How America Hired the Mafia to Kill Castro

0:01 on January 1st 1959 the us-backed government in Cuba

0:05 fell a brutal Revolution that had raged on for 5

0:09 years had finally forced the Cuban dictator feno

0:12 Batista out of power ushering in Fidel Castro's new

0:18 regime early intelligence reports show how his actions

0:22 on the island gradually turned America against him under his leadership

0:27 the Cuban state began to resemble a direct contradiction

0:30 to American ideology the country spat in the face

0:34 of the US's free market economic Doctrine by favoring

0:37 a centrally planned economy it appeared unlikely to adopt

0:41 a democratic electoral process and finally refused to align

0:46 with the US in its struggle against the Soviet Union

0:50 in fact doing the opposite by cozing up to Moscow economically and politically

0:55 and fostering anti-American sentiments all

0:59 of this while being on the US's doorstep in the words

1:03 of Livingston Merchant the under Secretary of State for political

1:06 Affairs the Cuban problem is the most difficult and dangerous

1:10 in the history of our relations with Latin America

1:13 possibly in all our Foreign Relations it was

1:17 in this geopolitical climate that the CIA embarked on a mission

1:21 to decapitate the state that it now viewed

1:24 as an existential threat Castro would have to go

1:29 in a dingy room in Washington DC sometime in August

1:33 of 1960 two senior Cia officers met in an off

1:38 the books meeting officially the US government attitude

1:42 to the embryonic Castro regime remained neutral so they would have

1:46 to figure out a way to get rid of Castro

1:48 in a manner that would not implicate the United

1:51 States it was not long before one of them

1:55 suggested an outrageous plot [Music] Richard basel's idea one

2:06 that involved in his own words recruiting gangster type

2:10 forces to facilitate an assassination campaign against Fidel Castro would

2:15 go down in history as one of the most

2:17 bizarre plots the CIA had ever engineered however

2:22 in their eyes it made perfect sense us businesses

2:26 controlled vast SES of the nation's key industries from telephone

2:31 and electricity infrastructure to oil refining and lucrative sugar

2:36 exports American mafiosos and crime syndicates had also long operated

2:42 lucrative bootlegging gambling and prostitution rackets in Cuba when

2:47 Castro took over the country in January of 1959 most

2:51 American businesses were expelled as the economy was nationalized

2:56 the crime syndicates that had set up shop there

2:59 suffered the same fate the loss of the island

3:03 constituted a massive Financial hit for them at one point

3:07 it had been touted as the Las Vegas

3:10 of Latin America due to how profitable Cuba had become

3:13 for casinos and their owners and they had just let

3:17 that Golden Goose slip through their fingers as a result

3:21 of this setback us Mafia organizations with significant stakes

3:26 in Cuba suddenly had a bone to pick with Fidel

3:30 Castro of course the CIA recognized that this animosity

3:35 could be used to their advantage both parties had

3:39 much to gain in removing Castro from Power the United

3:43 States might gain another amenable government on its doorstep

3:46 and reclaim its economic Investments and the mafia could

3:50 take back its gambling syndicates restoring an arrangement that had

3:55 worked perfectly well for decades a bonus was

3:59 that the CI a could obscure its involvement in the entire

4:02 operation and chalk up any violence or the assassination

4:05 of Castro himself to a turf war between the Cuban

4:09 government and Mafia interests thus keeping their hands

4:14 at least nominally clean to get the ball rolling

4:21 on the mafia plot the CIA director of security Sheffield

4:25 Edwards reached out to a former FBI agent then loyal

4:30 Robert Mayu who was thought to have underworld contacts

4:35 as it happened he was indeed able to provide

4:38 access to an influential mobster by the name of Johnny

4:42 relli a high Echelon enforcer working for the infamous

4:47 Chicago outfit the same organization once headed by Al

4:52 Capone mayhugh and relli met on the 14th of September

4:57 1960 at the Plaza Hotel in New York where

5:01 he posed as a representative of quote several international

5:05 business firms which were suffering heavy Financial losses

5:08 in Cuba as a result of Castro's actions obscuring

5:13 the cia's involvement from the gangster he explained to relli

5:18 that these firms were willing to pay around $150,000

5:22 for a successful hit on the Cuban leader of course

5:27 no such businesses existed every scent was coming straight

5:31 from the cia's coffers relli's Instinct was to reject

5:37 that offer and not get involved but after some prodding he

5:41 was finally convinced agreeing to introduce Mayu to a man

5:46 he knew to be part of the Cuban crowd but not before insisting he do it

5:52 for free 11 days later the two met up again

5:56 at the Fontan Blau Hotel in Miami to speak

5:59 with with this mysterious individual a man posing under

6:03 the pseudonym of Sam gold somewhere across the room stood

6:08 another shadowy figure a CIA agent who had been dispatched

6:13 to secretly surveil the meeting Mr Gold's identity would

6:17 not be uncovered until a few weeks later when Mayu

6:22 recognized his face in a Miami newspaper clipping Sam

6:27 gold was none other than the heir to the alcapone

