Santo Trafficante Sr. (May 28, 1886 – August 11, 1954) was a Sicilian-born mobster, and father of the powerful mobster

Santo Trafficante Jr. Santo Trafficante Jr. (November 15, 1914 – March 17, 1987) was among the most powerful Mafia bosses in the United States. He headed the Trafficante crime family and controlled organized criminal operations in Florida and Cuba, which had previ ...

Santo Trafficante Sr. gained power as a mobster in

Tampa, Florida Tampa () is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough ...

and ruled the

Mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...

in Tampa from the 1930s until his death in 1954. Trafficante was heavily involved in the operation of illegal

bolita Bolita (Spanish for ''Little Ball'') is a type of lottery which was popular in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries in Cuba and among Florida's working class Hispanic, Italian, and black population. In the basic bolita game, 100 small numbe ...

lotteries. During his reign, Trafficante was a well-respected boss with ties to Charles "Lucky" Luciano and Thomas Lucchese. During the 1940s, Trafficante Sr. maintained a strong alliance with

Tommy Lucchese Thomas Gaetano Lucchese (born Gaetano Lucchese; ; December 1, 1899 – July 13, 1967), sometimes known by the nicknames "Tommy", "Thomas Luckese", "Tommy Brown" or "Tommy Three-Finger Brown" was an Italian-American gangster and founding member ...

, the boss of the

Lucchese crime family The Lucchese crime family (pronounced ) is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the " Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, in the United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon know ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Lucchese would help train his son Trafficante Jr. in the mafia traditions. Trafficante died of stomach cancer on August 11, 1954; he was a member of L'Unione Italiana, and he was buried in L'Unione Italiana Cemetery in

Ybor City Ybor City ( ) is a historic neighborhood just northeast of downtown Tampa, Florida, United States. It was founded in the 1880s by Vicente Martinez-Ybor and other cigar manufacturers and populated by thousands of immigrants, mainly from Cuba, Spai ...

. His son,

subsequently took over the crime family.

References

External links

Cuban Information Archives: Santo Trafficante Jr.
includes U.S. Treasury Department records of Santo Trafficante Sr.
Creative Loafing: The Mob -- A Drive-By Historical Tour of Tampa's Notorious Wise Guys
by Scott Deitche * {{DEFAULTSORT:Trafficante, Santo Sr. 1886 births 1954 deaths Gangsters from the Province of Agrigento American crime bosses American gangsters of Sicilian descent Deaths from cancer in Florida Deaths from stomach cancer People from Tampa, Florida Trafficante crime family Italian emigrants to the United States

References

Further reading

External links