-Caveat Lector- an excerpt from: Drug Politics David C. Jordan University of Oklahoma press©1999 Norman Publishing Division of the University ISBN 0-8061-3174-8 288 pps -- first edition -- In-print --[3b]-- --With the drugging of the general population, governing elites come to see themselves as a ruling class and not as public servants accountable to a public that believes in limits on private and public behavior. And, finally, as these unaccountable elites forge alliances with their counterparts in other countries, a transnational alliance of finance capital is facilitated, an alliance freed of democratic republican accountability. Borderless and unchecked capital is thus available for speculative assaults on states resisting the agendas of unaccountable money interests.-- Quite the interesting book. A bit of a view from an ivory tower, but all in all thought-provoking. It would have been a bit interesting if he had used Kwittney , Marshall, PD Scott, and Stitch in his sources. Highly recomended. A taste Om K ----- THE U.S. NATIONAL CRIME SYNDICATE Organized crime in the United States "(1) is not some random or episodic thing, but a patterned and structured activity; (2) finds and exploits opportunities for illicit gain; and (3) operates across time regardless of individual changes in personnel or leadership," one observer has claimed. According to Peter A. Lupsha, "Organized crime in the United States tended to be dominated by an Italian-American-Jewish coalition.... Charles 'Lucky' Luciano's group appeared paramount over all other socalled 'La Cosa Nostra' groups, and with its multi-ethnic leadership mix, it acted as the link connecting Jewish and Italian organized crime across the United States."[59] The characterization of organized crime in America as uniquely Italian has led to a misdiagnosis of the range, extent, and multiethnic nature of the country's National Crime Syndicate (NCS), which was designed to protect its leaders from competition, to provide funds for political protection, and to tax regional bosses according to their ability to pay. When the U.S. Senate's McClellan Committee investigated organized crime in 1959, Meyer Lansky was identified as the head of the National Crime Syndicate.[60] According to Hank Messick, the author of an in-depth study of Lansky, when a high-ranking Justice official was asked why the department placed emphasis on the mafia instead of the National Crime Syndicate, the man explained, "The Mafia was small and handy The feeling was the American people would buy it with its family relations and blood oaths a lot quicker than they could understand the complex syndicate. You must remember, we wanted to get public support behind the drive on crime. "[61] Born Maier Suchowljansky in Grodno, Russia, Meyer Lansky came to the United States in 1911 when he was nine years old. In time he filled the vacuum left by the previous brain of organized crime, Arnold Rothstein the fixer of the 1919 World Series, who was murdered on November 4, 1928, in the Park Central Hotel of New York. Lansky, who had traveled about the country meeting with the bosses from Philadelphia to Kansas City, subsequently inspired the 1929 gangland convention held at the Hotel President in Atlantic City to search for additional sources of income. Lansky was the informal leader of the New York delegation which included Lucky Luciano and Joe Adonis. Other city or state organizations represented at the meeting were those of Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Kansas City, and New Jersey. This Atlantic City meeting demonstrated the multiethnic character of the NCS.[62] Although no formal organization was created at the Atlantic City meeting, Lansky initiated the New York group's cooperation with the Cleveland syndicate. From that time on, arrangements were developed with other gangs throughout the United States, with Lansky the de facto chairman of the board. Organized crime expanded during Prohibition, and when it ended, the major distributors of alcohol made large fortunes in the legal market. Most of the hard-core criminals who stayed in illegal activities after Prohibition went into gambling. Gambling houses were often located far from major cities, in towns such as Covington, Kentucky, and Hot Springs, Arkansas. Gambling was facilitated by the nationwide wire service, which ultimately led the FBI to recognize organized crime as a national problem. In addition to gambling, the NCS moved into Hollywood. Key to controlling Hollywood was dominance of the performing artists and their unions. In 1924, Julius Caesar Stein started the Music Corporation of America (MCA). He achieved his first great success when he signed Guy Lombardo and his orchestra to an exclusive contract. MCA gradually came to represent many of the major Hollywood stars, including Betty Davis, Joan Crawford, John Garfield, Betty Grable, and Jane Wyman. Stein's "enforcer" was Willie Bioff, who "specialized in disrupting the operations of theatres and nightclubs that refused to contract businesses with MCA."