Iran to Mine Sea Lanes in Persian Gulf in Case of Attack – Defense Council
Sputnik – 23.03.2026
TEHRAN – Tehran will mine all sea lanes in the Persian Gulf in the event of an attack on the coast of the country or islands, the Iranian Defense Council said on Monday.
“We remind you that in the event of any attempt by the enemy to attack the coast or islands of Iran, all sea lanes in the Persian Gulf, as well as the coast, will be mined,” the council said in a statement, as quoted by the Fars news agency.
The passage through the Strait of Hormuz is possible only for countries that are not hostile to Iran, if this issue is coordinated with Tehran, the statement added.
The United States sees no alternative to conducting a ground military operation to capture Iran’s Kharg Island and is accelerating troop deployments to the region, Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post reported earlier, citing sources familiar with the matter.
On March 20, Axios reported that US President Donald Trump is prepared to seize Kharg Island to pressure Tehran into opening shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
A US official told the newspaper that “the US military has accelerated the deployment of thousands of Marines and Navy personnel to the Middle East.”
On March 22, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated that all options remained on the table and did not rule out the possibility of sending US troops to the Iranian island.
Trump backs down on Iran strikes; Tehran denies any talks
Al Mayadeen | March 23, 2026
US President Donald Trump announced Monday that he has postponed military strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for five days, claiming that Washington and Tehran have held “very good and productive conversations” over the past two days toward resolving the war.
The announcement came hours before a deadline Trump had issued on Saturday, in which he threatened that Iranian power plants would be destroyed if Tehran failed to “fully open” the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping within 48 hours, prompting a swift and decisive warning by Tehran that power infrastructure feeding US bases and “Israel” in the region would be targeted.
Iran denies direct talks
After Trump’s statements, Iranian officials swiftly rejected claims of direct negotiations between Tehran and Washington.
Iran State TV, citing the Foreign Ministry, reported: “There are no talks between Tehran and Washington.”
The Foreign Ministry further characterized Trump’s remarks as an attempt to manipulate global energy markets and buy time for his military plans.
“Yes, there are initiatives from some countries in the region to de-escalate tensions, and our response to all of them is clear: we are not the party that started this war, and all such requests should be directed to Washington.”
Context: IRGC warned Trump of consequences
The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) issued a statement earlier today rejecting accusations by US President Donald Trump that Iran intends to target desalination facilities across the region, warning instead of reciprocal measures if Iranian infrastructure is struck.
The IRGC accused Washington of initiating the war, stating that “the aggressive American army… began the war by killing children,” saying that 180 children were killed in attacks on primary schools and that five water facilities, including a desalination plant on Qeshm Island, had already been targeted.
The statement firmly denied targeting civilian water infrastructure, asserting that “the IRGC has not carried out such actions.”
Addressing recent threats against Iranian energy infrastructure, the IRGC warned that any strike on power facilities would trigger direct retaliation.
“What we have done is declare our position: if power plants are targeted, Iran will respond by targeting the power infrastructure of the occupying entity, as well as power plants in regional states that supply electricity to US bases, in addition to economic and industrial infrastructure and energy sectors in which Americans hold shares. Without doubt, we will do so.”
The statement further added that economic and energy infrastructure linked to US interests would also be considered targets.
Emphasizing its prior restraint, the IRGC noted, “You targeted our hospitals – we did not respond in kind. You targeted relief centers – we did not respond. You targeted our schools – we did not respond. But if you target electricity, we will target electricity.”
The statement concluded with a warning that Iran would respond to any escalation “at a level that ensures deterrence,” adding that “the United States does not know our capabilities, it will see them on the battlefield.”
Seyed M. Marandi: Total War – Attacking Nuclear Plants, Desalination & Infrastructure
Glenn Diesen | March 22, 2026
Seyed Mohammad Marandi discusses the targeting of nuclear plants, desalination plants, critical infrastructure, and the civilian population. Trump has given Iran 48 hours to open the Strait of Hormuz (capitulation), otherwise the US will destroy Iran’s energy facilities. Then there will be no limits on Iran’s response, and the consequences will be global. The future of global stability will be decided over the next few days. Marandi is a professor at Tehran University and a former advisor to Iran’s Nuclear Negotiation Team.
