Another successful government collaboration with the Mafia
But the U.S. government-Mafia relationship started before Operation Husky. A year before the invasion of Sicily, the government accepted help from the New York City Mafia to keep the American harbors safe from Axis saboteurs.
It all started the moment SS Normandie was destroyed. It was a French ocean liner that our military outfitted to serve as a troopship. However, it mysteriously caught fire while being docked in New York City.
The U.S. government was afraid that the enemy managed to infiltrate the harbor and sabotage more than one ship. Luckily, no one had more control over the New York waterfront, than the Mob.
They reached out to some of the most well-known underworld bosses, Lucky Luciano included, and asked for help in keeping an eye on all the waterfronts for suspicious activities.
Mafia Hitmen in 1960’s Cuba
Back in the 1960s, the Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro started to become a threat to U.S. security, as he brought the communists closer to American soil.
According to our government, the only viable solution was to take out Castro. In August 1960, the director of the Office of Security for the CIA remembered how prolific was the Mafia collaboration, so he suggested hiring Mafia hitmen to eliminate the enemy.
In the following years, the CIA contacted many Mafia members, such as Carlos Marcello, Sam Giancana, John Roselli, and even Santo Trafficante Jr.
Different options were carefully considered, including suggestions to shoot and poison the Cuban dictator. However, none of them were put into action.
The Mafia and recovered bodies
There were many rumors that circulated for several years that the FBI and CIA asked Mafia informants to help them find the bodies of slain people. Even so, these stories were never confirmed, UNTIL a woman called Linda Schiro testified under oath in 2007 that her former boyfriend, who was a Mafia member called Gregory Scarpa, met with the FBI in 1964.
Apparently, they asked him to help locate what was left out of three Civil Rights workers, who mysteriously disappeared in Mississippi, and were presumed to have been murdered.
As Schiro testified, her former boyfriend got into a confrontation with one of the members of the Mississippi Ku Klux Klan, and even shoved a gun in his mouth, threatening to kill him unless he reveals where the workers’ bodies were. Even if Schiro’s testimony came a little later, it still stands as proof that the U.S. government and the Mafia collaborated many times!
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