Trafficante crime family

Trafficante crime family

Founded by	Ignacio Antinori
Named after	Santo Trafficante Sr.
Founding location	Tampa, Florida, United States
Years active	1925–present
Territory	Hillsborough, Tampa Bay Area and the state of Florida.
Ethnicity	Italian, Italian-American as made men, and other ethnicities as "associates"
Criminal activities	Racketeering, loansharking, extortion, contract, kidnapping, sex slavery, bribery, corruption, drug trafficking, murder, gambling, conspiracy, money laundering, bookmaking, contract, labor racketeering
Allies	Five Families Chicago New Orleans crime family
Rivals	various gangs

The Trafficante crime family, also known as the Tampa Mafia, was an Italian-American Mafia crime family based in Tampa, Florida, United States. The most notable boss was Santo Trafficante, Jr. who ruled Tampa and the crime family with an iron fist.^[1] Author Scott Deitche reported that Santo Jr. was involved with the CIA to plot assassination attempts on Fidel Castro.^[1] After the death of Santo Jr. in 1987, the Tampa Mafia family was controlled by Vincent LoScalzo.

History[]

Early Tampa underworld bosses[]

During the early 1920s, Charlie Wall created a organized crime syndicated in Tampa, where he controlled a large number of illegal gambling rackets and threw payoffs corrupted many Tampa government officials. Wall controlled his organization from the Tampa neighborhood of Ybor City, and employed Italians, Cubans and men of other ethnicities into his organization. His only competitor for criminal rackets in the Tampa Bay area was Italian Mafia boss Ignacio Antinori.^[2]

Ignacio Antinori, a Sicilian born immigrant, became a well-known drug kingpin and the Italian crime boss during the late 1920s. There was also a smaller Italian gang in the area which was controlled by Santo Trafficante Sr., who had lived in Tampa since the age of 18. Trafficante had already set up Bolita games throughout the city and was a very powerful man. Antinori took notice of Santo Trafficante and invited him into his organization and together they expanded the Bolita games across the state. By the 1930s Antinori and Wall were in a bloody war for ten years, which would later be known as "Era of Blood". Wall's closest associate, Evaristo "Tito" Rubio, was shot on his porch on March 8, 1938. The war ended in the 1940s with Antinori being shot and killed with a sawed-off shotgun. Both Wall's and Antinori's organizations were weakened leaving Santo Trafficante as one of the last and most powerful bosses in Tampa.^[2]

Trafficante Sr. and the Cuba casinos[]

Santo Trafficante Sr. had now taken over a majority of the city and started to teach his son Santo Trafficante Jr. how to run the city. In Trafficante Sr.'s adult life he portrayed himself as a successful Tampa cigar factory owner.^[3] Santo was being watched closely by police and made Salvatore "Red" Italiano the acting boss. With the untimely Kefauver hearings and Charlie Wall testifying in 1950, both Trafficantes fled to Cuba. He always wanted to make it big in Cuban casinos and dispatched his son, Santo, Jr., to Havana in 1946 to help operate a mob owned casino. The Tampa mob made a considerable amount of money in Cuba, but never achieved its ambition of making the island part of its territory. After the hearings ended the Trafficantes returned to Tampa to find out that Italiano had just fled to Mexico leaving Jimmy Lumia the biggest mobster in the city. Santo had Lumia killed after finding out he was bad mouthing him while he was in Cuba and he took over again. In 1953 Santo Jr. survived a shooting. The family suspected the perpetrator was Charlie Wall and consequently, in 1955, had him killed. Trafficante remained the boss of Tampa until he died of natural causes in 1954.^[2][1]

Trafficante Jr. era[]

Santo Trafficante, Jr. succeeded his father as the boss of Tampa and ruled his family with an iron fist.^[1] Despite numerous stunted ambitions, he was regarded as one of the most powerful mob bosses of the American Mafia. Santo Jr. was born in the United States on November 15, 1914 and was one of five sons of Mafia boss Santo Trafficante. He maintained close working ties with the Lucchese and Bonanno crime families from New York City. Santo Jr. worked closely with Lucchese family boss Tommy Lucchese, who was a friend of his father, and a man who helped train him in the 1940s.^[4]

