Historian Jack Colhoun documented the evolution of the nexus between the American state and organised crime in his exhaustively researched book “Gangsterismo: The United States, Cuba and the Mafia, 1933 to 1966”.

Cuba’s debut as what Colhoun called a “neocolony” of the US took place at the end of the 19th century when the latter intervened in the Cuban war of independence from Spain, effectively nipping the whole “independence” option in the bud and appointing itself Cuba’s new master.

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