The story sounds like something straight out of a spy thriller. 

A plot by America’s most feared criminal syndicate and its most secretive intelligence agency to assassinate a foreign leader using poison cigars and other James Bond-inspired schemes. 

But this isn’t fiction. This is the true story of how the CIA joined forces with Mafia hitmen to assassinate Fidel Castro.

The revelations with ties to the Watergate scandal in the 1970s have fueled conspiracy theories about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. 

In this episode of True Crime Reporter®, I sit down with fellow investigative reporter Thomas Maier, whose book Mafia Spies pulls back the curtain on a chilling chapter of American history. 

Together, we trace how the mob lost its Cuban gambling empire after Castro’s revolution and how, in Cold War fear, U.S. intelligence agents turned its gangsters to eliminate Castro.

Maier says the challenge of his investigation was figuring how out to tell a story in which everyone lies. 

Here’s a link to the cast of characters in the episode.

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