Since he took over the reins of Seagram's New York branch in the 19505.
Sam lI's father. Edgar, has built the Seagram distilleries network into a multinational global empire. The Bronfmans, for example. have entered into a most profitable business partnership with the Cuban rum Bacardi family. After Fidel Castro took over the island in 1959, the Bacardis switched their base of operations to Puerto Rico and Miami, taking along with them a small army of anti-Castro Cuban exiles.

The Bacardis. headed by Manuel Cutilla Bacardi. have been pin­pointed by law enforcement agencies as the funders and politica lcontrollers of entire networks of Cuban exiles. The"gusanos," as they are called. are not only involved in terrorism <Orlando Bosch's September 1976 bombing of a Cubana airlines plane killed over 70 people). Drug runners in the Bacardi-Cuban exile networks. Jose Medardo Alvero-Cruz and Antonio Cruz Vasquez. have been recently arrested for drug trafficking in the Caribbean and Mexico. (23) Seagram has also staked a conglomerate empire in Mexico.

Bronfman's contact is former Mexican President Miguel Aleman. who owns and operates Acapulco.
Today Aleman is demanding the revival of casino gambling in Mexico;
in the 1930s nationalist President Lazaro Cardenas threw the casinos, and with them Meyer Lansky, out of the country. In short, wherever Seagram branches appear on the map,they are thoroughly intermeshed with narcotics runners. gambling, and crime.

On the public record, the Bronfmans' gutter connections are most visible in the case of Mitchell Bronfman.
The son of Knight of Justice Allan Bronfman. Mitchell is reportedly never without his semi automatic strapped to his shoulder and his stiletto strapped to his left calf. He is on record with the Montreal Police, the Quebec Provincial Justice Ministry. and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as A Kingpin of organized crime in Montreal. (24)