Up next in 10
The United States government partnered with the American Mafia for decades—and the proof has been declassified for anyone willing to look.
This documentary exposes five documented alliances between the Central Intelligence Agency and organized crime figures, from World War Two naval operations to Cold War assassination plots. We're examining the actual partnerships, the named participants, the operations that connected government agents with mob bosses, and the bodies that piled up when secrets started leaking.
You'll discover how Lucky Luciano traded prison release for wartime intelligence. How CIA money protected French heroin traffickers who poisoned American cities. How Sam Giancana and Johnny Roselli sat in CIA offices planning the murder of Fidel Castro. Why two key witnesses died violently just days before scheduled congressional testimony. And what the Church Committee revelations actually proved about the shadow world where democracy and criminality merged.
This investigation draws from declassified CIA operational files, Church Committee testimony, FBI surveillance transcripts, and congressional records. Every claim is anchored in documented evidence that survived the shredders.
For the complete cinematic exploration of organized crime history, dive into our 100-episode master series on the main channel, Global Mafia Universe. Link in description.
Which alliance shocked you most? The assassination plots or the drug trafficking protection? Drop your answer below.
0:00 The Partnership No One Was Supposed to Find
1:25 Setting the Stage
3:15 Operation Underworld: The WWII Alliance
5:45 The Corsican Connection: Heroin and Anti-Communism
8:15 The Castro Plots: Murder by Committee
11:00 Johnny Roselli: The Man Who Knew Too Much
14:00 The Church Committee: When the Truth Emerged
17:30 What It All Means
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
August 1960,
0:02
a locked office inside CIA headquarters
0:04
in Langley, Virginia. Three men sat
0:07
around a table discussing how to murder
0:09
a foreign leader. One worked for the
0:11
United States government. The other two
0:13
worked for the American mafia. The
0:15
budget for this operation exceeded
0:18
$150,000
0:20
in untraceable funds. The target was
0:23
Fidel Castro. The method was poison. And
0:26
the partnership between these unlikely
0:28
allies would remain classified for over
0:30
15 years. Here's what nobody wants you
0:33
to understand. The Central Intelligence
0:36
Agency and the American Mafia weren't
0:38
enemies operating on opposite sides of
0:40
the law. For decades, they were business
0:43
partners. They shared intelligence. They
0:46
shared targets. They shared secrets that
0:49
could have destroyed both organizations
0:51
if exposed. The government that
0:53
prosecuted mobsters in public courtrooms
0:55
recruited those same mobsters for black
0:57
operations in private. Think about what
0:59
that means. Federal agents building
1:01
cases against crime families during the
1:03
day. Federal agents handing those same
1:06
crime families assassination contracts
1:08
at night. Two parallel realities
1:11
existing simultaneously. One for the
1:13
public record. One buried so deep that
1:16
congressional investigators spent years
1:18
trying to excavate the truth. The scale
1:20
of this cooperation staggers the
1:22
imagination. From the docks of New York
1:24
Harbor during World War II to the
1:26
casinos of pre-revolutionary Havana,
1:29
from the heroin labs of Marsea to the
1:31
jungles of Southeast Asia.
1:34
Wherever American intelligence needed
1:36
assets who operated outside the law, the
1:39
mafia provided them. And whatever the
1:41
mafia needed in return, protection,
1:44
information, immunity, the intelligence
1:46
community delivered. Why has this
1:49
history been suppressed? Because it
1:51
implicates everyone.
1:53
Presidents who authorized the
1:55
partnerships, directors who managed
1:57
them, agents who executed them, and
1:59
mobsters who leveraged them into decades
2:01
of protection from prosecution. The
2:03
documents exist, the testimony exists,
2:07
the bodies exist, but the full picture
2:10
has never been assembled in one place
2:13
until now. Today, we're opening the
2:15
vault. These are the secrets they
2:17
thought were buried forever. What you're
2:19
about to hear comes from declassified
2:22
CIA operational files released under the
2:24
Freedom of Information Act. It comes
2:27
from the Church Committee hearings of 19
2:29
when Congress finally forced the
2:31
intelligence community to admit what it
2:33
had done. It comes from FBI surveillance
2:36
transcripts that captured conversations
2:38
the participants never expected anyone
2:41
to hear. And it comes from the testimony
2:43
of the mobsters themselves. Men who
2:45
eventually decided that silence was more
2:47
dangerous than speech. Five
2:50
partnerships, five operations where the
2:52
line between government agent and
2:54
organized criminals ceased to exist.
