American adventurers in Tangier started large-scale Mediterranean cigarette smuggling in 1946.

Evidence

But it is perhaps less well known that a group of avventurieri americani set themselves up in Tangier in 1946 and initiated large-scale cigarette smuggling in the Mediterranean. — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 615

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: who were these American adventurers in Tangier, and does smuggling infrastructure built by outsiders map onto how mafia entered the trade?