released on bond, the Palm Beach Post reports. Powered by. Santo Sr. had Lumia killed after finding out he had been bad mouthing him while he was in Cuba. The elder Trafficante was a virtual unknown to law enforcement for most of the early 20th century. 2008, Deitche, Scott. While he had several close calls with law enforcement including the famed FBI, Late in life LoScalzo denied any connections to organized crime. With the untimely Kefauver hearings and Charlie Wall testifying in 1950, both Trafficantes fled to Cuba. Their plans ranged from simply shooting him to having him smoke poisoned cigars or drinking a tainted milkshake. 19481950 James "Head of the Elks" Lumia murdered on June 5, 1950. New York: Barricade Books. Steve Bruno Raffa (died 2000) was a capo in the Trafficante crime family who ran the family's South Florida rackets. He always wanted to make it big in Cuban casinos and dispatched his son, Santo, Jr., to Havana in 1946 to help operate a mob owned casino. Seit dem Jahr 2008 gilt die Familie als inaktiv. 7. There are tons of strip clubs around here and I figure someone has to be running those rackets. The mobster would later testify: I got news that Cuban officials were looking for to put me in jail because one of the things was that I was a Batista collaborator. The Atlantic City Conference held between 1316 May 1929 was a historic summit of leaders of organized crime in the United States. Against All Odds: Oscar Goodman and the Jimmy Chagra Murder Trial, Drug trafficker Peter Shue on coke vs. heroin, doing 21 years, Suge, Alpo, Keith Sweat, Madonna & Mike Tyson, Inside Italy's biggest Mafia trial in decades. Originally from New Jersey, Mamone got his start with the Genovese family before moving to Florida and becoming part of the Trafficante family. 2007, Weimar, Carrie. While the senior Trafficante had been a major mobster in his own right, nobody could have expected the heights that were going to be reached by his son. Peter Moruzzi/Wikimedia Commons The glamorous casino in the Hotel Nacional De Cuba in Havana in 1958. Santo Trafficante Sr. had now taken over organized crime activities in a majority of the city and started to teach his son Santo Trafficante Jr. how to run these operations. [3] Both Wall's and Antinori's organizations were weakened, leaving Santo Trafficante as one of the last and most powerful bosses in Tampa.[2]. A federal indictment named Steve Raffa, 59, of Hollywood, as the South Florida leader, or "capo," of the Tampa-based crime family once headed by Santo Trafficante Jr., who died in 1987. After a series of gangland murders, the smoke started to clear and a formal Family hierarchy was established. The activities of this crew included money laundering, racketeering, narcotics distribution, and illegal gambling. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); "Throwback: Tampa mob trail". Under pressure of a court order granting him immunity from prosecution, but threatening him with contempt if he refused to talk, Trafficante admitted to a Congressional committee in 1975 that he had in the early 1960s recruited other mobsters to assassinate Castro. Prosecutors allege 70-year-old John Mamone stole around $3.8 million by submitting phony bills to Medicare for knee, shoulder and wrist braces. Santo Jr. worked closely with Lucchese family boss Tommy Lucchese, who was a friend of his father, and a man who helped train him in the 1940s. That arrest also led Cuban authorities to become warier of the mobster, especially as the political tides seemed to be turning there. Smokes 420, sounds like you need prayer. [9] Raffa the leader of the familys Miami faction committed suicide on November 16, 2000. The Havana Conference is considered to have been the most important mob summit since the Atlantic City Conference of 1929. And as for the rest of the Trafficante Crime family? However, LoScalzo was nonetheless able to expand the families criminal reach into new locations across Florida, and took advantage of alliances with other Mafia families to ensure the mob maintained its hold on criminal activities. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Interpol, the CIA, and the FBI also say Santo Trafficante Jr. was suspected of conducting criminal activities at destinations as far-flung as Haiti, Dominican Republic, Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Vietnam, where he was suspected of setting up drug smuggling routes. Through the decades illicit rackets primarily consisted of unlicensed alcohol, narcotics smuggling and wholesale distribution, the Cuban numbers game known as Bolita, slot machines, and other forms of gambling like horse and sports bookmaking. Ioan got involved in journalism over 20 years ago and has been on the front lines of th. Batista let Trafficante and other mobsters build as many casinos and hotels as they wanted in exchange for a cash kickback. Santo Trafficante, Sr. (born May 28, 1886 in Cianciana, Sicily; died August 11, 1954, in Tampa, Florida) was a Sicilian-born mobster, and father of the powerful mobster Santo Trafficante, Jr. Santo Trafficante, Sr. first gained power as a mobster