The Mafia - Post Prohibition From Cuba to Las Vegas

 

 The power obtained by the Mafia far outlived the prohibition. Bootleggers switched to different outfits; illegal gambling, loan sharking, extortion, protection rackets, drug trafficking, fencing and labour racketeering through the control of labour unions, most notably; The Teamsters and International Long Shoreman's Association. This allowed powerful crime families to inroad their way into; construction, demolition and waste management, trucking and waterfront and garment industries. Raiding workers health and pension funds, they extorted businesses by threats of a workers strike and participation in bid-rigging. Construction projects needed five Mafia family approval. They would make sure in the port and dock industries that they would be tipped off when valuable items came in so that they could be stolen and fenced.

 Meyer Lensky made inroads into the casino industry in Cuba where the Mafia was already involved in exporting sugar and rum. When his friend Fulgencio Batista became president of Cuba this allowed several Mafia bosses to make legitimate investments in legalized casinos. During the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro overthrew Fulgencio and banned U.S. investment. 

 Las Vegas was seen as an open city where anyone could work when they legalised gambling in 1931. The Mafia were quick to move in. Since the 1940's families from New York, Cleveland, Kansas City, Milwaukee and Chicago had interests in Las Vegas casinos. They got loans from the Teamster's pension fund union and used illegitimate frontmen. Hired men then skimmed cash before it was counted, and gave it to their bosses. This amount is estimated to be in the hundreds of millions. 

 Local law enforcement did not have the knowledge to combat organised crime, and many people in the police or justice system were simply bribed and witness intimidation was also common. 

 In 1951 the U.S. senate committee called the Kefauver hearings a "sinister" criminal organisation. Many members were questioned but none gave any important information. The New York Police State uncovered an important meeting and made several arrests. This was known as the Alapachin meeting. It forced the FBI to consider organised crime as serious. 

 Joe Valachi turned States evidence and provided intricate details of its workings. When he showed the involvement of the law and of them often turning a blind eye when bribed, the FBI came down hard on the Mafia crime syndicate. Valachi's testimony meant that the Mafia could no longer work in the shadows. 

 The Organised Crime Task Force was created in various cities but this did not deter the Mafia, however, who went on with their criminal enterprises. The best victory for law enforcement was in the 1980s when the FBI managed to loosen the Mafia's hold on the Las Vegas casinos completely and to shake them from the labour unions