Santo Trafficante
From The Kennedy Assassination Resource
Santo Trafficante, Jr.
One of the last of the old-time Mafia bosses in the US. 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.
Trafficante was born in Tampa, Florida to Sicilian parents. 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.
Fidel Castro's revolutionary government seized the assets of his Cuban businesses and expelled him from the country as an "undesirable alien".
In September 1960 John Roselli and Sam Giancana, took part in talks with Allen Dulles 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.
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.
Santo Trafficante died on the 19th March, 1987 in a Houston Hospital.