Follow Prof. Glenn Diesen:
- Substack: https://glenndiesen.substack.com/
- X/Twitter: https://x.com/Glenn_Diesen
- Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/glenndiesen
Support the research by Prof. Glenn Diesen:
- PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/glenndiesen
- Buy me a Coffee: buymeacoffee.com/gdieseng
- Go Fund Me: https://gofund.me/09ea012f
Italy Is Caught Between Two Wars. Russia’s LNG Tanker
By Manlio Dinucci | Global Research | March 22, 2026
The case of the Russian LNG tanker Arctic Metagaz, which, after being struck by a Ukrainian drone, is now adrift uncontrolled off our coast, with a cargo of liquefied natural gas, is emblematic of Italy’s predicament, caught between two wars – one in Europe and the other in the Middle East – both provoked by the same power politics pursued by the United States and its allies.
The WWF announced that it is closely monitoring the Russian LNG tanker Arctic Metagaz, which is adrift in the Strait of Sicily following a series of explosions that occurred between 3 and 4 March. The vessel, which is unmanned and out of control, is carrying an extremely dangerous cargo of approximately 900 tonnes of diesel and over 60,000 tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG). A potential spill – warns the WWF – could cause fires, lethal cryogenic clouds and widespread, long-lasting pollution of the water and the atmosphere. The environmental risk is very high and potentially irreversible, with serious repercussions for the economies of the Pelagie Islands, which rely on fishing and tourism. The gravity of the situation is confirmed by the fact that Italy, France and seven other countries have called for prompt action by the European Commission.
What caused this disaster?
Alfredo Mantovano, Undersecretary to the Prime Minister, stated in an interview that it was an “accident involving the Russian vessel”. The government is thus attempting to conceal the true cause: as we reported in Grandangolo on 6 March and as the photos of the wreck show, the Russian vessel Arctic Metagaz was struck by a Ukrainian naval drone launched from Libya.
A genuine act of international terrorism that exposes Italy and other European countries to extremely serious risks – the very same countries that are arming and financing Ukraine for the war against Russia: the thermal content of the ship, which could end up on our shores, is equivalent to that of almost 50 Hiroshima bombs, not counting radioactivity. (See the well-documented articles by Prof. Francesco Cappello on www.pangeanotizie.it).
The story of this veritable ticking time bomb, drifting unchecked in the Mediterranean off our coast, is emblematic of the situation in which Italy finds itself caught between two wars – one in Europe and the other in the Middle East – both triggered by the same power politics pursued by the United States and its allies. Not only do these expose us to growing risks, including the threat of nuclear war, but they are also having an increasing impact on our living conditions. The war against Russia and now that against Iran are causing a sharp rise in energy prices, with serious economic and social consequences. The Israeli attack on the South Pars gas field in Iran, the largest in the world, and Iran’s subsequent retaliation, have sent oil and gas prices soaring.
Italy, which is already effectively participating in the war against Russia despite officially denying it, is now also taking part in the war against Iran, again under US command. US Navy Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft and Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton drones regularly take off from the Sigonella naval air base (Sicily) for operations in the Persian Gulf against Iran. Italian forces are stationed in Kuwait alongside US forces, equipped with MQ-9 Reaper drones (one of which was destroyed by an Iranian attack) and Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets. At the same time, an Italian Navy missile frigate, the Federico Martinengo, forms part of the naval battle group accompanying the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean as part of the war against Iran.
Iran Beats US & Israeli Missile Defenses by Exploiting Their Weaknesses
Sputnik – 22.03.2026
Iran carried out missile strikes on Israeli towns of Dimona and Arad on March 21.
Air defense systems like THAAD and Iron Dome may be highly capable but they still struggle with combined missile and drone attacks from multiple directions, Imad Salamey, associate professor at the Lebanese American University, tells Sputnik.
“The vulnerability exposed here is not a single system failure, but the limits of even advanced layered defenses when overwhelmed by scale, coordination, and mixed attack profiles,” he explains in the wake of Iranian strikes against Dimona and Arad.
The cost of US missile defenses’ failure
The exposed weakness of the US missile defenses carries significant strategic implications for the Middle East, Salamey notes, as such weapons are widely used to protect US assets across the region.
