9. The Mob Used to be America’s Biggest Drug Traffickers
Lucky Luciano became America’s biggest drugs trafficker and distributor. Contra the notion popularized by movies and works of fiction that the mob traditionally avoided narcotics, the drug trade was one of the Mafia’s biggest moneymakers since the earliest days of the mob. It is often asserted that the Mafia had a long-standing prohibition against dope – either because of morality or because of the public stigma attached to drugs. That is untrue. The notion that the mafia stayed away from drugs is just a myth, popularized by fiction and Hollywood hits such as The Godfather.
In reality, the mafia was heavily involved in the drug trade from the start. Long before the days of Pablo Escobar, Lucky Luciano was America’s – and one of the world’s – greatest narcotics kingpins. For decades, the mafia was the biggest importer of hard drugs into the US, particularly heroin. It was not until cocaine supplanted heroin as the hard drug of choice, and the rise of the Colombian cartels in the 1970s, that the mob lost its top spot as America’s biggest drug trafficker.
Read: How Mafia Boss Lucky Luciano Helped the US Invade Italy from a Prison Cell?
