This documentary will put to rest the wild, exaggerated tales that have circulated for decades—stories of Marcello being dumped into the jungle, thrown from a plane, or left stranded like a man in exile. None of that happened. The truth is far more calculated: Marcello was under constant surveillance by immigration authorities while abroad. President John F. Kennedy and, more importantly, his brother Robert F. Kennedy were deeply concerned about one thing—Marcello sneaking back into the United States.
What unfolds in this first hour is a portrait of just how quickly Robert F. Kennedy realized he had bitten off more than he could chew. In his own words, he later distanced himself from the decision, claiming the process wasn’t fully his idea. But that was false. The truth was that Robert Kennedy had taken a hardline stance against Marcello, and the deportation was a direct result of that.
The start of 1961 was a whirlwind of chaos, not just for Marcello but for the United States government itself. Even before the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Central Intelligence Agency was scrambling for ways to destabilize Cuba. In the midst of this turmoil, strange and seemingly disconnected events unfolded—events that, when examined closely, painted a picture of shifting power dynamics and desperate gambles.
One such event? A plane hijacking. The hijacker claimed he had been sent on a mission by the leader of the Dominican Republic to assassinate Fidel Castro. But at the last moment, he changed his plan, seized the plane, and ordered the pilot to land in Cuba. Instead of being welcomed as a hero by Castro’s men, he was forcibly removed from the aircraft and disappeared into the night. That part is true.
The leader of the Dominican Republic at the time was heavily connected to the mob. He had held power largely due to CIA backing, but after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, everything changed. Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA, found his own position in jeopardy, and with that, the agency’s support for certain regimes wavered. By June 2, 1961—the same day Marcello made his way back into the United States—the Dominican Republic’s leader was assassinated, no longer useful to the shifting political landscape.
All of this—the deportation, the Bay of Pigs, the assassination of a foreign leader—was happening in rapid succession, shaping the undercurrents of a volatile era. Two years later, on November 22, 1963, the unthinkable happened: President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. And where was Carlos Marcello that day? In court, sitting alongside David Ferrie and Guy Banister. This documentary lays the foundation for understanding the intricate web of organized crime—not just in New York or Chicago, but in places like Florida and New Orleans, where the rules were different. The New Orleans syndicate, where Marcello reigned, operated under its own distinct structure, unlike any other crime family in the country. This was the definition of the Mafia in its purest form. By the end of this first part, you’ll see how all of these events were linked—how the power struggles of 1961 set the stage for one of the most debated assassinations in history.
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