The US opponents now see that missile and drone tech offer a cost-effective way to fight “technologically superior opponents” while the United States could be forced to reassess its force posture and “invest in more integrated defense architectures.”
What Iran’s control of Israeli airspace could mean
If Iran shows that it can strike high-value targets in Israel repeatedly, it would shift the dynamics of this conflict, Salamey adds. By thus imposing higher costs on Israel and compounding its “freedom of action,” Iran may either push the conflict toward either escalation or “toward indirect negotiation, as both sides weigh the rising risks and diminishing returns of continued attacks.”
Report: White House Making ‘Detailed Preparations’ for Invasion of Iran
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | March 22, 2026
Sources speaking with CBS News said that military commands submitted specific requests to prepare for a ground invasion of Iran.
The US deployed a second Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) to the Middle East last week, the sources explained. The USS Boxer will join the USS Tripoli in the region for a potential ground invasion of Iran. The Department of War is also preparing to deploy portions of the 82nd Airborne.
Axios reported on Friday, speaking with sources who said President Donald Trump is considering an occupation or blockage of Iran’s Kharg Island. The oil facilities on the island, which is located 15 minutes from the mainland in the Persian Gulf, handle 90% of Iran’s oil exports.
“He wants Hormuz open. If he has to take Kharg Island to make it happen, that’s going to happen. If he decides to have a coastal invasion, that’s going to happen. But that decision hasn’t been made,” a senior administration official told the outlet.
Trump is also threatening to escalate attacks on Iran’s power plants if Tehran does not reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The Islamic Republic said it will respond with strikes on civilian infrastructure across the region and the complete closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Israel’s military chief Eyal Zamir said that the war was at its “halfway point.” On Saturday, an Iranian missile hit Dimona, the city where Israel bases its secret nuclear weapons program. Following the attack, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the US and Israel would “intensify” and “significantly increase” their strikes on Iran in the coming week.
US Air Defenses Not Suited for Modern Combat — Ex-Air Force Officer
Sputnik – 22.03.2026
The US defenses are “bloated” in Israel, while also spread across the Gulf countries to protect American bases, so they can’t intercept all the Iranian drones and missiles, former colonel of Pakistan’s Air Force Sultan M. Hali tells Sputnik, commenting on recent Iran’s strikes against Dimona and Arad.
“US defense systems… are mostly 20th Century defense systems. What Iran is using is the 21st Century systems for which the Americans and the Israelis were not prepared,” he says.
Iran is launching volleys of drones and missiles simultaneously, which overwhelms Israeli defense systems like the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, Arrow, and THAAD, the expert explains.
Another aspect is that the IRGC missiles use low or evasive trajectories to exploit the blind spots of Israeli radars, he adds.
“Even advanced systems, they struggle against massed coordinated attacks, especially when the attackers combine cheap drones with precision missiles,” Hali says.
The effects of Iran getting limited dominance over Israeli skies can be divided into three points, he explains.
Psychological effect — Iran proved it can penetrate Israeli defenses, which undermines Israel’s deterrence and enhances Iranian negotiations position.
Operational leverage — Israel is forced to relocate its resources to defense instead of offensive actions.
Conflict trajectory shift — Israel will try to hit Iran harder to retaliate, but should expect to face high costs.
Eight Iraqi resistance attacks hit US Victoria base near Baghdad airport
The Cradle | March 22, 2026
Iraqi resistance factions targeted the US Victoria Base near Baghdad airport in at least eight separate rocket and drone strikes, just days after video footage showed the site engulfed in flames as a result of non-stop attacks.
“Eight separate attacks, carried out until dawn with rockets and drones, targeted the US center,” a senior Iraqi security source told AFP on 22 March.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq coalition announced on Sunday morning that its fighters carried out 21 operations over the past 24 hours, “using dozens of drones and missiles to target US occupation bases in Iraq and across the region.”
The US Victoria base – located near Baghdad airport – has come under continuous attacks by the Iraqi resistance since the start of Washington and Tel Aviv’s brutal war against Iran. The site serves as a US military logistical center.
Footage from after an Iraqi resistance operation on Friday showed the US Victoria base engulfed in large flames.
Other targets which have come under heavy attack by the Iraqi resistance include Washington’s Harir base and the US embassy compound in Baghdad.
