S1 Ep1: Sam Giancana (Part 1)

02/07/18 • 44 min

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Welcome to Mafia, a look into America’s criminal underworld. In the debut episode, Fleet Cooper tells the story of one of the most powerful, flamboyant and dangerous mafia bosses of all time, Sam Giancana.

Sam Giancana was utterly ruthless and willing to do anything in his pursuit of power. But unlike most mobsters, he didn’t live his life in the shadows. He had a beautiful showbiz girlfriend. He was even pals with singer Frank Sinatra. Sam Giancana’s influence reached the highest echelons of American politics from helping John F. Kennedy to defeat Richard Nixon in the 1960 Presidential election to assisting in the CIA’s darkest operations in Cuba. Under his reign, the mob and politics were combined with deadly results. This episode is sponsored by Blue Apron and Empty Frames.

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Launching February 7th is a new podcast that explores the underworld of American organized crime and the stories behind the rise and fall of the most notorious mobsters in history.

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S1 Ep2: Sam Giancana (Part 2)

In the previous episode, we explored the early days of one of the most flamboyant and dangerous mafia bosses of all time, Sam Giancana, and heard from those who strived to bring him to justice. We discovered how he helped get JFK elected to president. hat he made clandestine deals with the CIA to assassinate Cuban leader, Fidel Castro, all in the expectation that his criminal activities would be overlooked by the authorities.

But that didn’t happen – far from leaving Giancana alone, Bobby Kennedy was now on a mission to bring down organized crime. So, with Giancana feeling double-crossed by the Kennedy’s, could he have been behind the most infamous assassination in modern history? This episode is sponsored by Hims and Blue Apron.