[63] Julius Stein allied himself with James Caesar Petrillo, president of the Chicago chapter of the American Federation of Musicians (AFM). Stein and Petrillo were in turn connected to Al Capone, who ran the Chicago mob from 1925 until 1931 and who through his cousin Lucky Luciano was also connected to Lansky and his chief hitman, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel. When Capone was tried, convicted, and imprisoned for income tax evasion in 1931, Frank Nitti became the figurehead of the Chicago mob, but Tony Accardo, Paul Ricca, Charlie Fischetti (Capone's cousin), and Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik were the real bosses. Guzik brought Sidney Korshak into the mob,[64] and Korshak was soon managing all labor problems with the movie industry. This was the beginning of the mafia's Involvement with the unions and the studios. When gambling was legalized in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1931 to stimulate the economy, Korshak became the channel for the Teamster pension fund in the Las Vegas casinos,[65] in addition to being the main "fixer" in Hollywood. The casino operations for the mob in Las Vegas were pioneered by Bugsy Siegel, who had moved west with Lansky's approval. By the mid-1940s, Las Vegas was swarming with representatives of the NCS from New York, New Jersey, Cleveland, Boston, and Chicago.[66] The NCS also took advantage of the opportunities opening in Cuba under Fulgencio Batista, who led a successful coup d'etat on September 4, 1933. With the legalization of gambling in Havana, Lansky forged a personal relationship with Batista and by 1935 was building the NCS empire there.[67] Lansky and Luciano hoped to make the Caribbean the center of their operations. During the 1930s Meyer Lansky "discovered" the Caribbean for northeastern syndicate bosses and invested their illegal profits in an assortment of lucrative gamb[l]ing ventures. In 1933 Lansky moved into the Miami Beach area and took over most of the illegal off-track betting and a variety of hotels and casinos. He was also reportedly responsible for organized crime's decision to declare Miami a "free city" (i.e., not subject to the usual rules of territorial monopoly). Following his success in Miami, Lansky moved to Havana for three years, and by the beginning of World War II he owned the Hotel Nacional's casino and was leasing the municipal racetrack from a reputable New York bank.... Luciano's 1947 visit to Cuba laid the groundwork for Havana's subsequent role in international narcotics-smuggling traffic. Arriving in January, Luciano summoned the leaders of American organized crime, including Meyer Lansky, to Havana for a meeting, and began paying extravagant bribes to prominent Cuban officials as well. The director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics at the time felt that Luciano's presence in Cuba was an ominous sign.[68] Harry J. Anslinger, commissioner of narcotics and an expert on Lansky and Luciano reported that "The Isle of Pines, south of Cuba, was to become the Monte Carlo of the Western Hemisphere. Cuba was to be made the center of all international narcotic operations. We had a number of transcribed calls Lucky had made to Miami, New York, Chicago and other large American cities, and the names of the hoodlums who called him."[69] Later, when Luciano was released from prison and returned to Italy, Meyer Lansky became the supervisor of Luciano's operations in the United States. Mob control of the casinos in Las Vegas was threatened by the 1947 gangland murder of Bugsy Siegel. Siegel's 1947 losses at the Flamingo in Las Vegas led to the NCS's decision to eliminate him. Nonetheless, Lansky retained control of Siegel's interests in the Flamingo Hotel and Casino. This occurrence was part of what the famous Kefauver Committee sought to investigate. Chaired by Sen. Estes Kefauver, the Senate Special Committee began its investigation of organized crime in May 1950. Sidney Korshak was subpoenaed by the committee on September 1, 1950, but never appeared as a witness. He may have blackmailed Kefauver and thereby kept any mention of himself from appearing in the committee's documents or transcripts. Several investigators claim the Chicago mafia engineered compromising pictures of the senator in his hotel room."