FBI Miami airtel to the Director on Meyer Lansky, February 1961: 'prior to the revolution in Cuba, LANSKY was active in legalized gambling in Cuba'

Reviewing all Lansky material in its files, the Miami office reported that past investigation 'has never established concrete evidence' that he directly violated a federal statute within the FBI's primary jurisdiction, and that 'prior to the revolution in Cuba, LANSKY was active in legalized gambling in Cuba,' returning to the United States after Castro took power.

Date

1961-02

Kind

case-file

Source

FBI Records: The Vault, Meyer Lansky, Part 06

Retrieved

2026-10-12

Rights

A record of the Federal Bureau of Investigation released under FOIA. A work of the United States government, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. No page image is stored here, because the page prints a home address; the scan is at the Vault URL.

Viewer page 62 of Part 06 is an airtel from the Special Agent in Charge at Miami to the Director, answering a Bureau airtel of 7 February. The text layer prints the referenced airtel as “2/7/51” and a stamp as “FEB 15 1951,” but the content, written after Castro’s takeover, places it in February 1961. This record gives the month only.

Miami reported that “An extensive review of all material pertinent to MEYER LANSKY contained in the Miami Office files has been completed,” that he was “not the subject of a substantive case file in the Miami Office,” that “No Federal, state or local process is outstanding,” and that “Past investigation of MEYER LANSKY has never established concrete evidence that MEYER LANSKY has ever directly violated a Federal Statute under the FBI’s primary investigative jurisdiction.” It went on: “A review of the material concerning MEYER LANSKY determined that prior to the revolution in Cuba, LANSKY was active in legalized gambling in Cuba. After the successful revolution in Cuba and the taking over of the Government by CASTRO, LANSKY returned to the U. S.”

The airtel then gives his Florida home address, which this archive does not reproduce, and for that reason no page image is stored. It is the Bureau’s own summary of its files. The Lansky file’s later Flamingo case is filed as a 1973 FBI note.