In the 1960 presidential election, Kennedy family patriarch Joe Kennedy Sr. used his ties to organized crime to secure votes for his son, John F. Kennedy. "[ citation needed ], In 1978, Trafficante was called to testify before the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations investigating possible links between Lee Harvey Oswald and anti-Castro Cubans, including the theory that Castro had President John F. Kennedy killed in retaliation for the CIA's attempts to assassinate Castro. Today, Santo Trafficantes criminal legacy lives on through his nephew and namesake, Santo Trafficante III, who was charged with organized fraud in 1992. His only competitor for criminal rackets in the Tampa Bay area was Italian Mafia boss Ignacio Antinori.[2]. 7 related topics. Die Bufalino-Familie (Pittston Crime Family, Scranton Wilkes-Barre Family) war eine italo-amerikanische Mafiafamilie der amerikanischen Cosa Nostra und in der nordstlichen Region von Pennsylvania, bzw. The Trafficante Family expanded their reach into North Florida cities like Orlando and Jacksonville during the late 1980s. The conviction of Diecidue, who. With the untimely Kefauver hearings and Charlie Wall testifying in 1950, both Trafficantes fled to Cuba. [9] Raffa the leader of the familys Miami faction committed suicide on November 16, 2000. He drove standard cars, lived in regular houses in quiet places, was married to the same woman, and generally described as a quiet man. He worked to expand the crime familys business holding and territory he was particularly interested in Cuba as a location for gambling, hotels and night clubs and worked to cement good ties with his fellow mobsters in New York City. The family suspected the perpetrator was Charlie Wall and consequently, in 1955, had him killed. So, as the popular theory goes, the mob bosses that lent a helping hand in getting Kennedy into office wanted revenge. 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. Santo Trafficante was wanted in 48 states by the time he was 43. The charges were later dropped and then reinstated. . [1] 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. "They told me to go to the draft board and sign up." The most notable boss was Santo Trafficante, Jr. who ruled Tampa and the crime family with an iron fist. The New Orleans family was also allied with the Tampa family going back to Santo trafficante sr.. the Tampa mob joined the Gulf coast network which was almost its own parallel national crime syndicate but in the south, its own separate cabal that operated in its own. Santo Trafficante Senior died in 1954. The weapon was detected by an X-ray scanner. The war ended in the 1940s with Ignacio Antinori being shot and killed with a sawn-off shotgun. The charges were later dropped and then reinstated. When doing a chart like this you have to mention the members of the past too. The Trafficante crime family, also known as the Tampa Mafia, is an Italian-American Mafia crime family based in Tampa, Florida, United States. Roselli was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a plot to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Hoffa said to me, This has to be done.'. [8], On October 26, 2000, federal authorities arrested Steven Raffa, along with eighteen members of Trafficante family's Miami faction. Bud? Loscalzo has ties to California, New Jersey, and New York as well as being connected to the Sicilian Mafia. Originally Posted By: DickNose_Moltasanti, Trafficante Family Chart- All in the family, Re: Trafficante Family Chart- All in the family, Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli: The Epic Story of the Making of The Godfather, http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2004-03-25/news/the-snitch/. The family reached its height of influence under bosses Silvestro Carollo and Carlos Marcello.In the 1960s, due to Marcello's stubborn refusal of inducting new members into the . Santo, Jr. never spent a day in jail, and he died of natural causes in 1987. 7. He sought treatment for stomach cancer and was ready to hand power over to a trusted lieutenant. In 2000 nineteen members of the crew were arrested and Raffa committed suicide. [1] After the death of Santo Jr. in 1987, the Tampa Mafia family has been controlled by Vincent LoScalzo. By the 1930s, Antinori and Wall were in a bloody decade-long war, which would later be known as "Era of Blood". [11] The indictment stated that Gotti Jr. along with the other men had been involved in various criminal activities in Tampa and New York during the early 2000s. Santo Sr. had Lumia killed after finding out he had been bad mouthing him while he was in Cuba. But according to declassified documents released in 1992, Santo Trafficante Jr. made a deathbed confession of his involvement in the Presidents murder. Santo Trafficante Sr. had now taken over a majority of the city and started to teach his son Santo Trafficante Jr. how to run the city. The Lucchese crime family is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, in the United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the American Mafia. The old family membership has died and the Tampa Mob has fallen into the shadows of the New York mobs. But in January 1981, on the night of the Las Vegas function, the police raided Knights Court. The family was taken over by Santo Trafficante Sr. after Antinori was murdered by rival gangster Charlie Wall in 1940, and Wall would himself be killed in 1955 by the Trafficante family. Harris & Ewing/Library of Commons/Wikimedia CommonsCuban leader Fulgencio Batista in Washington, D.C. in 1938. Trafficante accepted. By the 1930s Ignacio Antinori and Charlie Wall were in a bloody war for ten years, which would later be known as "Era of Blood". Santo Trafficante Jr. was a reserved, modest man married to the same woman for 49 years. - Listen to Episode 92: Narco Journalist Ioan Grillo by The Sit Down: A Crime History Podcast instantly on your tablet, phone or browser - no downloads needed. The Trafficante crime family also known as the Tampa Mafia, is the only original Mafia crime family in the state of Florida. See more ideas about crime family, crime, mobster. [1] During the 1950s, Trafficante Jr. maintained a narcotic trafficking network with Tommy Lucchese, the boss of the Lucchese crime family in New York City. The Atlantic City Conference held between 1316 May 1929 was a historic summit of leaders of organized crime in the United States. Alongside Chicago boss Sam Giancana, Roselli and Trafficante came up with some truly insane plots to kill Fidel Castro. Santo, Jr. never spent a day in jail, and he died of natural causes in 1987. Deegan grew up in Boston's West End and became what many true crime authors and criminologists, such as Emily Sweeney, describe as a "career . 