Operation Gladio - How It’s Funded
Where Did All the Mobsters and Mafia Go?
The Operation Gladio series represents a deep dive on one of the most influential “stay behind” operations in world history and its implications on modern day geopolitics. Start the series with Part 1.
Did you know there were primarily two distinct mafia/mobster networks operating in the United States in the early 1900’s.
One consisted of Italian mafia families that had emigrated to America. They settled primarily in New York and Chicago and focused on trafficking liquor during prohibition, gambling, and prostitution.
The second were Jewish mobsters like Louis “Pretty” Amberg, Moses Annenberg (newspaper/media for Hearst Corp), Abe Bernstein (Purple Gang), Mickey Cohen (Los Angeles), Meyer Lansky (formed the National Crime Syndicate focusing on Cuba and Las Vegas), and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (New York and Las Vegas). While they were into all the same crime syndicates as the Italian mobsters, they also were used by large business enterprises that needed assistance in making things happen—for example, dock workers, newspapers, bankers, etc.
Mickey Cohen (1914-1976)
Meyer Lansky (1902–1983)
Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (1906–1947)
The mafia and mobsters didn’t disappear after World War II; much of their activities were folded into the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The prohibition era liquor networks gave way to drugs like heroin and cocaine, with the profits being used to fund covert functions of Operation Gladio, with prostitution transformed into human trafficking networks, the funds being used for covert operations as well. Lastly, in order to keep this operation protected and to provide weapons to the stay-behind-units, a weapons trafficking network was incorporated into the CIA.
As you will see, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) provided the wartime transition necessary to encapsulate the mission realignment. It worked out well for everyone involved, since the United States Congress gave the CIA sweeping powers and protection. The previously illegal activities were allowed to carry on with a cloaking of invisibility due to a convenient CIA stamp: “NATIONAL SECURITY”.
It was Colonel Paul E. Helliwell that first proposed the incorporation of organized crime into the intelligence community. While Helliwell was assigned in Southern China, he met General Chiang Kai-shek who commanded Kuomintang (KMT). The KMT functioned as the Chinese Nationalist’s Army. Chiang sold opium to Chinese addicts to fund his war efforts.
The Chinese were first introduced to opium by the United Kingdom, which resulted in two Boxer wars, during which the Chinese tried to stop the drug trafficking. They lost both wars and, as a result, lost control of Hong Kong to the United Kingdom.
OSS boss, William “Wild Bill” Donovan had directed Col Helliwell to covertly assist the KMT army with weapons, and Helliwell added opiate trafficking to his mission in China. It was at this point that James Jesus Angleton (OSS), Allen Dulles (OSS European officer-in-charge) and British Security Coordinator William “Little Bill” Stephenson (MI6) met to discuss setting up this covert network. The plan would funnel money to Helliwell, who would forward it to World Commerce Corporation (WCC). WCC had been created by Wild Bill Donovan for this purpose.
It was the inclusion of the opiate network that would bring the mafia/mobster element into the intelligence networks—not that they hadn’t worked together in the past, but this would be a shotgun wedding, of sorts. Along with the previously mentioned OSS/MI6 members, E. Howard Hunt (OSS, Army intelligence) and Lucien Conein (French Foreign Legion) would join the efforts of drug trafficking. Conein was instrumental in the creation of this network due to his Corsican (French) Mafia ties. The Corsican mafia produced the highest quality heroin and had an established supply of opium from Vietnam; this proved to be crucial to the new network’s success.
Tommy ‘the Cork’ Corcoran (lawyer and OSS member) and Lt General Claire Chennault (military advisor to Chiang) would create the Flying Tigers, which would transition into the Civil Air Transport (CAT). This would form the beginnings of the CIA’s own air fleet. One person, rarely mentioned, who was instrumental in founding the Flying Tigers was William Pawley. While I will cover William Pawley in an upcoming segment, its important to note Pawley was a member of both the International Syndicate as a wealthy businessman who made millions of dollars in regime change/Operation Gladio businesses, but he also was an active participant in Operation Gladio activities.
As an aside, its important to understand the relationship of China and Chiang for later discussions. Chiang was labeled a ‘nationalist’ because he was opposed to Mao the ‘communist’. Mao was opposed to selling opium or heroin to the Chinese population. He was also opposed to outside interference of other countries due to their recent experiences with both the United Kingdom and Japan. Chiang’s KMT army fought Mao’s army for territory in China; both of these men were Chinese. Chiang would eventually be pushed out of China into Burma. Burma would later kick him out, as well. This happened in the aftermath of World War II, and the Japanese had recently been expelled from the Chinese island of Formosa off the coast of China.
