A report of the Senate Rackets Committee from 1964 states:

"Helzer now is reported to operate a large bookmaking and prostitution syndicate in California. A major figure in the organized underworld, he is known to all the important narcotics traffickers throughout the United States. He has also operated in Oklahoma, Texas, Baltimore, Miami, Las Vegas, Boston, and various areas of Canada, Cuba, Hong Kong, Japan, Hawaii, and the Philippines."

(BRADING AND THE SICAS)

In Los Angeles, Brading also became closely associated with yet another top Mafia operation. Brading became a close friend and associate of the notorious Sica brothers - Joe, Freddie, and George. The Sica brothers were particularly brutal syndicate members specializing in narcotics.

In 1950, the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles accused Brading's friends, Joe and Freddie Sica, of heading the single largest narcotics ring in the United States.

The Sica brothers were shortly thereafter brought to trial. On the night before the trial opened, the government's star witness, an informant named Abe Davidian, was mysteriously shot to death in his mother's home in Fresno. The murder was never solved and the Sica brothers were soon released for lack of evidence.