2:56
Five alliances that shaped American
2:59
history in ways that remained hidden for
3:01
decades. Each one builds on the last.
3:04
Each one goes deeper into the shadow
3:06
world where democracy and criminality
3:09
merged into something neither side could
3:11
fully control. Some of these alliances
3:13
produced strategic victories. Others
3:16
produced catastrophic blowback. All of
3:18
them reveal an uncomfortable truth about
3:20
how power actually operates in America.
3:23
The official story separates good guys
3:25
from bad guys into neat categories. The
3:28
real story puts them in the same room,
3:31
planning the same operations for the
3:34
same reasons. The secrets start now, and
3:37
they only get darker from here. First
3:39
up, the alliance that started it all.
3:42
February 1942.
3:45
Nazi submarines prowled the Atlantic
3:47
shipping lanes, sinking American vessels
3:49
faster than shipyards could replace
3:51
them. On February 9th, the luxury liner
3:54
Normandy being converted into a troop
3:57
transport caught fire at Pier 88 in
3:59
Manhattan and capsized.
4:02
12,000 workers watched the ship burn.
4:05
The official cause was an accidental
4:07
welding spark, but naval intelligence
4:10
suspected Sabbath and they knew they had
4:12
a problem they couldn't solve alone. The
4:15
New York waterfront was controlled by
4:17
the mob. Every long shoreman, every
4:19
shipping clerk, every night watchman
4:22
answered to organized crime. If Nazi
4:24
agents wanted to infiltrate the docks,
4:27
mob connected workers would be the first
4:29
to spot them. If the Navy wanted eyes
4:32
and ears on every pier, they needed the
4:34
cooperation of men who operated outside
4:36
the law. They needed Lucky Luciano.
4:39
Charles Luciano sat in Danamura prison
4:42
serving a 30 to 50year sentence for
4:44
running a prostitution ring. He was
4:47
arguably the most powerful organized
4:49
crime figure in American history. The
4:51
architect of the national crime
4:53
syndicate that unified Italian and
4:55
Jewish gangs into a coordinated network.
4:57
From his prison cell, he still
4:59
controlled operations across the eastern
5:01
seabboard through his acting boss Frank
5:04
Osteo. Naval intelligence made the
5:06
approach through Luciano's attorney
5:08
Moses Pikov and his associate Meer
5:11
Lansky. The proposition was simple. help
5:14
protect the waterfront from sabotage,
5:16
provide intelligence and potential Nazi
5:18
sympathizers, assist with the upcoming
5:21
invasion of Sicily. In return, Luciano
5:24
would receive better prison conditions
5:26
immediately and potential consideration
5:28
for parole after the war. Luchiano
5:31
agreed. Within weeks, the flow of
5:33
intelligence began. Fishing boat
5:35
captains reported submarine sightings.
5:38
Long shoreman identified suspicious
5:40
foreign nationals. Doc workers became an
5:42
unpaid extension of naval intelligence
5:45
re p o r t i n g d d d d d d d d d d d d
5:48
d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d
5:48
d d d d d d d dly through mob channels
5:50
that no German agent could have
5:52
penetrated. The operation received the
5:54
cod name operation underworld the Sicily
5:57
component went even further. When Allied
5:59
forces prepared to invade the island in
6:01
July 1943, they faced a problem. They
6:04
had no reliable intelligence on German
6:07
positions, local geography, or potential
6:10
resistance. Luchiano's Sicilian
6:12
connections solved all three problems.
