First off, this is a good thread.....

@ Sonny

+1 Spot on, I agree with all that....

@ MightyDR

+1 to that as well, that book is in my opinion kinda underrated, people kinda get into their feelings about it. But there is a consistent pattern to the Narcotics denials that often goes overlooked, I'll come back to that though....

@ Binnie

You know the membership thing always struck me as weird. What happened to all these guys? I was always struck by the Goodfellas scene, " He bought his fuckin button!!" Like, what did they DO with all these guys who bought their way in? Especially since, it would be kinda clear cut the guys that actually did this...

Carlo contracted Biondo, and Biondo contracted the Armones, and Grammauta? For what I understand, Biondo was the guy Carlo sent to talk to Luciano in Italy, until he fucked up in the late sixties and from the looks of it Paolo Gambino took over. The hit on Anastasia seems to have been his audition for Underboss.


What about Scalice? You guys heard the theory that he was moving junk through Chicago with Anastasia, without permission? I've never seen anything really to substantiate it, but thought I would mention it.... Especially cause he was an Anastasia rival, and there is this from one of my favorite books...

“Genovese’s narcotics connections reportedly enabled Mussolini 's son-in-law to fly opium out of Turkey to refiners in Milan. The heroin was then flown to Mediterranean ports on Italian Air Force planes and routed by Genovese to Nicolo Impostato, an assassin from Kansas City who had replaced Nick Gentile, then in Italy assisting Genovese and Poletti, as general manager of the American Mafia’s national drug syndicate....

Genovese runs an operation through Kansas City? A Chicago Ally? With Luciano's permission? Or no? In concert with Costello, or no? THE FACTIONS MAN... There were definitely factions in LCN...... ( I can't wait to read Toodopeds report on this stuff..)



I mention all this because of this.......also from the same book

“Three other timely developments helped Gaffney and the New York office wage the FBN’s most successful campaign ever. The first was Albert Anastasia’s suicidal attempt to muscle in on the Cuban rackets. As boss of the old Mangano family, Anastasia controlled various labor union, gambling, and narcotics rackets in Brooklyn, New Jersey, and Las Vegas. He was powerful, yes, but he was a vicious megalomaniac too, and he not only took on Meyer Lansky and Santo Trafficante in Cuba, he mistakenly challenged the Commission itself, which was dominated by Vito Genovese and the closely allied “Bonanno, Profaci, and Magaddino families"



( I've always believed those three guys were really in control of the street while Lucky and Vito were out of pocket...)


Anastasia’s downfall began in April 1957, when Italian drug smuggler and part-time FBN informant Giovanni Mauceri told Charlie Siragusa that a heroin shipment was being delivered to Frank Scalici in New York aboard a merchant ship from Marseilles. Something of a mystery – his fingerprints and criminal records have been removed from the files of all US government agencies –

( EYEOPENER!!!! This is CIA stuff here. See this is why I don't really hold the narcotics denials against these guys like Bonnano, Buscetta, Luciano. It's like Giancana said once, at one time, the CIA and Mafia operated more like a business partnership than anything. The blanket denials are too consistent, I think those guys were afraid of being hit by the CIA if they said ANYTHING about their drug operations...my opinion only..)


Scalici managed a Mafia narcotics syndicate based in the Bronx that dealt directly with French and Corsican wholesalers in Europe and Montreal.2 Unfortunately for Scalici, Siragusa was able to seize his heroin, as well as the Mafia money he’d fronted to Mauceri, which “left Scalici holding a big empty bag. Anastasia, having kicked in some of the money for the purchase, concluded that Scalici had betrayed him, and on 17 June 1957, at Anastasia’s behest, Vincent Squillante shot and killed Scalici in front of a grocery store in the Bronx, as portrayed in the movie The Godfather..


Anastasia, however, was not the only person who had invested in Scalici. Vito Genovese, Carlo Gambino, and Meyer Lansky had fronted money too, and murdering Scalici without their consent was a serious mistake – as was Anastasia’s unauthorized sale of Mafia memberships, which he was doing to increase the size of his private army. But his fatal mistake was trying to muscle in on Lansky and Trafficante’s lucrative Cuban connection. Lansky and Trafficante brought their problem to Vito Genovese, their closest associate in New York, and Genovese in turn persuaded Anastasia’s caporegime, Carlo Gambino, to betray his boss....


“In the months following Apalachin, several agents would address the Senate about the relationship between drug smugglers and organized crime

“International Group Leader Marty Pera told how opium was moved from Turkey to Syria, where it was processed into morphine base, then shipped to France and converted into heroin, and then smuggled through Mexico, Cuba and Canada to America. Veteran Agent Joe Amato explained how Vincent Squillante and Joe Mancuso were the kingpins of a secret society “specifically” organized for smuggling narcotics. And Jack Cusack, then serving as Gaffney’s replacement as district supervisor in Atlanta, described the link, through John Ormento, between the Civello family in Dallas “Dallas and the Magaddino family in Buffalo. Cusack linked the Civellos with Carlos Marcello in New Orleans, Santo Trafficante in Tampa, and, remarkably, with Jimmy Hoffa and gunrunning to Cuba. There was evidence backing the charges, and in January 1958 the FBN conducted raids on Mafia drug rings in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The Virginia raid alone netted ten kilograms of heroin and led to the arrest of Frank Coppola in Italy.

( Also interesting that this led to Coppola, and not Luciano. Coppola I believe, in partnership with the Luchesses and other families had THE biggest dope operation of the time... he was pretty autonomous, interesting stuff..)


I mention all this because there seems to have been competition in the Bronx. With the Genovese muscling into Anastasias Brooklyn territory. Anastasia muscling into the Luchesses Bronx territory through guys like Scalise and Squillante. Genovese wanted the Bronx too through Cantellops. Anastasia trying to muscle into Cuba. Everyone seemed to be stepping on each other's toes. ( Remenber Bonnano was everywhere at this point too)


( Last excerpt..) Qui Bono ?
Could the Mafia’s patrons in the espionage Establishment have played a role in setting the stage for these events?

Perhaps. Only “the CIA had the power to remove Scalici’s records from every government file, and providing the Commission with a reason to eliminate Anastasia served to strengthen the position of the drug smugglers the CIA relied upon most – Lansky and Trafficante in Cuba. The FBN raids in January 1958 were a temporary setback, and Lansky and Trafficante knew that better days lay ahead in Cuba. That scenario, of course, is speculation, although the CIA, through Hank Manfredi, certainly knew about the Apalachin summit before it happened; and sabotaging the summit would “would have served the CIA, perhaps most importantly, by providing it with a means of severing its contract with Vito Genovese, its major Luciano Project liability”.....

Some stuff to chew on....