|
Atlantic City Conference
The Atlantic City Conference held between 13–16 May 1929 was a historic summit of leaders of organized crime in the United States. It is considered by most crime historians to be the earliest organized crime summit held in the US. The conference had a major impact on the future direction of the criminal underworld and it held more importance and significance than the Havana Conference of 1946 and the Apalachin meeting of 1957. It also represented the first concrete move toward a National Crime Syndicate.Sifakis, p. 21-22 Details about the conference are difficult to verify. However, it is thought that crime leaders at the conference discussed the violent bootleg wars in New York City and Chicago and how to avoid them in the future, diversification and investment into legal liquor ventures, expansion of illegal operations to offset profit loss from the probable repeal of Prohibition, and reorganization and consolidation of the underworld into a National Crime Syndicate. The con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Organized Crime
Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a form of illegal business, some criminal organizations, such as terrorist groups, rebel forces, and separatists, are politically motivated. Many criminal organizations rely on fear or terror to achieve their goals or aims as well as to maintain control within the organization and may adopt tactics commonly used by authoritarian regimes to maintain power. Some forms of organized crime simply exist to cater towards demand of illegal goods in a state or to facilitate trade of goods and services that may have been banned by a state (such as illegal drugs or firearms). Sometimes, criminal organizations force people to do business with them, such as when a gang extorts money from shopkeepers for " protection". Street gangs may oft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert Anastasia
Umberto "Albert" Anastasia (, ; ; September 26, 1902 – October 25, 1957) was an Italian-American mobster, hitman, and crime boss. One of the founders of the modern American Mafia, and a co-founder and later boss of the Murder, Inc. organization, Anastasia eventually rose to the position of boss in what became the modern Gambino crime family. He also controlled New York City's waterfront for most of his criminal career, including the dockworker unions. Anastasia was murdered on October 25, 1957, on the orders of Vito Genovese and Carlo Gambino; Gambino subsequently became boss of the family. Anastasia was one of the most ruthless and feared organized crime figures in American history; his reputation earned him the nicknames "The Earthquake", "The One-Man Army", " Mad Hatter" and "Lord High Executioner". Early life Anastasia was born Umberto Anastasio on September 26, 1902, in Parghelia, Calabria, Italy, to Bartolomeo Anastasio and Marianna Polistena. Anastasia's father ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Erickson
Frank Erickson (1896 – March 2, 1968) was an American mobster and bookmaker, known for his association with businessman, gambler and racketeer, Arnold Rothstein. Biography He was born in New York City to parents of Swedish and Irish descent. After the death of his father, he grew up in an orphanage. Frank Erickson was Arnold Rothstein's right-hand man and New York's largest bookmaker during the 1930s and 40s. Eventually, Erickson became very well known among bookmakers nationwide for handling "lay-off" bets. With Chicago's Moses Annenberg, Erickson developed a country wide wire service, making possible for the first time nationwide synchronized betting. Erickson never saw any of these profits because soon after, bookmaking became illegal and the government took over. In Robert Lacey's book on Meyer Lanksy, Erickson was named "the largest book maker on the East Coast, if not in all America." Additionally, it is a little-known fact that many of Erickson's profits went to chari ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Combine (group)
Murder, Inc. (Murder, Incorporated) was an organized crime group, active from 1929 to 1941, that acted as the enforcement arm of the National Crime Syndicatea closely connected criminal organization that included the Italian-American Mafia, the Jewish Mob, and other criminal organizations in New York City and elsewhere. Murder, Inc. was composed of Jewish and Italian-American gangsters, and members were mainly recruited from poor and working-class Jewish and Italian neighborhoods in Manhattan (primarily the Lower East Side) and Brooklyn (primarily the neighborhoods of Brownsville, East New York, and Ocean Hill). It was initially headed by Louis "Lepke" Buchalter and later by Albert "The Mad Hatter" Anastasia. Murder, Inc. was believed to be responsible for between 400 and 1,000 contract killings, until the group was exposed in 1941 by former group member Abe "Kid Twist" Reles. In the trials that followed, many members were convicted and executed, and Abe Reles himsel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Owney Madden
Owen Vincent "Owney" Madden (December 18, 1891 – April 24, 1965) was a British-born gangster of Irish ancestry who became a leading underworld figure in New York during Prohibition. Nicknamed "The Killer", he garnered a brutal reputation within street gangs and organized crime. He ran the Cotton Club in Manhattan and was a leading boxing promoter. After increased harassment from law enforcement in New York, Madden moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1935, where he remained until his death from natural causes in 1965. Early life Owen Vincent Madden was born into a working-class family at 25 Somerset Road in Leeds, England, on December 18, 1891, the son of Irish immigrants Francis Madden and Mary Madden (née O'Neil.) After his mother became a widow she emigrated to New York to become a maid, leaving Owen and his sister Mary and brother Martin in a British orphanage. In 1896, Owen's mother saved up enough money to take them out of the orphanage and get them tickets to join her in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dutch Schultz
Dutch Schultz (born Arthur Simon Flegenheimer; August 6, 1901October 24, 1935) was an American mobster. Based in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s, he made his fortune in organized crime-related activities, including bootlegging and the numbers racket. Weakened by two tax evasion trials led by prosecutor Thomas Dewey, Schultz's rackets were also threatened by fellow mobster Lucky Luciano. In an attempt to avert his conviction, Schultz asked the Commission for permission to kill Dewey, which they refused. When Schultz disobeyed them and made an attempt to kill Dewey, the Commission ordered his murder in 1935. Early life Arthur Simon Flegenheimer was born on August 6, 1901, to German Jewish immigrants Herman and Emma (Neu) Flegenheimer, who had married in Manhattan on November 10, 1900. He had a younger sister, Helen, born in 1904. Herman Flegenheimer apparently abandoned his family, and Emma is listed as divorced in the 1910 US Census. (In her 1932 petition for U.S. c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abner Zwillman
