Santo Trafficante, Jr.
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Santo Trafficante, Jr. (November 15, 1914 - March 17, 1987) was one of the last of the old-time Mafia bosses in the United States. He controlled organized criminal operations in Florida, which had previously been consolidated from several rival gangs by his father, Santo Trafficante, Sr. He was also reputedly the most powerful mafioso in Batista-era Cuba. Trafficante maintained links to the Bonanno family in New York, but was more closely allied with Sam Giancana in Chicago. Subsequently, while generally recognized as the most powerful organized crime figure in Florida throughout much of the 20th century, Trafficante was not believed to have total control over Miami, Miami Beach, Ft. Lauderdale, and Palm Beach. The east coast of Florida was a loosely knit conglomerate of New York family interests with obvious links to Meyer Lansky, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, Carlos Marcello, Leo Stein, Louis Baloff, Frank Ragano, and other figures. To this day, control of Florida by organized crime is likely divided between Chicago, New Orleans, New York, and international organized crime interests. The Trafficante family was also notorius for creating the language known in the old mafia days as "TAMPAN". TAMPAN was a language of an Italian/Spanish dialect. It was spoken mainly by the mobb because the police could not understand the language when they tapped into the mobsters phone lines.
Trafficante was born in Tampa, Florida to Sicilian parents Santo Trafficante, Sr. and his wife Maria Giuseppa Cacciatore in 1914. He maintained several houses in Tampa and Miami, and also frequented Havana, Cuba (while Batista was in power), and New York City.
Treasury Department documents indicate that law enforcement believed Trafficante's legitimate business interests to include several legal casinos in Cuba; a Havana drive-in movie theatre; and shares in the Columbia Restaurant and several other restaurants and bars in Tampa. He was rumoured to be part of a Mafia syndicate which owned many other Cuban hotels and casinos. As one of the most powerful mobsters in the U.S., Trafficante was invited to the Havana Conference in December, 1946.
Trafficante was arrested frequently throughout the 1950s on various charges of bribery and of running illegal bolita lotteries in Tampa's Ybor City district. He escaped conviction all but once, receiving a five year sentence in 1954 for bribery, but his conviction was overturned by the Florida State Supreme Court before he entered prison.
Trafficante was arrested in 1957 along with 56 other mobsters at an apparent underworld convention in Apalachin, New York. Charges were later dropped, though authorities believe the meeting was set up, among other things, to fill the power vacuum created by the recent assassination of Murder, Inc. head Albert Anastasia. Trafficante later denied knowledge of the circumstances of Anastasia's death.
After Fidel Castro's revolutionary government seized the assets of his Cuban businesses and expelled him from the country as an "undesirable alien", Trafficante reportedly came into contact with various CIA operatives, and was reportedly involved in several unsuccessful plans to assassinate Castro.
Suspicions that Trafficante. along with Carlos Marcello, mob boss of New Orleans in the 1950s and '60s, and Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa, was involved in some way with the John F. Kennedy assassination have been voiced, but government investigations have found no convincing link. José Aleman told the House Select Committee on Assassinations that Trafficante told him in 1962 that Kennedy was "going to be hit" and that he reported this information to the FBI, but FBI records contain no evidence of Aleman telling them this. The HSCA rejected Aleman's testimony, citing "substantial factors that called into question the validity of Aleman's account".
Trafficante is rumoured to have had interests in narcotics trafficking, and is believed to have set up several drug smuggling routes from South America and Southeast Asia to the United States.
Trafficante was summoned to court in 1986 and questioned about his involvement with the King's Court nightclub operated by members of the Bonanno family from New York, including undercover FBI agent Joe Pistone, alias Donnie Brasco. Trafficante again escaped conviction.
Trafficante's health had declined in his older years, and he died in Houston, Texas, where he had gone for heart surgery, in 1987.
To be merged
Santo Trafficante was born in Tampa, Florida, on 15th November, 1914. His father, Santo Trafficante Senior, was a leading figure in the Mafia. In the 1940s he joined up with Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, and Meyer Lansky to set up gambling operations in Cuba. The dictator of Cuba, Fulgencio Batista, received a large cut of the profits.
Santo Trafficante married Josephine Marchese on 17th April, 1938. He worked for his father in Florida and in 1953 he was sent to Cuba to manage some Mafia controlled casinos. Trafficante took full control of these operations when his father died of stomach cancer in August, 1954.
Trafficante also spent time in Florida. This resulted in his arrest and conviction for gambling offences. He was released from prison in January 1957 after his conviction was overturned by Florida's State Supreme Court. It is believed that soon afterwards Trafficante arranged for Albert Anastasia, his Mafia rival, to be murdered.
Trafficante returned to Cuba but his casinos were closed down when Fidel Castro overthrew Fulgencio Batista in January, 1959. Trafficante spent time in prison before being deported to the United States.
In September 1960 Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana, took part in talks with Allen W. Dulles, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), about the possibility of murdering Fidel Castro. In 1961 Roselli persuaded Trafficante to join the conspiracy. Meyer Lansky also became involved in this plot and was reportedly offering a million-dollar reward for the Cuban leader's murder.
Trafficante also worked closely with the CIA agent, William Harvey, in this operation. By 1962, Trafficante and his friends became convinced that the Cuban revolution could not be reversed by simply killing Castro. However, they continued to play along with this CIA plot in order to prevent them being prosecuted for criminal offences committed in the United States.
Trafficante continued to work for the CIA and was involved in the Iran-Contra affair.
Santos Trafficante died on the 19th March, 1987 in a Houston Hospital.
On 14th January, 1992, the New York Post claimed that Trafficante, Jimmy Hoffa and Carlos Marcello had all been involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Frank Ragano was quoted as saying that at the beginning of 1963 Hoffa had told him to take a message to Trafficante and Marcello concerning a plan to kill Kennedy. When the meeting took place at the Royal Orleans Hotel, Ragano told the men: "You won't believe what Hoffa wants me to tell you. Jimmy wants you to kill the president." He reported that both men gave the impression that they intended to carry out this order.
Books
- Cigar City Mafia : A Complete History of the Tampa Underworld (2004), Scott M. Deitche, Barricade Books ISBN 1569802661
External links
- [US Treasury Department] memo on Trafficante
- [Associated Press report on Trafficante's death]
- [Short history of the Mafia in Tampa]
- [link]Tampa Mafia
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