[70] The Kefauver hearings led to a crackdown on crime in various cities in the United States. Lansky now realized that to sustain his gambling operations they would either have to have legal status in the United States or be conducted offshore in the Caribbean. The benefit of legal status is underlined by the support Moe Dalitz received from the former head of the Nevada tax commission's gaming division, who claimed that men like Dalitz were not "gangsters in the true sense, but merely men who wanted to come to Nevada and do legally what they had been doing illegally in other states."[71] After the collapse of his operations in Cuba with the ascent of Castro in 1959, Lansky chose the Bahamas as the site for his offshore gambling, narcotics, and money-laundering operations. He used the Mary Carter Paint Company based in Miami to buy Hog Island, later named Paradise Island. Subsequently, Mary Carter sold its paint division and emerged as Resorts International, Inc. Lansky's operations became further entrenched in the Bahamas when he backed Lynden 0. Pindling of the Progressive Liberal Party against the Bay Street Boys, the old guard of the islands, who were accused of corruption. With the removal of the corrupt backers of the Bay Street Boys, it was clear sailing for Lansky's NCS-backed Resorts International.[72] The extent of the NCS's political connections to the various state and national figures is highly suggestive of the sub-rosa influence the mob had. Sidney Korshak had ties to powerful Democratic Party figuresincluding James Arvey, whose protege was Adlai Stevenson,[73] and Paul Ziffren, once considered the most important force in the California Democratic Party. Ziffren later became a law partner of William French Smith, who himself became Reagan's attorney general.[74] There were also connections to Republican Party leaders. Former New York governor Thomas E. Dewey and his son invested in Mary Carter Paint through a complicated financing arrangement whereby they invested in the Crosby Miller Company, which merged with Mary Carter Paint and yielded fifty shares for each one held in Crosby Miller.[75] Dewey, of course, sponsored Richard Nixon in his bid for the vice-presidency in 1952. An interesting aspect of NCS operations is the degree to which the mob has gained access to and protection from politicians. J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI's longtime chief, was reportedly "naive" with respect to the NCS. He attended gangster-owned racetracks in Miami, posed with gang bosses, and accepted money from Lewis Solon Rosenstiel, a notorious bootlegger allied with the Canadian Bronfman interests. Rosenstiel was head of Schenley's Distilleries and he endowed the J. Edgar Hoover Foundation with Schenley stock. As information on the NCS developed, however, Hoover created a special squad based in Miami to identify gangsters and supported antiraqueteering efforts of the FBI.[76] Despite the multiethnic character of the NCS, the Kefauver investigations into organized crime in the United States gave the impression that it was predominantly an Italian-American operation. "The very use of the word mafia to describe the organization of these activities reflected the belief that the problem was a predominantly Italian one, a belief that would soon diffuse from these Senate investigations to the public at large. The committee further concluded that there were two major syndicates in the nation and that both were operating in Nevada."[77] Nevada's casinos are an example of legal protection of gambling in the United States. Mormons, who came to control the state politically, settled the northern part of Nevada, particularly the areas surrounding Reno and the capital, Carson City, in the late 1840s. The first Nevada institution to provide loans to casinos was the predominantly Mormonand Jewish-owned Bank of Las Vegas, which later became the Valley Bank of Nevada.[78] The principal tool the Gaming Control Board of Nevada used to prevent criminal control of the casinos was the Black Book, "a list of persons who are to be excluded from casinos in the state because of their perceived threat to the public image of gaming."[79] Because the majority of names in the Black Book were Italian, the impression given by the Nevada gaming board was that they had effectively barred organized crime from the gambling casinos. This impression was furthered by the McClellan crime investigations of 1957. Sidney Korshak, the first witness called before the McClellan Committee, was questioned by Robert Kennedy before the full committee on October 30, 1957. Kennedy was interested in a labor dispute that involved Korshak, who was tied to Willie Bioff, the "Hollywood extortionist." Previously, in an FBI interview, Bioff had cited Korshak's role and importance to the Chicago mafia.[80] Nonetheless, the committee concluded that, "there was a 'mafia' operating in the United States of largely Italian and Italian-American origins. It was believed that this mafia was organized into regional 'families' that were structured bureaucratically, and that these families conspired to monopolize gambling, prostitution, and various rackets. These conclusions formed the basis for an 'alien conspiracy theory' of organized crime."