Chicago mob part of Havana's history

March 26, 2012 (HAVANA, Cuba) (WLS) -- Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Cuba Monday after a three-day trip to Mexico. He will travel to Havana on Tuesday for meetings, events and an outdoor Mass.

The pope is on the final leg of his Latin American tour. The visit to Cuba comes 14 years after John Paul II's historic visit.

Cuba's communist government never outlawed religion, but it expelled priests and closed religious schools after Fidel Castro's takeover in 1959....

Unlike Chicago which has made a concerted effort to rid the city of its gangland history, the Chicago Outfit is part of the city's fabric in Havana.

Just 90 miles from the tip of Florida, American mobsters began using Cuba as their headquarters for offshore rackets in the early 1920s running rum, loan-sharking, prostitution and gambling and eventually the mob's initial cocaine trade....