Legal Attache, Havana, to the Director, 11 October 1946: Treasury report that Luciano had left Italy, and a negative check in Cuba
The FBI's Legal Attache at the embassy in Havana reports that the Treasury representative, Joseph A. Fortier, had word that Luciano 'has reportedly disappeared from Italy and is believed to have secured passage to Mexico on a freighter,' and that Fortier's check for him in Cuba was negative. It is the earliest Cuba document in the file.
- Date
- 1946-10-11
- Kind
- case-file
- 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. The page image of viewer page 195 is stored here.
Viewer page 195 of Part 01 of the Vault’s Luciano file is a letter of 11 October 1946 from the Office of the Legal Attache at the United States Embassy in Havana to the Director, signed by James P. McMahon. It reports that “Mr. Joseph A. Fortier, United States Treasury Representative at this Embassy,” had received a letter from the Treasury Department in Washington “advising that the above-captioned Subject has reportedly disappeared from Italy and is believed to have secured passage to Mexico on a freighter.” The information came from the Army’s MID unit in Italy, with no name, ship or date of departure.
The Treasury representative was asked to find out whether Luciano had passed through Cuba on his way to Mexico, and “Mr. Fortier advised that his investigation concerning the possible presence of Subject in Cuba was negative.” Copies went to the Bureau and to the attache’s office in Mexico. A line of the letter is redacted.
The letter predates Luciano’s arrival in Cuba, which the FBI’s report of 12 February 1947 gives as 29 October 1946. This record rests on the Vault viewer’s OCR text and the stored page image.