After several heavy strikes on the embassy building since the start of the month, leading Iraqi resistance faction Kataib Hezbollah said on 19 March that it “issued orders to suspend operations targeting the US Embassy in Baghdad for a period of five days,” warning that “the response will be immediate” if its terms are violated.
The terms demand that Israel “cease the destruction and bombardment of the southern suburbs in Beirut,” and include calls for “a commitment to not bomb residential areas in Baghdad and the provinces,” as well as “the withdrawal of CIA elements from their positions and keeping them inside the embassy.”
Two days earlier, a top Kataib Hezbollah official was assassinated in a US-Israeli airstrike.
Deadly air raids against Iraq have been ongoing since the Iraqi resistance intervened in the war and began striking US targets in response to the brutal US-Israeli campaign against Iran.
Bahrain admits US Patriot missile hit residential area, injured dozens
Al Mayadeen | March 21, 2026
Bahrain’s government has admitted that a US Patriot air defense system was involved in the March 9 interception over the Sitra residential area that left dozens of civilians injured, Reuters reported.
This admission directly refutes the account offered by US Central Command, which had attributed the casualties to an Iranian drone strike.
In a statement to Reuters, a Bahraini government spokesperson said the Patriot system intercepted an Iranian drone, insisting that the operation “prevented a drone strike and saved lives.”
CENTCOM had previously maintained that an Iranian drone directly struck a residential neighbourhood. Bahrain’s admission that a Patriot missile was involved now places both accounts in open contradiction with the footage and with each other.
Video published by Drop Site News shows an air-defense interceptor descending following a failed interception attempt, with an impact occurring off-camera shortly afterward. The images strongly suggest it was the interceptor, not an Iranian drone, that struck the residential area, injuring 32 civilians, including children, with four reported in critical condition.
Whose lives were being saved?
The Iranian missiles and drones at issue were directed at US military bases in Bahrain, installations that a significant portion of the Bahraini population regards as an occupying presence, which secures the authoritarian order and is complicit in the genocide in Gaza and the war waged on Iran and Lebanon.
Had those bases not existed on Bahraini soil, no Iranian missile would have targeted Bahrain, and no Bahraini civilian in Sitra would have been injured. The only lives the Patriot system could plausibly claim to have saved were those inside the bases themselves, the very presence most Bahrainis have long demanded be ended.
Death penalty for documenting the damage
Rather than launching an independent inquiry into how a US missile system came to strike a residential neighbourhood, Bahraini authorities have moved to prosecute those who documented the aftermath.
The kingdom’s Public Prosecution is seeking the death penalty for several citizens charged with photographing locations where photography is allegedly prohibited, in what prosecutors framed as “high betrayal”.
During court proceedings, they described the situation as “brutal Iranian aggression” and called for “maximum penalties, without the slightest mercy,” specifying that this meant capital punishment.
162 arrested, crackdown still ongoing
According to the Prisoners Affairs Authority in Bahrain, 162 citizens, including men and women, have been detained since the onset of the US-Israeli war on Iran, with only five released as of March 18.
Detentions have targeted citizens who filmed Iranian strikes on US military bases in the region, individuals who publicly expressed solidarity with those operations, as well as citizens who participated in peaceful protests denouncing the war and the assassination of martyred Iranian Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei.
The Prisoners’ Affairs Authority warned that the documented figure almost certainly undercounts the actual number of arrests, as raids and detention operations were still ongoing at the time of reporting.
Fidel Castro’s War on Jewish Mobster Meyer Lansky
How a Jewish gangster helped build—and then lost—Cuba’s Sin City
José Niño Unfiltered | March 21, 2026
For more than two decades, Meyer Lansky built what he believed would be his permanent kingdom in the Caribbean. The Jewish gangster from New York’s Lower East Side had transformed Havana into the gambling capital of the Western Hemisphere, a glittering playground where American tourists could indulge every vice under the protection of a dictator on the mob’s payroll. Then came Fidel Castro, a young Catholic revolutionary from the Cuban countryside who would destroy everything Lansky had built in a matter of weeks.
Their conflict was never personal. The two men likely never met or spoke. But the collision between Lansky’s criminal empire and Castro’s revolutionary movement would reshape Cuba, spawn assassination plots that entangled the CIA, and leave a trail of consequences that echoes into the present day.
