Don't recall Valachi saying that. Valachi's reason for Costello's murder attempt was to permanently get him out of the way and have guys respect Genovese as boss. It's right in the Valachi Papers, he says even while Genovese was the official force on the street, and Costello began to fall back into a forced retirement, guys were still meeting with Costello and asking him for advice on specific matters, when Genovese was at that point known as the true boss. So he wanted him whacked.

Thanks Ivy. I don't know how true is this but once I read somewhere that the Chicago Outfit was in close connection, if not under the jurisdiction of the Genovese crime family in the narcotics business, especially during the Ricca and Giancana eras. Ricca was close to Luciano and according to numerous fbi surveillances Giancana was close to Eboli and Catena and also to Tommy Lucchese and his guys like Tramunti and Ormento.

I'll add that the Mexico link goes back to the 40s, Costa nostra sent Virginia Hill there to manage the narcotics traffic..
In 1942-43, Luchesse, LAnsky and Costello financed a ring importing opium from Mexico, had their own heroin refinery in New York, but it didn't last long, maybe three years...
There is a theory in The Strength Of The Wolf, that Busgsy was hit because he tried to muscle into the mobs CIA protected Mexican-west coast drug operation....
Here is one link, but the book is better...
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/05/25/cosa-nostra-smuggled-mexican-drugs-post-war-period/
In the late 50s-60s, I would say yes, the Outfit got narcotics from the Luciano connect, something that was always unclear to me was whether or not Genovese had his OWN direct connect to the Corsicans, or if LUciano exerted greater and greater control...
The Mexican connect would have been crucial, because it would have given Chicago more autonomy, less dependence on the French connect, plus Chicago was, someone correct me if I'm wrong, but they weren't really connected in Sicily like that, so having their own source of supply would have been an attractive alternative...

You start to delve into this topic, and trust me, it takes you to some strange places...

This link has a lot of excerpts from the book, The Strength Of The Wolf....
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/SomeUnknownUSHistory/conversations/topics/93

The heroin that came from Mexico didnt had the same quality as the the one that came from Turkey or China through France or Sicily. The heroin that the New York and Detriot mobsters received was more pure and stronger.From my experience, i imagine that the Chinese heroin(previously processed) was white and the Mexican heroin was brownish, which indicates that it was previously mixed with other stuff. The pureness of the narcotic makes the better quality and higher profits on the black market, because they had the chance to mix it by themselves and make bigger amounts for the sale.

Also dont forget that Luciano wasnt the only mob boss exiled in Italy.He was accompanied by mobsters from other cities such as Chicago's Dominic Roberto the boss of the Chicago Heights.

There's even an existing picture of Outfit guys Jim Emery, Dominic Roberto & Lucky Luciano directly behind each other at some race track in Italy. Roberto & Luciano reportedly dealt with each other a lot during their exile.

Thats right SinatraClub.

Heres the photo...


Jim Emery,Dominic Roberto and Charles Luciano

This photo was taken from Matthew Luzi's Chicago Heights Mafia book.

Oh, for sure, the black tar being inferior quality is common knowledge, it just shows the lengths these guys went to in order to secure their own supply, and hence independence...
This Time period, was like In between the Chinese connection and the French/Sicilian connection, so you could say Mexico was a placeholder, so to speak...
You had Frank Coppola in Mexico as well, managing a pipeline, Giancana had interest there as well...
My thinking is Mexico was so corrupt, the border so accessible, and the heroin so cheap, that it while not measuring up to the number 4 or China white, would still be very profitable, and having control over your own supply is always attractive..
It's like take the Luchesses in the 40s, they got pure dope from Detroit, most likely not even stepped on, yet it didn't stop them from trying to set up their own supply line from Mexico, which undoubtedly was of lesser quality, control is a big thing...

That's actually something I always wondered, what is it in the Mexican poppies that make the heroin brown?

http://www.talkingdrugs.org/the-many-faces-of-heroin


The quality of the heroin depends not on the opium poppies but of the process in the making of the heroin.The Asian heroin is usually white, powdered, highly water soluble and acidic and more pure as for the Mexican heroin is dark brown to black, solid, vaporisable, of lower purity and despite its acidity, requires heat to go into aqueous solution. The heroin purity has limits by form like the black tar heroin(Mexican) seems its about 25–30% pure, which has a purity limit based on manufacturing, as for the China white it may go up to 80% pureness.

