Fidel Castro and the Mob

The rise of Fidel Castor in 1959 directly led to the fall of the mafia in Havana. In 2022, I wrote a short read titled, “Castro and the Mob” detailing the rise to power of the communist dictator and the end of the American mafia influence in Cuba. The island nation has suffered over sixty years of communist oppression while Castro and his cronies stole the country for themselves. Fulgencio Batista was a corrupt dictator but he did not nationalize properties or businesses like Castro did. There is saying, better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know and this is a perfect example. Mafia types like Santo Trafficante Jr. and Meyer Lansky lost everything and never returned to Havana. This is an excerpt from my short book titled, “Castro and the Mob” exclusively on Amazon.

Trafficante crime family had been operating in Cuba since the late 1940s under Santo Trafficante Sr, the mob boss in Tampa, Florida. Santo Trafficante Jr. took over operations after his father’s death in 1954. Trafficante openly operated the Sans Souci Cabaret and the Casino International gambling establishment in Havana and had other financial interests in syndicate owned Cuban casinos: The Hotel Habana Riviera, the Tropicana Club, the Sevilla-Biltmore, the Capri Hotel Casino, the Commodoro, the Deauville and the Havana Hilton. In 1957, Trafficante along with 60 other mobsters were arrested at the Apalachin Mafia boss meeting in New York. Cuba was a main topic of interest at the meeting particularly the gambling and narcotics operations on the island. In January 1958, Cuban authorities questioned Trafficante…