The Underworld Podcast - Cuba: From Lansky’s Casinos to Castro’s Guns

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

Sean got beaten up in Cuba! To celebrate this, we’ve thrown together a biopoly of crime in the tropics, beginning with the story of how American organized crime flocked to Havana in the 1920s as a Prohibition rum-runner’s paradise. After World War II, mobsters then executed a takeover of Havana, building hotels, casinos, racetracks and bordellos as US tourism sought sun, sand, and vice off the Florida Strait. Chief among all Havana’s crooks were Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano, who in 1946 welcomed the great and good of America’s underworld to a ‘Mob Conference’ that would decide the fate of a new, offshore Mafia. But trouble was brewing—mainly in the form of a young, bearded nationalist who’d practiced his own violent form of ‘gangsterismo’ in the past. And as Havana’s criminal-friendly dictatorship buckled, the island was about to face a new anti-Mafia crusade, Fidel Castro-style. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. From the studio that brought you WandaVision. an Avenger, but I'm not a hero anymore. On October 14th, the Vision returns for the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy. That family wasn't real. You sure about that? I had a father called Vision.

How is this possible? Don't miss the two-episode premiere of Marvel Television's Vision Quest. Nothing bonds a family together quite like Mortal Jeopardy. Streaming October 14th, only on Disney Plus. February 11, 1947. morning. A plane touches down at Rancho Boilleros Airport outside Havana, Cuba, with a manifest that is way out of the ordinary. Among its passengers Rocco Fisgetti and his brother Charles, Chicago mobsters right out of central casting, cousins of Al Capone, made their first

fortune bootlegging booze and a lot more besides on the casino floor. Why are they flying into the city? Why wouldn't they? Since the 1930s, Savannah has become a gangster's paradise. A beachhead for American organized crime ever since Maya Lansky and Charles Lucky Luciano poured money into gambling houses, bordellos, and whatever other profit-making ventures they could find. The Fisketi brothers have flown out a few months previous

to join dozens of other underworld figures at Lanski and Luciano's so-called mob conference. Now they're back in the tropics and they want in. But there's another guy on that plane flying out with the Fisgetis and he's way better known. Frank Sinatra, ever heard of him? Flying high in the charts, fresh off his second hip Bobby Soxer LP and a string of silver screen appearances. Well on his way to true platinum-plated superstardom. And knee-deep as chance would have it with the mob.

Legend had it old Blue Eyes career began thanks to a favour from an old gangland pal in Jersey and that he'd been a mafia sycophant ever since. Sinatra also happens to own a stake in a car dealership with the Fisgeti brothers, and as the mob descends on Havana, he's keen to invest more. There's another reason Sinatra had made the trip across the Florida Strait, though. Occasionally the crooner shows his allegiance to organised crime by acting as a cash courier, carrying stacks of cash around the country as he tours its packed out theatres. As he steps off the tarmac in Havana, Sinatra is carrying a suitcase stuffed with low less than $2 million.

Almost $30 million in today's money. Plus, a collection of Chochis to make a Moroccan bazaar owner blush. Cigarette cases, a gold watch, jewelry. This, he'll present as gifts to the underworld figures now camped out in Cuba's capital. Chief among them, Lucky Luciano, chief architect of the National Crime Syndicate, prosecuted and deported to Italy under a year previous. That's still where cops think Luciano is,

living out his life in the quiet in a Sicilian village. But he's here, in Cuba, hanging out at a seaside mansion and receiving tribute like a medieval king. Almost as soon as Sinatra's arrival, he and Luciano meet at Sinatra's hotel suite. Sometime shortly after that, the pair engaged in an orgy with girls supplied by the Fisketi brothers. Sometime after that, somehow, somebody allows a group of Cuban Girl Scouts, led by a Catholic nun, to visit the singer's suite and present him with an award. Is this real life or a scene from a

Todd Phillips movie? Either way, Sinatra gets wind of the Girl Scouts arrival and stows the cool girls away in a back bedroom. The group enters. Champagne bottles are strewn across the floor. Lungery hangs from lampshades and everything stinks of sex and perfume. Sinatra saunter's over in a robe in a silk scarf, trying to style it out. But as he does, a gaggle of naked girls stumble out of their hiding place. The nun and her Girl Scouts, shocked, of course, run away. It's all pretty slapstick, but the episode carries a deeper, less funny meaning.

because it is this drink-fueled algy that will alert the media for the first time to Lucky Luciano's presence in Havana. The outcry that follows in Cuba and the United States will change the entire region's criminal scene. And a movement to eradicate what Cubans have now come to know as gangsterismo will gather pace, particularly under a 21-year-old student activist who has just joined the country's Partido Ortoxo, a man who has just joined an expeditionary force in the Dominican Republic, and who, according to his critics, likes to surround himself with gun-toting followers too. In other words, a bit of a gangster himself. That man, Fidel Castro.

This is the underworld podcast. Hey everyone and welcome to. the weekly crime podcast goes where no others will. Fact-based stories. My name is Sean Williams. I live in Buenos Aires, and I'm joined today by fellow scribe, Greo, Wordsmith, Leviathan, Daniel Gold in New York City.