6:30 empire salvator janana janana did end up joining the scheme

6:37 that day offering up a courier that could smuggle

6:40 any necessary material into Cuba and establish sympathetic contacts

6:46 there as well that Courier known only to the CIA

6:50 at the time as Joe would be revealed

6:53 as the notorious mobster Santo traficante the Sicilian mafia's Cuba

7:00 boss traficante Casino operations on the island have been

7:05 severely restricted by Castro's revolutionary

7:08 government cratering profitability in addition

7:12 traficante himself had been imprisoned and forced into informal

7:17 Exile after he tried to bribe a Cuban official

7:20 in 1959 his gambling Empire in Cuba had fallen

7:26 as a direct result of Castro's rise to power and it

7:29 would therefore make sense to align against him so

7:34 the CIA had found their Mafia connection a group

7:37 of criminally inclined individuals who shared a common enemy

7:41 and had the necessary connections to get close to Castro

7:45 without revealing any US Government involvement it was

7:50 in the cia's eyes The Perfect Crime while Mayu relli

7:58 janana and trafik worked to acquire a contact in Cuba

8:02 willing to carry out the assassination the CIA had

8:05 to develop the means through which to actually kill

8:08 Castro initially they considered a quote Gangland style killing

8:14 in which Castro would be gunned down presumably as it

8:17 most visibly communicated a mafia related attack making it

8:22 easier to distance themselves from it however the Mobsters

8:26 involved advised against such action it would be nearly impossible

8:32 to find anyone willing to conduct such a Brazen

8:35 hit as the likelihood of being captured and killed was

8:39 so high Declassified documents also show that less than

8:44 a month after the Miami meeting the agency commissioned

8:48 a box of Castro's favorite Cuban cigars to be

8:52 laced with botulinum toxin a nerve agent that gradually paralyzes

8:57 the body's muscles and strong long enough doses leading

9:01 to the failure of the respiratory system and ultimately death

9:06 while these were never used the cigars were tested roughly

9:09 6 years later during an internal review of the operation

9:13 and they were found to be so potent

9:15 that quote merely putting one in the mouth would do

9:18 the job numerous other methods were discussed But ultimately

9:23 the CIA elected to employ dissolvable pills that could be

9:27 secretly placed in Castro's food or drink these pills

9:32 like the previously considered cigars would deliver a lethal dose

9:36 of botulin in toxin once consumed now all that was

9:41 left was to find a willing individual with close

9:45 enough access to Castro to slip the poison

9:48 into his food surreptitiously as it happened the mafiosos

9:54 in the cia's employ had found just the person

9:58 a man working in in the Cuban prime minister's office

10:01 by the name of Juan utter he had been receiving

10:05 bribes from Cuba's gambling syndicates before Castro's takeover but now

10:09 with the islands casinos closing rapidly otter was losing

10:13 a lucrative gig and was on the brink of financial

10:17 Peril bringing him in on the operation gave him

10:20 much needed cash and allowed him to take revenge

10:23 on Castro after some trial and error the CIA

10:28 perfected its botul line pills sometime in February of 1961

10:32 and subsequently began transferring them via its distribution chain

10:36 to the gangster Santo traficante by March of the same

10:41 year the pills had arrived with order in Cuba

10:45 but to the confusion of the CIA he returned

10:47 them shortly afterwards they theorized that he had gotten

10:51 cold feet and abandoned the operation however unbeknownst to them

10:56 at the time alter had recently lost lost his privileged

11:00 position at the prime minister's office and by April

11:03 11th was seeking Asylum at the Venezuelan Embassy

11:06 in Havana whether he was frozen out of the position

11:10 and forced into exile for reasons unrelated or because

11:14 Castro's Security Services had gotten wind of the plot is

11:18 not known dejected but not defeated the CIA

11:23 renewed its efforts to poison Castro they again relied

11:27 on their Mafia content acts via Santo traficante they reached

11:32 out to a senior figure within the Cuban Exile Community

11:36 Antonio de Varona Varona was the leader of the Cuban

11:41 Democratic revolutionary front or FD a quazi paramilitary

11:46 political organization dead set on the overthrow of the Castro

11:51 regime traficante approached Verona under the same corporate ruse

11:56 that had been initially used to recruit him hearing

12:00 it Verona jumped at the offer he had become dissatisfied

12:04 with the slow progress of the anti-castro movement through

12:07 conventional channels and was thrilled to have what he thought

12:11 were wealthy business benefactors willing to fund his schemes

12:16 against the Cuban government this time Verona was to deliver

12:20 the botul line in pills to a waiter working

12:23 in one of Castro's favorite restaurants at which point it

12:27 would be easy to slip them into his food

12:31 unnoticed but this scheme was interrupted by the Bay

12:35 of Pigs invasion in April of 1961 which placed all

12:39 other Cuba related operations on standby the Bay of Pigs

12:45 invasion involved sending more than a thousand FD gorillas

12:49 trained by the CIA to land on the southern coast of Cuba here at the Bay of Pigs

