@Hollander Giancana established a drug route which went though Mexico but it wasnt supplied with the Mexican product. You see 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. 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. 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. 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 such as the Savela brothers and one Chinese born criminal Hector Mar Wong who in turn was the main dope smuggling contact between Mexico and the Asian criminal factions
Thanks for the response, Mexico was just an entry point to the USA, like Cuba and Montreal, for H from Southeast Asia.
No problem.
The Outfit had several drug routes from.Mexico at the time since Giancana wasnt the only exiled mobster who circled the country and at the same time being involved in illegal operations. Another example would be 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.Â
There was even a direct line to Chicago, but this time it came straight from London, England. Their main smugglers were two elderly women from Barcelona, Spain, identified as the Munoz sisters, Catalina and Rafaela, and one Corsican Mob associate known as Antonio De La Cruz. In fact, the Munoz sisters worked for the Armada clan and as for De La Cruz, he obviously worked for Giancana’s new business partner Francisci. Their route usually started from Barcelona to London and from there with a direct flight to O’Hare International Airport. These so-called European smugglers were known for transporting over 20 pounds of heroin, which was destined for the Chicago market, during one trip.
When the war on the Far East was over, somehow Chinese heroin found its way and arrived on America’s soil but in smaller amount. At this point, most of the Asian narcotics found its way to the U.S. through Belgium or the Netherlands, which made the city of Amsterdam the main shipping point for Asian heroin. From this point, drug trafficking from Mexico expanded and the cultivation of opium poppy fields increased and the so-called “Mexican mud†or “Mexican brown†was suddenly in great demand. From 1975, criminal groups from Mexico dominated the heroin trade and supplied an ever-increasing demand for marijuana, while the Colombian cartels slowly began to take over the cocaine market.Â