[81] The failure to recognize the multiethnic character of the National Crime Syndicate allowed large numbers of non-Italians associated with the NCS to control gambling in Nevada, while the public was led to believe that the "mafia" was excluded.[82] The legitimacy granted by Nevada's gaming board assisted Steve Wynn, who operated the Las Vegas Golden Nugget, to move into Atlantic City. In 1975, when New Jersey voters approved casino gambling, Lansky's Resorts International bought the Chalfonte-Haddon Hall, at that time Atlantic City's largest hotel. When Atlantic City opened for business on June 2, 1977, it was the first casino in operation. Soon after, Steve Wynn bought the Strand Motel and built the Golden Nugget Atlantic City on that site. The New Jersey Casino Control Commission gave Wynn a license to operate in Atlantic City on November 13,1981. A year later, it became obvious that the Golden Nugget Atlantic City was being used for money laundering. Anthony C. Castelbuono arrived at the Golden Nugget on Thanksgiving Day 1982 with "suitcases filled with $1.187 million in small bills." After gambling and allegedly losing $300,000, "he left the casino with $800,000 in hundreds neatly bundled in $10,000 packets in Golden Nugget wrappers."[83] In 1987, Castelbuono was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for his role in laundering millions of dollars in another case involving a Sicilian-based heroin smuggling operation. The Golden Nugget had other ties to organized crime. To finance his casino, Wynn had turned to Michael Milken, the junk-bond wizard of the Drexel Burnham Lambert corporate finance department. Introduced to Wynn by Stanley Zaks, chairman of Zenith Insurance, Milken provided him with $160 million in high-interest junk-bond financing.[84] Milken's junk-bond dealings came to an end when he pleaded guilty to six felonies in April 1990. One of those deals involved the Golden Nugget and the insider sale of MCA stock.[85] Milken's Drexel had funneled more than $5 billion in junk bonds into the hotel-casino industry in both Las Vegas and Atlantic City. When Drexel declared bankruptcy, more than fifty-five savings and loans failed, U.S. taxpayers were saddled with $1 billion in direct costs, and insurance companies faced more than $100 billion in losses.[86] Wall Street's relationship to organized crime is generally depicted as one of victimization. Business Week described organized crime families as owning or controlling "perhaps two dozen brokerage firms that make markets in hundreds of stocks," driving prices up and then dumping them on the public. According to Business Week, "The Mob's activities seem confined almost exclusively to stocks traded in the over-the-counter 'bulletin board' and NASDAQ small-cap markets. By contrast, New York Stock Exchange and American Stock Exchange issues and firms apparently have been free of Mob exploitation."[87] The financing of Steve Wynn and other casino owners of Las Vegas and Atlantic City illustrates how some of Wall Street's largest investment houses sustain businesses that, despite their legal gambling status, are frequently accused of money laundering. At the local level, organized crime controls some small brokerage firms and practices various financial scams. However, more important is the degree to which the large financial houses have backed the development of hotel-casinos with junk bonds. In short, organized crime in the United States is a multiethnic national organization legally protected in numerous states. NCS gambling casinos assist the laundering of money obtained from narcotics trafficking and other illicit sources. In addition, the penetration of organized crime into Hollywood and its unions has allowed it to influence the U.S. culture industry. There is evidence that organized crime has connections to political bosses and to the funding of presidential campaigns, suggesting that its influence may reach into the highest levels of America's political system. For instance, there is the troubling example of John Rosselli's murder when he was called to testify before a congressional committee regarding President Kennedy's assassination.[88] Why is it so difficult to thwart organized crime? Basically, the answer is endemic corruption-the combination of legalized gambling, the drug trade, the greed of financial institutions, the corruption of Hollywood, the growing dependence of politicians on large sums of money, the nationwide organization of crime, and the misleading perception that organized crime is run by a single ethnic group. The United States is witnessing the fusion of major money market centers, national and state political elites, Hollywood, legalized gambling, and the NCS. The United States is the leading country for laundering dirty money from illicit activities such as fraud and narcotics trafficking.