According to some reports, during his stay in prison, Giancana allegedly opened up to one of his fellow inmates and said that there was no more “action” for him left in Chicago and when he gets out, he will take his money and flee the country. And that’s what really happened. In May, 1966, Giancana was released from jail and after that he allegedly had a short meeting with Paul Ricca, on which the two bosses agreed for him to spend some time alone, far away from Chicago. So Giancana managed to gather a team of attorneys, who in turn were employed to conduct a research and to determine which country was preferable for the crime boss where he could reside and not be susceptible to extradition and also not to be served by U.S. agents with a subpoena. Their eyes were obviously turned on Latin America, especially Mexico and Panama, since the Outfit already had established their strongest connections in those countries. So Giancana was advised to relocate to Panama, and to avoid Mexico, since the local authorities were easily corrupted, meaning they can quickly turn on him, and on top of that, the Mexican government was constantly pressured by the U.S. not to receive any of their hoodlums. But the problem was that Giancana had invested more trust in his Mob cohorts, rather than his highly paid attorneys, meaning he took the word of Richard Cain about Mexico being the “real thing”, and so almost a year later Giancana allegedly took three million dollars in cash, and then packed his bags and went straight down south, to Cuernavaca, Mexico, an area which was considered as the “Beverly Hills” and is 55 miles of Mexico City. He established himself in a $200,000 villa on one of the hills, and used the name “DePalma”, which was obviously taken from his newly acquired son-in-law Jerome DePalma. The main individual, who had everything previously arranged for the crime boss, was one of Giancana’s couriers and also made member of Cosa Nostra, known as Richard Cain a.k.a. Scalzetti, the guy who in fact brought him to Mexico. Proof for that is the villa which was placed under the name of “Scalzetti”, since by now Cain was still considered a legitimate individual because he had a job at the Sheriff’s Office as his main detective. Cain knew how to speak Spanish quite fluently and he already had a lot of experience with the Outfit since the late 1950’s or should I say, since the days of the so-called “Cuban conflict” when he used to work as one of their “agents” in controlling their interests. In fact, besides being a member of the Mob, Cain was also a member of one of Giancana’s personal units known as the “Combine”.


The whole point of this “unit” was spreading the Mob’s international operations, both legal and illegal, in various countries around the world and was formed by members from the Chicago Outfit such as Cain, Les Kruse, Hyman Larner, John Drew, Ernest Sansone and James Tortoriello and also the boss of Tampa and the Outfit’s long time ally, Santo Trafficante. According to the FBI, by now the “Combine” had its foothold in Costa Rica and Guatemala, Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador , Mexico and across the Atlantic ocean, in England, Spain, France, Germany, Italy and even further in Lebanon, Syria and Beirut and in the end in China and Japan. They had contacts with people from every kind, meaning honest and dishonest. In other words, by now the U.S. Mob almost had the whole world in its grip and they smuggled everything, from all kinds of vending machines and slots, to prostitutes and weapons. They even opened up hotels and casinos which were also filled with their own products, so by the end of the day, every penny from these international operations went into the Mob’s pockets. This is another proof where you can see that the U.S. Cosa Nostra operated as one single “organism”, meaning there was no stronger or weaker faction, since every link in the chain, such as the Chicago Outfit, had a significant purpose of its own.


Now, if you look at some of the above mentioned countries such as China, you also might remember that same country was previously mentioned, in different time period, as the main production point for the world wide narcotics trade. So the idea for opening “new” drug routes came since the first step of U.S. marine troops in Vietnam back in 1965 and during the conflict, many American criminals found their way to the Far East and established many new contacts. So my point is that there was no real obstacle for Giancana in transporting heroin from the Far East, since he already had established his contacts and transportation methods. Thanks to Tampa crime boss Santo Trafficante, who sometimes went by himself on the Far East or sent some of his couriers, the U.S. Mob slowly began forming a new drug channel. At the same time, Giancana also had his men in the same territory such as John Drew, who was there mainly as Trafficante’s backing. So the new and main production point for the gang became one place known as Yunnan, which is a province in southwestern China with a varied landscape, perfect for growing opium poppies. The contact was made allegedly with the help of members from China’s long time organized crime syndicate known as the Triads, who by now were under the protection of Chiang Kai-shek, the Republic’s current military leader.


