by aleksandrored » Wed Oct 09, 2019 3:16 pm
JeremyTheJew wrote: ↑Wed Oct 09, 2019 11:01 am
Eline2015 wrote: ↑Tue Oct 08, 2019 3:04 am
did it really exist, or it just another bullshit, like MURDER INC, Luciano create a Comission and etc?
Was Murder Inc fictional?? I thought that was one of the few gangs that were real... Abe Reles, Bugsy Goldstein, Abe Shapiro, Lepke, etc. (Possibly Bugsy Siegel??)
I thought the made up part was about Anastia being boss rather then Lepke.
The Myth of Murder Inc.
Murder Incorporated, the legendary gang of so-called hired killers from the Brownsville section of Brooklyn that supposedly served as an enforcement arm of La Cosa Nostra during the 1930s and 40s, is a myth.
There never was a stable of salaried killers who sat around waiting for murder assignments. The myth began in the 1940s, was reinforced by a 1951 best seller, ‘Murder Inc’, by Burton Turkus and Sid Feder. The myth still survives to this day for several interrelated reasons:
1. The general lack of knowledge about La Cosa Nostra half a century ago.
2. Certain law enforcement officials with political ambitions who wanted to appear as cutthroat gangsters.
3. Good old-fashioned media sensationalism.
Many murders were committed by a motley group of mainly Jewish gangsters based in Brownsville, but most had to do with battles over garment industry rackets in Manhattan and had nothing to do with La Cosa Nostra. Lepke Buchalter became a major target of the law, he lost his cool, and like many mob bosses of the 1980s and 1990s, began rubbing out anyone who he thought might testify against him.
The Cosa Nostra connection to some of these so-called Murder Inc hoods came from their close associations with Albert Anastasia, then-underboss of the crime family known today as the Gambino family. If Jewish hoods wanted to whack someone, they would check with Anastasia and make sure the murder wouldn’t screw up any of his schemes. It was a smart political move because of the power Anastasia wielded.
Murder Inc was co-authored by Turkus, an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn who prosecuted many of the killers. There were no turncoat mobsters then and Turkus simply got some things wrong. He knew there was some kind of national syndicate, but he overestimated its organisational structure. Turkus tried to paint a picture of a well-organised nationwide company with clearly defined roles, goals and job descriptions.
There is an excellent analysis of Murder Inc in ‘East Side-West Side’, a book by Alan Block, a Penn State University professor. A key player in Block’s research was Abe Reles, a well-known informer who helped Turkus win many convictions.
Reles was part of a gang battling for control of rackets in Brownsville that killed off main rivals to consolidate their control. Reles was associated with Louis Capone, who was in the Anastasia orbit. When the gang wanted to knock off someone interfering in their rackets, they would, as courtesy, tell Anastasia. They did not want to inadvertently kill someone who was a friend or associate of a powerful Cosa Nostra leader. They were not hired killers. No-one paid them to wipe out their rivals.
Reles, through Capone, sometimes did favours for Anastasia as a way to curry favour, probably a handful of hits. But there was no payment; Reles was not a hired killer.
He, like all racketeers, was out to make money through scams and schemes. Murder was simply a means of getting things done.
The affairs of the notorious Buchalter also played a big role in the legend of Murder Inc. He was a big man in the garment district and used muscle to get what he wanted. After prosecutor Thomas Dewey’s main target, Dutch Schultz, was wiped out, Dewey turned his sights on Buchalter. As legal pressure mounted, Buchalter went into hiding and tried to cover his tracks by killing anyone he thought might become an informer. Many of these killings have been attributed to Murder Inc but were really the unravelling of the Buchalter organisation.
The prosecutors, the police, and the newspapers at that time, had no idea of the true nature and structure of La Cosa Nostra. The media lumped the disparate groups of murders into one major conspiracy and labelled it Murder Inc. (Jerry Capeci, Gangland News, 1 February 1999).
[quote=JeremyTheJew post_id=125789 time=1570644062 user_id=58]
[quote=Eline2015 post_id=125676 time=1570529057 user_id=533]
did it really exist, or it just another bullshit, like MURDER INC, Luciano create a Comission and etc?
[/quote]
Was Murder Inc fictional?? I thought that was one of the few gangs that were real... Abe Reles, Bugsy Goldstein, Abe Shapiro, Lepke, etc. (Possibly Bugsy Siegel??)
I thought the made up part was about Anastia being boss rather then Lepke.
[/quote]
The Myth of Murder Inc.
Murder Incorporated, the legendary gang of so-called hired killers from the Brownsville section of Brooklyn that supposedly served as an enforcement arm of La Cosa Nostra during the 1930s and 40s, is a myth.
There never was a stable of salaried killers who sat around waiting for murder assignments. The myth began in the 1940s, was reinforced by a 1951 best seller, ‘Murder Inc’, by Burton Turkus and Sid Feder. The myth still survives to this day for several interrelated reasons:
1. The general lack of knowledge about La Cosa Nostra half a century ago.
2. Certain law enforcement officials with political ambitions who wanted to appear as cutthroat gangsters.
3. Good old-fashioned media sensationalism.
Many murders were committed by a motley group of mainly Jewish gangsters based in Brownsville, but most had to do with battles over garment industry rackets in Manhattan and had nothing to do with La Cosa Nostra. Lepke Buchalter became a major target of the law, he lost his cool, and like many mob bosses of the 1980s and 1990s, began rubbing out anyone who he thought might testify against him.
The Cosa Nostra connection to some of these so-called Murder Inc hoods came from their close associations with Albert Anastasia, then-underboss of the crime family known today as the Gambino family. If Jewish hoods wanted to whack someone, they would check with Anastasia and make sure the murder wouldn’t screw up any of his schemes. It was a smart political move because of the power Anastasia wielded.
Murder Inc was co-authored by Turkus, an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn who prosecuted many of the killers. There were no turncoat mobsters then and Turkus simply got some things wrong. He knew there was some kind of national syndicate, but he overestimated its organisational structure. Turkus tried to paint a picture of a well-organised nationwide company with clearly defined roles, goals and job descriptions.
There is an excellent analysis of Murder Inc in ‘East Side-West Side’, a book by Alan Block, a Penn State University professor. A key player in Block’s research was Abe Reles, a well-known informer who helped Turkus win many convictions.
Reles was part of a gang battling for control of rackets in Brownsville that killed off main rivals to consolidate their control. Reles was associated with Louis Capone, who was in the Anastasia orbit. When the gang wanted to knock off someone interfering in their rackets, they would, as courtesy, tell Anastasia. They did not want to inadvertently kill someone who was a friend or associate of a powerful Cosa Nostra leader. They were not hired killers. No-one paid them to wipe out their rivals.
Reles, through Capone, sometimes did favours for Anastasia as a way to curry favour, probably a handful of hits. But there was no payment; Reles was not a hired killer.
He, like all racketeers, was out to make money through scams and schemes. Murder was simply a means of getting things done.
The affairs of the notorious Buchalter also played a big role in the legend of Murder Inc. He was a big man in the garment district and used muscle to get what he wanted. After prosecutor Thomas Dewey’s main target, Dutch Schultz, was wiped out, Dewey turned his sights on Buchalter. As legal pressure mounted, Buchalter went into hiding and tried to cover his tracks by killing anyone he thought might become an informer. Many of these killings have been attributed to Murder Inc but were really the unravelling of the Buchalter organisation.
The prosecutors, the police, and the newspapers at that time, had no idea of the true nature and structure of La Cosa Nostra. The media lumped the disparate groups of murders into one major conspiracy and labelled it Murder Inc. (Jerry Capeci, Gangland News, 1 February 1999).