[89] All of these are signs that in the United States the process of narcostatization may be well under way. U.S. INTELLIGENCE, ORGANIZED CRIME, AND NARCOTICS The intelligence agencies of various governments have explicitly promoted organized crime in the politics of international conflict. Before the cold war began, the United States intelligence agencies had forged a relationship with professional criminals. "Within three months of the Pearl Harbor attack," one observer has said, "the proposal to employ professional criminals in intelligence operations was made, adopted, and implemented. Collaboration between intelligence and organized crime clearly then was not forced upon America by the exigencies of the post-War world."[90] At the beginning of World War II, the United States used organized crime elements in New York to help restrain labor unrest and to curb the sabotage and sinking of U.S. ships leaving port. The mafia's assistance to the U.S. government gave it new life after it had been crushed in Sicily by Mussolini's fascist regime. The resuscitation began on the New York waterfront with the burning of the French liner Normandie. This, along with attacks on U.S. ships by enemy submarines, led the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) to recruit local racket bosses to control sabotage in the Third Naval District, which included New York and New Jersey. Clearly, the ONI itself lacked the capacity to infiltrate and control the waterfront area, but it also quickly realized that it could not get the job done with middle-ranking racketeers and thus sought higher-ups. The key figure here was Lucky Luciano, who was serving time in Clinton State Prison in upstate New York. Luciano agreed to cooperate with the ONI. He suggested that Meyer Lansky, his partner in narcotics and bootlegging in Manhattan, serve as liaison between the U.S. Navy and the underworld. Later, the ONI used the mafia for strategic intelligence in the U.S. invasion of Sicily, utilizing the organization to gain knowledge of the coastline and villages. After the invasion, the United States helped install mafia members in political positions in Italy as Allied forces drove out the fascists."[91] The United States continued supporting the mafia after World War II because of concern over the growth of membership in the Italian Communist Party. According to Alfred McCoy, the mafia was a natural anti-Communist ally, and it soon became a primary supporter of the Christian Democrats in southern Italy.[92] The American intelligence community's cooperation with the mafia continued throughout most of the cold war. A legacy of the revitalized mafia was the massive corruption of the Italian state in the 1990s. Brian R. Sullivan considers this a warning that America should heed: There is reason to believe that the Italian Mafia benefited greatly from American govern-mental support in 1943-45 and possibly again in 1947-48. At that time, such cooperation with the Mafia could have been defended in the name of anti-Fascism, antiCommunism or simply as ragione di stato. But, weighing the gains and losses in the balance, it seems that American interests were far more damaged by the mafia over the years than they were served. And the damage to the United States continues, particularly given heavy Mafia involvement in drug trafficking.[93] Although many Americans believe that criminalization at the highest levels of the United States government could not occur, local experience with organized crime and growing evidence from the cold war indicate that the U.S. government may already have been compromised. CIA involvement with organized crime includes entanglement in the global heroin traffic. According to Alfred W. McCoy, over the forty years of the cold war, CIA covert operations involved the agency in cooperation with narcotics smuggling and "often overwhelmed the interdiction efforts of the weaker U.S. drug enforcement agencies." The efforts of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to interdict the flow of heroin were inhibited by the CIAs logistic and political support for the drug lords. "At two critical junctures after World War II," McCoy writes, "the late 1940s and the late 1970s, when America's heroin supply and addict populations seemed to ebb, the CIA's covert action alliances generated a sudden surge of heroin that soon revived the U.S. drug trade." McCoy implicates the CIA in aiding the Corsican underworld in its struggle against the French Communist Party for control of the port of Marseilles; helping Hmong tribesmen battle the Laotian Communists by flying their opium to market; and supporting the Afghan resistance to the Soviets by expanding their opium market. "Unlike some national intelligence agencies," McCoy claims, "the CIA did not involve itself directly in the drug traffic to finance its covert operations. Nor was its culpability the work of a few corrupt agents eager to share in the enormous profits. The CIA's role in the heroin traffic was an inadvertent but almost inevitable consequence of its cold war tactics."