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20 Significant Mafia Hits

Khalid Elhassan February 19, 2019 23 min

15. Sam Gianca’s Greed Did Him In

June 1st, 1965, Chicago, Illinois, USA – Salvatore “Sam” Giancana(L) in custody of an unidentified U.S. Marshall after he was ordered jailed by a Federal District Judge here 6/1 for refusing to answer questions of a Federal Grand Jury investigating his activities. Corbis

Sam Giancana (1908 – 1975) was a Chicago mobster who got his start as Al Capone’s driver, and worked his way up the Chicago Outfit to become one of its highest ranking leaders. He was pals with Frank Sinatra, and had many political ties, including to the Kennedys, whom he reportedly helped by getting JFK into the White House in 1960 with ballot stuffing shenanigans. Conspiracy theorists have long fingered him as a potential culprit in JFK’s assassination, as revenge for what he viewed as ingratitude: rather than cut the mob some slack, Kennedy’s DOJ, headed by his brother Robert, ramped up its investigations of mafia activities.

Giancana was viewed as a loose cannon by his mafia colleagues, for his tendency to attract attention, and as a greedy pig, for his refusal to share in the gambling profits of operations he had set up in Mexico and Iran. After repeated attempts at persuasion failed, a hitman entered his house, evading a police protection detail, and shot him in the back of the head as he was frying sausages. The hitman then turned him over, and shot him six more times in the head and neck.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.