Gangland Wire host, retired Detective Gary Jenkins, reports on the life and legacy of Sam Mooney Giancana, a prominent figure in the Chicago outfit and the mafia world. Giancana’s enigmatic nature and shadowy dealings are explored, tracing his journey from a member of the 42 gang to the pinnacle of the Chicago outfit. Known for his ruthlessness and criminal prowess, Giancana’s rise in the criminal underworld during the Prohibition era is detailed, showcasing his involvement in illegal activities like gambling, liquor distribution, and political rackets.
The host sheds light on Giancana’s connections with influential figures like Al Capone, his alleged role in John F. Kennedy’s presidential victory, and his entanglement with the CIA in plots to assassinate Fidel Castro. The interview further brings to light Giancana’s partnership with Richard Cain, a corrupt law enforcement officer turned mob associate, expanding their operations to include gun smuggling, espionage, and international intrigues.
The narrative takes a dark turn as Giancana’s mysterious death in 1975 is analyzed, with several theories suggesting mob involvement, internal power struggles, and CIA conspiracies behind his assassination. The interview speculates on potential conspirators, including Tony Accardo, Santo Trafficante Jr., and even the CIA, reflecting the convoluted web of betrayal, power dynamics, and covert operations that characterized Giancana’s tumultuous life.
Ultimately, Sam Giancana’s legacy endures as a symbol of the murky intersections between crime and espionage, leaving behind a trail of unsolved mysteries, political entanglements, and violent retribution. The host encourages engagement from listeners, offering insights into mob history, sharing anecdotes, and inviting discussion on the complex and intriguing world of organized crime.
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Transcript
[0:00] Hey, all you wiretappers out there, back here in the studio of Gangland Wire.
You know, I’m doing these little kind of short, down-and-dirty bios of major mob guys, because I got to realizing that everybody doesn’t know all the details that maybe I know or that I’ve read about.
I know a lot of you guys know a lot of stuff. A lot of you know a lot more than I know.
But everybody doesn’t know everything about all these different guys.
And I may mention the name, you know, Tommy Lucchese, Three Finger Lucchese.
You might mention Vito Genovese or just, you know, Genovese, the Genovese family.
So putting out these shorties to say this is who these guys are is bonus episode.
So today I’m going to deal with the life and legacy of Sam Mooney Giancana, unveiling the enigma.
And he was an enigmatic figure, which I think means I’m using that $25 word there, aren’t I? Which I think means he was kind of a shadowy character, kind of hard to understand, had a lot of secrets. And he did.
You know, he like went to Mexico for quite a while. He had business interest all around the world and gaming in casinos and gambling.
And he wouldn’t share some of that, which some of that came back to bite him, I think, in the end.
[1:14] But he was born in 1908, May 24th in Chicago.
He was he was a Chicago outfit guy.
And he starts out. his journey into the crime world as a teenager in the 42 gang.
Now, they say it wasn’t because they lived on 42nd Street. It was because it was Alibaba and the 40 Thieves.
And with Alibaba, that made 41.
And then so they wanted to say they had 42 members in their gang.
So they called themselves the 42 gang. That’s a good story, isn’t it?
Giancana’s Rise in Chicago Outfit
[1:45] But he’s going to go to the pinnacle of the Chicago outfit, but it’s a long tail woven throughout with intrigue, power, and a lot of clandestine activities, including stuff with the CIA.
So as a young man, Giancana’s proudness as a getaway driver and a lethal force, I mean, he was a guy that would kill without hesitation.
[2:09] Earned him a reputation in a 42 gang that caught the attention of the Capone group, of course.
And Capone was the man during that time.
These were the young Turks and Capone was a guy running everything in Chicago.
So they started taking a Cardo. He came out of the circus gang, Giancana and a couple others. I can’t remember their names came out of the 42 gang.
[2:31] But by the end of Prohibition in the 1930s, he was seamlessly integrated into the criminal web of the Chicago outfit.
And they controlled all the illegal gambling and liquor distribution during Prohibition. They had gotten their clutches into any liquor distribution.