6:15
Mob contacts on the island provided
6:17
maps, identified collaborators, and
6:19
helped coordinate with local
6:21
anti-fascist partisans. Some historians
6:24
credit this intelligence with reducing
6:26
American casualties during the invasion
6:28
by thousands. In 1946, Luciano received
6:32
his reward. Governor Thomas Dwey, the
6:34
same prosecutor who had originally
6:36
convicted him, commuted his sentence on
6:38
the condition of deportation to Italy.
6:41
Luchiano walked out of prison a free
6:43
man, relocated to Naples, and continued
6:46
running international criminal
6:47
operations until his death in 1,962.
6:52
The government never officially
6:54
acknowledged what he had done to earn
6:56
his freedom. Here's the hidden truth
6:58
about Operation Underworld. It
7:00
established a template that the
7:02
intelligence community would use. For
7:04
decades, criminal organizations
7:06
possessed capabilities that government
7:08
agencies lacked. They operated without
7:10
legal constraints. They maintained
7:12
networks in places where official agents
7:14
couldn't go. They could perform actions
7:16
that would destroy political careers if
7:19
traced back to legitimate authority.
7:21
Operation Underworld proved that these
7:23
capabilities could be borrowed. And once
7:26
that door opened, it never closed. But
7:29
that's nothing compared to what comes
7:30
next. Coming in at number four, the
7:33
alliance that built an empire of poison.
7:36
Marseilles of France 1,947.
7:40
The city's docks were paralyzed by
7:42
communistled labor strikes. Ships
7:44
carrying Marshall Plan aid sat unloaded
7:46
while Soviet influence spread through
7:48
the French labor movement. The CIA
7:51
needed those strikes broken. They needed
7:53
it done violently. and they found
7:55
willing partners in the Corsacan crime
7:57
syndicates that controlled the Marca
7:59
underworld. The Corsacans hated
8:01
communists. They also ran the most
8:03
sophisticated heroin production network
8:06
in the world. Their chemists had
8:08
perfected the process of refining
8:09
Turkish opium into pharmaceutical-grade
8:12
heroin. Their distribution networks
8:14
reached from the Mediterranean to
8:16
Montreal to Manhattan. and their
8:18
willingness to use extreme violence
8:20
against strike leaders aligned perfectly
8:22
with CIA objectives. The partnership
8:25
developed quickly. CIA funds flowed to
8:28
Corsican gang leaders through cutouts
8:30
and front companies. In exchange,
8:32
Corsican muscle attacked union meetings,
8:35
intimidated communist organizers, and
8:37
eventually broke the strikes that
8:39
threatened American strategic interests.
8:42
The docks reopened, the Marshall Plan
8:44
supplies flowed, and the Cosakans
8:46
consolidated their control over the
8:48
Marca waterfront. What the CIA chose to
8:51
ignore was what happened next. With
8:53
their position secured and their
8:55
government protectors looking the other
8:57
way, the Corsican networks expanded
8:59
their heroin operations exponentially.
9:01
By the late 1950s, the French Connection
9:04
pipeline was supplying over 80% of the
9:06
heroin consumed in the United States.
