13. Before the Latin American Drug Cartels, There Was the Italian American Mafia
Lucky Luciano, who emigrated to America at age nine, was a criminal since childhood. By age ten, he was involved in shoplifting, mugging, and extortion. At age nineteen, Luciano was sentenced to six months for selling heroin. In 1920, he joined Joe Masseria’s crime family, and became his chief lieutenant, running his bootlegging, prostitution, and narcotics operations.
Challenging the myth that the mob stayed away from drugs is the fact that Lucky Luciano was America’s biggest narcotics trafficker and distributor. Contra the notion popularized by movies and works of fiction that the mob traditionally avoided narcotics, dealing drugs was one of the mafia’s biggest moneymakers since the earliest days of the American mafia.
Read More: 12 Factors That Gave Birth to the American Mafia.