Prohibition’s over. They’re not going to let that go. And political rackets.
And they also had stuff going down all the way down the Midwest, Kansas City, and then down into Louisiana. Indiana.
Giancana, he had a knack for finding profit centers for the outfit.
He knew he could smell money.
So during the 50s, they didn’t pay much attention to the South Side, to the Black community.
There were Black gangsters earning huge sums from the lottery.
[3:17] Gen Cana befriended one of these guys and learned the business and then pretty soon forced him to retire.
And then this This guy just said, OK, and he left the city. Well, there was another black policy baron named Theodore Rowe who then moved in on this black group that Jen Cannon was trying to take over. And they started a war.
And Teddy Rowe would not back down.
He would not back down. They had a shootout. I believe he shot and killed Johnny Roselli’s brother or another guy.
Anyhow, he shot and killed one of the major mob guys brothers in a shootout.
And but by the end, policy baron Theodore Rowe, Teddy Rowe, is killed.
[4:01] Sam Giancana will rise to the top of the outfit. And in 1957, he becomes the out front boss as Accardo, who has really been the boss since after the war.
He and Paul The/Waiter Ricca had been the boss and Accardo had been kind of out front.
Like now Sam Giancana is going to be out front. Cardo is going to take a step back.
He still maintained a lot of power and a lot of say-so.
Intrigue and Plots Unravel
[4:29] Now we’ll get up into the 60s. Here’s where we get into this intrigue and these different plots that are going on.
There are whispers that Giancana had something to do with John F.
Kennedy’s 1960 presidential victory and by getting out the vote for him in Chicago.
Well, I never did buy that story particularly particularly because they could get out the Democrats were going to win in Chicago anyhow.
So I don’t really understand that, but a lot of people say that Giancana believes that his influence put Kennedy over the top and handed him the presidential victory. There might be more to that story.
Many claim that the mafia then would guide the political fate of any major candidate during those years.
[5:16] And also during the 1960s, Giancana became entangled with the CIA or the Central Intelligence Agency because they were frantically trying to kill Fidel Castro and their own little plots and plans with their own people was not coming to fruition, was not working.
You know, they got hold of Santo Trafficante Jr., who was the mob boss down in Tampa, and Carlos Marcelo, who was down in New Orleans because they had a lot of connections to Cuba.
And then JFK gets assassinated about this time.
And as we all know, there’s tons of information out there that link Traficante and Carlos Marcelo to the murder of JFK.
And this is all back to Cuba, the failed Bay of Pigs operation that Kennedy, like Kennedy, let him down. You know, it really is complicated.
Well, also during this time, to keep it going.
[6:11] Giancana takes in a guy named Richard Cain, who is a Chicago, actually a Cook County deputy sheriff, had been a Chicago policeman.
He was just corrupt as heck.
And he was really the bag man for the outfit at one time to carry bribes back to sheriff’s detectives, to the sheriff’s office, was vice squad and different people on the Chicago Police Department.
He also had a connection to the CIA. This is already, you know, web of different connections.
And here we’ve got Richard Cain moving in. He’s side by side with Sam Giancana.
His connections expanded way beyond the outfit and the outfits, gambling and smuggling operations.
He really expanded out. He was involved with some the training of the Cuban people for the Bay of Pigs.
He was involved in smuggling operations down through Central America, down to Panama, gambling in Iran, gambling casinos.
He was Giancana’s man on a lot of that. Giancana got action out of this.
When they engaged in activities that transcended conventional organized crime, Sam Giancana and Richard Cain, they got approached to do different things and probably had something to do with some of this.
Some of it’s rumor, there was armed smuggling to the Middle East for the Israeli Mossad.
And that went through Ponant Panama.
That was their connections down to Panama.
Intersection of Mafia and CIA
[7:36] The mafia and intelligence community really intersected when this plot came out to kill Castro.
Richard Cain was all entangled in the middle of that. And Giancana supposedly made a claim that, yeah, he could get that done.
[7:52] Never did seem to get it done,
