Drug Cartel Facts part 2

Drug Cartel Facts 2

1. After watching The Godfather, members of the Patriarca Crime Family started “philosophizing” and improved their grammar.
2. Almost 40,000 people have died in Mexico’s cartel wars since 2006. That is about 5.4 times more than all the combined US casualties from the two current wars, and 13.5 times the deaths during 9/11.
3. Mexico’s drugs cartels operate an encrypted radio station across all 31 states out of the reach of the government. They have even gone green, with solar panels powering the radio towers.
4. A Cuban-American FBI agent spent 3 years undercover in the Gambino crime family, convincing everyone he was Italian. He nearly became a made member of the family before the investigation was stopped.
5. The Genovese crime family is considered as the “Ivy League” and “Rolls Royce” of The Sicilian Mafia, having only 5 members turn state evidence.
6. American gangster Al “Scarface” Capone got his infamous scars when he told a woman “You got a nice ass” in front of her brother while working at a bar. 
7. Jazz pianist Fats Waller was kidnapped to be the surprise guest at Al Capone’s birthday party at gunpoint. He left 3 days later intoxicated with thousands of dollars in tips.
8. Al Capone’s armored limousine, after being seized by the feds, was later used to protect President Franklin D. Roosevelt after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
9. In 1986, 30 million people witnessed the opening of a secret safe of Al Capone, only to find dirt and empty moonshine bottles. 
10. Al Capone’s brother was a distinguished prohibition agent and acted as bodyguard to a US president. 

Drug Cartel Facts

Drug Cartel Facts:

1. From the year 2000 to 2012, the U.S. government had an unofficial arrangement with the Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel that allowed the organization to smuggle billions of dollars of drugs into USA, while Sinaloa provided information on rival cartels.

2. Arnold Rothstein, a kingpin of the Jewish mafia who was behind the Black Sox scandal, refused to identify his killer to the police.

3. In 2011, the Los Zetas drug cartel kidnapped hundreds of innocent bus passengers in Mexico and made them fight to death like gladiators. The winners were then sent on suicide missions.

4. During the prohibition era in the 1930’s, a young Mexican kid smuggled whiskey from Mexico to Texas. That kid grew up to be Juan Guerra, the founder of The Gulf Cartel, one of the oldest and most powerful cartels in Mexico’s history.

5. In Mexico, drug cartels have been capturing technicians and making them build their own private cell phone network.

6. Gregory Scarpa, Sr. of the Colombo crime family despised African-Americans so much, that he refused to get blood from a blood bank following an ulcer. He ended up contracting HIV from another Italian mobster who donated his blood to Scarpa.

7. In 2012, Knights Templar Cartel, a Mexican drug cartel personally welcomed the Pope to Mexico, and pledged not to cause any violence during his visit.

8. Iran contracted a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate a Saudi diplomat while in Washington, D.C. The plot was only foiled because the assassin was an informant for the DEA in the War on Drugs.

9. In the 80s, the Medellin Cartel had a complex in the jungles of Colombia called Tranquilandia. It had 19 cocaine laboratories, 8 airstrips, running water, its own electricity system and bedrooms for the workers . When it was raided, 13.8 tons of cocaine was found and destroyed.

10. 40-67% of the marijuana consumed in the U.S. is imported by Mexican cartels, which accounts for only 15-26% of the cartels’ drug-related profits (the rest comes from cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine, in addition to non-narcotic income from activities like kidnapping and extortion).

you will see some more facts about drugs in my next post.