Abner "Longie" Zwillman (July 27, 1904 – February 26, 1959) was a Jewish-American mobster who was based primarily in North Jersey. He was a long time friend and associate of mobsters Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky. Zwillman's criminal organization was a part of the National Crime Syndicate and mainly operated from the 1920s to the 1950s, with its peak in the late 1930s. Early life and career It is believed that Zwillman was born on July 27, 1904, in Newark, New Jersey. He was one of seven children born to Reuben and Anna Slavinsky Zwillman, Russian-Jewish immigrants. He was forced to quit school to support his family after his father's death in 1918. Zwillman first began working at a Prince Street café, the headquarters of a local alderman in Newark's Third Ward. However, in need of more money, Zwillman was eventually forced to quit, later selling fruits and vegetables in his neighborhood with a rented horse and wagon. Zwillman was unable to compete with the cheaper Prince ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rockefellers
The Rockefeller family () is an American industrial, political, and banking family that owns one of the world's largest fortunes. The fortune was made in the American petroleum industry during the late 19th and early 20th centuries by brothers John D. Rockefeller and William A. Rockefeller Jr., primarily through Standard Oil (the predecessor of ExxonMobil and Chevron Corporation). The family had a long association with, and control of, Chase Manhattan Bank.''The Political Economy of Third World Intervention: Mines, Money, and U.S. Policy in the Congo Crisis'', David N. Gibbs, University of Chicago Press 1991, page 113 By 1977, the Rockefellers were considered one of the most powerful families in American history.''The Rockefeller inheritance'', Alvin Moscow, Doubleday 1977, page 418 The Rockefeller family originated in Rhineland in Germany and family members moved to the Americas in the early 18th century, while through Eliza Davison, with family roots in Middlesex County, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacob Shapiro
Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro (May 5, 1899 – June 9, 1947) was a New York mobster who, with his partner Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, controlled industrial labor racketeering in New York for two decades and established the Murder, Inc. organization. Early years Shapiro was born in 1899 in Minsk in the Russian Empire. While confined in protectory in Brooklyn, he became friends with Joseph Valachi and Jimmy "The Shiv" DeStefano (who got his nickname while confined in the protectory). Legs Diamond was also there but kept his distance from the feared threesome. During this period, Shapiro encountered his future partner, Louis "Lepke" Buchalter; both boys were attempting to rob the same pushcart. Instead of fighting over the spoils, Shapiro and Buchalter agreed on a partnership. Buchalter served as the brains and Shapiro provided the muscle in an alliance that lasted for decades. Shapiro and Buchalter soon became acquainted with future mobsters Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano, both of whom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Buchalter
Louis Buchalter, known as Louis Lepke or Lepke Buchalter, (February 6, 1897March 4, 1944) was an American mobster and head of the Mafia hit squad Murder, Inc., during the 1930s. Buchalter was one of the premier labor racketeers in New York City during that era. Charles Birger and Buchalter are the only American mob bosses to be executed after being convicted of murder. Louis Buchalter was executed using the infamous "Old Sparky" electric chair after being sent "up the river" to Sing Sing Correctional Facility. Background Buchalter was born in the Lower East Side neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York in February 1897. His mother, Rose Buchalter, called him "lepkeleh" ("little Louis" in Yiddish), which later became "Lepke". Louis Buchalter had one sister and three brothers; one brother eventually became a dentist, another brother a college professor and rabbi, and the third brother a pharmacist. His father, Barnett Buchalter, was a Russian immigrant ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bugsy Siegel
Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (February 28, 1906 – June 20, 1947) was an American mobster who was a driving force behind the development of the Las Vegas Strip. Siegel was not only influential within the Jewish Mob, but along with his childhood friend and fellow gangster Meyer Lansky, also held significant influence within the Italian-American Mafia and the largely Italian-Jewish National Crime Syndicate. Described as handsome and charismatic, he became one of the first front-page celebrity gangsters. Siegel was one of the founders and leaders of Murder, Inc. and became a bootlegger during Prohibition. After the Twenty-first Amendment was passed repealing Prohibition in 1933, he turned to gambling. In 1936, he left New York and moved to California. His time as a mobster during this period was mainly as a hitman and muscle, as he was noted for his prowess with guns and violence. In 1941, Siegel was tried for the murder of friend and fellow mobster Harry Greenberg, who had turned ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willie Moretti
Guarino "Willie" Moretti (February 24, 1894 – October 4, 1951), also known as Willie Moore, was a notorious underboss of the Genovese crime family and a cousin of the family boss Frank Costello. Criminal career Born Guarino Moretti in Bari, Apulia, southern Italy, Moretti immigrated to the United States with his family to live in New Jersey. On January 12, 1913, after being convicted of robbery in New York City, Moretti was sentenced to one year in state prison in Elmira, New York. He was released after several months. From 1933 to 1951, Moretti, in association with Joe Adonis, Settimo Accardi and Abner Zwillman, ran lucrative gambling dens in New Jersey and upstate New York. His operations were based out of his homes in Hasbrouck Heights (located in Bergen County, New Jersey, just outside New York City) and Deal (located in Monmouth County, New Jersey along the Jersey Shore). Hollywood connections Moretti was the godfather of then-unknown singer Frank Sinatra. Sin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
