WELCOME TO GANGSTERS PARADISE

The American mob’s reign in pre-Castro Cuba is legendary, but have elements of mythos been spun into historical gospel?

- Christian Cipollini

Aregal dictator calmly addresses a crowd during a New Year’s Eve celebration; he speaks with stoic poise, hoping to make a grand exit as low key as possible. As he departs, followed by confidants and staff in step, guests process the grim reality of the situation and panic soon paints their expressions. They rapidly shuffle out and the scene cuts to ragtag rebels motoring through the streets in their own celebratory way. The Godfather Part II cinematically captured both the exotic beauty and maligned undercurrents of political turmoil and a mobbed up Havana masterfully, but that was a fictionalised tale with characters only loosely based on the actual criminal overlords. So then, who were the real people involved, and how did the organised crime’s virtual utopia in Cuba come to a bitter end? 

PICTURE WORTH A THOUSAND IMPLICATIONS

Sinatra never denied his presence in Cuba, yet the photos instigated decades of conjecture and allegations