Meyer Lansky

Meyer Lansky was a Polish-born Jewish American gangster, who would become a seminal figure in the American Mafia and a prominent businessman in American Havana.

A New York criminal gangster with childhood friends Bugsy Siegel and Lucky Luciano, he would become an associate of Jewish gangster Arnold Rothstein and a co-founder of the National Crime Syndicate in 1928 with Luciano. During the Revolution, he supported the Whites, but moved his assets to Cuba. He also possibly betrayed his friends to the authorities to save himself (which he fiercely denied later in life).

In Havana, he became Rothstein's assistant in the National Crime Syndicate, and after his death in 1944, took over his seat on the council. Lansky would direct the Mafia's significant investments in Brazilian sugar cane and rubber, Venezuelan oil, and especially the burgeoning South American drug trade. He would also become one of the biggest casino stakeholder in Havana and later Monte Carlo, allowing him to become associated with the higher echelons of Americuban society. He would become a target for Panamerican intelligence through the 50's and 60's, as well as the Secretariat of Public Safety for his involvement in Southern gambling and drug rings.

After Robert F. Kennedy (the son of Lansky's ally Joseph P. Kennedy) became president, he began to prosecute the biggest names in Cuban organized crime, arresting many of its leaders. Lansky would attempt to emigrate to Palestine in 1969, but was deported back to the United Republics to stand trial for his actions during the Second American Civil War.

Lansky was found guilty, and sentenced to life at the Centennial Criminal Rehabilitation Center in Denver, where he would stay until his death in 1984. In interviews, he would say that he regretted nothing.