In fact, Florida had the dubious distinction of being home to a decades-old Mafia criminal network: the Trafficante Family. C'est une des plus puissantes familles de la Cosa nostra amricaine aprs les Cinq familles de New York et l . And while cocaine-fueled Latin American criminal networks have been a serious problem in Florida for decades, the Trafficante familys illicit activities were quite infamous as well. The chart was made by Scott M. Deitche on his site. Santo had Lumia killed after finding out he was bad mouthing him while he was in Cuba and he took over again. Home Mafia Charts The Trafficante Family Leadership Chart. [6], Santo Jr. was deeply involved in the CIA efforts to involve the underworld in assassination attempts on Fidel Castro. The group, which went through five bosses between 1910 and 1957, is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings . Thanks for the reply. President John F. Kennedy, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Dennis Caruso/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images. . Smokes 420, sounds like you need prayer. By the 1940's he had virtually taken control of New York politics through his connections in the Democratic Part at Tammany Hall. Author Deitche has certainly done his homework. [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. After the death of Santo Jr . 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. The war between the two continued on for years, until October 23, 1940, when Ignacio Antinori was shot and killed by a shotgun blast to the head at the Palm Garden Inn in Tampa. 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. After Cuban revolution, the Mafia saw Castro as a threat to their business. 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. More importantly, Castro imprisoned Trafficante and then had him exiled from Cuba. During the early 1920s, Charlie Wall created an organized crime syndicate in Tampa, where he controlled a large number of illegal gambling rackets and corrupted many Tampa government officials through bribery. 2008, Deitche, Scott. Getting in bed with Trafficante and other leading members of Americas organized crime seems like a strange thing to do for the CIA. While the plot never came to fruition, Trafficante later testified that he did help the CIA recruit other mobsters for the surreal plot. In the early 20th Century, Tampa was a small but growing city, and the organized crime it faced was modest. 19541987 Frank Ragano he was an attorney/advisor to Santo Trafficante Jr. Among those convicted in the murder conspiracy was Frank Diecidue, identified by a U.S. Senate committee as the underboss of Tampa's Trafficante crime family. A A One of the oldest Italian crime groups to ever operate in the United States was the Santo Trafficante Family of Florida. View Santo Trafficante, Jr's genealogy profile; 10/16/2008 11/17/2020 Follow [2][1], Santo Trafficante, Jr. was born in the United States on November 15, 1914, as one of five sons of Mafia boss Santo Trafficante. "Cigar City Mafia: A Complete History of the Tampa Underworld". Santo, Jr. never spent a day in jail, and he died of natural causes in 1987. The Trafficante crime family, also known as the Tampa Mafia, is an Italian-American Mafia crime family based in Tampa, Florida, United States. Bud? There was also a smaller Italian gang in the area which was controlled by Santo Trafficante Sr., who had lived in Tampa since the age of 18. Dennis Caruso/NY Daily News Archive via Getty ImagesFrank Ragano and Santo Trafficante Jr. (right). [11]. The elder Trafficante was a virtual unknown to law enforcement for most of the early 20th century. Lazzara was killed because he was had learned inside details of the workings of an arson ring. 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. [11] Evidence from the 2004 and 2006 trials of John Alite, Ronald J. Trucchio, and Charles Carneglia connected Gotti Jr. and others to criminal operations in Tampa, Florida. He was going to be hit.. It is considered by most crime historians to be the earliest organized crime summit held in the US. "It was like World War II" he told the committee. 19871994 Frank "Daddy Frank" Diecidue longtime Tampa member; died October 19, 1994. The Trafficante Family - American Mafia History The New York mafia dominates the headlines i mafia history. Even though there's always a few people who try to ruin it. Die Bufalino-Familie wurde unter anderem mit Gewerkschaftskorruption, Flschungen . [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. Trafficante, 72, who police said headed a Tampa crime family whose activities ranged from contract killing to gambling and narcotics, died at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston following. LoScalzo controlled a much smaller family, over the years many of the older mobsters retired or died and were not replaced with new members. John"Handsome Johnny"Roselli, sometimes spelled Rosselli, was an influential mobster for the Chicago Outfit who helped that organization control Hollywood and the Las Vegas Strip. 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. [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. Gotti is allegedly a captain in the Gambino family. "The Everything Mafia Book, Second Edition". After the death of Santo Jr . Fifteen years following the assassination, Trafficante testified in front of the United States House Select Committee on the murder of JFK in exchange for immunity. Button Guys of The New York Mafia. In 1987, Vincent LoScalzo became boss of the Trafficante family and Florida was declared an open territory, meaning that the Five Families of New York City could operate in any city in Florida. [1] Harris & Ewing/Library of Commons/Wikimedia CommonsCuban leader Fulgencio Batista in Washington, D.C. in 1938. Other men of honor considered to be contemporaries included such iconic names as Santo Trafficante Sr., Alfonso Diecidue, and the Lazzara family. [1] After the death of Santo Jr. in 1987, the Tampa Mafia family has been controlled by Vincent LoScalzo. 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 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. Loscalzo has ties to California, New Jersey, and New York as well as being connected to the Sicilian Mafia. In 1953 Santo Jr. survived a shooting. Ignacio Antinori, a Sicilian-born immigrant, became a well-known drug kingpin and the Italian crime boss during the late 1920s. Today, Santo Trafficantes criminal legacy lives on through his nephew and namesake, Santo Trafficante III, who was charged with organized fraud in 1992. Deegan was part of the Bonanno crime family, and was the maternal uncle of American academic administrator Gerard T. Indelicato, who served as education advisor to Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. What was left of the family was mostly broken up over the past decade. Trafficante proceeded to open casinos in Cuba at his fathers behest and facilitated heroin smuggling by working together with famous mobsters Charles Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky. Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista in Washington, D.C. in 1938. But, there is one family who had a similar amount of success without all the bad press. He also controlled a few bars, lounges, restaurants, night clubs and liquor stores across Florida. LoScalzo's new family was smaller because many of the older mobsters were dead or retired. Santo Trafficante Jr. was a reserved, modest man married to the same woman for 49 years. The Tampa mob made a considerable amount of money in Cuba, but never achieved its ambition of making the island part of its territory. After a lifetime in organized crime, Trafficante Jr. died of national causes in 1987. He convicted infamous criminal labor union head, Jimmy Hoffa. [4] Santo was being watched closely by police and made Salvatore "Red" Italiano the acting boss. As law enforcement pressure increased on the Mafia in the late 1940s, Santo, fearing. But in January 1981, on the night of the Las Vegas function, the police raided Knights Court. The Tampa mob made a lot of money in Cuba, but never achieved its ambition of making the island part of its own territory. [3] Both Wall's and Antinori's organizations were weakened, leaving Santo Trafficante as one of the last and most powerful bosses in Tampa. [9], As of November 25, 2007, Vincent LoScalzo was in his 70's and considered a semi-retired mobster and just a "regular Joe" according to Scott Deitche, author of Cigar City Mafia. 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. LoScalzo pleaded no contest on October 7, 1997, and received three months of probation. // ]]>, Report an Issue | Antinori took notice of Santo Trafficante and invited him into his organization and together they expanded the Bolita games across the state. 2004, Deitche, Scott. Supposedly arranged by Charles "Lucky" Luciano, the conference was held to discuss important mob policies, rules, and business interests. There was also a smaller Italian gang in the area which was controlled by Santo Trafficante Sr., who had lived in Tampa since the age of 18. The Trafficante Family Under Santo Junior. [4] Santo was being watched closely by police and made Salvatore "Red" Italiano the acting boss. Trafficante was a ruthless mob boss, and quickly consolidated control over the criminal networks in Tampa. Prosecutors allege 70-year-old John Mamone stole around $3.8 million by submitting phony bills to Medicare for knee, shoulder and wrist braces. . He maintained all of the lucrative casinos in Cuba, further cemented, After Cuban revolution, the Mafia saw Castro as a threat to their business. Thomas Gaetano Lucchese, sometimes known by the nicknames "Tommy", "Thomas Luckese", "Tommy Brown" or "Tommy Three-Finger Brown" was an Italian-American gangster and founding member of the Mafia in the United States, an offshoot of the Cosa Nostra in Sicily. There are few indicators that the family is still an active crime network. Charlie Wall entered into a turf war against Italian mobster Ignacio Antinori that lasted for over ten years. As we all know, he was right, and Kennedy was assassinated by a sniper in November 1963. While he had several close calls with law enforcement including the famed FBI Donnie Brasco investigation he never spent a single day of his life in jail. [6] Trafficante Jr. had known Lucchese since the 1940s, when his father and Lucchese had trained him in the mafia traditions. Wall's closest associate, Evaristo "Tito" Rubio was shot on his porch on March 8, 1938. His two sons also face charges in this case. Members refer to the organization as the Lucchese borgata; borgata is Mafia slang for criminal gang, which itself was derived from Sicilian word meaning close-knit community. The mafiosos that made up the family are either retired, in prison, or have died due to old age. The Tampa mob made a considerable amount of money in Cuba, but never achieved its ambition of making the island part of its territory. The ethnicities of associates mentioned above become clearly evident as you scroll through the membership chart below that reflects associates first and last names. New York: Barricade Books. 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. Read the entire story about Mamones life of crime and current legal troubles written by Jane Musgrave in the Palm Beach Post. 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. The authorities continued to charge him with participating in illegal activities, but the aging mob boss escaped conviction each time. After a series of gangland murders, the smoke started to clear and a formal Family hierarchy was established. Loscalzo maintained ties to Mafia families in California, New Jersey, and New York as well as being connected to the Sicilian Mafia. Santo Trafficante then categorically denied every allegation about stating he wanted RFK or JFK dead and got off scot-free. Monday: A. He was convicted in 1999, and was sentenced to 60 days in prison. When Fidel Castro and his rogue regime seized power in the late 1950s, Trafficante returned home to the U.S. where he took full control of the Tampa borgata. The Trafficante crime family also known as the Tampa Mafia, is the only original Mafia crime family in the state of Florida. Originally from New Jersey, Mamone got his start with the Genovese family before moving to Florida and becoming part of the Trafficante family. So, as the popular theory goes, the mob bosses that lent a helping hand in getting Kennedy into office wanted revenge. 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 ). The chairman cited a confession from Roselli that Trafficantes allies organized a sharpshooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, to take out the President. This is the full chart of the Trafficante Mafia Family of Tampa, FL. The most notable boss was Santo Trafficante, Jr. who ruled Tampa and the crime family with an iron fist. Milwaukee crime family (Baltistrieri family) Southern United States Alabama. Then, check out these photos of the aftermath from some of the bloodiest mob hits. "They told me to go to the draft board and sign up." Next Tommy LaSorda & The Mob: Legendary Dodgers Baseball "Don" Kept Company With The Mafia . Trafficante Sr. had 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. // Green Rosella Victoria, When Did Christopher Rich Have A Stroke, Washington University St Louis Soccer Roster, Articles T