We have been all over the world reporting organized criminal groups from the CGM to the TPLF, the KLA to the PCC, and we bring it all to your ears intimately, a bit too intimately, according to some emails we've got recently. And we've got some reviewers have described as the sexiest voices in podcast. Yeah, I don't know about that. I've been sick for like a week. So I think, yeah, I just mean me. Sexy is, yeah, okay, there you go. Great. Yeah, quick housekeeping. Following like us and all those lovely social media. We also post like these shows to YouTube and Facebook in case you

want to tell us how today's episode is all about, I don't know, the Albanians or the Bermuda Triangles or something. Beuna Triangles? There's only one, right? Grab yourself a cool underworld t-shirt or hoodie or a mug or a sticker at the underworld at not the underworld podcast at underworldpod.com or write to us with story ideas, tips or how to get a three-year-old to sleep for the night when you're trying to scribe interviews, The Underworld at gmail.com. We actually did after last episode when you set to write to us with your marital problems. We did have someone write to us with their relationship questions. But listen, like any advice, me and Sean are going to give you on that front, treat it like

that episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza does the opposite of his. instincts and then everything kind of works out for him, that would be my advice about taking all advice. Although in that particular case, I reckon I probably could offer a tiny bit of advice. But anyway, moving on. Anyway, yeah. I'm trying to blame my three-year-old son for me sounding like an idiot, but I've actually just been staying up until like two in the morning watching baseball for the last two nights. So that is why I'm tired. Patreon.com says to an oral podcast to sign up for bonus episodes. Spotify. You can do

on Spotify, you can go on iTunes. And yeah, that's it. That's it. Yep. So, Cuba, our old friend, long or even medium time listeners will know that I just spent a month on the island in between June and July working on a long feature for Harper's Magazine that is going to come out, I think, in like a couple of months from now. If you want to do me and magazine publishing, or not just magazines, just Harper's sign up to the magazines, my favorite, and read my story. More of you do that, the more I can convince them to send me to spend another month in and lower at it next year maybe. You know we'll get some good content out of that.

Yeah, are you going to go into it in this episode, your dissented to madness, the one where you kept me and Dale updated over once out because we had legitimate concerns about you. A tiny bit. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I continue to have legitimate concerns about my own mental health off the back of that trip.

But yeah, I mean, we're going to get into a tiny bit. I'm going to get into that in a minute. But it was not a great trip. It was actually quite bad for many. reasons. But I saw Cuba, so, you know, I don't know how long people are going to be able to say that at the moment. In case you have been living under a rock or have a full and rewarding home life, you'll know that since the beginning of 2026, the Trump White House has placed Cuba under a comprehensive oil embargo, adding to sanctions that have been placed one way or another since 1958.

Actually before the revolution was quite interesting. What the locals called a blockio was laid waste to the island's infrastructure, buses lay idle, trash piles high on every street. corner. Hospitals don't have power or medication and nobody could sleep or stay healthy. It's nightmarish. It's made worse by the punishing summer heat. Way like astronomically worse than I imagine before I arrive and a lot worse than the majority of stories you'll see on the news. And I'm not about to interrogate the morality of the blockade or the macro politics or mineral extractions or political gangsterism. For that, you can read the article. But what I'll say before I kick off with today's show is how Cuba has become like.

so many things in the world today are kind of war shack test right you already make your mind up before you read the story whose fault it is nothing really matters if you're pro-communist everything i've just described as a sole thought of the united states if you're anti-castristo or basically any cuban in miami it's the communist fall neither and both are true at the same time there's a whole world of nuance and very little coming from the people who live in cuba themselves so i will drop a link to the article when it comes out it's huge as danny just said i will went pretty, yeah, I just lost my mind out there actually, and it shows. And plus, I reported on a murder. And that happened while I was there that sort of occurred a couple of blocks away

while I was losing my mind. So this whole story is like a noir who'd done it mixed with memoir and good old-fashioned reportage. I think it'll be good. Today, however, we're going to focus on crime because, you know, it's called underworld. And because crime in Cuba is soaring. domestic and on the street is climbing, so is drug use, particularly one pretty grim synthetic cannabinoid that's been on Havana's streets since around the end of the pandemic. And now amid the blackouts and the chaos and the economic destruction and the despair, it is taking over. I should have two, I'm talking specifically about Havana, right?

It's said that Cuba needs around eight deliveries of gasoline each month to survive, and I think it's had almost nothing since March. A couple of Russian shadow tankers have attempted to restock it, but I think they've been turned back and the White House has even blocked a humanitarian shipment by a Florida-based company back in June. So Cuba's have to fill their cars via this state app. It's really weird.

There's been around for a while. But sometimes they try and book a slot at the gas station. They're told like they're the 20,000 in line. And that's not even overstating it. They get like five-figure statements that they're that far in the queue, that they're that far in the queue, rather. So as with almost everything in Cuba, everybody has migrated to the black market.

Literally my first experience out of Jose Marti International Airport this June was meeting the driver, who was telling me all about this illegal gas trade as we drive from the airport to my apartment in central Alabama. Like 3 a.m., I'm just saying, uh-huh, yeah, cool, thank you, yeah, whatever. And there are WhatsApp groups where people either advertise gas stations that are empty or sell their spots in the queue in the state app, or they just straight up sell jerry cans of gas like their bricks of cocaine. This is all totally illegal, of course, but if it didn't happen, nobody would go anywhere, ever, and the entire country would grind to a halt, which it is almost doing anyway. So, like many illegal markets in Cuba, the authorities really have no

choice but to tolerate it, or everything's going to collapse in a heartbeat. So Cuba in 20206, almost the whole economy is shifted onto informal black markets, and it's a police state where the cops have files on everyone, which is a really, interesting philosophical thing, right? Because if everybody is doing illegal stuff to survive and they know they could be pulled up for compromise for any reason, what incentive to people have not to turn to deeper illegal activity like drugs or robbery or selling stolen goods? What happens, essentially, when you turn everyone into a criminal? Cuba amid this crisis is like this giant human experiment happening in real time and it's not great. All of which is to say, I was correct prices of up to

500 bucks to get across the island. So I decided I would stay in and around Havana. And even within that, the mad, poor neighborhood of Centro, Havana, which is a grid of 18th century townhouses. It's kind of like flyover state between old Havana and the upscale districts of Vodada, which is still today where all the rich kids and diplomats go dancing. Centro, by the way, was where that murder I just mentioned happened. But it also allowed me, accidentally, I should add, to experience the crisis like a local, which is Danny can testify to, it's a bit crazy. Rolling blackouts, no sleep, constantly ill, catching all manner of exotic diseases and not being out cook or wash my clothes.