More than half a century later, as Washington once again toys with the idea of remaking Cuba’s political order, the ghost of Meyer Lansky’s Havana hangs over every discussion of regime change: the dream of turning the island back into a glittering casino colony has never fully died.
Meyer Lansky entered the world as Maier Suchowljansky on July 4, 1902, in Grodno, a city in the Russian Empire that now belongs to Belarus. His family was part of the vast population of Eastern European Jews who migrated to America in the early 20th century. In 1911, Lansky emigrated with his mother and brother Jacob through the port of Odessa, joining his father Max, who had arrived two years earlier and settled first in Brownsville, Brooklyn. The family later moved to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where Max worked in the garment industry and young Meyer grew up among the crowded tenements where Yiddish filled the streets and opportunity meant whatever you could grab with your own hands.
Young Meyer found his opportunities in crime. By 1918 he and his friend Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel were running floating dice games on the streets. They graduated to auto theft, then burglary, and when Prohibition arrived, they plunged into the liquor smuggling trade that would make fortunes for a generation of gangsters. Lansky also befriended Charles “Lucky” Luciano, an Italian immigrant who would become one of the most powerful mob bosses in American history.
The three young men rose together. Lansky and Siegel developed a squad of killers for hire that became the prototype for Murder, Inc. Lansky allegedly persuaded Luciano to arrange the 1931 assassination of mob boss Joe “The Boss” Masseria, a murder that consolidated power and helped establish the National Crime Syndicate between 1932 and 1934.
What set Lansky apart from the gunmen and enforcers around him was his financial chops. He became known as the “Mob’s Accountant,” the man who used Swiss bank accounts and shell companies to launder the Mafia’s wealth and hide it from federal investigators. He oversaw the syndicate’s finances as its unofficial banker and was instrumental in shifting the mob’s focus from bootlegging to gambling after Prohibition ended in 1933. His gambling operations stretched from Florida to New Orleans to Las Vegas.
But Lansky’s grandest ambition lay 90 miles off the coast of Florida.
Building the Havana Empire
Lansky’s relationship with Cuba began in 1933, the same year Prohibition ended, and a young military strongman named Fulgencio Batista seized control of the island nation. Lansky pitched Batista a proposal to open Mafia-owned casinos and nightclubs in Havana. The arrangement was straightforward. Batista and his inner circle would receive regular payments from the mob, and in return the gangsters could operate without interference from Cuban authorities.
By 1938, Lansky had been formally invited to help clean up and professionalize Havana’s gambling operations, which had been plagued by fixed races and crooked dealers. He was the fixer, the man who could make the casinos run honestly enough to keep the tourists coming back.
The landmark event came in December 1946 with what became known as the Havana Conference. More than 20 mob bosses from across the United States gathered at the Hotel Nacional de Cuba for a meeting organized by Lansky on Luciano’s orders. The expansion of mob operations in Cuba sat at the top of the agenda. Lansky then visited Batista, who was temporarily out of power and living in Florida, and urged him to return to Cuba to fulfill their grand plans.
Batista obliged. He returned to power through a military coup in 1952, and the arrangement with the mob became even more lucrative. The Batista-Lansky Alliance, included a deal where Batista agreed to match dollar for dollar any hotel investment over one million dollars, with each project automatically including a casino license. Casino hotels were exempted from Cuban taxes.
Lansky owned or held financial interests in at least three major gambling operations. The crown jewel was the Habana Riviera, which opened in December 1957 as the largest Mafia-owned hotel casino outside Las Vegas. It featured 440 rooms that were booked solid for its first winter season. Cuban development banks subsidized half of the $14 million construction cost.
But Lansky did not build this empire alone.
The Inner Circle
Jake Lansky, Meyer’s brother, served as his most trusted man on the ground in Cuba. Jake managed the casino at the Hotel Nacional, Cuba’s most prestigious hotel. By spring 1957, it was reportedly bringing in as much cash as the biggest casinos in Las Vegas.
Joseph “Doc” Stacher was a lifelong Lansky associate dating back to their youth in Newark, New Jersey. Born Gdale Oistaczer in Letychiv, in what is now Ukraine, Stacher was also Jewish and had risen through the criminal ranks alongside Lansky. He operated as the official bribe paymaster to Batista, managing the corrupt payments that kept the dictator and his inner circle cooperative.