9:08
Estimates suggest over10 billion dollars
9:11
in heroin flowed through networks that
9:13
CIA intervention had helped protect and
9:16
strengthen. The key figure in this
9:17
arrangement was Antoine Gerini, whose
9:20
Marcela based organization controlled
9:22
both the anti-communist muscle and the
9:24
heroin production labs. Garini met
9:26
regularly with CIA contacts throughout
9:29
the late 1940s and 1950s. His
9:32
organization received protection from
9:34
French law enforcement, protection that
9:36
American intelligence helped arrange
9:38
when investigators got too close to the
9:40
heroin operations. They found their
9:42
cases mysteriously stalling. Federal
9:45
Bureau of Narcotics agent Charles
9:47
Surugusa spent years trying to penetrate
9:49
the French connection. His reports back
9:51
to Washington detailed the CIA's
9:54
interference with his investigations. He
9:56
documented specific instances where
9:58
agency intervention blocked arrests,
10:00
facilitated the release of detained
10:02
traffickers, and derailed prosecutions
10:04
that threatened agency assets. His
10:07
superiors told him to focus on domestic
10:09
matters. The Marca connection was
10:11
someone else's problem. The heroine
10:13
didn't stay in France. It flowed through
10:15
the Corsica networks to Montreal where
10:18
it connected with American mafia
10:20
distribution systems. Santo Trafi in
10:23
Tampa, Carlo Gambino in New York. The
10:26
same organized crime figures who would
10:28
later partner with the CIA on Cuban
10:30
operations were simultaneously profiting
10:33
from a drug pipeline that CIA policies
10:35
helped create. The agency paid for
10:37
anti-communist muscle with a heroin
10:39
epidemic that would devastate American
10:41
cities for decades. Internal CIA
10:43
documents from this period remain
10:45
heavily redacted even today. What has
10:48
been released shows awareness at senior
10:50
levels that their Corsican partners were
10:52
major drug traffickers. Memos reference
10:55
the complications of working with
10:56
criminal organizations. Recommendations
10:58
for addressing the drug component were
11:00
consistently overruled in favor of
11:02
maintaining operational relationships.
11:05
The heroin continued flowing. The
11:07
partnerships continued deepening. And
11:09
American addicts paid the price for
11:11
French dock workers. The deeper you go,
11:14
the darker it gets. Number three takes
11:17
us to the Caribbean where the stakes
11:19
weren't labor strikes but regime change.
11:21
January 1959,
11:23
Fidel Castro's revolutionary forces
11:26
rolled into Havana. Within Monied
11:29
American businesses, aligned with a
11:31
Soviet Union, and transformed Kuba into
11:34
a communist state 90 mi from Florida.
11:38
For the CIA, removing Castro became
11:41
priority one. For the mafia, removing
11:44
Castra meant reclaiming over $100
11:46
million in annual casino profits they
11:49
had lost when the revolution shuttered
11:51
their operations. The convergence of
11:53
interests was irresistible. In August
11:55
1960, CIA deputy director for plans
11:58
Richard Biesel authorized the
12:00
recruitment of organized crime figures
12:02
for assassination operations against
12:04
Castro. The agency approached Johnny
12:06
Rosley, a smooth-talking mob operative
12:08
who handled Las Vegas interests for the
12:11
Chicago Outfit. Roseli connected them
12:13
with Sam Gioana, the operational boss of
12:16
the Chicago Outfit, and Santo Chaffy
12:18
Jr., the Tampa boss, who had run the
12:21
Havana casinos before Castro seized
12:23
them. The plan was elegant in its
12:25
deniability. The CIA would provide
12:28
intelligence on Castro's locations,
12:30
habits, and security. They would supply
12:32
the weapons, poison pills, initially
12:36
later more exotic methods. The mob would
12:39
provide the actual assassins recruited
12:41
from the Cuban exile community and the
12:43
remnants of their Havana networks. If
12:45
anything went wrong, the government
12:47
could plausibly deny involvement. The
12:49
whole operation looked like a mob
12:51
revenge hit rather than a government
12:53
assassination. Robert Mahu served as the
12:56
primary intermediary. A former FBI agent
12:59
turned private investigator. Mahu
13:01
handled sensitive assignments for the
13:02
CIA while maintaining plausible distance
13:05
from the agency. He met Rosseli in
13:07
September 1960 at the Brown Derby
13:09
restaurant in Los Angeles. Over dinner,
13:12
he explained the proposition. Roseli
13:14
expressed patriotic enthusiasm. By
13:17
October, the poison pills were in
13:19
production. The first batch of pills
13:21
designed to be slipped into Castro's
13:23
food cost the CIA over $10,000 to
13:26
develop. Yokana dispatched a Cuban exile
13:29
named Juan Orthar who worked in Castro's
13:32
government to administer them. Orta got
13:34
cold feet and fled Kuba before
13:37
completing the mission. Additional
13:38
attempts followed throughout 1961 and
13:41
1962.