Chennault, Pawley and Dulles would set Chiang (allegedly the world’s largest drug trafficker at this point) up in Formosa to continue the supply of opium in order to pay for the covert operations of Operation Gladio. Chiang changed the name of the island to Taiwan. Chiang would declare martial law in the immediate aftermath of setting up his regime, and for the next approximately 40 years, Taiwan functioned as a drug dealing dictatorship. This lasted well into the 1980’s.
Having secured the source of opium via Chiang, the processing of the opium was set up via the Corsican mafia in France by Conein. All that was left to set up was the network into the United States. Charles “Lucky” Luciano (Italian) set up the “Commission” with Meyer Lansky (Jewish) in 1931. The Commission became the committee that managed all mafia dealings, with twelve mafia bosses collaborating on all issues. This apparatus would be used to set up the last leg of the operation.
Lucky was the first to begin importing heroin into New York from Chiang’s network. Prior to World War II, there were fewer than 20,000 heroin addicts and less than 1,000 kilos produced each year, worldwide. Lucky was the king of heroin; he provided it to his prostitutes to keep them dependent on him, and he controlled over 200 brothels in New York City alone with 1200 plus prostitutes. Heroin was also pushed to black musicians in New York City’s jazz venues. This was a targeted effort to get black musicians hooked on drugs, and later would provide a network to increase the trafficking of drugs throughout the black communities, resulting in a set up of inner-city young black men. Their arrests would provide the CIA cover stories for the ‘war on drugs’, knowing that the arrests were simply the low hanging fruit.
Routinely, DEA agents would opine about their investigations into drug networks being shut down as they worked their way up the network with a CIA stamp: NATIONAL SECURITY. Meanwhile, this set-up provided the prison labor force for the syndicate’s large corporations prisoner work projects. It was a win-win for the syndicate.
Lucky would be arrested for his prostitution ring in 1936. In 1942, his fellow mafia colleagues would devise a scheme for his release.
The US Navy was worried about NYC harbor, so they set up the first of many false flags involving a ship in a harbor. The SS Normandie was a French luxury liner that was being used as a government transport ship. It was set on fire, and the Office of Navy Intelligence wanted dockworkers assistance, which had to come from the mafia. Operation Underworld would transform Lucky to an intelligence asset/agent. He provided the much needed assistance in securing the waterfront in exchange for his freedom.
The use of Lucky as an intelligence asset took on a new mission in conjunction with the invasion of southern Italy, Sicily, during World War II. That was Lucky’s old stomping grounds, and he provided them with all the intelligence necessary to ensure the mission was successful. This was no insignificant feat, since Mussolini had gotten rid of the mafia throughout Italy during his reign as a fascist dictator. He had also gotten rid of the masonic lodges. Both of these would make a roaring comeback under Operation Gladio throughout Italy and the rest of the world under the guise of intelligence.
The mafia families in Sicily were instrumental in the success of Operation Husky (Allied invasion of Sicily,) and as a result, during the US military occupation, numerous mafia officials would be assigned as mayors and government officials throughout the country. Vito Genovese would become the official translator for US Army headquarters in Naples. The provincial military governor in Italy was a close friend of Lucky’s Charles Poletti, New York’s former Lieutenant Governor. Poletti appointed Lucky’s agent Genovese’s men as port authorities. Everything became black market, with goods enriching the post war OSS/mafia network.
At this point, with the OSS in control of Italy’s ports, the new network Helliwell had conceived was able to be set up. This began a slow migration of the Corsican mafia (French) control of the heroin network over to the CIA’s Italian mafia control. Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal, Allen Dulles, and officials in the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) pressured New York Governor Thomas Dewey to release Lucky by commuting his sentence on the condition he be deported to Italy. Lucky was a US citizen and wasn’t subject to deportation, but it happened. Three years after this occurred, Forrestal would be assassinated when he was thrown from the 16th floor of the Bethesda Naval Hospital, where he was a patient for mental evaluation.