The plan was for local cultivators from the Yunnan area, with the help of their mules, to transport opium to the Shan frontier that is Burma. The caravans were formed by 80 or even 100 mules, which transported over 4 tons of opium respectively, or two sealed tins of 20 kilograms being carried by each mule. There, the product was welcomed by trucks and was transported to a trading company at Rangoon, Burma. So there was direct evidence about the opium smuggling out of Yunnan into Burma, and then into Thailand, where was converted into heroin. In fact this time, the main clandestine laboratories for conversion of opium to morphine base and then to heroin, mainly occurred around the Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore and Macao areas. According to some government reports, this product was labelled by the drug traffickers as “999”. From there, the product was smuggled into Japan, where obviously was welcomed by local gangsters, who in turn smuggled it into Canada and in the end, into the U.S. Story goes that during this period the Detroit point was avoided, since the New York docks were the main receiving point, which was still controlled by the Gambino and Genovese crime families, through one Tony Scotto. Plus, I don’t know if you noticed but this drug route did not include the Italian criminal organization from Europe, which began to worry some of the crime bosses on both sides of the ocean.


So even though I personally believe that this new smuggling route was sanctioned by the national Mafia commission and almost everyone got a piece of it, still this wasn’t Giancana’s main and only source for dope supply. As I previously stated that Giancana was a gangster with a vision and also possessed a huge ego, which always gave him the same idea of bringing something only for his organization and above all his own pockets, but the problem was that he did not invent anything new, but instead he used the production points which were more preferable destinations but were mainly “untouched” territories. I believe that Giancana’s idea for making a drug route, which was about to be only under the Outfit’s jurisdiction, was a desperate move in trying to maintain his leadership abilities among his fellow members.


The whole thing started when in September, 1968, Giancana’s main liaison Richard Cain was arrested on robbery charges and was sentenced to 4 years in prison and the worst thing for him was that he was also uncovered as member of Chicago’s crime syndicate. So Giancana quickly needed a replacement for the “empty spot” which in no time was filled in by Hyman Larner. This shadowy individual was allegedly involved in almost every “secret operation” which involved the Mob and the government and on top of that, he was heavily involved in highly lucrative smuggling operations. In other words, Larner was the perfect and maybe even better replacement for Cain as being Giancana’s main courier. So with Larner’s help, the Outfit managed to make close contacts with opium smugglers from the Philippines, since he previously smuggled tobacco and prostitutes from the same area. According to some reports, the connection was established with the help of several underworld Chinese syndicates from Macao and Hong Kong areas who operated independently from the Triads. In fact, these smaller Oriental syndicates were waiting for the right moment to establish their U.S. connections, such as Larner and the Chicago boys. Although, my personal belief is that Tampa crime boss Santo Trafficante might’ve been again the key individual who introduced the Outfit to this new connection.


Now, the plan was for smugglers from the Philippines to ship raw opium to a small island on the Pacific Ocean known as Guam, which in fact it’s an island on U.S. territory in Micronesia, in the Western Pacific. In no time, tons of opium arrived on the island which later was processed into heroin with the help of freshly opened laboratories which were financed directly by the Outfit. All kinds of narcotics flew through the island and tempting flow of dollars easily led to a massive corruption among Guam’s police and public officials and on top of that, a huge heroin epidemic among the local citizens, which was about to last for whole the next decade. The transportation process was carried out mainly by individuals who were paid by the Asian crime syndicates, until they brought it in Mexico, where it was usually welcomed by local gangs who were on Giancana’s payroll. His “voice” in the Mexico area was his main attorney know as Jorge Castillo who in turn also worked as Giancana’s front man and contact with local Mexican authorities and criminal gangs.