Norman “Roughhouse” Rothman was another mobster deeply embedded in the Havana gambling scene. He was a close associate of Santo Trafficante Jr. and operated casinos in Havana, most notably the Sans Souci. Cuba’s slot machine concessions were controlled by Roberto Fernandez y Miranda, Batista’s brother-in-law and army general, who held them as a personal fief.
Ed Levinson, a longtime Lansky associate, ran illegal gambling operations from the Midwest to Kentucky. In Cuba, Levinson’s name appeared on the casino license for the Habana Riviera itself. Lansky kept his own name listed only as the hotel’s kitchen director while Levinson served as the official licensee.
Dino Cellini, though Italian-American rather than Jewish, worked hand in glove with the Lansky operation. He served as casino manager at the Habana Riviera before being replaced by Frank Erickson, and was later detained alongside Jake Lansky at the Tiscornia immigration camp after Castro took power.
The operation also included powerful Italian-American mobsters. Santo Trafficante Jr., the Tampa crime family boss, openly operated the Sans Souci nightclub and the Casino Internacional at the Hotel Nacional. He was also suspected of having behind-the-scenes interests in the Habana Riviera, the Tropicana Club, the Sevilla-Biltmore, the Capri Hotel Casino, the Commodoro, the Deauville, and the Havana Hilton.
The Revolutionary in the Mountains
While Lansky counted his profits in Havana’s glittering casinos, a revolutionary movement was gathering strength in the mountains of eastern Cuba.
Fidel Castro came from a background that could not have been more different from Lansky’s. Born on August 13, 1926, near Birán in Oriente Province, Castro was the son of a prosperous Spanish immigrant landowner. He was raised Catholic and educated at Jesuit schools in Santiago de Cuba and Havana, including the prestigious Colegio de Belén. He studied law at the University of Havana beginning in 1945, earned his degree in 1950, and briefly practiced as a lawyer before turning fully to revolutionary politics. Where Lansky had clawed his way up from immigrant poverty through criminal enterprise, Castro came from rural privilege and channeled his ambitions into armed struggle against the Batista regime.
Castro’s 26th of July Movement directly targeted the Mafia’s presence in its propaganda. In 1958, the revolutionaries denounced the mobsters in radio broadcasts from their guerrilla redoubt in the Sierra Maestra, accusing them of turning Havana into a center of commercialized vice through gambling, prostitution, and drugs. The casinos, the brothels, the drugs, the corruption that enriched Batista and his American gangster partners would all be swept away when the revolution triumphed.
The Fall
On December 31, 1958, Batista’s army was defeated at the Battle of Santa Clara. That night, Batista fled the country for the Dominican Republic, abandoning his gangster partners along with everything else. Lansky left Cuba on January 7, 1959, the day before Castro marched into Havana.
What happened next was a settling of accounts that played out in the streets of Havana. On January 1, 1959, citizens took to the streets after hearing news of Batista’s flight, ransacking casinos, smashing slot machines, and dragging gambling equipment into the streets to be burned. To many Cubans, the American-owned hotels symbolized a corrupting foreign influence. At the Riviera, Lansky’s crown jewel, campesinos (peasants) reportedly brought a truckload of pigs into the lobby. Castro vowed to “clean out all the gamblers.” The revolutionary government eventually nationalized the Riviera and all other Mafia-owned properties, though the final nationalization of hotel casinos did not come until October 1960. Some casinos briefly re-opened on February 19, 1959, after casino workers who depended on tourism jobs marched to the presidential palace demanding their livelihoods back, but tourists stopped coming. Lansky, who told many associates that Cuba had ruined him financially, looked to other outposts in the Caribbean and South America.
Not everyone fled immediately. Jake Lansky and Dino Cellini were arrested by Cuban authorities in May 1959 and detained at the Tiscornia immigration camp outside Havana, the same facility where Santo Trafficante Jr. was also being held. According to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, U.S. Commissioner of Narcotics Harry J. Anslinger had sent a list of suspected drug traffickers to Cuban authorities that included both Jake Lansky and Cellini. Jake Lansky and Cellini were detained for approximately 25 days before being released; Trafficante was held until August. All eventually left Cuba.
