Vegas’ Mob Museum Plans Havana Tour

Las Vegas' Mob Museum is launching its first international tour this fall, a group trip to Havana.

An entry in the listings of authorized educational group tours to Cuba has been announced by an unlikely organization.

The Las Vegas-based Mob Museum, the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, is offering a tour to Havana Oct. 18 through 21, led by Scott Deitche, a member of the museum's advisory council as well as an organized crime expert and author of seven books on the topic.

“The mob loved Havana,” the museum wrote in a statement about the tour. “In the 1950s, American crime bosses such as Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano and Santo Trafficante Jr. invested millions to make it the Las Vegas of the Caribbean. For a short time, Havana indeed rivaled Las Vegas as a tourist destination. Fidel Castro extinguished the Mob's dreams in 1959 when he seized control, shut down the casinos and sent the mobsters packing.”

However, the museum said, Havana still retains vestiges of the city's mob years, and the tour includes guided visits to hotels and nightclubs that flourished during the gambling heyday.

Included in the price of $1,535 per person, double, is roundtrip air between Tampa and Havana, entry and exit visas, transfers, two nights' accommodations in Old Havana and the required Cuban medical insurance. Tours of mafia hangouts in Ybor City, a historical neighborhood in Tampa, is also included.

The tour is operated by Cuba Executive Travel, a licensed travel service provider with the U.S. Department of Treasury and Office of Foreign Assets Control.

The museum plans additional trips to experience places around the world where organized crime has left "an indelible mark."

Source: Travel Weekly