13:43
Poison pens, contaminated cigars,
13:47
exploding seashells for Castro's diving
13:49
expeditions. Each attempt failed. Each
13:52
attempt bound the CIA deeper to their
13:54
mob partners. Here's what the Church
13:57
Committee later discovered. While the
13:59
CIA was running assassination operations
14:01
with Geio, the FBI was simultaneously
14:03
investigating Gioana for criminal
14:05
activities. When FBI agents placed wire
14:08
taps on Gioana's associates, they picked
14:10
up references to the Castro plots.
14:12
Director J. Edgar Hoover learned that
14:14
his own government was partnering with
14:16
targets of his investigations.
14:19
He was furious, but even Hoover couldn't
14:21
stop what had been set in motion. The
14:24
blowback from these partnerships haunted
14:25
American politics for decades. Gioana
14:28
knew too much. Rosellle knew too much.
14:32
Trafficante
14:33
knew too much. They possessed leverage
14:36
over the central intelligence agency
14:38
that no criminal had ever held before.
14:40
When legal pressure mounted against
14:41
them, they had the ultimate bargaining
14:44
ship. The same government prosecuting
14:46
them had recruited them for murder. And
14:48
this is where things get truly
14:50
dangerous. Landing at number two, the
14:52
story of the man who knew too many
14:55
secrets. Johnny Reli lived between two
14:58
worlds for 16 years. Handsome,
15:00
sophisticated, impeccably dressed, he
15:03
moved through Las Vegas casinos and
15:06
Hollywood parties with equal ease. He
15:08
also served as the mafia's primary
15:10
liaison to American intelligence, a role
15:13
that would eventually cost him
15:14
everything. Rosselli was born Filippo
15:17
Sako in Italy and immigrated to Boston
15:20
as a child. He rose through the Chicago
15:22
outfits ranks, eventually handling their
15:25
West Coast and Las Vegas interests under
15:27
Sam Gioana's leadership. His charm and
15:29
discretion made him invaluable for
15:31
sensitive assignments. When the CIA
15:33
needed an organized crime contact who
15:36
could negotiate at a high level,
15:37
Rosselli was the obvious choice. His
15:40
involvement in the Castro plots began in
15:42
1960 and continued through at least
15:44
1963,
15:47
but his relationship with intelligence
15:49
agencies may have extended further.
15:52
Congressional investigators later
15:53
discovered evidence suggesting Rosilli
15:56
provided information on organized crime
15:57
activities to the CIA throughout the
16:00
1960s.
16:01
He was simultaneously a mob operative
16:04
and a government informant, protected by
16:06
both relationships as long as both
16:08
remained secret. The protection
16:10
evaporated in 1975.
16:13
The Church Committee began investigating
16:15
CIA assassination programs and Roseli's
16:18
name appeared throughout their files. He
16:21
was subpoenaed to testify before the
16:23
Senate. His choices were stark. refused
16:25
to testify and face contempt charges or
16:28
testify and reveal secrets that powerful
16:30
people wanted buried. He chose to talk.
16:33
Roseli's testimony in 1975 and 1976
16:37
detailed the Castro assassination plots
16:40
in unprecedented detail. He named names.
16:43
He described methods. He explained how
16:46
the CIA had recruited him, how the
16:49
poison pills were delivered, how
16:51
multiple attempts failed. His testimony
16:53
confirmed what had been rumored for
16:55
years. The United States government had
16:57
conspired with organized crime to commit
17:00
murder. Then Rosselli started hinting at
17:02
something bigger. In conversations with
17:04
associates, he suggested connections
17:07
between the anti-Castro operations and
17:09
the assassination of President Kennedy.
