DESCRIPTION: Thanks to their deported cohorts such as Charles Luciano, Dominic Roberto, Serafino Mancuso and Frank Coppola, during the 1950's the American Cosa Nostra managed to establish one quite lucrative narcotics trafficking operation, which involved the production, transport and the selling of heroin. The product mainly came from Lebanon or Syria in a form of a raw opium, and then it was transported to Turkey where usually it was processed into morphine base and from there, the product arrived either in Greece or southern Italy and Sicily, and in the end it arrived in Marseilles, France. The thing was that during the late 1940's and early 50's, the Italian Mafia didnt have the power or the right number of laboratories to create huge quantities of the final product which was heroin, and so with the help of their French and Corsican underworld contacts, they managed to receive the right amount and to transport it to the U.S. There were allegedly three main ports, one being Canada, the second being Florida and the third being New York.

For example,the New York crime families distributed the heroin all around the East Coast but some of the factions also acted as the main transporters or suppliers of heroin for some of the main Midwest crime families such as the Chicago Outfit. It was allegedly decided that Outfit was going to distribute the product to all Midwestern cities of secondary importance within the network of the narcotics traffic web, such as Omaha, Tulsa, Kansas City, Milwaukee, Iowa, Los Angeles, Houston, Denver and Phoenix. The main overseers of the Midwestern narcotics trafficking were Raphael Quazarano, John Priziola, and Paul Cimino of the Detroit faction, Anthony Giordano of St. Louis and Giacomo Ammirato a.k.a. James Emery for the Chicago Outfit. One of the main suppliers for the Outfit at the time was the Bonanno crime family which was headed by Joseph Bonanno and his drug trade was being overseen by one Carmine Galante, while Chicago bosses Tony Accardo and Sam Giancana financed the whole deal with Outfit money.

The deal was for the Northwest Indiana faction, which was under the jurisdiction of the Chicago Heights crew under Emery, to receive a large amount of the product once a month that was destined for the Chicago market, and to transport it to the Chicago heights or Calumet City areas. They transported the product with the help of their legitimate enterprises such as pizza shops and restaurants or food markets. These guys represented themselves as legitimate businessmen by owning pizza shops with locations around Gary and Hammond. But before transporting the shipment, the Indiana boys also kept some of the product for their part of the deal and distributed it around their own territory. So when the product arrived, Chicago Heights members George Tuffanelli, Joe Guzzino and Frank LaPorte were appointed as main overseers for the distribution of the narcotics shipment all around the Chicago area, including one third of the shipment for the Near North Side, Taylor St, Elmwood Park, Melrose Park, the South Side areas, while two thirds went to the rest of the cities around the Midwest. According to one government informant, since Emery was considered the main overseer of the operation in Chicago, during the operation he also appointed Guzzino and LaPorte as the main “couriers” between him and Dominic Roberto in Italy. In the end, there were even additional suppliers for the Chicago Mob such as members or associates from other New York families such as the Lucchese, Gambino and Genovese groups or even members from the Detroit faction, but the final point is that the main product arrived from the Bonannos. (click on photo and zoom)