As additional info, during the Giancana era, the Chicago Outfit was smuggling raw opium from the Philippines with the help of Hyman Larner. Also according to numerous fbi files, Richard Scalzetti aka Dick Cain was sent to Madrid, Spain to establish contacts with heroin dealers and to arrange heroin shipments from Madrid to the U.S. Giancana also had two more associates in the heroin business, Sam Canzoneri also known as Sammy C and Dominic Santarelli.Sammy C was a former narcotics agent. They brought the heroin through the Miami area.

Also another point on the dynamics of drugs, if you control a majority of distribution, quality doesn't matter as much.
It's why you need pure supply to control something like NewYork, it's too big to control all distribution on a street level, but you can do it if you control supply.
That was the Luchesses strength at first, they had I believe the biggest Italian controlled open air drug market, but as the demographic of Harlem became more Hispanic, they got their supply line in order with the French Connection, and made money wholesaling.
This dynamic was demonstrated really well on the show The Wire...
Basically I'm saying in Chicago, they had no competion, so whether the dope is 70% or 90%, it you wanted to sell dope, you had da take what they had...

Thats absolutely right. But the thing was that the Outfit never had their own members or high profile associates as street dealers, so if the guys that dealt heroin on the streets of Chicago wanted a high quality heroin they supplied it from other cities. So to me it seems that Giancana always tried to find his own source with high quality narcotics so their black market wont depend on the other crime families.

But the biggest mistake that the Italian Mafia in the U.S. made was that they sold the heroin in pure form and they didnt had their own street dealers. So the street gangs, like the black gangsters, bought it and then mixed it and made bigger ammounts of the drug and also made more money then the suppliers themselves. The street gangs made millions and so they found their own sources and became more powerfull than the cosa nostra families in the narcotics business around the U.S. The Chicago Outfit extorted unions, legitimate business, gamblers and pimps, they rarely, if ever, extorted drug dealers and never had total control over the narco biz in their own city.

Yeah, it seems the Outfit did their calculations, and figured they would simply take a cut of the action, instead of trying to control it all; Chicago is a transit hub, and big local market, it seems they took advantage of those strengths..
The thing with Larner and Southeast Asia is very interesting isn't it? Looks like they took advantage of the connection to Luciano,but were determined to not be dependent on him, and just bypassed the Sicilian/French connection.Think about it, Detroit is not far from Chicago. They coulda just got it from there right? But then what happens is slowly, over time is another crime syndicate takes more and more power. It's like they would rather have 100% control of lesser quality dope, than say 50% control of better dope.
Also the scenario your described, where the distributor gets more power is a perfect explanation of what happens not just I the mafia, but drug syndicates in general, great example is the DiLauro- Amato war in Naples..

“The sums Di Lauro’s managers turned over were still astronomical, but getting progressively smaller. Over the long term this sort of practice would strengthen some and weaken others, and eventually—as soon as a group gathered enough organizational and military force—they’d give Paolo Di Lauro the shove. Not just some stiff competition, but the big shove, the one you don’t get up from, a shove with lead in it. So Cosimo ordered everyone be put on salary. He wanted them all to depend on him. The decision ran counter to his father’s ways, but it was necessary to protect his business, his authority, his family. No more loose ties, with everyone free to decide how much to invest, what type and quality of drugs to put on the market. No more liberty and autonomy within a multilevel corporation. Salaried employees. Some were saying 50,000 euros a month. An extraordinary amount, but a salary nevertheless. A subordinate role. The end of the entrepreneurial dream, replaced by a manager’s job. And the administrative revolution didn’t end there. Informants testify that Cosimo also imposed a generational turnover. Immediate rejuvenation”

Excerpt From: Roberto Saviano & Virginia Jewiss. “Gomorrah.” Picador, 2007. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itun.es/us/
The point I always make, is that no real gangster is going to accept a subordinate role like that, it's why I get confused when people think Luciano was all powerful. It's like when he is in Italy his power is directly proportionate to his ability to supply families with dope. Now what happens if a family gets their own supply? Would you still need him?