12:56 it failed miserably the gorillas were poorly organized poorly informed

13:02 and lacked the support of the Cuban population

13:05 and most were either captured or executed this bungled operation

13:11 would become one in a long line of clandestine

13:14 plots against Cuba to crash and burn the CIA had

13:19 already failed to get close to Castro once

13:21 but this seemed to seal their fate every successive attempt

13:26 at infiltration into Cuba would be almost comically thwarted either

13:30 by bad luck the inaptitude of intelligent assets or poor

13:35 planning on the cia's part sometime after May

13:39 of 1962 the attempt to poison Castro at his favorite

13:43 restaurant fell through reportedly because he quote ceased to visit

13:49 that particular restaurant the botul line in pills was

13:53 subsequently returned and destroyed another failure there after the CIA

14:00 began implementing Wilder schemes directed at the Castro government

14:05 one of which involved renting out a U-Haul Van

14:08 loading it full of rifles handguns surveillance equipment and explosives

14:13 and handing it over to Antonio de Varona via

14:17 Mafia contacts Verona would use this equipment to arm

14:22 his own militia men and with CIA support land

14:26 in Cuba from the Florida Keys and recruit locals to assassinate

14:31 Castro this operation failed too the militia men never

14:36 left their staging point in Florida citing the quote

14:40 adverse conditions inside Cuba as the reason for their inaction

14:46 however my suspicion is that it was so poorly

14:49 thought through that the men involved never initiated

14:52 the operation for fear of ending up like their fallen

14:55 Bay of Pigs comrades in that Vein One IIA

14:59 report stated that they appeared to have no specific plan

15:03 for killing Castro and just what they were supposed

15:06 to do was pretty vague while all of this was

15:10 happening one of the Mobsters working for the CIA

15:14 almost exposed the agency's plot against Castro to the public

15:18 sometime between late 1961 and early 1962 Salvatore janana

15:24 initially consulted for contacts inside of Cuba contacted Robert Mayhew

15:29 and asked that he bug the room of his then

15:32 mistress Phyllis Maguire while she was working in Las

15:36 Vegas gianan suspected her of having an affair

15:40 with the comedian Dan Rowan and wanted to gather evidence

15:44 to that effect Mayu initially refused but janana argued

15:49 that Mayu owed him after he had helped with the Castro

15:52 assassination plot Mayhew finally caved to the request hiring

15:57 a private investigator to place recording devices in Rowan's

16:02 Las Vegas hotel room on gian's behalf naturally as seems

16:07 to be the case with every CIA related scheme

16:10 this plan also failed miserably instead of bugging the room

16:14 the investigator tapped the phones which would have limited

16:18 recordings only to calls the worst part though was

16:22 that he left his wiretapping equipment out in the open

16:25 because he was so Keen to catch Dan Rowan's

16:28 comedy show before it started you couldn't make this up

16:33 even if you tried the equipment was subsequently discovered

16:37 by Hotel staff the police were informed and the private

16:41 investigator responsible was taken into custody fast forward

16:46 a little bit and suddenly both Mayu and janana have

16:49 been implicated in a federal crime under the wiretapping

16:53 statute and because a former FBI asset was concerned

16:57 that being Mayu the FBI itself also got involved

17:02 initiating prosecution against the group to keep the Castro

17:07 assassination plot and its connection with the mafia a secret

17:11 mayhugh called on the CIA to cover his ass

17:15 which it did it argued that this bugging scheme

17:19 was part of intelligence gathering efforts with regards to Cuba

17:23 which we know to be untrue and that any

17:26 prosecution could threaten to une sensitive intelligence operations and assets

17:32 and embarrass the government in short the CIA asked

17:37 the FBI to cease their investigation a request that was

17:41 ultimately honored but not before the US Attorney General

17:45 Robert Kennedy was informed of The Saga in a closed

17:50 doors meeting between Kennedy and CIA top brass he

17:55 stated I trust that if you ever try to do

17:58 business with organized crime again with gangsters you will

18:03 let the Attorney General know before you do it