The Trafficante Mafia Dynasty

Florida's Crime Family

Based in Tampa, Florida, the Trafficante mob family had its roots in Sicily and became a major outfit through illegal gambling, drug trafficking, and all the other nefarious activities of organized crime.

Never mind the bad smell coming from the group, the U.S. government sought its help in dealing with Cuba's Fidel Castro.

Santo Trafficante Senior and the Era of Blood

Born in Cianciana, Sicily, Trafficante arrived at Ellis Island at the start of the 20th century. Just 15 years old, he headed for Tampa where people from his hometown had already settled.

It's not clear how long it took Trafficante to get into the illegal bolita gambling business but he was spotted as a useful recruit by mob kingpin Ignacio Antinori.

Also a Sicilian, Antinori was doing very well in bootlegging and the heroin trade. Trafficante merged his growing enterprise with Antinori's. But, there was another player.

Charlie Wall, known as “The White Shadow,” was a violent man who had built his crime network in Tampa, and he didn't much like sharing the territory with the upstart Sicilians.

Tampa Bay Times reporter Paul Guzzo writes that Wall “fixed countless elections in Tampa for over three decades ... He turned Tampa into the Southern version of the Wild West, with whorehouses and gambling parlors on every corner in Ybor City and West Tampa and shootouts in broad daylight. He owned politicians, law enforcement officials, and judges.”

Antinori and Wall were competing in the same marketplace and neither man was keen on the concept of sharing. Weapons were drawn. Throughout the 1930s, bodies piled up in what became known as “The Era of Blood.”

The violence weakened both organizations and, in October 1943, Ignacio Antinori took a fatal shotgun blast to the head.

Santo Trafficante Sr. emerged from the bloodshed as the last boss standing. He pushed the aging and drug-addled Wall aside with a promise to protect him as long as he stayed out of the rackets and kept his mouth shut.

The Trafficante Succession

The tolerance of Mafia operations in the United States began to wear thin in the early 1950s and mob bosses were finding it more difficult to bribe police, judges, and politicians; not impossible, just more difficult.

In the winter of 1951-52 Senator Estes Kefauver began hearings into organized crime. Charlie Wall was called to testify and he sang like a bird. He told the committee all about the inner workings of the Florida Mafia.

To avoid testifying, Santo Trafficante Sr., and his son Santo Jr., decided to move to Cuba where they had already established criminal enterprises. The corrupt government of President Fulgencio Batista was happy to welcome the Trafficantes, as long as he got a percentage of the profits.

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When the Kefauver hearings came to an end, the Trafficantes returned to Tampa to re-establish control of the city's crime while keeping control of their operations in Cuba. In 1954, Trafficante Sr., died of stomach cancer and his son succeeded him;

In April 1955, Wall was found dead in his home. His throat had been slit, his head bashed in, birdseed had been scattered on his body, and a copy of Kefauver's book, Crime in America, that contained Wall's testimony, was nearby. The murder remains unsolved but it's very likely Santo Jr., was behind it.

Santo Trafficante Junior: The Silent Don

Santo Jr., soon acquired the nickname of “The Silent Don,” and, as comedian George Carlin wisely observed, “It's the quiet ones you gotta watch.”

He lived modestly in an ordinary house, drove standard cars, and never splashed his immense wealth around. But, he was utterly ruthless in protecting his crooked businesses.

Federal and state authorities knew Santo Jr. was a powerful gangster and he was indicted several times, but the charges never stuck. He was one of those people who frequently break the law and always seem to get away with it.

He formed alliances with major Mafia figures such as Meyer Lansky, Charles “Lucky” Luciano, and Sam Giancana of the Chicago Outfit. Together, they ran the highly profitable gambling, drug smuggling, and money-laundering operations in Cuba.

Part of their network included the French Connection of Jean Jehan that controlled almost all the heroin shipped into the United States

Havana was the go-to destination for U.S. tourists who fancied games of chance, compliant girls, and mind-altering substances, and Santo Trafficante Jr. was in charge of it all.

In 1959, the Trafficante mob suffered a major setback when Fidel Castro's revolution overthrew the Batista regime. The new dictator wanted nothing to do with Trafficante's casinos, hotels, and drug-trafficking businesses and shut them down.

Were Trafficante and the rest of La Cosa Nostra going to accept that quietly?

