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After the Apalachin meeting in 1957, his little empire all came apart. He
lost his pistol permit, his liquor license and his Canada Dry Franchise. He
suddenly had a huge tax claim against him. He lost his reputation both in
the straight and criminal world. His health deteriorated and he soon sold
the Apalachin estate. Joseph Barbara died on June 17, 1959 from a heart
attack suffered on May 29, 1959. After his father’s death, Joseph Barbara,
Jr. moved to Detroit and became a member of that powerful mafia family.
Little was ever heard from him again.
Another
alleged reason for the meeting, (Purpose #2), was to draw up a hit list of
soldiers who had been disloyal and to make a decision whether or not to
knock off several federal narcotics officers who were making life
uncomfortable for everyone. A primary concern for the Dons was the meaning
of the 1956 narcotics law and how it would affect the syndicate since most
of them had deep financial interest in the massive international sale of
narcotics. This act gave a mandatory sentence of five years for the first
drug offense and ten for the second offense. For people like Tony Accardo
from Chicago, this meant that fixing a judge for a lighter sentence was no
longer going to happen since judges were now bound by law to hand down five
or ten year sentences.
The drug
trade was becoming enormously lucrative for the gangsters. Over the years,
the Mafia chiefs received significant amounts of cash from their gambling
and union racketeering empires but now they needed to invest in the
international drugs trade, not only for its enormous profits, but because it
would give them control over the flow of the drugs into their city. If they
didn't control drugs, someone else would and then it would only be a matter
of time before someone else would control the streets.
In the early
days, dope smuggling had been the sole province of New York’s Legs Diamond,
the Newman Brothers and Dutch Schultz who formed an alliance with the
Eliopoulos Brothers, the drug barons of Europe. Then in 1930 Louis "Lepke"
Buchalter declared that he was going into the business and by the mid 30's
Lepke more or less controlled the United States distribution of narcotics.
Lepke's secret to success was bringing in two noted underworld financiers,
Jacob Lvovsky and Jasha Katzenberg to help him open transportation inroads
for heroin from Tientsin China. Both Lepke and his chief lieutenant Emanuel
"Mendy" Weiss were eventually arrested and executed at Sing Sing Prison on
murder charges. Lucky Luciano had turned them in and in their absence took
over Lepke's routes business.
Luciano
tossed the Chinese Tongs out of the business, cornered the market and
increased the flow of dope into the United States. After Luciano was exiled
from the country, he continued monitoring the business from Italy. In the
1930’s, demand for narcotics was high all over America but decreased during
the Second World War when the distribution channels dried up, driving up the
cost of narcotics. This was viewed as an opportunity by the mob and by
1943, they had taken narcotics smuggling away from the less well organized,
older criminals who had been running it. With its deep contacts in Europe,
Asia and South America, the mob was able to circumvent wartime problems
while keeping the price up.
Up until
1956, the narcotics trade had more or less been a haphazard business with
assurance of a regular delivery system out of Asia and Europe. Meyer Lansky
from New Orleans and Carols Trafficante from Florida figured out a way to
regulate and distribute the flow of drugs in and out of Cuba. The
skyrocketing prices being charged to Mafia by wholesalers operating out of
Sicily, Cuba and other points in South America was another one of the
alleged major points of the Apalachin meeting. (Purpose #3).
Before
serious discussions and agreements could be made, state and federal law
enforcement showed up at the Apalachin meeting. It all came about when
Sergeant Edgar Croswell, 44, and Trooper Vincent Vasisko, 31, from the
Vestal state police station were called to the Parkway Motel on Saturday,
November 13, 1957 to take a report from the owner who indicated a patron had
written a bad check. As the officers were collecting information about the
check writer, Croswell happened to look out of the office window and saw
Joseph Barbara’s son coming across the parking lot toward the motel
entrance.
Croswell
ducked into an adjoining lounge, pulling Vasisko with him. At the
registration desk Barbara Jr. said, "We want six rooms for two nights. I'll
take the keys with me. The people may be late." He said he couldn't
register the guests by name because, "I don't know exactly who's coming.
We're having a convention of soft-drink people.” (Purpose #4)
Having heard
rumors that Joseph Barbara was involved in organized crime, Sgt. Croswell
was immediately suspicious. Croswell had been keeping an eye on Barbara and
was intrigued by this "convention" that was about to take place. The two
state troopers spent the rest of the day driving over to Barbara's bottling
works, and seeing nothing unusual, then drove up to Barbara's estate and
noted two out of state vehicles. They returned to the HQ and called in Brown
and Rushton who were in Albany.
The next day, at
12:40 PM, Sergeant Croswell accompanied by trooper Vasisko, and two Treasury
agents, Arthur Huston and Kenneth Brown, drove to Barbara's 53-acre
estate located on the dead-end McFall Road and recorded the license numbers
of several of the cars in the lot. Upon being seen, Vasisko drove the car
out of Barbara's yard and down the hill.
They left
Barbara's and drove to the crossroads and parked on the side of the road
while they discussed what to do. They did not immediately set up a
roadblock. A fish peddler drove down the road from Barbara’s and passed by
them in his business truck. Upon seeing them, he then turned around and
drove back to Barbara's. A few minutes later he returned in his truck and
again passed the parked agents. Guccia, the driver, was not stopped on any
of his three passes by the agents. |
MAFIA IN APALACHIN?
(con't.)