17:11
He implied that the same Cuban exiles
17:13
trained for the Castro plots might have
17:15
turned their skills against Kennedy when
17:17
he backed away from further invasion
17:19
plans. He never said this directly in
17:21
testimony, but the implications were
17:23
clear to anyone paying attention. On
17:25
August 7th, 1976, fishermen in Miami's
17:29
dumbfoundling bay discovered a 55gallon
17:32
oil drum floating in the water. Inside,
17:34
wrapped in chains was Johnny Roseli's
17:37
decomposing body. He had been his legs
17:41
had been sawed off to fit him into the
17:43
drum. The murder remains officially
17:45
unsolved. The timing screamed,
17:47
"Silencing Roselli had testified to the
17:50
church committee just months earlier. He
17:52
was scheduled for additional testimony.
17:54
He had hinted publicly at explosive
17:56
revelations about the Kennedy
17:58
assassination and suddenly he was dead,
18:00
killed in a manner that sent an
18:02
unmistakable message about the price of
18:04
talking. Samana never got to testify at
18:07
all. On June 19th, 1975,
18:11
just days before his scheduled church
18:13
committee appearance, someone entered
18:14
his Oak Park, Illinois home, and shot
18:17
him seven times with a22 caliber pistol.
18:21
The killer shot him once in the back of
18:23
the head, then six more times around the
18:25
mouth. The message was clear. This is
18:28
what happens to mouths that talk. two
18:31
key witnesses, both dead before they
18:33
could complete their testimony. Both
18:35
killed in ways that suggested
18:37
professional execution, both possessing
18:39
secrets that connected organized crime
18:42
to intelligence operations to political
18:44
assassinations. The official
18:46
investigations went nowhere. The secrets
18:49
stayed buried with the bodies.
18:52
What comes next? Even the FBI couldn't
18:55
believe it. Position one belongs to the
18:57
moment when the truth finally surfaced.
18:59
And what happened next? November 1975,
19:03
a crowded Senate hearing room in
19:04
Washington, DC Senator Frank Church gave
19:07
the proceedings to order and began the
19:09
most explosive investigation in
19:11
congressional history. For the first
19:13
time, Americans would learn what their
19:15
intelligence agencies had actually done.
19:18
The Church Committee, formerly the
19:19
Senate Select Committee to study
19:21
governmental operations with respect to
19:23
intelligence activities, spent two years
19:26
investigating CIA, FBI, and NSA
19:30
activities. Their findings filled 14
19:32
reports totaling thousands of pages. But
19:35
nothing shocked the nation more than the
19:37
revelations about the mafia alliances.
19:39
The committee documented at least eight
19:41
separate CIA plots to assassinate Fidel
19:44
Castro between 1960 and 1965.
19:48
They traced the recruitment of Ruskana
19:50
and Traficante.
19:52
In detail, they revealed that senior CIA
19:55
officials, including directors Alan
19:58
Dulles and John McCon, had been briefed
20:00
on these partnerships. They exposed the
20:02
poison pills, the exotic weapons, the
20:05
payments to mob figures, the
20:07
coordination meetings that brought
20:08
government agents, and organized
20:10
criminals together in shared purpose.
20:12
What emerged was a picture of systematic
20:15
cooperation that violated every
20:17
principle of democratic accountability.
20:19
The CIA had not simply used the mob for
20:22
one emergency operation. They had built
20:24
an ongoing relationship. They had
20:26
protected mob figures from prosecution.
20:28
They had shared classified intelligence
20:30
with men who ran drug trafficking,
20:32
extortion, and murder enterprises. They
20:35
had created a shadow alliance that
20:37
operated completely outside
20:38
constitutional oversight. Former SIA
20:42
director Richard Helms testified before
20:44
the committee and admitted that the
20:46
Castro assassination plots had occurred.