By October 1960, Castro formally nationalized all hotel casinos on the island and outlawed gambling entirely.
Revenge and Assassination Plots
Lansky did not merely accept his losses. He actively sought to use the U.S. government and its intelligence apparatus to reclaim his Cuban empire.
According to Doc Stacher, Lansky “indicated to the CIA that some of his people who were still on the island might assassinate Castro” and was “quite prepared to finance the operation himself.”
This was not Lansky’s first collaborative effort with American intelligence. During World War II, he had served as a key intermediary in Operation Underworld, a classified program in which the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence enlisted the Mafia to counter Axis sabotage on the northeastern seaboard. That wartime relationship established a precedent for cooperation between organized crime and the U.S. government.
In August 1960, according to a report by Salon, Lansky struck a deal with exiled Cuban politician Manuel Antonio Varona, offering him several million dollars to form a Cuban government-in-exile to replace Castro. Lansky also promised to arrange a public relations campaign to polish Varona’s image, with the single-minded objective of reopening the Mafia’s casinos, hotels, and nightclubs in a post-Castro Cuba.
Around the same time, the CIA formally recruited mobsters with deep ties to the Havana gambling operations into plots to eliminate Castro. In September 1960, the agency enlisted Chicago Mob operative Johnny Rosselli through former FBI agent Robert Maheu. Rosselli brought in Chicago boss Sam Giancana and Tampa boss Santo Trafficante Jr. The CIA created poison pills to be slipped into Castro’s food, but the attempts failed. The CIA-Mafia assassination partnership was scuttled in early 1963, though the CIA continued plotting against Castro through other means.
Norman Rothman’s trajectory after the revolution was particularly dramatic. Before the revolution succeeded, Rothman had actually been running guns to Castro’s rebels alongside Joe Merola and the Mannarino brothers of Pittsburgh. Sam Mannarino had reasoned that if Castro won, the mobsters who helped arm him would be in the driver’s seat for Cuba’s gambling industry. Rothman advised Mannarino to place his bets on Castro, predicting he would allow the casinos to remain under Mafia control. When that calculation proved disastrously wrong, the scheme unraveled. The weapons in question, 317 guns, had been stolen from a National Guard armory in Canton, Ohio. A plane carrying 121 of the stolen weapons was captured at Morgantown, West Virginia on November 4, 1958. Rothman was convicted on February 4, 1960, along with five co-defendants, for possession, receiving, transportation, and exportation of firearms stolen from the United States government.
Lansky also explored contingency plans in case Cuba could not be recovered. He traveled to the Dominican Republic in 1958 to meet with dictator Rafael Trujillo about potentially relocating the entire Havana operation there. None of these schemes succeeded.
The Final Years
Lansky spent his final years living quietly in Miami Beach. In 1970, facing federal tax evasion charges, he fled to Israel, hoping to claim citizenship under the Law of Return. But after two years, Israel rejected his bid for permanent residency due to his criminal record and deported him back to the United States, where he was arrested at Miami International Airport.
He was acquitted of the tax evasion charges, in part because the government’s main witness lacked credibility, and other indictments were abandoned due to his chronic ill health. He died on January 15, 1983, at age 80 from lung cancer. Despite nearly half a century of involvement in organized crime, the most serious conviction he ever received was for illegal gambling in 1953, which resulted in only a brief jail term.
Despite a lifetime running one of the world’s most profitable criminal enterprises, a granddaughter later claimed he left behind just $57,000 in cash. The FBI believed he had hidden at least $300 million in offshore bank accounts, but this money was never recovered. His heirs later filed a compensation claim against Cuba for the Riviera with the U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, valuing the property at $70 million.
The mob never returned to Cuba. The casinos that Lansky built were nationalized, and gambling was outlawed entirely. The slot machines that crowds smashed in the streets on New Year’s Day 1959 were never replaced. The Habana Riviera still stands on the Malecón waterfront, declared a National Monument in 2012 and now managed by the Spanish chain Iberostar, still maintaining its original 1950s style. Staff members still refer to it as “el hotel de Meyer Lansky.”