in Tampa as an associate, and later as a high-ranking member, of the Antinori crime family, helping The authorities continued to charge him with participating in illegal activities, but the aging mob boss escaped conviction each time. [8], On October 26, 2000, federal authorities arrested Steven Raffa, along with eighteen members of Trafficante family's Miami faction. After the hearings ended the Trafficantes returned to Tampa to find out that Italiano had just fled to Mexico, leaving Jimmy Lumia the biggest mobster in the city. As we head into 2020 About The Mafia takes its annual look at the current Mafia bosses and hierarchies for the remaining American Mafia families. Ed Giorandino/NY Daily News Archive via Getty ImagesSanto Trafficante arrives at Queens Supreme Court in Kew Gardens. [10], On August 5, 2008, the Tampa and New York FBI indicted John A. Some people also alleged that Trafficante Jr played a role in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy due to his anti-organized crime efforts, but Trafficante Jr. always denied it. "The Everything Mafia Book, Second Edition". So, as the popular theory goes, the mob bosses that lent a helping hand in getting Kennedy into office wanted revenge. Please enter your username or email address to reset your password. And a Godfather-like legend surrounds Tampa-born crime boss Santo Trafficante Jr., who took over the Sicilian Mafia in Florida from his father in 1954 and built a criminal empire that was the. The Trafficante crime family, also known as the Tampa Mafia, is an Italian-American Mafia crime family based in Tampa, Florida, United States. With the Kefauver hearings and Charlie Wall testifying in 1950, both Trafficantes fled to Cuba. Terms of Service, 2023Gangsters Inc. - www.gangstersinc.org [1] "Kingpin of no Kingdom: A Brandom man Denies any mafia ties". Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano came into this world on June 16, 1930, and was raised in Williamsburg, Brooklyn where he got his start as a petty thief. [5], Despite numerous unrealized ambitions, he was regarded as one of the most powerful mob bosses of the American Mafia and ruled his family with an iron fist. In his previous statements, Roselli also tied Lee Harvey Oswalds killer, Jack Ruby, to Santo Trafficante. 2008, Deitche, Scott. He was going to be hit.. [9] Raffa the leader of the familys Miami faction committed suicide on November 16, 2000. Trafficante was a ruthless mob boss, and quickly consolidated control over the criminal networks in Tampa. Trafficante remained the boss of Tampa until he died of natural causes in 1954. Among the very first mafiosi to ever set up shop in Tampa were members of the Antinori, Italiano, and Scaglione families, who were all mafiosi back in Sicily. As Jimmy Hoffas former lawyer Frank Ragano would later recall, Jimmy told me to tell [New Orleans boss Carlos] Marcello and Trafficante they had to kill the president. [3] In 1943, Antinori's two sons Paul and Joseph were convicted in Kansas City for drug dealing and sentenced to four years in prison finally ending the decade long war. Other Mafia leaders, as well as newer organized crime networks, took over many of the rackets the family ran throughout the 20th Century. 19541987 Vincent LoScalzo promoted to boss. One small gang, led by Italian immigrant Santo Trafficante Senior, profited from the illegal lottery-style games they ran across Tampa. // ]]>, Report an Issue | Meanwhile, he continued to make money from the drugs that came through Tampa. When Fidel Castro began his ascent to power in the 1950s, Santo Trafficante feared the radical Marxist revolutionary wouldnt cooperate with him. Today, Santo Trafficantes criminal legacy lives on through his nephew and namesake, Santo Trafficante III, who was charged with organized fraud in 1992. Trafficantes chance came in the 1960s when he became acquainted with mobster John Handsome Johnny Roselli. Trafficante Jr. was nonetheless a ruthless and old-school mob boss. October 16, 2006, Van Sickler, Michael. The Unbelievable Story Of Richard Lee McNair The Man Who Mailed Himself Out Of Prison, What JFK's Mob-Affiliated Mistress May Have Known About His Assassination, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. Trafficante enjoyed life in Cuba, developed a relationship with its strongman, the dictator Fulgencio Batista, and helped the Trafficante Crime family garner even more profits from its legitimate gambling operations there. 19201940 Ignacio Antinori murdered October 24, 1940. With Lumia eliminated Trafficante took over again. Jeff is welcomed today by Ioan Grillo, one of the best journalists in the game today on narcos and drug cartels. Interesting. What Kennedy didn't know was. The Lucchese crime family (pronounced [lukkeze]) is one of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia (or Cosa Nostra ). These included a contingent of native-born redneck southerners who resented the Sicilians encroaching on their perceived territory, independent Italians, Cubans, other varied Hispanics, Blacks, and White southerners. 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