Santo Jr. was known to have been deeply involved in the CIA efforts to involve the underworld in assassination attempts on Fidel Castro.^[1] Under pressure of a court order granting him immunity from prosecution, but threatening him with contempt if he refused to talk, Trafficante admitted to a Congressional committee in 1975 that he had in the early 1960s recruited other mobsters to assassinate Castro.^{[citation needed]} "It was like World War II" he told the committee. "They told me to go to the draft board and sign up."^{[citation needed]} In 1978, Trafficante was called to testify before members of the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations investigating possible links between Lee Harvey Oswald and anti-Castro Cubans, including the theory that Castro had President John F. Kennedy killed in retaliation for the CIA's attempts to assassinate Castro.^[5]

Santo, Jr. never spent a day in jail, and he died of natural causes in 1987.^[6]

Leadership under LoScalzo[]

In 1987 Vincent LoScalzo became boss of the Trafficante family and Florida became open territory. The Five Families of New York City could work in any city in the state. LoScalzo's new family was smaller because many of the older mobsters were dead or retired.^[7] He has interests in gambling, prostitution, narcotics, union racketeering, hijacking and fencing stolen goods. He controls a few bars, lounges, restaurants, night clubs and liquor stores across Florida. Loscalzo has ties to California, New Jersey, and New York as well as being connected to the Sicilian Mafia. On July 1, 1989, LoScalzo was indicted on racketeering charges that included grand theft. The charges were later dropped and then reinstated. LoScalzo plead no contest on October 7, 1997 and received three months of probation. In 1992, LoScalzo was arrested at the Tampa International Airport for carrying a loaded .38-caliber pistol in his brief case. The weapon was detected by an X-ray scanner. He was convicted in 1999, and was sentenced to 60 days in prison.^[7]

On October 26, 2000, federal authorities arrested Steven Raffa, along with eighteen members of Trafficante family's Miami faction.^[8] Raffa the leader of the Miami faction committed suicide on November 16, 2000.^[8]

Current status[]

As of November 25, 2007, Vincent LoScalzo is a 70+ year old semi-retired mobster and a "regular Joe" according to Scott Deitche, author of Cigar City Mafia. The old family membership has died and the Tampa Mob has fallen into the shadows of the New York mobs.^[9]

On August 5, 2008, the Tampa and New York FBI indicted John A. "Junior" Gotti, along with John A. Burke, James V. Cadicamo, David D'Arpino, Michael D. Finnerty and Guy T. Peden on charges of racketeering, kidnapping, conspiracy to commit murder and drug trafficking.^[10] The indictment stated that Gotti Jr. along with the other men had been involved in various criminal activities in Tampa and New York during the early 2000s'.^[10] Evidence from the 2004 and 2006 trails of John Alite, Ronald J. Trucchio, and Charles Carneglia connected Gotti Jr. and others to criminal operations in Tampa, Florida.^[10]

Historical leadership[]

Boss[]

Name and nickname(s)	Image	Tenure		Notes
Ignacio Antinori		1920	1940	Murdered on October 23, 1940.
Santo Trafficante, Sr.		1940	1954	Died in August 1954 of a heart attack.[11]
Santo Trafficante, Jr.		1954	1987	Died on March 17, 1987.
Vincent LoScalzo Vince		1987	Present	[12]

Underboss[]

Name and nickname(s)	Image	Tenure		Notes
Santo Trafficante, Sr.		1920	1940	Promoted to Boss
Salvatore Italiano Red		1946	1948	The nephew of former boss Ignazio Antinori, he later fled to Mexico.[13]
James Lumia Head of the Elks		1948	1950	Murdered on June 5, 1950.
Santo Trafficante, Jr.		1950	1954	Promoted to Boss
Vincent LoScalzo Vince		1954	1987	Promoted to Boss [12]
Frank Diecidue Daddy Frank		1987	1994	Died on October 19, 1994.[12]
Frank Albano		1994	2003	Tampa member.[12] Died on September 10, 2003[14]

Current members[]

• Boss – Vincent LoScalzo — born in 1937, LoScalzo is still considered the "boss" of whatever is left of the Trafficante family, although it is unknown if they still have any real illegal operations.