According to one Chicago Tribune news report, during this period a band of Chicago mobsters, with previous overseas interests in Australia, were reported zeroing in on this largest land mass between the Philippines and the U.S., while expecting riches the likes of which the Spaniard Magellan never dreamed. So my personal belief that the main Outfit guy who had gambling and real estate interests in Australia was none other than Hyman Larner. Even though he was considered an international gangster, still Larner’s main “headquarters” was Panama. He settled in a big house on a top of a hill outside of Panama City and operated the Juliano International, S.A., a corporation which was only engaged in importing vending and slot machines and also all kinds of gambling equipment from Chicago, of course all exported to Panama by Outfit owned firms. For example, Ross Scheer operated the Bally Manufacturing Firm in Chicago and in just few months the firm sold and shipped more than $500,000 worth of slot machines to Juliano Imports in Panama. So somewhere between all that gambling and vending equipments, loads of narcotics were hidden, which was the main goal of the operation. So Larner began investing in airplane companies so he wouldn’t leave any traces of his travels behind him. The thing was that at the time, Panama had nearly 100 remote World War II landing strips and somewhere around 20 to 30 Larner’s airplanes usually arrived once in few months in Mexico or the U.S. from South American countries via Panama’s Tocumen International Airport, where they had been easy cleared through without any inspection. Proof for that is when in 1969, one of those “cleared” planes was tracked by U.S. narcotics agents and when they searched the plane, inside they found all kinds of vending machines but the main thing was that they also found 10 kilos of heroin. The problem was that the agents suspected that both the equipment and the plane might’ve belonged to one of Larner’s firms but there was no way to prove it since none of the merchandise or transportation was labelled.


The main South American countries from where Larner’s organization smuggled its drugs, such as cocaine and marihuana, were Bolivia, Peru and Chile. The people in all three countries have long chewed the coca leaf or smoked the marihuana “roaches” for pleasure, and so it was quite easy for them to produce their products in large quantities and sell it for cash. Also the most lucrative thing was that during this period both products were becoming more popular than ever and the problem was that all three countries, meaning their governments, were not giving any significant cooperation to the U.S. in fighting the drug problem. So it didn’t matter from where the dope shipment came, but instead the main and most important thing was for it to arrive safely in Mexico. This “landing” point was obviously chosen mainly because of the constant raids on U.S. soil and because of that, now the main smuggling route extended along the Arizona-Mexico border and was mainly controlled by members of Cosa Nostra in alliance with some of the Mexican criminal factions. Even though there were thousands of unaffiliated smugglers in the trade, still according to the feds, there were actually 23 major smuggling rings which operated through the corridor and five of those were wholly or partially controlled by Cosa Nostra crime families from New York City, such as the Gambinos and Bonannos, and also Tampa, Detroit and Chicago. In addition, these Mob-connected dope rings mainly smuggled Oriental heroin which was previously smuggled from the Philippines and allegedly possessed higher quality rather than the Mexican product. The problem was that the Mexican kind of heroin was not as pure or desirable as the one from Asia's Golden Triangle.


According to the feds, the main New York guys who frequented the 360- mile Arizona-Mexico border and were suspected of being involved in the dope business were Antonio Gambino, younger brother of Mafia boss Carlo Gambino, and Joe Bonanno, former crime boss who was later exiled by his own organization to the Arizona area, along with an “army” of other exiled members and old associates such as Peter Notaro and Peter Maggadino. For example, Antonio Gambino was known for constantly frequenting the Arizona-Mexico border along with a suitcase, which almost never contained less then $50,000. Gambino usually used one of the hundreds of flying pilots in Arizona, who made their living by transporting drugs across the border, and as a precaution, Gambino always identified himself as “Pete Patterson”. In addition, Gambino was very closely connected to one Chicago mobster known as Lou Rosanova. The Detroit faction was “represented” by another old time crime boss known as Pete Licavoli Sr., who by now resided in Tucson, Arizona, and was closely affiliated with the Outfit. Sources say that Licavoli was behind the movement of large quantities of cocaine and heroin to Anchorage, Alaska, and other parts of the country. And as for the Chicago boys, their “overseer” of the dope shipment in the same area was Tony “The Ant” Spilotro. Before becoming the Outfit’s main enforcer in Las Vegas, and since Chicago became “too hot” for him, Spilotro’s first job as national mobster was being one of the main overseers of the narcotics shipment which went through the Arizona area and then straight to Chicago. According to the FBI, the full extent of the operation was not known, but some government investigators had documents that the gang supplied a major portion of hard drugs for the Chicago market and possibly for some of the smaller Midwest cities. In fact, Spilotro’s job was the same as the one on which the Indiana faction was previously obliged, but this time the dope did not come from Italy, instead it came from Mexico. Spilotro’s partner in Arizona was another member of the Outfit known as Paul Schiro and before shipping the dope back home, they kept few kilos for the local market and because of that, together they controlled a huge lucrative band of dope peddlers. Some reports say that the ring was responsible for bringing in $8 million worth of Mexican brown heroin into the United States each year.


