The Cuban Connection: Drug Trafficking, Smuggling, and Gambling in Cuba from the 1920s to the Revolution (Latin America in Translation En Traduccion Em Traducao)

262 Pages·2009·1.93 MB·English

by  Eduardo Sáenz Rovner

The Cuban Connection
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Eduardo Sáenz Rovner
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The CUbaN CoNneCtioN

A book in the series Latin
America in Translation /
en Traducción / em Tradução
Sponsored by the Consortium
in Latin American Studies
at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill and
Duke University
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The CUbCoaNNneCtioN

Drug Trafficking, Smuggling,
and Gambling in Cuba from
the 1920s to the Revolution
Translated by Russ Davidson
The University of North Carolina Press
Chapel Hill
Translation of the books in the series Latin America
in Translation / en Traducción / em Tradução, a
collaboration between the Consortium in Latin
American Studies at the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill and Duke University and the university
presses of the University of North Carolina and Duke,
is supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation.
© 2008 The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved
Designed by April Leidig-Higgins
Set in MinionPro by Copperline Book Services, Inc.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Originally published in Spanish by Universidad
Nacional de Colombia Colección ces as La conexión
cubana: narcotráfico, contrabando y juego en Cuba
entre los años 20 y comienzos de la Revolución, © 2005
Eduardo Sáenz Rovner
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for
permanence and durability of the Committee on
Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the
Council on Library Resources.
The University of North Carolina Press has been a
member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sáenz Rovner, Eduardo.
[Conexión cubana. English]
The Cuban connection : drug trafficking, smuggling,
and gambling in Cuba from the 1920s to the
Revolution / Eduardo Sáenz Rovner ; translated by
Russ Davidson.
p. cm. — (Latin America in translation/en
traducción/em tradução)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8078-3175-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Drug traffic — Cuba — History — 20th century.
2. Organized crime — Cuba — History — 20th century.
3. Gambling — Cuba — History — 20th century.
4. United States — Foreign relations — Cuba.
5. Cuba — Foreign relations — United States. I. Title.
HV5840.C85S2413 2008
364.1'0609729109041 — dc22 2008020373
12 11 10 09 08 5 4 3 2 1
To my mother
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Havana is rather a smoldering volcano of life, of
Kaffir politics, of race and class struggles; it is
brutal, realistic, palpitating with vitality as few
cities in Latin America — the new, violent stridency
of a culture and a way of life still unfulfilled, its
contours still undetermined.
— Carleton Beals, The Crime of Cuba (1933)
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Contents
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Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
1 U.S. Prohibition and Smuggling from Cuba 17
2 Drug Trafficking and Political Anarchy during the 1930s 31
3 The Chinese and Opium Consumption in Cuba 45
4 Corruption and Drug Trafficking in Cuba during the
Second World War and the Early Postwar Years 57
5 Lucky Luciano in Cuba 65
6 The Prío Socarrás Government and Drug Trafficking 75
7 Gambling in Cuba 81
8 The Andean Connection 95
9 Contacts in France 103
10 The Batista Dictatorship and Drug Trafficking 113
11 Revolution 123
12 The Diplomacy of Drug Trafficking at the Beginning
of the Revolution 135
Epilogue 147
Notes 153
Bibliography 211
Index 237