Mafia, 1946 Havana Conference.

Havana Conference attendees.   List of the organized crime figures who attended the Havana Conference on December 20, 1946 at the Hotel Nacional in Havana, Cuba.    Hosts:   - Charlie "Lucky" Luciano, former Luciano family boss, former chairman, founder and member of the Commission. Luciano was living in Naples, Italy. After the meeting he was named United States’ boss of bosses.   - Meyer "The Li...

Lucky and Don Vito.   At the end of the Havana Conference, the tension between Luciano and Genovese allegedly reached a boiling point, according to The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano, by Martin Gosch and Richard Hammer.   Meeting with Luciano in his room at the Hotel Nacional, Genovese told him that the U.S. government knew that Luciano was in Cuba and was pressuring the Cuban Government to expel...

The Siegel Situation.   The next item on the agenda at the Havana Conference was what Lansky called the "Siegel Situation". In the mid-1930s, the New York and Chicago crime families had been sent west to establish and oversee a race wire service, gambling activities in Los Angeles and Nevada, and supervise narcotics shipments from Mexico. In a short while, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel had become a popu...

Narcotics trade.   One of the key topics at the Havana Convention was the global narcotics trade and the mob's operations in the United States. A longstanding myth has been the supposed refusal of Luciano and Cosa Nostra to deal in narcotics. In reality, only a few bosses such as Frank Costello and the other bosses who controlled lucrative gambling empires opposed narcotics. The anti-drug faction...

The conference begins.   The Havana Conference convened on December 20, 1946. Delegates were present representing New York City, New Jersey, Buffalo, Chicago, New Orleans, and Florida. The largest delegation of bosses was from the New York-New Jersey area. Several major bosses from the Jewish Syndicate were at the conference to discuss joint La Cosa Nostra-Jewish Syndicate business. According to c...

Mafia, 1946 Havana Conference.   The Havana Conference of 1946 was a meeting of American Mafia and National Crime Syndicate leaders to determine Syndicate policy, rules, and business interests in the new postwar era. The conference is considered to be the most important US organized crime summit since the 1929 Atlantic City Conference. Decisions made in Havana resonated throughout the US in ensuin...