Yeah, let's just say he was not in a positive state of mind, and that was before he caught dengue fever. But yeah, you know, I truly believe that the humidity plays a large part in that. I mean, both of us have spent time in a lot of messed up anarchic places. And I, you know, even a hot, like the desert, you know, hot places, Syria, Iraq, all that. The dry heat is one thing, but you factor in the humidity. There's a level of like, it's nuts. Feralness, ferality.

What, is there a word? Ferality sounds good. It's fralty, yeah. That should be word if it's not. But it just, it comes out after a few weeks. Even in like when I've spent time, like when I was in Mexico for like a month, not even like working. I mean, working, but like not reporting. after like three weeks I was like I can't I shouldn't be in a climate like that like this does stuff to my brain and I'm not not behaving accordingly you know yeah I mean like I was waking up some mornings I mean if I woke up at all and you'd be like covered in sweat stinking with like mosquitoes plastered to your body like a tattoo it was pretty gross but in next week's episode right I'll do a bit more of that and we'll find out in a style that

I think you guys might find agreeable that me and Danny have just, well, Danny is just suggesting, I think is a great idea. Oh, yeah. How Havana's new rash of street crime came knocking directly for me in spectacular and extremely embarrassing fashion. But to understand how Cuba got there and its long pedigree of organized crime, today we're going to do a bit of a history show about the early involvement of the US mob and how it was one of the sparks that lit the fuse of Clito Castro's revolution.

I was just checking sparks. do like the fuse. Yes, right. And then in next week's show, we're going to head into the 1980s. Castro's own involvement in the Latin American drug trade ends with a group of Cuban war heroes being lined up against the wall. The 1990s special period, which is like massively important for understanding today in Cuba, when its economy tanked after the Soviet Union dissolved, drugs and sex and so-called Hinotidizmo, which is jockeying in English, but it means a little bit more than that in Cuba. was encouraged by the regime and how Centro Abana in particular came this den of criminals. And today, culminating in a very fun story where you get to hear about me falling over in a pile of dog poo.

And if that isn't enough to keep you listening, I do not know what is. So, let's take a few steps back in time. I mean, if we're calling the mass exploitation of slaves and sugar and tobacco organized crime, Cuba has been a crucible going all the way back to 1492. And I only say that because I want to mention that Columbia first rocked up there and actually thought it was China and called it China, which it got the name for a little while. What a dummy. But for today's purposes, we're going to go to the 1920s. Cuba has rested itself from the Spanish. It's enjoyed the briefest of moments as a free and independent nation before then being enforced under American rule by proxy, essentially. If you want to do your own research or you think I'm sounding a bit woke, look up saying called the Platte Amendment all on Wikipedia. Over in the land of the free, though, by the 19th, In the 1920s, prohibition is in full swing thanks to some of the worst nimbies to have ever done it. And the Caribbean has become a contraband super highway for mobsters controlling access to the world's second most popular drug. Or as much a super highway as you can have when you're in one of those old timely cars and everyone's hanging off the chassis dressed in a 50-kilow-tweat jacket and holding a tommy gun.

Rum or the molasses that go into making rum are smuggled along the chain of islands that stretched from Dominica down to the coast of Venezuela. These are the Windward Islands. And for the real heads out there, they are from north to south, Dominica, Martinique, St. Lucia, Barbados, and Vincent, Grenada, and Trinidad and Tobago. What's the first tobacco or caffeine? Yeah, I wondered if you'd step in now. I was going to say caffeine, but maybe it's tobacco. Maybe booze is third.

Because I guess every single person in parts of the world within a drink smokes like a thousand a day, right? So it's probably tobacco, which is also in Cuba. Danny, how many of those countries would you've got? Because they are cricketing powerhouses, my friend. Wait, God, how? Because, like, I've never heard the term windward islands, but I've spent, you know, I live in a West Indian neighbor 15 years,

and I spent a lot of time with Trinidadians. I got a homie growing up from St. Lucia, so I think I would have got in a bunch of them. By the way, I checked when I was looking at this episode. The biggest documentary I think I've ever done was about Trinidad, and it has like 9.5 million views on YouTube right now. So, yeah, you know, I know,

I know the islands, bro. I just don't know the name. Winward Islands is not a name I've ever heard. Okay, well, maybe we'll do a special cricket episode at some point, which is going to be great fun for everyone. But for today's purposes, these islands are known during Prohibition as Rum Row, which I quite like. Cuba is a natural transshipment point for all these bootleg booze. It's the biggest island in the Caribbean, with its largest population, and it's tucked just to the west of Rum Row. I guess the Rum Vestibule, or the Rum Lobby. its coast is huge, variegated and full of the kind of coes and craggy shores that are perfect for running rum just away from the maritime reaches of the United States Navy on fishing schooners, small merchant craft and other nimble vessels.

Joe Stasi, an early American mafia member for Manhattan who's key in developing Cuba's industry advice, recalls his first trip to Havana thus. Beautiful young whores everywhere, every street corner, every bar. In one club there were 25 girls. You picked the one you wanted to be in a live sex show. Coincidentally, that's actually how Sean opened his article for Harper's before some church boy nerd editor made him change it. You know what?

I think I've got something horribly similar to that that has stayed in. Anyway, this is a time when American tourists are flocking to Havana. If you want to look it up, right, look up Superman Havana, Havana. and you're going to find some interesting stuff. This is a time when American tourists are flocking to Havana in their hundreds of thousands

to enjoy the city's reputation for, as Ernest Hemingway, will later put it, fishing and fucking. Sounds like the setup for a great movie line. Like, today there's going to be some fishing or some fucking, and I just forgot my beat.

