Heirs of mobster Meyer Lansky hope to reclaim hotel in Cuba

(Public Domain)

MIAMI, December 11th, 2015 (EFE) The family of late U.S. mobster Meyer Lansky is seeking to recover the Habana Riviera hotel, which was nationalized during the Cuban Revolution in 1959, or at least receive compensation for it, Florida’s Sun Sentinel newspaper reported Thursday.
Gary Rapoport, Lansky’s 60-year-old grandson, is hoping to take advantage of the opening of diplomatic relations between Washington and Havana last year.

“The hotel was taken from my grandfather forcefully,” said the Tampa resident. “Cuba owes my family money.”

The Habana Riviera, seen from the Malecón. (Wikimedia Commons)

Lansky – who was East Coast Cosa Nostra chief Charles “Lucky” Luciano’s right-hand man – for decades was considered to be one of the most powerful Mafia bosses and the brains behind the Havana-Las Vegas clan, which made huge investments in casinos and reaped enormous profits.

One of their holdings was the Habana Riviera hotel, which was opened in 1957 due to the good relationship between Luciano and Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, who financed the operation.

The hotel complex formed part of the project to create a dream paradise for the Mafia and establish a site from which its members could run their U.S. operations, and it included other hotels such as the Deauville and the Flamingo, which also opened their doors a few years before the Cuban Revolution.

Rapoport says that his grandfather never recovered the money he invested in the hotel, which cost about $8 million, and he claims to have documentation showing that it was his property.

The hotel is still run by the Cuban government.

“We never filed a claim with the government or hired an attorney earlier because we didn’t think the door for negotiating would ever actually open,” Rapoport said. “Now it is open.”

The hotel is located on the seaside promenade known as the Malecon in Havana, has about 350 rooms and its architecture was inspired by the Riviera Casino in Las Vegas.