Mafia Manifest Destiny: the Emergence of a West Coast Mob

In Episode 19 Pettengill shifts the conversation to America's West Coast. Ever since Al Capone's 1928 trip to Los Angeles, mafia heads had dreamed of the potential the western rackets had to offer. The problem was that those western rackets weren't exactly open terrain. The City Hall Gang had owned the city's underworld since 1921. More notably, they controlled the LAPD. Conquering the West would be a process for the mafia but by the mid 1930s, the mafia's "Manifest Destiny" - a sea-to-sea empire - was beginning to take shape. Pettengill ends this episode by introducing listeners to the major players in this process, including but not limited to Johnny Roselli, Mickey Cohen, and Tony Cornero.