I can't even do the payoff. I'm so bad. Should I be writing in Hollywood? You decide, guys, but I think we all know the answer to that. Look, I'm only here for Two things, Amigo. Fishing and fucking. And it looks like I forgot my poll. Boom. There you go. That's it. That's bad. It's like this guy. Dick.

Myelanski, a king of the U.S. underworld who has just formed the national crime syndicate with his pal. Charles Lucky Luciano arrives in Havana with an astounding proposition for a young man who is on the up and up in Cuban politics. Yeah, we did an episode on that syndicate. I think through the lens of murder ink. But with Lucky and May. Solid, solid episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, like, I think we probably have to stop covering Cuba after the next couple of episodes because we've done a lot over the years.

But I'm quoting from T.J. English's book. We didn't do specifically about Cuba. I mean, that episode was more about New York and murdering. Everything kind of goes in and out of Cuba. Yeah, I don't think we even mentioned it. Santo Chappacante we did an episode on with Cuba. Yes. Yeah.

And he's going to pop up, I think, in the next episode. I mean, it's Cuban ex-op. We've done like Cuban. You know, we did the, the, the, Cuban gangs in the, I forget his name now, the guy in New York. Oh, Batsal? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we've done a lot of, I think Cuban gangsters, not a lot, but, but, you know, 400 episodes, I think we've done three or four, but I think this is, well, no, you did Castro 2 and the drug traffic. You're right, we've done a lot of Cuba.

Yeah, we've done a lot, we've done a lot. But, you know, it's good fun. I'm quoting from T. J. English's book Havana Nocturn here, because, you know, when you do a Harper story, you read like 50,000 books, so I might as well put some of them to good use. Quote, Lanski was interested in approaching a possible contact in the Cuban government. He wanted to buy in with the Cuban so that the mob could begin to develop its own gambling infrastructure on the island. The person Lansky had set its sights on was a young military man on the rise in Cuba named Fulhencio Batista.

Yes, Fulhencio Batista, former soldier, lover of political repression, predatory foreign enterprise and envelopes stuffed full of cash, aren't we all? Lanski, ever the criminal, Savant, sees that it's Batista, who will likely seize the reins of power in Cuba, and with prohibition coming to an end, he offers to diversify the mob's interests in Havana. Alongside an old associate named Joseph Doc's Stachar, Stachar, I don't know, Lansky flies to Havana with money stuffed in suitcases and speaks directly to Batista. Says Stachar, quote, Lanski took Batista straight back to our hotel, opened the suitcases and pointed at the cash.

It's quite a funny image. Batista just stared at the money without saying a word. Then he and Meyer shook hands and Batista left. We had several meetings with him over the next week, and I saw that Maya and Batista understood each other very well. I mean, side note, if you open a suitcase full of cash and point at it, I think you've said the message quite openly. Continuing, we gave Batista a guarantee between three and five million dollars a year,

as long as we had a monopoly on the casinos at the Hotel Nacional, and everywhere else on the island where we thought tourists would come. On top of that, he was promised a cut of our profits. Five million in 1929, by the way, that's around 100 million bucks now. That's not a bad yearly kickback, especially for Batista, who soon conducts a coup and becomes Cuba's dictator, all with the oppression and deaf scores that come with that. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive.

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I'm doing something else now. I've started a new podcast called Hyperfixed. On every episode of Hyperfixed, listeners write in with their problems, and I try to solve them. Some massive and life-altering, and some so minuscule, it'll boggle your mind. No matter the problem, no matter the size,

I'm here for you. That's Hyperfixed. The new podcast from Radiotopia. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts or at hyperfixedpod.com. The Hotel Nacional is still today, perhaps the major landmark in the Havana district of Vidal, this upscale area of mansions and wide tree-lined avenues where the city's riches still live. The Great Depression smashes Havana's tourist industry, but it doesn't stop Lanski plowing cash into the city.

He founds a new corporation called Cuba Nacional, which extends partial ownership of the home. hotel National, putting fellow gangsters, including Frank Costello, on its board of directors. As the years pass and Batista's power cements, Cuba becomes a bona fide ganglion. That is a fancy word for headquarters or, or, yeah, fortress, if you will, of gangsters more, which is my new favorite word. By this point, Lucky Luciano is behind bars. Then the Second World War breaks out. The U.S. Navy colludes have organized crime to hunt down Nazi agents and new boats,

and by 1946, when the war is over, American officials agree to commute Luciano's sentence as long as he's deported to Italy, the country of his birth. And look, for more on Lansky, Luciano, the early days of the U.S. Mafia, the mustache piece, the Costa Nostra, all of that, just type any of them into the search bar for this show wherever you get your podcasts. We've done a lot, and they are all impeccably researched and brilliant. brilliantly told, of course. But now it is September 1946.

Luckily Luciano arrives in Naples, and he tells reporters that he's going to live out his life in neighbouring Sicily. But he has no intention of doing that. Instead, shortly afterwards, Luciano hops on a sea freighter from Naples to Caracas, Venezuela, and then he takes a flight to Rio de Janeiro, another to Mexico City, doubles back to Caracas, before boarding a private plane to Camagwe, Cuba, the island's third largest city.

From Camagwe, Luciano makes his way to Havana, and once there he rocks up at a home in Miramar, a swanky seaside corner of Havana beside Vidaro, probably best known as the home of Club Tropicana. In December that year, just before Christmas, in fact, Luciano and Lanski invite all the top criminal bosses in the United States to their Hotel Nacional, to take part in what will forever be known as the mob conference. This will, of course, inspire the second Godfather movie, and there are like a million stories to come out of this thing off the sides, all of which you can read in T.J. English's excellent book. The first involves the first gangster to arrive in Havana, Vito Genovese,

a member of the Mafia's old school with designs on Luciano's syndicate. Genevazy wants to be Capo de Tulti capi, who I think he's an Argentine fallback, but also the boss of all bosses, which is a title done away with by Luciano and Lanski's hierarchicalist organization. As Luciano himself had famously told Al Capone years earlier, when Capone offered him that role, quote,

none of that old world Sicilian shit. Yeah, I mean, there was famously a war between Luciano and what they call the must-ass piece who were the more traditional Sicilian gangsters, and Luciano wanted to move past it, which he did with the syndicate, and bringing in Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel and all that. But also, we did do an episode on Vito Genovese,

so search bar folks. Definitely get in there if you want more on this. Yeah, keep listening. It does us a lot of favors. And Genevazy, he is actually quite a fan of all that old world Sicilian shit. So he arrives in Havanaugh a couple of days before anybody else, and he seeks out Luciano. Let me tell you what I think, Charlie, he says.

