The Tampa, Florida crime family: the Trafficante. Almost the model for the efficient,
low-key borgata. With a dearth of meaningful convictions and turncoats, the family
under the Trafficantes was practically impenetrable. Junior inherited his fathers
kingdom and expanded it, maintaining his links to the old-school until he was the
last of it. He lived a lifetime of crime with minimal penalty.

Anyway, Santo Jr dies in '87, and apparently his brother is not leadership material:
Henry, perhaps the most active of the Trafficante brothers besides Santo Jr, remains
a side-walk soldier. Even Daddy Frank Diecedue, Santo's underboss and the most obvious
choice is looked over, instead, Junior supposedly selects his driver and protege, one
Vincent LoScalzo. And... the family died. Now, this LoScalzo is either barely
active or extremely cautious, for he himself has only served probation and has no
major convictions. Investigations into the Gambino family have uncovered transplanted
mobsters operating in what had been considered Trafficante territory, and John Gotti Jr's
forays into Florida are well known. A remnant of Santo's links to Carlo Gambino himself?
If there still is an official Trafficante family, alledgedly run by one Vincent LoScalzo,
active in Florida, as a seperate entity to the Gambino family, it is extremely small
and/or closely guarded.

Anyway, for one reason or another Santo's brothers remained at relatively low ranks in
the organization (Henry was made, as was a Santo Trafficante III, but Epifano, the
youngest, remained an assosciate) I guess none of them inherited the leadership skills
shared by Santo Sr and Jr? Scott Deitch mentions in Cigar City Mafia an incident
suffered by Henry "The Man", where over-zealous officers ejected him from a night-spot,
only by literally carrying him out, using his head to open the heavy doors. As Deitch
goes on to say, one simply cant imagine Santo Jr being treated in such a manner.

Perhaps this incident says it all? After all, a don is not treated like that. I suppose
he simply didnt inspire the respect his brother did. And in fact, he retired shortly
after being passed over after his brothers death. Unless Santo Trafficante III
(the third, either a great nephew or grandson of Santo Jr) is still active,
the Trafficante family, sanguinary, is no longer so linked to the Tampa underworld: maybe
that was Santo Jr's true intentions.

Is Henry Trafficante still alive??

Santo's son Santo Trafficante III was a made member, but I'm not sure he's still living either.

He was long retired in any case but yeah im pretty sure hes dead.

Ahh, was Santo III the son? As opposes to a nephew or other paternal relative? Im finding it really hard to find much information at all on the guy. He might well be dead?

Maybe you're right and Santo Jose is really the nephew of Santo Jr. I read some where that it was his son. I also read that It was his nephew.

This is a pretty interesting write up on the Trafficante family of Tampa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafficante_crime_family

Nice. Its sweet how Wikipedia has for the most part solid articles on organized crime and the mob (some of the other stuff can be ridiculous)

This one's not as nice looking but is pretty detailed.

http://www.geocities.com/OrganizedCrimeSyndicates/tampa.html

They've got a shit-load of other charts for a bunch of other families and international O.C.G's. They're current enough to list dudes like CheesMan DiNunzio, Baby Shanks Mannochio, Vito Rizzuto and other current admins. Some of the positions and rankings conflict with other sources but its got a cool little profile on everyone.

wikipedia has a bunch of cool stuff regarding organized crime.

The Tampa Mob originated out of an area of Tampa known as Ybor City. Now a vibrant night spot, Ybor was the home to thousands of immigrant Cubans, Spanish, and Italians at the turn of the century. It was also the home to Tampa's cigar industry, giving work to many of the immigrants. Unlike northern cities, Tampa had no established Jewish or Irish gangs. In fact the biggest underworld figure during the 1920's to 1940's was a native Floridan, Charlie Wall. Wall was born to a prominent Tampa family, and began working at gambling houses, rising to run the racket himself.

The dominant racket in Tampa was bolita, a kind of lottery brought to Ybor in the late 1880's by Manuel Suarez. The bolita racket expanded exponentially in Tampa and was the mob's predominant moneymaker until the 1960's. Narcotics also played a major role in the fortunes of the Tampa mob. Two early narcotics kingpins were James "Jo-Jo" Cacciatore, and George "Saturday" Zarate.

The Mafia in Tampa came into the spotlight for the first time in 1928 in Cleveland. Police raided a meeting of gangsters at the Hotel Statler, and arrested Ignacio Italiano and Joe Vaglicia from Tampa. As the mafia grew in stature in Tampa a war broke out between the various gambling factions for control of the bolita and narcotics rackets. At this time there was no true boss in Tampa. Some early powers were the Diecidue family, Augustine Lazzara, the Velasco brothers, the Trafficantes, Salvatore Italiano, and Ignacio Antinori.