20:48
He claimed executive authority for the
20:50
operations but couldn't document
20:51
specific presidential authorization. The
20:54
paper trail had been deliberately
20:56
obscured. Deniability was built into the
20:58
system from the beginning. No one could
21:00
prove exactly who had ordered what. The
21:02
committee also documented the operation
21:04
underworld partnership from World War II
21:06
and traced its influence on subsequent
21:08
operations. They revealed how the
21:11
success of that alliance had created
21:13
institutional comfort with organized
21:15
crime partnerships. Once the CIA learned
21:17
that mobsters could perform useful
21:19
services, they returned to that well
21:22
repeatedly. The president Luciano
21:24
established in 1942 was still operating
21:26
in 1963. Here's what the church
21:29
committee couldn't fully resolve. The
21:31
question of blowback. If the government
21:33
trained and equipped assassins to kill
21:35
Castro, what happened when those
21:37
assassins were redirected? If the mob
21:40
possessed leverage over the CIA because
21:42
of shared secrets, how was that leverage
21:44
used? The committee examined connections
21:46
to the Kennedy assassination but reached
21:49
no definitive conclusions.
21:51
Too many witnesses were dead. Too many
21:54
documents had been destroyed. Too many
21:56
principles refused to talk. The
21:58
revelations should have ended these
22:00
partnerships forever. They didn't.
22:02
Throughout the 1980s, allegations
22:05
surfaced about CIA cooperation with drug
22:07
traffickers supporting the Contrabels in
22:09
Nicaragua. Throughout the 1990s,
22:12
investigations revealed protection of
22:14
mob connected informants who committed
22:16
crimes under government opices. The
22:18
template established in the 1940s,
22:21
refined in the 1950s, and exposed in the
22:23
1970s, continued operating in new forms.
22:26
What these five alliances reveal
22:28
together is a truth about power that no
22:30
official history wants to acknowledge.
22:32
Governments and criminal organizations
22:34
are not opposites. They are parallel
22:37
systems for acquiring and exercising
22:39
control. When their interests align,
22:41
they cooperate. When their interests
22:43
diverge, they compete. But the line
22:46
between them is far more permeable than
22:48
any civics textbook would suggest. The
22:50
men who built these alliances understood
22:52
something fundamental. Results matter
22:55
more than methods. Winning matters more
22:57
than rules. Strategic objectives justify
23:00
tactical alliances with anyone who can
23:03
help achieve them. This calculus
23:05
produces victories. It also produces
23:08
corpses in oil drums and heroin
23:10
epidemics and assassinations that remain
23:12
unsolved for decades. Lucky Luciano died
23:15
in Naples in 1962,
23:18
never having served his full sentence.
23:20
The Corsica networks he helped prototype
23:22
continued operating until the French
23:24
connection was finally broken in the
23:26
1970s.
23:28
J and Roselli died violently before
23:31
completing their testimony. The full
23:33
truth about what they knew was buried
23:35
with them. The CIA reformed its
23:37
procedures after the Church Committee.
23:39
But the culture that produced these
23:41
alliances proved harder to change than
23:43
any policy. Some secrets survive every
23:46
investigation. Some alliances leave
23:48
Trees too faint to follow. Some
23:51
questions about what the government did
23:53
and who it did it with remain
23:54
permanently unanswered. But what we know
23:57
is this. For decades, the Central
24:00
Intelligence Agency and the American
24:02
Mafia operated as partners in
24:04
enterprises that ranged from protecting
24:06
wartime shipping to assassinating
24:08
foreign leaders to protecting drug
24:10
pipelines that poisoned American cities.
24:12
The vault has been opened. The secrets
24:16
have been named. What you do with this
24:18
knowledge is up to you. But remember,
24:21
every time someone insists that the
24:23
government would never work with
24:25
criminals, that American democracy
24:27
operates on principles that forbid such
24:29
alliances, that the rule of law applies
24:32
equally to intelligence agencies and
24:34
street gangs. The historical record says
24:37
otherwise.
24:38
The partnerships happened, the bodies
24:41
piled up, and the full accounting
24:43
remains incomplete. If you want the full
24:46
cinematic story of the groups behind
24:48
these secrets, check out our 100 episode
24:50
master series on our main channel,
24:52
Global Mafia Universe. The link is in
24:55
the description. Go deep.