I think you ought to quit. I mean, retire. It's a good proposition. You'll have all the dough you ever need. I'll give you my personal word on that. You won't ever have to worry about what's going on. You won't have to think up ideas on how to get back to New York, which is going to be tough. And you'll still be the boss, the capo de capere.

Everybody will think of you as the guy who put it all back together in the old days, and they'll still come to you when they need advice. It's like you'll be the head, but I'll be running things on the spot. That's all there is to it. Capo di Capere. That's also my favorite ice cream. Luciano isn't having any of this though Quote, you forget what happened in Chicago

when I set this thing up, he tells it's Genovese. There is no boss of bosses. I turn it down in front of everybody. If I change my mind, then I'll take the title, but it won't be up to you. Right now, you work for me, and I ain't in the mood to retire. Don't you ever let me hear this again, or I'll

lose my temper? So that's, there is no boss, you hear, and if you call me the boss, I'll kill you because I'm the boss. That's top logic from lucky. no notes. Fulhencio Batista has by this point served his first presidential term. He's been replaced by Ramon Grau San Martín, who takes a keen interest in keeping all the criminals happy during the conference, which welcomes a dazzling array of criminal talent from all corners

of the US. There is Albert Anastasia, New York's Lord High Executioner of the Mob, plus Jewish gangster Mo Dailets. Dahlitz? Dahlitz. I think he's a fascinating character, too. He never gets a ton of attention. And the basis for the character of Mo Green in the first first, yeah, it's the first godfather, right? I think also Bugsy Siegel served as a sort of partial basis for that too,

but Siegel always gets a lot of attention, you know, mostly because rappers could rhyme Siegel with legal. And I guess all those movies about him too, like the movie Bugsy and mobsters too, which you and Dale did not like, but I think is fantastic and love. But,

you know, you guys are too mad of no taste or class. So I guess it is what it is. But yeah, it was your first choice for the Patreon thing you guys do called Bad Movie Club, which is about bad mafia movies. But yeah, Dallet is he died at 90, never got convicted of a crime. I think Prohibition was a bootlegger, did all that stuff, and then got involved in the casino industry in Vegas and turned very,

or mostly legit to the point where he helped build Vegas and was a very prominent businessman, never stepped the day in prison, never got convicted. did and basically was one of the main people who built Vegas. And still, I think is not someone that, like, loose people, like loose fans of mobster stories or movies would know his name just because he never got the attention that the other guys did. But yeah, man, fascinating. It's funny, him as the antagonist in Godfather 1 and then a character based up Meyer Lansky as the antagonist in Godfather 2.

Yeah, I mean, I've been specifically. in the last 30 seconds trying to think of a good rhyme for Mo Darlitz. I can't really think of one. So sorry, Mo. Yeah, I'm not doing you a solid. There is at the conference also Frank Costello, Luciano Souragher as the syndicate leader in Lucky's absence. There's Carlos Marcello from New Orleans. And Tampa's very own previously mentioned Santo Traficante, Senior,

who has popped up in several Underworld podcast shows. again dive back into the archives you want to know more about any of these figures the first thing all of these men do is visit luchiano's miramar mansion to deliver envelopes full of cash an idea of lanski's to help his old pal get by in the tropics all told luchiano will receive over a hundred and fifty grand in quote unquote tribute on night one a couple of million today's money which luchian then gives to lanski to put into the casino at the hotel nassionale then Everybody tucks into a feast worthy of a Roman olgy. Queen Conchentialadas, roast flamingo breast, tortoise stew, crayfish, oysters,

grilled sorefish, manatee, manatee, and even locally reared venison, all washed down with gallons of rum and Monte Cristo cigars. Would not have wanted to be a barfram attendant after all that. Wright's T.J. English, quote, later, the visiting delegates were encouraged to make the most of their inaugural night in Nevada. A fleet of 50 cars with chauffeurs was at the ready. Dancers and showgirls from the city's three main nightclubs, the Tropicana, the Mon Mart and the San Suuci were selected and paid for their services,

as were prostitutes from Casamarina, the classiest and most renowned Bordello in the city. A series of parties were held on the hotel's upper floors, and the more intrepid of the visitors ventured out to get a taste of Havana's vibrant post-war nightlife. The next day, I assume with some sore heads, the real work begins, with the delegates frashing out the details of Lanski's master plan to turn Cuba and the wider Caribbean region into a giant mob-affiliated gangster's paradise. They will buy land on an island currently serving as a penal colony, Lanski suggests, converting it into a quote, kind of Monte Carlo with huge resort hotel casinos and its own private airport. That's in Cuba, by the way. And if this sounds similar to how the mob is developing Las Vegas, it is. Lansky and his longtime friend and partner Bugsy Siegel had largely kicked off the Nevada

gambling boom. Danny did a show about him years ago too in case you want a deeper history. I mean, it was all just, I think the murder, did we do a just about Lansky episode? Yes, I think you did one years ago now, like maybe one of the earlier ones that we ever did. I don't know if I did one just on, I think we did it on Murder Inc. I could be wrong though. Okay. Maybe that's the case. I mean, it talks about him a bit, but I don't think we've done like a biographical one on him.

