Judging from the photograph of Meyer Lansky that graces the cover of The Mafia in Havana, the mobster was not an attractive guy. Nevertheless, he was an extremely powerful man who—in cahoots with an assortment of other organized criminals, businessmen, the Cuban government, and U.S. intelligence officials—ruled over the infamous “Empire of Havana” from 1933 until the triumph of the 1959 revolution. They ran a vast criminal operation that operated a variety of tourist venues (hotels, casinos, nightclubs, and cabarets), smuggled cocaine, heroin, and other drugs, managed assorted gambling operations (horse and dog racing, jai alai, boxing, numbers, slots, bingo), traded precious gems, facilitated widespread prostitution, trafficked in contraband (furs, gold, electronics), and involved itself in mass communication, international finance (including money laundering), and a range of other dubious business operations too numerous and complex to account for.
The history of organized crime in Cuba is a dark and...
