The next area of focus for the Havana
Conference was the Global Narcotics trade, which was one of the most significant
topics on the Havana Conference agenda. In the book “The Last Testament of
Lucky Luciano” it is stated that Luciano said “I told
‘em I want ‘em to get the hell outa that business, to stop it right then and
there, and to forget it.” However, this argument was falling on deaf ears. As
the discussion continued about the huge sums of money that could be made from
drugs, Luciano could see this was a conflict he was not going to win. Soon
Costello leaned over and whispered, “Charlie, don’t hit your head against the
wall. Vito rigged it before the meet started. Try to get out of it as soon as
you can. Someday, they’ll all be sorry.” Many experts believe this information
is incorrect and the belief that Luciano and the Cosa Nostra did not want to
nor did they deal in narcotics is mythical and incorrect. The reality is that
only a few bosses who ran lucrative gambling rackets were opposed to the drug
trade. One of these bosses was Frank Costello, the acting boss for the Luciano
family at the time. These anti-narcotics, pro-gambling bosses were not
interested in the drug trade. They believed dealing drugs would have a negative
impact on La Cosa Nostra because of the media and law enforcement attention it
would bring to the organization. For these reasons and the fact that the
general public considered drugs to be a very harmful unlike gambling these few
bosses argued against dealing drugs. However the majority of the bosses, who
were pro-narcotics had a valid counterargument; they argued that narcotics were
far more profitable than any other illegal activity and if they overlooked the
drug trade, other criminal organizations would pick it up, which would lead to
power and influence fading away from the La Cosa Nostra.
The top boss, Charlie “Lucky”
Luciano had been involved with drugs from a very young age. He came up as a
street dealer in the late 1910s and in 1928 after the murder of his old boss,
Arnold “The Big Bankroll” Rothstein, Luciano decided along with Louis “Lepke”
Buchatler to take over Rothstein’s large narcotics importation. La Cosa Nostra
had been involved in the narcotics trade long before the Havana Conference and well
after it. La Cosa Nostra was the biggest importer of narcotics from the
1920s-1980s in the United States, until other drug organizations and cartels
such as those of the Mexicans and Asians prospered. The specific concern of the
narcotics trade for the Havana Conference was monopolizing it. Charlie “Lucky”
Luciano’s deportation was hurtful for him but it turned out to be a blessing in
disguise for the Mob’s Narcotic operations.
Upon his deportation to Sicily,
Luciano now had the opportunity to import heroin from North Africa via Italy
and Cuba to the United States and Canada. He made affiliations with Sicily’s biggest
and most powerful bosses such as Don Calogero “Calo” Vizzini of Villalba who
assisted in the Allied invasion of Sicily and had the greatest political
connections of all Sicilian bosses. Don Pasquale Ania, a powerful boss in Palermo
was another boss who had become an affiliate of Luciano. Don Pasquale Ania had
connections to legitimate pharmaceutical companies; these connections were a
result of large scale heroin production being legal at that time in Italy.
At the Havana conference Luciano
laid out the details of the proposed drug networks that would help monopolize
drug trafficking for the Cosa Nostra. The proposed plan was as follows; after
arriving into Cuba from North Africa, the mob would ship the Narcotics to US
ports that it controlled primarily New York City, New Orleans and Tampa. After
arriving in their destined ports the narcotics would be overseen by the Luciano
Crime Family (later the Genovese Family) and the Mangano Crime Family (later
the Gambino Family) in New York, the Marcello Crime Family would oversee the
operation in New Orleans and in Tampa the Trafficante Crime Family would watch
over the narcotics operation. All the delegates voted yes to approve the plan.