Now, the main dope smuggling contact between Mexico and Arizona was one Chinese born criminal known as Hector Mar Wong. In fact, Wong was the main guy for the Macao and Hong Kong crime syndicates around the Mexico and Arizona areas, and at the same time, he was the main contact between the Asian, American and Mexican gangs. Wong also had a son who owned a small Chinese restaurant in one overcrowded Mexican border town known as Nogales, and from there he oversaw his father’s drug shipments. Since the Oriental product went through Mexican territory, the local big time crime bosses also had their fingers in the pot. At the time, Mexico’s top crime lords and dope pushers were the Savela brothers, Jorge and Victor, who came from the Culiacan area and were closely connected to American crime bosses such as Bonanno and Giancana. To tell you the truth, I found the idea of both Bonanno and Giancana having the same “supplier” and protector at the same time quite interesting, since in the old days, or during the infamous “Banana Wars”, the Chicago crime boss many times called for Bonanno’s life. In fact, the Savela brothers were the ones who gave a pass on what went over the border and was about to stay for ever, meaning if you paid them, it was all good. They controlled all of the large dope peddling routes which came from the Mexico area and they also controlled all the runners who smuggled the dope over the border in Arizona. In addition, the Savela brothers, especially Jorge, were the main protection for Giancana’s stay in Mexico.


Once the shipment has reached Arizona’s territory, the whole operation was overtaken by one of Spilotro’s main dope runners known as Frank Pedote, who in turn oversaw his own Phoenix-based dope peddling crew, including Frank Moreno and Arden Smith, two heavy dope dealers who fled to Mexico to escape a jail terms, and also Brian Ho, a weapons expert who worked in a Phoenix service station. Pedote also oversaw the transportation to Chicago, from where the product was distributed to local dealers by one of Pedote’s associates known as Mike DeMaro, the guy who previously and as a matter of fact, still worked for Frank Caruso and the imprisoned Americo DePietto. With this, you can see that the dope shipment, which was brought by the Outfit, still was distributed mainly on the West and South Side. By now the whole South Side and south suburbs were still under the jurisdiction of Frank LaPorte and Frank Caruso, who in turn still had obligations of making sure that the shipment was distributed to the last small package. Since the African-American and Latin elements were no longer under the Outfit’s control, my personal belief is that the guy who personally took care of that problem was James Catuara, member of the Chicago Heights crew and close associate of both First Ward and Chinatown factions. Catuara was connected to a nationwide auto-theft ring and chop shop network, which in turn was his “recruitment camp” for runners in the dope peddling operations. It was a huge army formed by car thieves, killers, street-tax collectors and chop shop owners, and the thing was that some of these guy peddled dope on the side. According to some reports, some of the local chop shops around the Chicago area were in fact the main “receiving points” for the dope shipments, which were connected to other chop shops in different areas such as Indiana, Milwaukee, Kansas City, St. Louis and Iowa. The dope was simply stashed in the stolen cars or stolen auto parts and after that it was easily transported to wherever the destination point was located.



James Catuara


Besides Giancana, Larner and Spilotro, other Outfit members who circled around the Mexico area and at the same time were involved in illegal operations were the Circella brothers, Nick and August. In fact, August only acted as a bagman between Chicago and Mexico City, and as for his brother Nick, he was previously exiled from the U.S. and deported to Argentina, which was his original birthplace, and later established himself in Mexico. Nick Circella was an old time member of the Outfit who back in the days was imprisoned together with the top criminal echelon such as Paul Ricca and Louis Campagna, but by now he still had few interests on Chicago’s North Side through his brother and also controlled few illegal and legitimate operations around the Mexican territory. In reality, Circella was another desperate gangster who desperately wanted to return to the states and so he was always opened for “new adventures” such as the current one, meaning transporting narcotics. The useful thing was that Circella controlled a large shrimp boat business along the Pacific Coast and his boats were often overloaded and barely seaworthy, slipping through the darkness and hidden from the watchful radar of the American patrols. Sometimes, the boats didn’t even have to hide in the night since Circella was already legally exporting shrimps into the U.S., and so the product was easily being moved by sea off the San Diego coast, and later was welcomed by factions of the California crime families, who in turn transported the product mainly on Chicago’s North Side and around the Midwest.