Vito Genovese would return to the United States and set up a drug distribution network which, again, would focus on nightclubs in Harlem and eventually spread to all the primarily black, inner-cities throughout the United States. One small problem, Genovese was wanted for murder. He had assassinated a fellow mobster, Ferdinand Boccia. The key witness was being held in a solitary cell for protection. His medicine was poisoned, and he was murdered while in police custody. This would be the first of many of these assassinations as part of Operation Gladio. He had enough poison in his bloodstream to kill eight horses. A second witness was assassinated in New Jersey, and soon afterward, all charges were dropped.
Lucky didn’t waste any time after his arrival in Sicily in setting up Helliwell’s plan inside Italy. Within a couple of months, he traveled to Cuba for a meeting with Frank Costello, Vito Genovese, Albert Anastasia, and Meyer Lansky. This meeting was to set up the entire framework of Operation Gladio’s drug network to fund its covert operations. The American counterparts included Mike Miranda, Joseph Magliocco, Joe Adonis, Tommy Lucchese, Joe Profaci, Willie Moretti, The Fischetti brothers, and Santo Trafficante. Santo Trafficante played the largest role in Operation Gladio drug trafficking as the Cuba, Miami, Tampa mafia don.
It was into this backdrop that the CIA was created.
The World War II OSS would become the Strategic Service Unit, which became the National Intelligence Authority and Central Intelligence Group, and eventually became the CIA by 1947 with the passing of the National Security Act.
Its mission was to carry out covert operations “against “hostile” foreign states, or groups, or in support of friendly foreign sates or groups, but which are planned so that any US government responsibility for them is not evident to unauthorized persons. This is a critical point, and the reason why the CIA consistently labels all governments that resist the international syndicate’s efforts to control them and their resources as ‘communists’. It brings the entire efforts of the CIA to bear on the situation.
President Truman appointed Allen Dulles as the director of the CIA while his brother John Foster Dulles is serving as the Secretary of State. This forged a tie between the two entities that still exist today. As a matter of fact, the State Department’s Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) under the direction of Frank Wisner would move lock, stock and barrel to the CIA once it was established.
This is critical to understand: everything the CIA does was done prior to its creation; it just wasn’t all done under one roof. Also, an often-overlooked Dulles was Eleanor Lansing Dulles. She worked in Bureau of Intelligence and Research within the State Department, which remains the entry point at the State level of CIA activities.
Eleanor worked at the Commerce Department during the implementation of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s socialist National Recovery Act, which was later deemed unconstitutional, and the follow on New Deal. She was instrumental in developing the U.S. position on international financial cooperation. She participated in the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944, and supported the creation of the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Dean Rusk would ask her to resign as a result of her brother’s role in the Bay of Pigs. She retired the following year.
‘Operation X’ was the code name for the new network from Chiang’s Taiwan, Sicily, and Cuba into the United States. The financials were managed through the General Development Corporation, which was a shell company in Miami. While we will cover General Development Corporation in an upcoming article, it is interesting to note that you see Canadian and US companies merging in the early 1900’s to form this company. You also see the real estate industry (a favorite money laundering destination), media moguls, and Charles H. Kellstadt (CEO of Sears) all involved in the money laundering company used by the CIA to wash drug profits.
We will investigate it and other money laundering avenues in our next article, including the Vatican Bank, which becomes the venue of choice for the CIA’s drug money.
As you can see with the information presented here, the mafia/mobsters didn’t disappear. There was no real Federal Bureau of Investigation busting up of the organization. It simply morphed into the government as part of the CIA and remains there, protected and fully operational.
Aspects of our government resemble an international crime syndicate posing as a government.
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Operation Gladio, The Unholy Alliance between The Vatican The CIA and the Mafia, written by Paul L Williams
I got the book from a discount bookstore and I’ll never be the same again. Our country is a lie, the whole thing is fake. I don’t know if it’s fixable. The Roman Empire crumbled by similar circumstances and what was left simply morphed
The plot only thickens as you wonderful real journalists dig! As others wrote before, we've been lied to all our lives. Long ago I heard that FDR knew in advance of Pearl Harbor, that was the extent of my awareness that the gov't lied to us. My eyes continue to be opened since Nov 2020 election fraud. Still waiting to find out what really happened to Jimmy Hoffa. Union affairs are a messy situation. Maybe one day that mystery will be explained. Learning a lot more about Operation Gladio now. Follow the money trail, seems it never disappoints with explanations!