“I never abused anybody in my life” THE CRIME: The founder of the Mafia in the United States was born Salvatore Lucania in Lercara Friddi, Sicily on 11 November 1897. The family arrived in America in 1906 and ten years later, in June 1916, Luciano was sentenced to a year in prison for opium trafficking.… Read More »
“Mother is the best bet and don’t let Satan draw you too fast” THE CRIME: Dutch Schultz was born on 6 August 1902 (his grave states he was born in 1901) at 1690 Second Avenue, off 89th Street, in the Bronx, as Arthur Flegenheimer. He began his crime career in 1919, aged 17, when he… Read More »
“Look out for number one” THE CRIME: Known as “Mr Big”, Rothstein was born in New York City and soon rebelled against his Jewish background. He used his mathematical brain to win at gambling, running his own dice games. Described as the spiritual godfather of organized crime, most of the big names — Luciano, Lansky,… Read More »
“I don’t want to be murdered beside the garbage cans in some Chicago alley” THE CRIME: Born in Minnesota as Adelard Cunin, he moved to Chicago when he was a teenager and adopted the name George Moran so that he could join an Irish gang. His first arrest came on 17 September 1910 and they… Read More »
Reiser murdered him but made the death look like suicide THE CRIME: A safe-cracker by trade, Reiser was also a devoted family man. Using the name Charles Shopes, he was friendly and helpful. He used the money from robberies to buy a large apartment building in Chicago where he was known to be a good… Read More »
Before Amatuna could say “I do” he slipped into unconsciousness THE CRIME: Born in 1899, Amatuna began his career as a messenger for the Genna brothers. He progressed to become an enforcer and later bodyguard for “Bloody Angelo” Genna in 1920. He would beat up anyone who even criticized the brothers and was handy with… Read More »
Sonny “Cloudy” Grosso made the arrest of Tony Fuca while wearing a dinner jacket THE CRIME: “The French Connection” refers to heroin that was smuggled from Turkey to France and then to the USA. In October 1961 New York Police detectives Eddie “Popeye” Egan and his partner Sonny “Cloudy” Grosso spotted a known villain, Patsy… Read More »
“I should have shot Billy Hill” THE CRIME: Jack “Spot” Corner and Billy Hill — self-styled Boss of Britain’s Underworld — came to prominence after the Second World War. Billy Hill was born on 8 December 1911. In 1926 he received two years’ probation for breaking into a tobacconist. The following year he was sent… Read More »
“I have killed no man that didn’t deserve killing” THE CRIME: Mickey Cohen — short, foul-mouthed, even fouler tempered — began his career as a boxer. On 15 May 1945 he murdered Chicago bookmaker, Max Shaman, before graduating to become the bodyguard of Bugsy Siegel (search the article) and supposedly inherited Siegel’s empire when he… Read More »
“My people are good people even if I turned out to be an awful heel” THE CRIME: George “Machine Gun- Kelly (née George Barnes, Jr) was a very bad man — his press agent said so and FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover helped by naming him Public Enemy Number One. Kelly’s press agent was his… Read More »