[94] In a sophisticated narcotics-state financial relationship, political elites, financial moguls, and narcotics traffickers work among themselves and with government agencies, well hidden from public scrutiny. The U.S. financing of the Nicaraguan Contras in their battle against the Sandinista government in the mid-1980s raised suspicion that corruption had penetrated to the highest levels of the U.S. government. In the 1990s, questions arose regarding the assistance given by former CIA operatives in the creation of a clandestine arms supply operation financed with narcotics money laundered in the state of Arkansas. With the help of economic globalization, organized crime is in a position to operate throughout the world with little political check. The various criminal organizations worldwide are well aware of each other and have developed methods to coordinate their activities. The Sicilian mafia, the Colombian drug cartels, the Turkish mafia, the Chinese triads, the Japanese yakuza, the new Russian mafia, and the NCS met in Aruba in 1987 and in Rome in 1992, where they agreed to avoid conflicts, plan common strategies, and peacefully divide the planet among themselves.[95] Orlando Cediel Ospina-Vargas, alias Tony Duran, leader of the Colombian cocaine mafias, planned to use these international connections to launder money in a professional, sophisticated and efficient manner.[96] In short, it is clear that corruption infiltrates governments at the highest levels and that mafia cartels cooperate with each other much like states across international frontiers. Organized crime operates in terms of its own imperatives for economic expansion, for coalition building among its various national cartels, and for enforcement of its interests. To flourish, it depends on government protection and the opportunities provided by the globalization of international capitalism. pps. 71-98 --[notes]-- CHAPTER 5 1. Henner Hess, "The Traditional Sicilian Mafia: Organized Crime and Repressive Crime," in Robert J. Kelly, ed., Organized Crime: A Global Perspective (Totowa, N.J.: Roman and Littlefield, 1986), 127. 2. Pierre Tremblay and Richard Kedzior, "Analyzing the Organization of Crime in Montreal, 1920-80: A Canadian Test Case," in Kelly, ed., Organized Crime, 8 4. 3. Stephen Handelman, "The Russian Mafia," Foreign Affairs, March-April 1994,86. 4. Ibid. 5. Sterling, Thieves' World, 99, 49. 6 .61 Ibid. 7. Stephen Handelman, Comrade Criminal: Russia's New Mafiya (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995), 110-11. 8. Neela Banerjee, "Russian Organized Crime Goes Global: Gangs Use Skills Honed in Former Police State," Wall Street journal, December 22, 1994, A10. 9. Claire H. Sterling, "Redfellas," New Republic, April 11, 1994,19-20. 10. Caspar Weinberger, "Davos and Russia," Forbes, March 28, 1994, 67. 11. "Russia's Mafia," Economist, July 9, 1994, 19-20. 12. Sterling, "Redfellas," 19-20. 13. Paul Klebnikov, "Joe Stalin's Heirs," Forbes, September 27, 1993, 128. 14. Sterling, Thieves' World, 221. 15. Alejandro Ramos, Jenaro Villamil, Victor Batta, Jose Luis Ramirez, Fernando Garcia, Edgar Hernandez, and Berta Alicia Galindo, "Organized Crime: Transnational Threat," El Financiero, special edition, October 9,1994. 16. Sterling, Thieves' World, 76. 17. El Financiero, special edition, 48. 18. Ibid. 19. The ex-prime minister Guilio Andreotti, a Christian Democrat, and Socialist Bettino Craxi are the most striking examples of high-level officials who fell in disgrace for their connections with the criminal world. Andreotti, who was prime minister of Italy seven times, has been charged with other crimes besides that of being the political "fixer" in Rome for the Sicilian mafia. He has been directly linked to the murder of Mino Pecorelli, the editor of an Italian tabloid newspaper. Allegedly, Pecorelli was killed on the orders of the mafia as a favor to Andreotti. Robert Graham, "Andreotti Bound over in Slaying of Editor: Already on Trial in Mafia-Links Case," Washin gton Times, November 6,1995, A17. 20. The Economist, March 26,1994,66; October 23,1993, 25. 21. Ibid. The mafia had guaranteed the Christian Democrats more than 3 1/2 million votes in southern Italy. 22. Brian R. Sullivan, "Italian Mafia: A Cautionary Tale," unpublished manuscript prepared for the American Bar Association Conference on International Crime, 8-9. 