Well, there we go. I mean, there's just so much. There's just so much out there on the two of them. I think there's been like, that was my favorite thing. I got into an argument with a guy a couple years ago who was, you know, conspiracy tarred sort of stuff about how like, you know, the Jewish movie makers never talk about the Jewish gangsters. There's like five movies alone. about Meyer-Lansky,

the movie about Bugsy Seagull got nominated for 10 Oscars. I think that was, what, 91 or 92? And then The Godfather, even. Characters based on both of them and on, yeah, as the antagonist, too. And then, casino, casino the main guy,

it's just like, not even trying with conspiracy theories anymore, man, like a simple, anyone who's seen a single mop, whatever, let's move on. Yeah. Fair enough. Yes. People are.

Is everyone an idiot nowadays? I think everyone is done. Most people, my brother. But as the Havana conference is underway, things have deteriorated badly between Lansky and Siegel. Siegel, a notorious party boy in Carouser, had let their Flamingo Hotel and Casino projects on the Vegas strip run from a budget of $1 million to $6 million. And Lansky is increasingly worried that Siegel and his mistress are skimming. cash in the flamingo into their own pockets. Quote, there was no doubt in Meyer's mind that Bugsie had skimmed the dough from his building

budget and he was sure that Siegel was preparing to skip as well as skim in case the roof was going to fall in on him. That's Luciano. Everybody listened very carefully while Meyer explained it. When he was through, somebody asked, what do you think we ought to do, Maya? Lanski said, there's only one thing to do with a thief who's still from his friends. Benny's got to be hit. so was put to a vote. The result was unanimous and Bugsy was as good as dead. Six months later,

Siegel is going to be gunned down at his girlfriend's home in Beverly Hills. It's one of the most infamous hits in Gangland history. The kill shot slaps into Siegel's face and blows his left eyeball right out of his socket. The eyeball is later found intact 14 feet away from the body. The gunman never identified and the murder remains unsolved. Despite Lanski's being linked to the death, will deny it till his own dying day, both eyeballs, mercifully in their sockets. If I was in my power to see Benny alive, he would live as long as Methuselah, he says in the 1970s. This was a terrible shock to me.

Pulp quiz. How well do you know your Bible, Danny? You know old Methuselah was when he died? No, and I did just read the entire English version of the Old Testament, but I don't think there was much on him there. And I'm reading prophets. 400 years? I have no idea, dude.

Yeah, he's one of those crazy guys that, like, lives for. insane amount of time. He's 969 when he dies, which sounds pretty miserable, to be honest. I kind of want to die soon. Anyway, moving on. Wait, what? What? Hold on. Jesus. Maybe the blessed piece of death might be better than waking up after four hours sleep every day. Anyway, just days after the mob conference on around December 27th or 28th of 1946, gunmen try to take out Lucky Luciano at the Grand Casino Nacional in the Havana district of Mariano, which, I don't know, man. I went to Marienel.

How on earth that place was considered like fancy. It's nuts. Luciano manages to get away from them, and he escapes through the casino servants' entrance. The attempted killers then chasing through Mariano's darkened streets, but a Cuban cop car froze on his siren and goes after them, bungling the assassination. The following night, Luciano heads back to the casino to throw dice with several of his criminal associates, including Cuban senators, whom U.S. law enforcement suspect to be involved in the trafficking of narcotics into the U.S. National police officers then

approached the group and tell Luciano and another guy they're about to be arrested. After a short conversation, the Cuban politicians managed to get the cops to stand down. But one of them leans in and tells Luciano, quote, be careful. Those killers from last night are still out there, and they may try again. From this point on, the Cuban state hands Luciano his own security detail, including the former Havana baseball star, nicknamed Sungo. According to Sungal, the day Al Capone's death is announced on January 25, 1947, Luciano burst into tears. Al was a fine man, he says, Dan is a fantastic man. He really is. If you know, you know, anyway. Then we get the episode from the cold open.

Sinatra and Luciano go on a bender. They get found out by the keen investigative team of the Cuban Girl Scouts. American media realized that the violent gangster who is supposed to be convalescing in Sicily is actually quarterbacking drug and casino deals in Havana. And US authorities start turning the screws on Cuba to deport him back to Italy. Cuba tells its neighbor to go whistle. So, in a foreshadowing of the next few decades to come, Washington threatens to cut off Cuba's supply of medicine, which finally does it for Luchiano.

On February 23rd, 1947, Luchiano is having lunch at a Vodado restaurant when six police officers arrive and place him under arrest. The gangster is given a few days to settle his affairs before being placed in the Trichornia immigration camp in Havana. When the big United States started to put the squeeze on a little country like Cuba, right's lucky, in another dose of foreshadowing for the decades to come, what choice did they have? Luciano is held at the camp for around five weeks. Then, I'll let T.J. English take it on. Quote, on March 29th,

Luciano was loaded onto a rusty Turkish freighter named the SS Bakir. The ship chugged out to sea, passing El Morrow, the colonial fortress and lighthouse at the mouth of Havana Bay. After five months, Luciano's Cuban adventure ended as it had begun, on the high seas. forever after the memory of his time in Havana would live on, swathed in nostalgia for an era of lust, high life and sweet corruption. It's such a, it's a good book. This time, Luchana will stay put, dying in Naples in 1962, age 64.

But Cuba's lust for organized crime is far from over. Fulhencio Batista, who's been living in self-imposed exile between New York and Daytona Beach, Florida. He returns to Cuba in 1948. The reason he left to be with a woman that he almost ran over in his previous presidential motorcade. He is still only 47, an age at which Danny and I are hoping all men peak and he's got his eye on the country's leadership once more. Batista re-ups on his old pal Meyer Lansky, who that year marries his second wife, Thelma Teddy Lansky. Batista can't run for president yet. Cuban law dictates that he serve at least one term in a lower

office, so he becomes a senator for the sleepy rural province of Las Bejas. But outside of Batista's summon and turf, Cuba is erupting into gangsterismo, and not just because of the Americans camped out the craps tables of Vidal. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and Game Sense remind you to play responsibly, 19 plus to wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor. Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario.