Past members[]

• Salvatore "Sam" Carollo — born in Caccamo, Sicily and later grew up in Chicago to finally living in Florida.^[15] Carollo became real estate developer in Florida and eventually owned a Golf Course.^[15] In 1991, Carollo was identified as a “made man” in a report from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.^[15] In 1994, Carollo and boss Vince LoSacalzo were arrested on racketeering and fraud charges.^[15] On December 29, 2020 Carollo died of natural causes.^[15][16]

• Ignazio Italiano – was a friend of Profaci family boss Joseph Profaci. They were from the same town of Villabate in Sicily. Ignazio was a produce salesman and the uncle to Tampa mobster Salvatore "Red" Italiano. He died on August 11, 1930.^[13]

• Steven Bruno Raffa — former leader of Trafficante family's Miami faction and close associate of boss Vincent LoScalzo. Raffa took control of the family's Miami faction during the mid 1980's and operated from his base in Opa-Locka, Miami and Pembrooke Pines.^[8] During the 1990's Raffa worked with Genovese family's New Jersey faction mobster John Mamone who began living in Pompano Beach.^[8] Raffa along with Mamone controlled a multi-million dollar money laundering operation using a network of mob owned check-cashing stores in South Florida.^[8] Raffa was arrested on October 26, 2000 along with eighteen members of his crew.^[8] He later committed suicide on November 16, 2000.^[8][17]

Past associates[]

• Frank Ragano — was the attorney and main advisor to Santo Trafficante Jr.

In popular culture[]

• Newell, Mike. Donnie Brasco (1997). A Hollywood film about former FBI agent Joseph Pistone. Val Avery played Santo Trafficante, Jr.
• Poulette, Michel. Bonanno: A Godfather's Story (1999). A made-for-television film about the rise and fall of the Bonanno crime family. The actor John Burns played the part of Mafia boss Santo Trafficante, Jr.
• Guzzo, Pete. Ghost of Ybor (2008). A made-for-television film about the life of the American gangster Charlie Wall. It shows the Trafficante crime family at the end of the film.

References[]

Notes

Sources

• Sifakis, Carl. Mafia Encyclopedia, Second Edition. New York: Da Capo Press, 1999. ISBN 978-0816018567
• Deitche, Scott. Cigar City Mafia: A Complete History of The Tampa Underworld. New York: Barricade Books, 2004. ISBN 1-56980-266-1
• Deitche, Scott. The Silent Don: The Criminal Underworld of Santo Trafficante, Jr.. New York: Barricade Books, 2008.
• Deitche, Scott. The Everything Mafia Book, Second Edition. New York: Barricade Books, 2007.
• Pistone, Joseph. Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia. Joseph Pistone, 1987. ISBN 978-0451192578
• Davis, John. Mafia Kingfish: Carlos Marcello and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. New York: Signet, 1989.
• Capeci, Jerry. The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Mafia, Second Edition. New York: Alpha Books, 2005.
• DeVico, Peter. The Mafia Made Easy. Peter DeVico, 2007. ISBN 978-1-6024725-4-9
• Bliss, A.J., "MAKING A SUNBELT PLACE: TAMPA, FLORIDA," 1923–1964, Ph.D. dissertation, 2010

External links

• Rick Porrello's American Mafia: Tampa, Florida by Scott Deitche
• Dieland Mob: The Trafficante Family (Tampa)
• American Gangland:Trafficante Crime Family