23. Sterling, Thieves' World, 44. 24. Dennis Bloodworth, The Chinese Looking Glass (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1967). 25. El Financiero, special edition, 48. 26. Diane Stormont, "Hong Kong Gangs Are on the Move: Triads Follow Immigrants Abroad," Washington Times, November 25,1994, A22. 27. El Financiero, special edition. 28. Ibid. 29. Sterling, Thieves' World, 157. 30. Velisarios Kattoulas, "Japan's Yakuza Claim Place among Criminal Elite," W ashington Times, November 25,1994, A22. 31. Ibid. 32. Norihiko Shirouzu, "U.S.-Japan Ship Fight Is Being Complicated by Talk of Mob Ties," Wall Street journal, October 21, 1997, A13. 33. Kattoulas, "Japan's Yakuza," A22. 34. Stan Yarbro, "Cocaine Trade Shifts in Colombia," Christian Science Monitor, June 3, 1991, 3. 35. "Cali Earns a New Reputation: World's No. 1 cocaine Seller," New York Times, May 15, 1991, A8; Douglas Farah, "Rid of Rivals, Flush with Cash," Wash ington Post, June 16,1994, A27. 36. Douglas Farah, "Cali's Quiet Cartel Becomes Number One," Washington Post, October 17, 1990, A18. Miguel and Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela were arrested in 1995 and lost their power. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Stephen Flynn, "Worldwide Drug Scourge," Brookings Review, winter 1993,10. 40. "DEA Moves against Cali Cocaine Cartel," Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Va.), September 2,1994, A3. 41. Adam Thompson, "Colombian and Russian Drug Groups Link Up," Financial Times, March 28-29, 1998, 4. 42. Jamie Dettmer, "A Storm of Drugs and Guns in Colombia," Washington Times, October 27, 1997, Al 7. 43. "Colombia May Get U.S. Aid in Civil War," Washington Times, October 13,1997, A13. 44. The former head of the Gulf cartel, Juan Garcia Abrego, was arrested by the FBI in 1995. Jorge Fernandez Menendez, "Un narcodemocrata," El Financiero, February 12, 1996, 48. 45. Eduardo Valle, advisor to the former attorney general, in an open letter to the president, (Proceso 926, August 1, 1994) and Carlos Marin, "Alerte a Colosio y comenzo a dar pasos para librarse de los narcopoliticos, pero se le adelantaron" (Proceso 925, August 15, 1994). 46. Molly Moore, "Drug Lord Goes Home in a Coffin," Washington Post, July 12, 1997, A18. 47. Molly Moore, "Dead Drug Lord Settles Up: Mexican Surgeons Found Encased in Cement," Washington Post, November 7, 1997, Al. At least three theories are circulating in Mexico linking Amado Carrillo's death to the Palacio kidnapping and charging that Palacio's body replaced Carrillo's in the morgue. The theories are (1) Amado Carrillo staged his own "death" so he could continue his illegal operations without being sought by authorities; (2) he staged his "death" so he could retire and live in peace on his great wealth; and (3) he still lives and is a protected witness for the DEA. All these theories have been rejected by Mexican and American authorities. Amado's brother, Vicente, has apparently emerged on top and has moved much of the Juarez cartel's operation to the Yucatan Peninsula, with Cancun and other tourist centers providing cover for cartel activities. As an interesting side note: In a separate court case in New York, authorities "froze about $26 million in two Citibank accounts reportedly used by Carrillo to launder drug proceeds." Moore, "Dead Drug Lord," A29. 48. Paul Carroll and Dianne Solis, "Garcia Is Enemy in Mexican War on Drugs," Wall Street journal, December 13, 1994, A15. 49. Douglas Farah, "Mercenaries at Work for Mexico's Drug Families," Washingto n Post, October 30,1997, A25, A27. The Arellano Felix family is made up of seven brothers and four sisters. 50. El Financiero, special edition, 51. 51. Ibid. 52. Ibid. 53. William Branigan, "Newly Named Mexican Officials Linked to Drugs," Washing ton Post, January 7,1989, Al. 54. William Branigan, "DEA Agent's '85 Death Still Entangles Mexicans," Washin gton Post, September 14,1989, A34. 55. Marjorie Miller, "Mexico's War on Drugs Confronts Enemy Within," Los Angel es Times, June 21, 1993, Al. 56. Kate Doyle, "The Militarization of the Drug War in Mexico," Current History, February 1993, 85. 57. Hugo Martinez McNaught, "Encargo Amado Carrillo acciones antinarco," Refor ma, May 25,1997. 58. On July 23, 1997, ten Russians, led by Russian capo Alexandrovich Zakharov, were expelled from Mexico. This reflects an alliance of Colombian, Mexican, and Russian cartel operations. Miguel Angel Ortega, "Joint venture criminal entre mafias mexicanas y rusas," El Financiero, August 3, 1997, 28, and Martin Moreno, "Los mercenarios rusos, expulsados de Mexico," Epoca, Augus t 4,1997,12. 59. Peter A. Lupsha, "Organized Crime in the United States," in Kelly, ed., Or ganized Crime, 43-44,51. 60. Hank Messick, Lansky (New York: Berkeley Medallion Books, 1971), 83, 242. 