Nick Circella


Even though the Outfit was slowly becoming independent in the dope business, still the New York Mob never really stopped pumping the “Windy City” with heroin. Since by now the old “French Connection” was quite on the downfall because many heroin laboratories in Corsica or Sicily were getting closed down and on top of that, rumours started spreading around that Turkey was about to declare a ban on growing opium poppies. Under huge international pressure, Turkey reduced the number of provinces where poppies could be grown, before introducing a total ban. So maybe this might’ve been one of the first and quite short time periods where the Chicago Outfit and the Tampa crime family were one step ahead of the New York Mafia regarding the dope business, thanks to their contacts in Central and South America and also on the Far East. But during 1970, Europe was facing drug problems on new territories such as Spain.


During that time period, the youth movement, which advocated drug abuse as part of the search for socio-cultural alternatives, spread over much of Europe, introducing new cultural beliefs, life-style behaviours, and contemporary art and music currents, while the phenomenon itself only began to take place in Spain. Then, for each drug, the evolutionary process of its use differed depending largely on the role a given drug played in the youth culture and on its availability. Other factors, such as a high proportion of unemployed youth and increased amounts of leisure time, also played a role in the occurrence of drug use. As a consequence of the slow dismantling of the so-called "French connection" and the destruction of illicit heroin laboratories in France and Italy, many American, Corsican and Italian crime syndicates again joined forces and decided to exploit this new territory by opening laboratories around Spain. In addition, that same year, U.S. President Richard Nixon began troop withdrawals from Vietnam, thus slowly destroying the Philippine connection and smuggling route, which became the main reason for the search of new suppliers and drug routes around southwestern Europe.


Again, the main criminal faces in this operation were Santo Trafficante, who looked for smuggling connections around the new territory, possibly some members of the Gambino and Bonanno crime families who in turn also represented the Italian element, and also Sam Giancana together with one of his associates and current “Godfather” of the largest Corsican criminal clan, known as Marcel Francisci. Both Giancana and Francisci had gambling interests in newly opened casinos and hotels in England, Germany and even Lebanon and since previously the Turkish smugglers almost cut off the Lebanese production of opium, this became quite lucrative situation for both sides. So again, morphine base was smuggled through Italy or France and then was illegally imported into Spain from where it was produced into heroin. Trafficante’s main guy who oversaw the operation was one gangster from the Madrid area known as Vincente Armada, a local crime boss and long time trafficker of heroin. His operation stretched mainly around the tourist Costa del Sol area, in Southern Spain and his main activity was consisted of laundering the money generated in businesses such as drug trafficking, arm trafficking, extortion and kidnapping. The international smuggling groups, which by now were under Armada’s rule, were the oldest criminal groups in Spain. They were principally Arabs, who had a long history in the Costa del Sol region, from which they managed their business throughout the world. So the U.S. Mob easily found a new secure territory for dope trafficking, like also using the Galicia area which was in Northwest Spain and was used as another bridge point between America and Europe. Besides these gangster's well-known relations with Galician smugglers, they have also established contacts in other coastal regions around Spain. So from there, the shipment was transported across the Atlantic Ocean, again, straight to New York or Florida.


By now, many of the old dope peddlers back home in Chicago, such as Carl Fiorito, Frank Carioscia, Fred Coduto, and Louis Guido somehow won their appeals and they were released from prison and in no time, all of them were back in business. Most of these guys were previously connected, or in other words, supplied with narcotics from various factions of the New York Mafia and they continued the “tradition”, which was obviously a good thing for the business relationship between the Chicago Outfit and their cohorts on the east coast. By now, the so-called “chain of action” started with one dope peddler known as Tony Legato, who in turn was a close associate of the Ernest Infelice, the dope peddler who previously worked with Outfit member Turk Torello and also the imprisoned dope ring leader Americo DePietto. In fact, during this period Infelice’s and Fiorito’s guys were the ones who allegedly oversaw the dope business in the Chicago area, since by now they were still considered high level associates, allegedly because they were directly involved with the product, which obviously blocked them from becoming full fledged members. So Legato’s job was quite simple, meaning he or one of his close associates Abe Migdall, had to hop on a commercial plane to New York or Florida once a month, and bring back between 5 or 10 kilos of pure heroin. In addition, during the same time period, one of Giancana’s crew members from the “Combine”, known as James Tortoriello was allegedly “exiled” from the Chicago area by his former cohorts and fled down to Florida, from where, according to the feds, he continued to deal with narcotics. But other reports say that Tortoriello in reality became the main South Florida overseer of the dope transportation for the Chicago faction.