Santo Trafficante, Jr.

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 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 authorize the 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.

Trafficante, along with Carlos Marcello, mob boss of New Orleans in the '50s and '60s, and Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa, have also been linked to the assassination of JFK. While there has never been any substantial proof that these three even conspired to assassinate JFK, the rumor has persisted.

He 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.

External links

• US Treasury Department (http://cuban-exile.com/doc_126-150/doc0126.htm) memo on Trafficante
• Associated Press report on Trafficante's death (http://www.laborers.org/AP_Trafficante_3-19-87.html)
• Short history of the Mafia in Tampa (http://www.americanmafia.com/Cities/Tampa.html)

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.

It is also believed that Trafficante became involved in Mafia plots to kill President John F. Kennedy. He told a friend, Jose Aleman: "Mark my word, this man Kennedy is in trouble, and he will get what is coming to him. Kennedy's got going to make it to the election. He is going to be hit."

Just before Kennedy was assassinated on 22nd November, 1963, Jack Ruby made contact with Trafficante, and another Mafia leader, Carlos Marcello, about a problem he was having with the American Guild of Variety Artists (AGVA). However, the Warren Commission failed to find any direct link between Trafficante and Ruby concluded that "Oswald acted alone".

Trafficante continued to work for the CIA and was involved in the Iran-Contra affair.

Santos Trafficante died on the 19th March, 1987.

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.