Sal Italiano was the leader of the gambling rackets, while Antinori, along with his sons Paul and Joe controlled narcotics. Ignacio Antinori eventually fell out of favor with some Chicago gangsters after selling them a bad batch of narcotics and was gunned down in Tampa on October 24, 1940. He was one of over 25 killings from 1930 until 1959. This has come to be known in Tampa as the "Era Of Blood". Among those killed were Joe Vaglica (July 10, 1937), Mario Perla (Oct. 12, 1939), Jimmy Velasco (Dec. 12, 1948), and former kingpin Charlie Wall (April 20, 1955). Wall had testified to the Kefauver Commission in 1950 and was believed to be retired when he had his throat cut.

In the late 40's Sal Italiano left for Italy, leaving James Lumia in charge. Lumia is credited by the FBI as the first true Mafia boss in Tampa. Lumia's reign was short-lived as he was killed by a shotgun blast on June 5, 1950. He was succeeded by Santo Trafficante Sr. Trafficante ruled until his death in August of 1954 from stomach cancer. He was succeeded by his son, Santo Jr.

Santo Trafficante Jr. would lead the Tampa mob for 33 years until his death on March 17, 1987. A short bio of his accomplishments: ran casinos in Havanna before being kicked out by Castro, allegedly set up narcotics networks in Latin America and Southeast Asia, involved in CIA plots to kill Castro, arrested at the ill-fated Appalachin meeting, arrested at the "Little Appalachin meeting in Queens, NY, allegedly involved in the assassination of John Kennedy, present in the Waldorf Astoria the day that Albert Anastasia was killed, ran all gambling operations on the Gulf Coast, closely affiliated with the Marcello family of New Orleans, and , most importantly, never spent a night in an American jail.

After Trafficante's death, authorities speculated the leadership of the Tampa family was split between longtime underboss Frank Diecidue (who died on Oct.19, 1994), Frank Albano, and Vincent LoScalzo. LoScalzo is now believed to run the remnants of the organization. The family came under investigation in the mid 80's involving a cocaine distribution ring, and again in 1992 as part of the ill-fated Key Bank investigation wherein all charges were eventually dropped. LoScalzo recently (Oct. 1997) pled guilty to fraud and was sentenced to probation.

This is a very abbreviated history of the Tampa family.
Below are some identified members:

McClellan Commission (1962):
* Santo Trafficante
* Henry Trafficante
* Frank Diecidue
* Sal Scaglione
* Al Scaglione
* James Longo
* Ciro Bedami
* Angelo Bedami
* Joe Bedami
* Augustine Lazzara
* Dominick Furci
* Phillip Piazza
* Angelo LoScalzo (father of Vincent)
* Nick Scaglione
* James Bruno
* Salvatore Lorenzo
* Sam Cacciatore
* Sam Trafficante

1991 FDLE report:
* Henry Trafficante
* Vincent LoScalzo
* Frank Diecidue (died Oct 19, 1994)
* Sam Carollo
* Salvatore Lorenzo (died 1995)
* Frank Albano
* Joseph DiGerlando
* James J. Valenti

ASSOCIATES (active):
* Pasquale "Pat" Mattasini (died May 1, 1999)
* Joe Camero
* Joseph Charles Bedami
* Nick Scaglione (not named in 1992, died 1995)
* James Donofrio
* Sam Pupello
* Michael Napoli

by Scott Deitche
(currently writing: The Tampa Mob)

http://www.americanmafia.com/Cities/Tampa.html

Deitch has since finished that book on the Tampa Mob called "Cigar City Mafia" A decent read.

Is all that info straight from Rick Porello's AmericanMafia.com?

Ah. The link. Heh.

From what I've read Italiano and Lumia were the Acting Bosses while Trafficante Sr. was the actual Don. I love your chart, though.

mario perla (Oct. 12, 1939),who was? thanks

Just came across this site and thread.

Mario Perla was a hitman for Ignazio Antinori, one of the earlier mob bosses in Tampa. Perla was gunned down on Oct 12, 1939 in Ybor CIty. Anitnori was killed almost exactly a year later on October 23, 1940. Anitnori was engage din a war with Charlie Wall for control of bolita. After Antinori was killed, Santo Sr stepped into the vacuum and proceeded to push Wall out of the picture.

wheres the trafficante family disapeared to? where is trafficante's relatives? crazy how such a figure has no remnants

Santo Jr had four brothers- Henry, Fnao, Sam, and Frnak. All fie are deceased, as is Santo Trafficante III- Frank's son.

Santo Jr had two daughters who are still alive.

There are still some male Trafficante nephews and grandchildren in Tampa, and though a few have had some scrapes with the law though none are active in the remnants of the crime family as far as I know.