61. Ibid. 62. Cleveland was represented by Lou Rothkopf and Moe Dalitz, and the Detroit mob was led by Joe Bernstein's Purple Gang, the operators of the socalled Little Jewish Navy on Lake Erie. Philadelphia's representatives included Nig Rosen and Max "Boo Boo" Hoff. Tom Pendergast, the boss of Kansas City, sent one of his lieutenants, John Lazia. New Jersey's representative was Abner "Longie" Zwillman. 63. Dan E. Modea, Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, MCA, and the Mob (New York: Viking, 1986), 23. In 1931, George Browne, head of Chicago's local union of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), forged an alliance with Bioff to make sweetheart arrangements with the largest theatre chain in the country. 64. Nick Tosches, "The Man Who Kept the Secrets," Vanity Fair, April 1997, 184. When Korshak died on January 20,1996, the headline of the New York Times obituary read, "Dies; Fabled Fixer for the Chicago Mob." 65. Modea, Dark Victory, 182. 66. The principal bosses in Las Vegas were Frank Costello, Frank Erickson, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, Abner "Longie" Zwillman, Morris "Moe" Dalitz, Jake Guzik, and Tony Accardo. Ronald A. Farrell and Carole Case, The Black Book and the Mob: The Untold Story of the Control of Nevada's Casinos (Madison : The University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), 22. 67. Messick, Lansky, 89. 68. Alfred W. McCoy with Cathleen B. Read and Loenard Adams II, "The Mafia Connection," in Peter Park and Wasyl Matveychuk, eds., Culture and Politics of Drugs (Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1986), 115. 69. Messick, Lansky, 136. 70. Tosches, "Man Who Kept Secrets," 192. 71. Farrell and Case, Black Book, 26. 72. Konstandinos Kalimtgis, David Goldman, and Jeffrey Steinberg, Dope, Inc.: Britain's Opium War against the U.S. (New York: New Benjamin Franklin Publishing House, 1978), 321-35. According to this study, "Resorts International was financed largely with a transfer of funds from the Banque de Credit Internationale of Tibor Rosenbaum and Major Louis Mortimer Bloomfield, and the Investors Overseas Service of Bernie Cornfield and the Rothschild family" 325. 73. Tosches, "Man Who Kept Secrets," 197. 74. Modea, Dark Victory, 8. 75. Messick, Lansky, 230-31. 76. Lupsha, "Organized Crime"; John L. Smith, Running Scared: The Life and Treacherous Times of Las Vegas Casino King Steve Wynn (New York, Barricade Books, 1995), 69; Messick, Lansky, 69. In 1933, when Prohibition ended and liquor became legal again, Rosenstiel became a distributor According to Hank Messick, "Rosentiel's chief rival in the legitimate liquor business was Samuel Bronfman who founded Seagram's. Bronfman became the richest man in Canada by shipping booze to Rum Rows off the East Coast during Prohibition, and was deeply involved with such Lansky allies as Abner 'Longie' Zwillman and the Big Seven. In later years both Rosentiel and Bronfman achieved respectability and their money played important roles in the American economy, but their personal hatred remained." Messick, Lansky, 70. 77. Ibid., 19-21. 78. Farrell and Case, Black Book, 24. 79. Ibid., xi. 80. Modea, Dark Victory, 118. 81. Farrell and Case, Black Book, 37. 82. "The threat of organized crime is seen as emanating from Italians. So pervasive is this belief that, when Jews are identified with organized crime, they are seen as 'fronting' for Italians. Even when circumstances suggest that Jews control casinos and some Italians may be working for them, the evidence is sometimes twisted to fit with the more popular belief." Ibid., 37-38. 83. Smith, Running Scared, 143,147. 84. Ibid., 114. 85. For a detailed summary of this insider operation, see James B. Stewart, De n of Thieves (New York: Touchstone, 1991), 213-14. 86. Smith, Running Scared, 204. "The casino companies to benefit from Milken's junk bonds make up a Las Vegas Who's Who: Bally's Caesars Palace, Circus Circus, Harrah's, Holiday Inn, Sahara Resorts, Sands, Showboat, Riviera, and Tropicana." Ibid., 192. 87. Gary Weiss, "The Mob on Wall Street," Business Week, December 16,1996, 94. 88. Ferrell and Case, Black Book, 40. Rosselli had been Al Capone's first operative in Hollywood. 89. Ramos, et al., "Organized Crime." 90. Alan A. Block, "A Modem Marriage of Convenience: A Collaboration between Organized Crime and U.S. Intelligence," Kelly, ed., Organized Crime, 72-73. 91. Ibid., 58-77. 92. McCoy, "Politics of Heroin," 31-45. 93. Sullivan, "Italian Mafia," 9. 94. McCoy, "Politics of Heroin," 15. 95. Sterling, Thieves' World, 22. 96. Ramos, et al., "Organized Crime." --[cont]-- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations, Omnia Bona Bonis, Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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