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I'm Carter Roy, the host of Murder True Crime Stories. If you listen to True Crime because you want more than just what happened, this show is for you. Each episode takes a deep dive into history's most notorious murders, looking beyond the crime scene to focus on the people and communities impacted the most. Whether a case is solved or unsolved, the goal is simple to understand why these stories still matter. New episodes drop every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Follow murder, true crime stories on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen.

For years, the erosion of military power has led to factions within politics, in their own de facto gangs, parties, army members, and especially student wings, prompted an outbreak of political violence the likes of which the country hasn't seen since it defeated the Spanish in 1898. Says one local quote, The group with the most guns had the most influence. At one point, this has gotten so bad that Carlos Priyo, Cuban president from 1948, proposes a gun amnesty among the political student factions at the University of Havana,

where guys can get government subsidies if they turn in their firearms. Just like that sink in, the organized crime is getting so out of hand that the government is giving the gangsters away into the government if they stop shooting people. I mean, that does happen though, right? I guess more so with violent political groups and militias than gangsters. I guess the IRA to some extent, yeah. I mean, Middle East all over and Colombia, right?

I mean, at what point did the FARC like they were, El Salvador, I think, after their they were more malicious though, where's the FARC were sort of gangsterism. But yeah, I mean, it's wild, but I feel actually, yeah, it does, it does happen.

Yeah, actually, we're going to do an episode on Columbia, maybe next week, the week after that. Are we? Oh, yeah, with that guy. Interesting stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, really cool story. Anyway, writes T.J. English quote, Brillo's Gangster Pact

touched off a firestorm of debate. One rich landowners suggested that the only practical solution was to round up all the gang members and transport into his plantation where he would then supply them with ammunition so that they could have a shootout and eliminate one another so there's only one man left standing.

That's a good idea. Cubans invented squid game, man. This is pretty impressive. That, of course, does not happen. But what does happen is that gangster is small provides an excuse for one University of Havana student to go on the oratory rampage, railing against the state in its attempt to bribe gangsters out of violence. He's a handsome, insanely well-read nationalist,

and it's alleged a handy baseball pitcher by the name of Fidel Castro. Castro is known to carry a weapon himself, and he's known to surround himself with a clique of armed goons while he goes about complaining about government corruption. Castro actually survives a pretty credible murder accusation, himself before in 1949 delivering a speech

against President Prios so-called gangster pact on the steps of the university in Virado. If you've ever been to Havana

the university steps of this kind of iconic location like a mini version of those steps in Odessa. Down with this kind of thing

Castro says, I'm paraphrasing and before he's even finished speaking armed thugs are gathering in their automobiles in the streets all around.

One of Castro's friends in the Partido Autodoxo then whisks him away because, quote, he would be killed if he went out in the street. Castro has made a, quote, courageous decision, the friend adds, to take a stand against gangsterismo and his position never wavered. From that point on, Cuba was changed forever. Castro heads off and he plots revolution. Meanwhile, in the US, there is some of disagreement about what, the biggest threat from Cuba actually is.

J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, thinks it's communism. But Harry Anslinger, the inaugural head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, thinks it's organized crime and drugs. Guys, don't fight. It could be both. There is actually a really interesting showdown between these two law enforcement titans. Hoover is in full red peril mode denying the existence of anything resembling an American

mafia, while Anslinger is up on the wires and he knows There is a national crime syndicate being orchestrated by the likes of Lansky and Luciano. Anslinger finds an ally in Tennessee Senator Estes Kevalba, Estes Kefalva, that is a hell of a name, and he convenes what will become known as the Kefalva Committee on January 5, 1950. Its purpose will be to lead, quote, a full and complete study and investigation of interstate gambling and racketeering activities and of the manner in which the facilities of interstate commerce are made a vehicle of organized crime. We've talked about that commission a few times.

It really is absolutely insane. Super interesting. Yeah, and it's, I think it's, I think the tapes are out there. I mean, I know when I was working on that project about the Milwaukee gangsters in Vegas and all that, I believe that I was able to get recordings of them pretty easily. They might be on YouTube. So if you're interested, just Google around.

I'm sure you can find them. There might be. There's a great website. The Nixon files, right, after Watergate. I think all the Nixon tapes are up online. And I think on that same website, you can find loads of stuff from like Kissinger and Anslinger and all these early guys. I think some of this might be there. I could be wrong, but it's like an amazing source.

The commission calls in major organized criminal figures to testify, including Myelanski himself, plus his brother Jake. Another star witness is Willie Moretti, a mob conference delegate and the Jersey gangster said to have spearheaded Frank Sinarch's career back in the day. And Moretti, he sings like a papagayo. Well, character people don't need introductions, he tells the committee, before offering one of its senators to have dinner at his home in Deal on the Jersey Shore, which is named after Deal Kent, where I like to spend time when I'm back in the UK. Yeah, Deal now is a fascinating town. I went to a wedding there years ago. It's where like the Syrian Jewish community from, you know, like, I think what was it, Midwood or that part of Brooklyn? Oh, damn.

They have like their, like, their summer homes and it deals wild, man. I like deal. Wow. I mean, I also like deal with UK where I played their golf course a few months ago and it's incredible. Anyway, Moretti is basically just blathering on, right? He's not giving away anything of consequence. nonetheless, talking to the feds is a capital offence in mobland. On October 4, 1950, while having breakfast at a diner in Cliffside Park, which sits over the Hudson from Harlem, a team of assassins gun Moretti down.