Fidel Castro outlived Meyer Lansky by more than three decades, dying in 2016 at age 90. The revolutionary who had vowed to clean out all the gamblers kept that promise, at least regarding the foreign mobsters who had turned Havana into their personal playground.
The confrontation between these two men, the Jewish gangster from the Lower East Side and the Catholic revolutionary from Oriente Province, ended decisively in Castro’s favor.
Castro’s revolution did what no rival gangster or corrupt strongman ever managed: it toppled the dictatorship that shielded Lansky’s operations and erased his Havana casino empire almost overnight. In the name of sovereignty, the new regime shut down the glittering hotels and gambling halls that had turned Cuba into a playground for American tourists, mafiosi, and intelligence services alike.
But the pressures now bearing down on Cuba suggest that history’s wheel is turning back toward Lansky’s original blueprint. A successful regime change engineered from abroad would not simply “liberate” the island; it would open prime waterfront real estate and tourist infrastructure to the same forces of vice, speculation, and foreign ownership that once made Havana the mob’s favorite casino.
The danger is that Cuba’s next great transformation would replace revolutionary austerity not with genuine self‑determination, but with a return to what Lansky always wanted. Namely, a Caribbean Macau where the house is global finance, the chips are Cuban sovereignty, and the people of the island are once again reduced to serving drinks on someone else’s casino floor.
Featured Video
Seyed M. Marandi: Toward Total War in the Middle East
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
The Geopolitics behind the War in Yemen (I)
By Mahdi Darius NAZEMROAYA | Strategic Culture Foundation | 30.03.2015
The United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia became very uneasy when the Yemenese or Yemenite movement of the Houthi or Ansarallah (meaning the supporters of God in Arabic) gained control of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa/Sana, in September 2014. The US-supported Yemenite President Abd-Rabbuh Manṣour Al-Hadi was humiliatingly forced to share power with the Houthis and the coalition of northern Yemenese tribes that had helped them enter Sana. Al-Hadi declared that negotiations for a Yemeni national unity government would take place and his allies the US and Saudi Arabia tried to use a new national dialogue and mediated talks to co-opt and pacify the Houthis.
The truth has been turned on its head about the war in Yemen. The war and ousting of President Abd-Rabbuh Manṣour Al-Hadi in Yemen are not the results of «Houthi coup» in Yemen. It is the opposite. Al-Hadi was ousted, because with Saudi and US support he tried to backtrack on the power sharing agreements he had made and return Yemen to authoritarian rule. The ousting of President Al-Hadi by the Houthis and their political allies was an unexpected reaction to the takeover Al-Hadi was planning with Washington and the House of Saudi. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- HE SAVED LIVES. NOW HE FACES PRISON.
- Israeli lobby seeks to bind US fate to ‘Israel’: Araghchi
- Pakistan-Iran talks secure LNG shipment to Islamabad through Hormuz
- Black Sea grain crisis puts global wheat supplies under pressure
- IRGC air defenses destroy another US MQ-1 drone over Strait of Hormuz
- Imran Khan’s entire immediate family detained in Pakistan ahead of mass protest demanding his release
- EU nation detains former presidential frontrunner
- Leaked: Britain’s Sham Conviction Of Hashim Thaci
- Seyed M. Marandi: U.S. Strike Imminent – Toward Total War in the Middle East
- Russia Voted Under Fire. Washington Is Loading the Tankers.
- If Americans Knew
- Israeli Attacks in Gaza Kill at Least Seven Palestinians Over Three Days, including Woman and Child
- Trump’s militarization of Washington DC as he pursues Israel’s war against Iran
- Why Israel Fears This Searing New Documentary
- Huckabee aide solicited cash gifts from Israelis
- This isn’t sci-fi, AI is already killing people
- ‘The Most Brutal Thing’: Investigation Reveals Execution of Elderly Woman in Rafah
- Inside Israel’s ‘soft’ ethnic cleansing plan for Gaza through the eyes of its victims
- New online database tracks pro-Israel political donations in the United States
- Israeli president pardons soldier convicted for killing wounded Palestinian
- Singer Ed Sheeran says his ‘heart broken’ by Gaza devastation, addresses Macklemore controversy
- No Tricks Zone
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
- Fear Of Debate: Alarmist German Climate Scientist Calls On Mainstream Media To Discredit Skeptic Voices
Aletho News 