Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime

Record

Hearing

1964-07-30

National Criminal Justice Reference Service, scan of the printed hearings (NCJ 119303)

Narcotics hearings, Part 4, printed page 918: the Bureau of Narcotics history of the New York traffic

A Bureau of Narcotics exhibit says that most of the New York heroin traffic outside the Italian syndicates was handled by Jewish racketeers and several Puerto Rican, Cuban and Black traffickers with their own foreign sources, and restates Valachi's naming of five New York organizations.

Date
1964-07-30
Kind
hearing
Source
National Criminal Justice Reference Service, scan of the printed hearings (NCJ 119303)
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Docket
Organized Crime and Illicit Traffic in Narcotics: Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations, United States Senate, 88th Cong., pursuant to S. Res. 278, 88th Cong., Part 4
Rights
A work of the United States Senate, printed by the Government Printing Office. Public domain in the United States. 17 U.S.C. § 105. The NCJRS cover sheet records reproduction permission as "Public Domain / U.S. Senate."

Printed page 918 of Part 4 (NCJRS PDF page 1044), part of a Bureau of Narcotics exhibit on the history of the narcotics traffic, printed with the testimony of 30 July 1964. The page opens mid-sentence; the preceding page is not filed here.

It says: “The greater portion of the balance of this traffic is handled by important Jewish racketeers and several Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Negro violators who at times independently have foreign sources of supply of heroin of their own.” It continues that “In recent years, most of the heroin handled in New York City has been smuggled by European sources through trusted couriers via air and sea routes to underworld Canadian sources,” who sold it to syndicate members in New York. It then restates Joseph Valachi’s October 1963 testimony that the principal underworld activities in New York were “controlled by five powerful criminal organizations,” which it names as the Vito Genovese, Carlo Gambino, Thomas Lucchese, Joseph Magliocco and Joseph Bonanno families, and says that Arnold Rothstein was the leading racketeer in New York in the 1920s.

The exhibit is the Bureau’s summary. The family names repeat what Valachi told the subcommittee; they are not a court finding, and this page does not place anyone on a family chart. The categories “Jewish,” “Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Negro” are the Bureau’s, and the page names no one in them.

itemOrganized Crime and Illicit Traffic in Narcotics, Part 4 (July 30, 1964)The fourth printed volume: the afternoon session of July 30, 1964, with Bureau of Narcotics testimony on heroin routes and fold-out route and case charts.itemNarcotics hearings, Part 4, printed page 913: Bureau witness Ward on who controlled heroin in New YorkMr. Ward of the Bureau of Narcotics told the subcommittee on 30 July 1964 that about 95 percent of the heroin in the New York area was controlled by five organizations, and that the balance was in the hands of Jewish racketeers, Black traffickers with contacts among seamen, or Puerto Ricans.itemTestimony of Joseph Valachi, October 1, 1963: the initiation ceremonyValachi described the ceremony at which he said he was made a member, with Salvatore Maranzano speaking. The same day, staff presented Exhibit 8, the Masseria-Maranzano war chart.