Santo Trafficante Jr.
Crime bossWikipedia
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6
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Search complete. 16 mentions across 6 episodes found for "Santo Trafficante Jr.".
Sep 11, 2026
Jeff CrudeleHOST
A twenty-four-hour trip pass across the Straits of Florida.
Jeff CrudeleHOST
Both cards listed his destination as the Capri Hotel, which housed a casino operation connected to Santo Trafficante Jr.
Jeff CrudeleHOST
But let's explore the details of the first tourist card in a little bit more detail.
Jeff CrudeleHOST
It registers Jack Ruby as physically residing in Cuba from August eighth to September eleventh, a continuous span of thirty-four days.
7 MINS LATER
Jeff CrudeleHOST
Captain Felipe Villa of the Cuban Ministry of the Interior explained it this way, that Trafficante was really not a prisoner, but rather he was a foreigner being detained.
Jeff CrudeleHOST
And there was no controls as to visitors, which is another aspect of this that makes it less like a prison.
Jeff CrudeleHOST
Santo Trafficante Jr. was detained there on June 6th, 1959.
Jeff CrudeleHOST
That's right, D-Day.
Gianni RussoHOST
He infiltrated everywhere, and that's how he...
Gianni RussoHOST
He, he was a good friend of Santo Trafficante, and he expanded to the five families in New York and Chicago.
Patrick PiccirelliHOST
Yeah.
Gianni RussoHOST
Because it's, it's where, where we are now in our, in our new book that's called Sinatra: The Mob and Me.
17 MINS LATER
Gianni RussoHOST
I mean, w- w- he, he brought in the waterfront from New Orleans to San Francisco, which they still controlled at that time, and the Anastasias had from Canada to New Orleans.
Gianni RussoHOST
So that, that brotherhood, the International Longshoremen's Union alone, was a huge vote power.
Gianni RussoHOST
And then they were all involved, and Santo Trafficante was a very close friend to, to Fidel Castro.
Gianni RussoHOST
And when the conspiracy was that they were gonna...
Aaron GoodHOST
Um, and this article was published in 1971 as the, you know, a, a time of conflict, uh, among the establishment for the reasons that I'm getting into.
Aaron GoodHOST
1968, Santo Trafficante visits Saigon, and he is the most significant Italian mafia figure dealing with drugs in the United States.
Aaron GoodHOST
Uh, he was, has, he's ti- he and his father, uh, have ties to Lansky going all the way back to Cuba, and Trafficante was loyal to Lansky, but he was not Lansky.
Aaron GoodHOST
He's more of a, uh, he, he, he would, could be perceived as representing the Italian mafia and slightly, with slightly different interest than Lansky, who has ties to Mossad and was a key figure in supplying the weapons to the Zionists when they stole all that land in 1948 from the Palestinians.
Aaron GoodHOST
So Trafficante visiting Saigon is interesting in 1968.
Aaron GoodHOST
The backdrop of this is that it's the years following the French Connection, and, uh, he seems to have, be working in coordination with drug, drug producers tied to, protected by the CIA, tied to the CIA, and, uh, they're importing a lot of heroin, and a lot of the soldiers become drug addicts, et cetera, et cetera.
Aaron GoodHOST
Um, in March 1970 Meyer Lansky is arrested in Miami on drug charges.
Aaron GoodHOST
Uh, they were, these were not drug trafficking charges.
Rob ClarkHOST
In 1958, he arrived in Havana, Cuba, and worked for...
Joe BorelliHOST
Santo Trafficante?
Rob ClarkHOST
Santo Trafficante, exactly, Joe.
Joe BorelliHOST
All right.
Joe BorelliHOST
There we go.
1 HR 21 MINS LATER
Joe BorelliHOST
Yeah
Rob ClarkHOST
... of the Tampa, uh, La Cosa Nostra.
Rob ClarkHOST
They were also involved in narcotics as well as gambling, and they answered to one man named Santo Trafficante, Jr.
Dory WileyGUEST
They did it through Mayhew.
Dory WileyGUEST
They did it through, uh, Johnny Roselli, and Santos Trafficante, and Sam Giancana.
Dory WileyGUEST
And all those meetings, those come up in the files release, okay? But that was all based on killing Castro.
Dory WileyGUEST
So the same apparatus that was designed to kill Castro is in place to use bits and pieces of it to kill JFK.
Louis FerranteGUEST
Prosecutor, governor, mayor, he's got them all.
Louis FerranteGUEST
So, and when asked, Tra- Santo Trafficante's attorney goes to visit Marcello at one point after Garrison opens up the evi- the, the investigation into the Kennedy assassination.
Louis FerranteGUEST
This is a few years after it happened.
Louis FerranteGUEST
And he says, "Look, are you worried?" His, the, the attorney knows that his client's, uh, Trafficante's-
Julian DoreyHOST
Yeah.
Louis FerranteGUEST
Maybe.
Louis FerranteGUEST
So Garrison now, another person r- when you asked about the Cubans, there's a guy who's connected to Santo Trafficante in Florida.
Julian DoreyHOST
A Cuban?