This drama elevates the mob in the American public consciousness, and the genie will never really go back in the lamp. Up to 30 million people are said to watch the committee, rather, on TV. and characters like Maya Lansky and Frank Costello become household names. Yeah, I mean, obviously people knew what the mafia was before this, but I think this is the first time the mafia is like really acknowledged publicly to a massive American audience in terms of like sort of like the ritualistic stuff in it and the power structure and whatnot. Before this, I mean, obviously, you had Al Capone and people knew about gangsters,

but this is the first time that it's really put out into the open for like millions, millions and millions of Americans. Yeah, yeah, this makes it, well, go gangbusters ironically. But I think I don't know a huge amount about the Hoover Anslinger thing, but I think it's like kind of iconic that Hoover's just really trying to press, like we should throw all our money at fighting communism. And Ansling is like, there's a lot of drugs coming over. It's really interesting stuff.

Now, basically nobody at this point then, thanks to the committee, does not know that American organized crime owns Havana. But in 1952, Lansky and Coe will get their biggest windfall from inside Cuba. On March 10 that year, Fulhencio Batista launches a military coup d'etat and takes control of the country. Batista brings Lansky in-house, making him an advisor to the state on gambling, and in 1955, the Cuban leader offers casino licenses for a million dollars or nightclub licenses for $200. grand. Overnight, the US mob had been handed a super simple way to launder its cash and make plenty more on the side. Havana is soon packed full of betting venues, most of them operated by

the National Crime Syndicate, the Havana Riviera, Capri, the Monmarch, the San Suuci, and Dovill. According to Eric Diesenhall, has written a book about Myelanski, quote, while the Las Vegas casinos were mob controlled, on the hills of the Kefalva congressional hearings on the rackets, they had to operate under American law where the mobsters were considered undesirables. Most were banned not only from ownership but from even setting foot in casinos. Moreover, most of the mob's income from Las Vegas came from the skim, cash illegally taken from the counting rooms and distributed tax-free to mob bosses. With a few exceptions in Las Vegas, American gangsters were still criminals.

In Havana, they were shareholding partners and executives. And he continues, over a seven-year period from 1952 to 1959, the city of Havana was the beneficiary of staggering growth and development. Large hotel casinos, nightclubs, tourist resorts, tunnels and highways were constructed in a whirlwind of activity. Neon, glitter, the Mambo and sex became the hallmarks of a thriving tourist business. The allure of organized gambling, along with fabulous nightclub floor shows and beautiful women, brought an influx of money into the city. This goes beyond the vice, of course. So huge is American investment in Cuba during these years that it ranks third among foreign countries receiving US cash globally.

This is like an island of a few million people. That is crazy. I'm going to breeze over stuff that people who write angry internet comments say that Cuba is once one of the most prosperous countries on Earth, If there's one of the most unequal societies on the planet, you can sound off in the comments, guys, if you have thoughts on that. But there's a new dawn arriving in Cuba. Fidel Castro, the one-time practitioner of gangsterismo, who decried it so passionately on the university steps in 1949, he's out to take the country altogether. On July 26, 1953, a team of guerrishas storms and army barracks in Santiago de Cuba.

they fail. But the storming will be the first act of the Cuban Revolution. Castro actually spends the next couple of years in prison, reading voraciously, and that year he delivers his famous History Will absolve me speech, which, to be fair, is pretty spectacular stuff. Here's an example. I know that imprisonment will be harder for me than it has ever been for anyone, filled with cowardly threats and hid his cruelty, but I do not fear prison as I do not fear the fury of the miserable tyrant who took the lives of 70 of my comrades, condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me. I'll say a few things about Castro in the next episode, but it certainly beats people knocking out tweets with little hammer and sickle in their profile. I know,

I don't it? Castro emerges from prison in 1955. By 1958, his guerrillas are bearing down on Havana. That Christmas Eve, they run amok, looting casinos, racetracks and hotels across the capital, many of which belong to Maya Lanski. Castro has spent years railing against the presence of the US mob in Cuba, and to put the boot in, his men literally bring pigs from local farms onto the shop floors of Lansky's gambling dens. Lansky, shrewd as ever, sees that the gig in Cuba is up. And on January 7, 1959, just a single day before Castro reached, his Savannah, he gets the hell out of Dodge, boarding a flight to the Bahamas. There, he re-ups on his criminal empire and elsewhere in the Caribbean, stashing a fortune in private banks and opening

yet more casinos. Again, for more on that, I think you mentioned some of this from a few years back. In 1970, Lansky moves to Israel to avoid U.S. tax evasion charges, he has denied residency ultimately and deported back to the States. Yeah, again, in The Godfather, right? He's deported back to the US and we get that shooting scene. Yes, we do. I should really watch the Godfrey. It's been like 10 years and so much. That's the second one.

That's Godfather too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's probably been even longer actually since I watched that. Damn. Lansky dies in 1983. There is still a huge mystery as to the whereabouts of his wealth. And incredibly, members of his family have even attempted to get some money back of Fidel Castro during that time

unsuccessfully, of course. Castro takes over Cuba he bans gambling and pro sports where Duns of Dirty Money was being laundered through Havana and Cuba settles into life as a socialist utopia. Yeah, kind of embraces the gangsterism thing

a little bit with the whole lining people up and against the walls and shooting them things. I don't know if he really swore it off that much but we can get into that next episode. Something to think about. Yeah. We're going to pick up the next part of this Cuba doubleheader around the time of Myelanski's death when Cuba gets embroiled in the Latin

American cocaine trade. Then we're going to whiz through the wild and oftentimes lawless special period in the 90s culminating in the crisis of today, drugs, guns, and yours truly make it a big old fool of himself. Until then, thanks as always for listening and for God's sake, do not Instagram your crimes. Patreon.com, says on a world podcast, Spotify, iTunes, all that. Let me know if you have cold remedy. Actually, you know, I feel fine now. All right. Thanks, guys. Sean, you're great man and we look forward to hearing about you getting the shit kicked out of you next episode.