Trafficante crime family

The war between the two continued on for years, until October 23, 1940, when Ignacio Antinori was shot and killed by a shotgun blast to the head at the Palm Garden Inn in Tampa.

[3] In 1943, Antinori's two sons Paul and Joseph were convicted in Kansas City for drug dealing and sentenced to four years in prison finally ending the decade long war.

[4] During the late 1940s, Trafficante Sr. came under constant police surveillance and attempted to avoid the unwanted attention by making Salvatore "Red" Italiano his acting boss.

Trafficante Sr. had always wanted to enlarge his illegal activities in Cuba 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 Trafficante's returned to Tampa to find out that Italiano had fled to Mexico, leaving Jimmy Lumia the biggest mobster in the city.

[5] Despite numerous unrealized ambitions, he was regarded as one of the most powerful mob bosses of the American Mafia and ruled his family with an iron fist.

[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.

[8] As the new boss LoScalzo maintained control of criminal interests in illegal gambling, prostitution, narcotics, union racketeering, hijacking and fencing stolen goods.

[9] It was reported on November 25, 2007, Vincent LoScalzo was in his 70's and considered a semi-retired mobster and just a "regular Joe" according to Scott Deitche, author of Cigar City Mafia.

"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.

[11] Evidence from the 2004 and 2006 trials of John Alite, Ronald J. Trucchio, and Charles Carneglia connected Gotti Jr. and others to criminal operations in Tampa, Florida.