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. 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. Chronicles of Events and Biographies Related to the American Mafia. Interestingly, Trafficante who was worth about $25 billion at his height in the '80s lived a fairly reserved, modest lifestyle. In fact, Florida had the dubious distinction of being home to a decades-old Mafia criminal network: the Trafficante Family. He headed the Trafficante crime family and controlled organized criminal operations in Florida and Cuba, which had previously been consolidated from several rival gangs by his father, Santo Trafficante Sr. But once Kennedy actually entered the White House, he didnt live up to his end of the bargain. While the plot never came to fruition, Trafficante later testified that he did help the CIA recruit other mobsters for the surreal plot. [citation needed] "It was like World War II" he told the committee. The Italiano faction in Tampa found the situation intolerable. What Kennedy didn't know was. [6], Santo Jr. was deeply involved in the CIA efforts to involve the underworld in assassination attempts on Fidel Castro. The Trafficante family of Florida. "The Mob" April 26, 2001", "Witness denies assassination, Cuba tied", "Entire John "Junior" Gotti Tampa Gambino Crime Family Indictment", "The American Mafia - Tampa Crime Bosses", "FLORIDA MAFIA FIGURE "BIG SAM" CAROLLO GONE AT 83, ONE OF THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS IN TRAFFICANTE CLAN", "Old Florida Mafia Looses Veteran Shot Caller To Father Time, Alleged Tampa Mobster Jimmy Valenti Dies At 91", Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia, Rick Porrello's American Mafia: Tampa, Florida, Dieland Mob: The Trafficante Family (Tampa), American Gangland:Trafficante Crime Family, List of Italian-American mobsters by organization, Collaborations between the United States government and Italian Mafia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Trafficante_crime_family&oldid=1137461244, Italian-American culture in Tampa, Florida, Pages using infobox criminal organization with ethnicity or ethnic makeup parameters, Pages using infobox criminal organization with rivals parameter, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2015, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); [8] As the new boss LoScalzo maintained control of criminal interests in illegal gambling, prostitution, narcotics, union racketeering, hijacking and fencing stolen goods. He was killed, beaten with a baseball bat, and his throat slit, on April 18, 1955. 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. Santo Trafficante Sr. was a Sicilian-born mobster, and father of the powerful mobster Santo Trafficante Jr. Santo Trafficante Jr. was among the most powerful Mafia bosses in the United States. Two decades ago, Mamone left his life in the mafia behind and entered the Witness Protection Program after taking a federal racketeering pinch. Other Mafia leaders, as well as newer organized crime networks, took over many of the rackets the family ran throughout the 20th Century. August 12, 1993 Trafficante Legacy Sunday: A native Sicilian whose father was a "ranking" mobster allegedly controls a third generation of the so-called Trafficante crime family. By just glancing at those numbers it makes a lot of modern day family rackets look like a joke. Terms of Service, 2023Gangsters Inc. - www.gangstersinc.org Antinori took notice of Santo Trafficante and invited him into his organization and together they expanded the Bolita games across the state. New York: Barricade Books. Other men of honor considered to be contemporaries included such iconic names as Santo Trafficante Sr., Alfonso Diecidue, and the Lazzara family. New York: Barricade Books. LoScalzo plead no contest on October 7, 1997 and received three months of probation. Wikimedia CommonsPresident John F. Kennedy, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. 1. He also controlled a few bars, lounges, restaurants, night clubs and liquor stores across Florida. Many of the familys gangsters were in prison, or too old to be effective. He was going to be hit.. The CIA came to Trafficante, and asked for his help in enlisting the Mafia to assassinate the Cuban leader. The family suspected the perpetrator was Charlie Wall and consequently, in 1955, had him killed. The old family membership has died and the Tampa Mob has fallen in the shadows of the NYC mobs. This is good money for not a big crew, I'm going to Google some stuff, see if I can find this indictment. The Trafficante crime family, also known as the Tampa Mafia, is an Italian-American Mafia crime family based in Tampa, Florida, United States. 19201940 Ignacio Antinori murdered October 24, 1940. LoScalzo controlled a much smaller family, over the years many of the older mobsters retired or died and were not replaced with new members. 1954 - Santo Trafficante, Jr., (Nov. 15, 1914, to March 17, 1987), became Tampa Mafia boss upon the death of his father. Jeff is welcomed today by Ioan Grillo, one of the best journalists in the game today on narcos and drug cartels. // How Many Times Did Michael Jordan Get Injured, Articles T