The Mob and the CIA

Trafficante was not the only entity unhappy with having a Communist dictator operating 90 miles from Florida. The U.S. government was disturbed and the job of dealing with the problem was what the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had been created for, although not officially.

This is where we meet John “Handsome Johnny” Roselli, a criminal attached to the Chicago Outfit. He was recruited by the CIA to try to engage organized crime in a plot to assassinate Castro.

Of course, Roselli called on Trafficante to sound him out on joining an effort to exact revenge on Castro. Trafficante expressed eager interest, but then the whole thing descended into farce.

Trafficante and Roselli brainstormed, although that doesn't seem to be the right word, ways of killing Castro.

One plot involved sneaking poisoned cigars into the Cuban dictator's humidor. Putting lethal additives into milkshakes was another idea. Then, there was the plan to somehow get him into a wetsuit laced with toxins and getting him close to an exploding seashell. They even considered simply having a sniper take him out with a high-powered rifle. Perhaps, that was too complicated.

None of these bizarre plots came to anything and when the Bay of Pigs invasion failed spectacularly, the CIA shelved its Castro assassination schemes.

In August 1976, Johnny Roselli's body was found in a 55-gallon drum bobbing on the waves of Dumfoundling Bay near Miami, Florida. There's no suggestion Castro had anything to do with that.

Trafficante and John F. Kennedy

In August 1962, Santo Trafficante Jr. told a CIA agent, “Kennedy’s not going to make it to the (1964) election—he’s going to be hit.” This quotation appears in a Time Magazine article that asks the question: “Did the Mob Kill J.F.K.?”

Certainly, the Mafia had plenty of reasons for wanting Kennedy removed from office. His disastrous Bay of Pigs attack had failed to remove Castro from power and return the mob to control of crime in Cuba.

In addition, JFK's brother Robert, as attorney-general, had aggressively prosecuted organized crime bosses. That same Time article quotes mafiosi Carlos Marcello as saying, “You know what they say in Sicily: if you want to kill a dog, you don’t cut off the tail, you cut off the head.”

And, here comes Mafia lawyer Frank Ragano, who represented Santo Trafficante Jr. and Carlos Marcello.

In his autobiography, Mob Lawyer, Ragano wrote that Trafficante and Marcello were the organizers of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

He quotes Trafficante as saying four days before his death in March 1987 that “Carlos screwed up. We shouldn't have killed John. We should have killed Bobby.”

Bonus Factoids

• Vincent LoScalzo, 87, is said to lead the remnants of the Trafficante family, but it's a shadow of its former self. New York's Genovese family appears to now have a presence in Florida.
• The first known Mafia incident in America was the killing of the New Orleans Police Superintendent David C. Hennessy in 1890. The murder was blamed on Sicilian immigrants and 19 members of the community were arrested and tried. They were acquitted amid allegations of witness tampering and bribery. The citizens of New Orleans took a dim view of the trial and lynched 11 of the defendants. The killing of Superintendent Hennessy has never been proved beyond doubt to have been the work of Sicilian Mafia members.
• Until 1970, it was enormously difficult for authorities to get convictions against Mafia bosses; the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act changed that. This made it possible for top mafiosi to be prosecuted for the actions of their henchmen. Dozens of senior Mafia figures have since been convicted and imprisoned.
• A fully initiated Mafia member is called a “made man,” and he must be at least the son of an Italian father. Women are not permitted into the club.

Sources

• “The Devil Looks After His Own.” Paul Guzzo, tampamafia.com, November 1, 2011.
• “Santo Trafficante Sr., a ‘Sicilian of the Old School,’ Ruled Tampa’s Underworld for More Than a Decade.” Scott M. Deitche, themobmuseum.org, August 9, 2019.
• “Santo Trafficante Jr.: The Power Behind the Throne.” Mike Dickson, americanmafiahistory.com, July 16, 2024.
• “Santo Trafficante: Building the Family Business.” Ron Chepesiuk, gangstersinc.org, November 16, 2014.
• “Meet Santo Trafficante: The ‘Silent Don’ Who Tried to Kill Fidel Castro and May Have Ordered JFK’s Assassination.” Carly Silver, allthatsinteresting.com, February 21, 2024.
• “CIA Reveals Scandalous 'Family Jewels.' ” David Martin, CBS News, June 26, 2007.
• “The Assassination: Did the Mob Kill J.F.K.?” Ed Magnuson, Time, June 21, 2007.

This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.

© 2024 Rupert Taylor