One interesting thing Toodoped, in the Book Strength of the Wolf, it said that Genovese was importing Puerto Rican immigrants into the Bronx and Harlem to move dope for him, I'm guessing this is when the 107th street mob started to lose ground in Harlem to Puerto Ricans. So it wasn't for lack of trying that they didn't have their street dealers. I've read that's what brought Genovese to primacy in NewYorks drug trade in the 60s, he had the best distribution cause the west side had the midtown nightlife scene sewn up, all the hottest clubs to run junk out of...

Hy Larner was the Outfit's "secret agent" and one of the best and elusive international gangsters that the U.S. mob ever produced. He was the main smuggler and financial brain behind the Outfit's activities. Larner smuggled almost everything in and out of Cuba, South America, Europe and even South Korea since the early 50’s. He often changed names,invested in airplane companies and smuggled everything from slot machines to narcotics and weapons. When he left the states he became even more powerful. I remember reading in some FBI document, when Aiuppa became boss he had a hard time in finding replacement for Larner.Larner spent most of his time in Panama and attended his gambling boats in the Carribean so his underling Tommy Russo became his voice in Chicago. Besides gambling, Larner's boats in the Carribean were also fronts for narcotics operations and when i said that at first Aiuppa stayed open minded for the sale of narcotics, i ment that he was financing the drug operations out of desperation in view of the drastic fall of their sources of illegal income such as handbook operations and also juice operations during that period. But the real boss of Larner was Gus Alex and he opposed drugs and thats why Larner's operations fell on smuggling only slot machines and later video poker machines.

Also thanks for the examples and ill try to order " Strength of the Wolf" book because it sounds quite interesting.

But the biggest mistake those street gangs made was probably buying from the mafia in the first place. Your supplier is a confidential informant.

@ CabriniGreen & @TooDoped

I think y'all are forgetting Frank Matthews & Ike Atlinson also was alternative sources for heroin since undoubted they had contacts in the Windy City. No doubt that some of the street organizations got their supplies from them but also through the Nigerians and Chinese/Asians too. The Heroin era of the 70s resulted in peak homicides in major Midwest cities. Everybody recall Chicago hit its peak homicides in 1974 and Detroit in the same year too.

Nobody had the manpower to control all of the drug trade in the country. There was too much money involved, so blood would be flowing in the streets.

You will enjoy it a lot, and by the way, and I feel like an asshole cause it's so long after the fact, but GREAT fuckin article on Teets Battaglia...
If someone wanted to write a book, I'm not sure they coulda done a better job...

For sure Black Fam, I consider that time period the" Era of the independents" so to speak...
It's after the breakdown of the French Connection, but before the Sicilian Pizza connection and before the cocaine explosion, the Superfly era lol..

There's another piece of information i came across in an article or book. It state that the New Orleans family began to step away from the drug trade around the 50s and the Black traffickers fill the void. They would travel up to Chicago for the connect and their was kingpins by the 60s in the big easy.

@Black Fam you're absolutely right.Matthews was the rare example of independency. I dont know much about him but i read that at first he also tried to get with the Italian mob but he was turned down. Is that true?

@mulberry you're right about that, the Italian mob didnt provide the manpower to completely takeover the narco racket and thats why they only worked as wholesalers.

@cabrinigreen thanks a lot man. Im also writing another article on Gus Alex but its going slow a little bit

Toodoped,

Yes.Matthews was seeking financial backing to get a start in the drug racket and was decline. He started out in the Bed-Stuy area in numbers racket and later switch to drug trafficking. Thanks to his latino friend he was able to get the financial start up and build an empire within 5 years (69-73). No doubt he had an effect on the drug market in Chicago but not a monopoly.

No doubt Alfa, the biggest irony is how the drug trade is now popularly referred to as the "TRAP"' no better description...

@BlackFam thanks for the info.

@Alfa nicely said but the street gangs didnt had much choices back then(1950's untill mid 1960's) since the Italian mob was one the biggest, if not the only one, dope importer in the country