Havana's Hotel Nacional was the site of a convention of U.S. crime syndicate leaders, Dec. 22-26, 1946.

Charlie "Lucky" Luciano, deported to Italy Luciano almost a year earlier on Feb. 9, 1946, is believed to have presided over the meeting. (Luciano actually appears to have left Italy in mid-September and to have set up court just 90 miles from the U.S. border in early October.)

Meeting attendees included Santo Trafficante Jr. of Tampa FL, Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, Tommy Lucchese, Joe Bonanno and Vito Genovese. The meeting is believed to have ironed out details of Sicily-U.S. heroin trafficking and to have discussed the assassination of mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.

By February 1947, U.S. trade pressure caused Cuba to arrest Luciano and initiate deportation proceedings against him. Within a month, he was returned to Italy. After a visit with family that spring, Italian authorities confined him for a time in a Palermo prison.


	Havana Cuba's Hotel Nacional - believed to have been a joint venture of American mobster Meyer Lansky and Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.