THE BLACK HAND FORUM

by **Eline2015** » Sun Aug 16, 2020 7:28 pm

I don’t remember where I read this, but famous Jack Legs Diamond was mentioned as A.R. right-hand, especially in heroin business, because after Rothstein murder he wanna take his drug trafficking. As I remember, Diamond already has a internationally drug business experience, when he was been in London, before Europe trip with Luciano to Germany.

by **Grouchy Sinatra** » Sun Aug 16, 2020 6:56 pm

Interesting. Thanks.

by **Antiliar** » Sun Aug 16, 2020 5:07 pm

Grouchy Sinatra wrote: ↑Sun Aug 16, 2020 2:29 pm The far right is going to be the far right. Who takes them seriously? That being said, Italian gangsters were shaking down store owners in their own community before Jewish gangsters like Rothstein taught them the more lucrative rackets, which Jews certainly didn't invent. Irish and protestants were doing it before that.

Still dodging my question I see...

Anyways, before Rothstein was anything the Sicilians in New York were involved in counterfeiting, real estate scams, import/export of lemons and vegetables, and a lot of them operated on a large scale. Many Sicilian-American Mafiosi were businessmen who invested in buying property. They definitely weren't small time. The Calabrians on the other hand were often into sex trafficking and prostitution. Both groups used extortion. But contrary to some myths, the Sicilians did work with other ethnic groups, including Irish and Jews, going back to the 1890s.

We also have photos of Italian mobsters going back to the 1880s. The ones of means always dressed well in suits and ties, and they knew how to act in public. Maybe Rothstein taught Luciano how to be more refined (although I'm still waiting for legitimate sources that say this), but he could have learned it from his politician friends. We don't know. If you read interviews of Luciano from the 1940s and 50s he always sounded like he came from the streets. His friend Lansky, on the other hand, came from a religious family, and undoubtedly learned manners from them.

by **Grouchy Sinatra** » Sun Aug 16, 2020 2:29 pm

The far right is going to be the far right. Who takes them seriously? That being said, Italian gangsters were shaking down store owners in their own community before Jewish gangsters like Rothstein taught them the more lucrative rackets, which Jews certainly didn't invent. Irish and protestants were doing it before that.

by **Antiliar** » Sun Aug 16, 2020 2:22 pm

How about you name me some of those accounts you referred to?

As for Soros, there are Far-Right sites that blame Rothstein for creating organized crime so they can blame it on (who they see as) dastardly Jews. The fact is that Italian-American organized crime preexisted Rothstein by decades. Just like Soros undermines U.S. policy today, they see Rothstein as an early 20th century Soros.

by **Grouchy Sinatra** » Sun Aug 16, 2020 1:07 pm

I still want to know what the "bias" is in arguing Arnold Rothstein was influential to Lucky Luciano, and how George Soros's name got brought into this. lol. Seriously Antiliar, how did you manage to make this discussion political? Why do you think it's political for one to discuss the Jewish gangster influence in the Italian mob? Please explain.

by **motorfab** » Sat Aug 15, 2020 11:13 pm

Antiliar wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2020 3:23 pm
Grouchy Sinatra wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2020 1:09 pm So, the thread is titled "Debunking Arnold Rothstein", and nobody actually debunks Arnold Rothstein? Just a bunch of people saying that they don't believe he was ever that powerful? It seems to me a lot of people just don't want to believe Rothstein was an influence on Luciano and his racketeering ambitions. I don't know why people are so adverse to this. How would it spoil anyone's view of the American mob if Luciano and the other founding fathers of the commission were influenced by Jewish gangsters? I mean it's pretty obvious they were.
Your bias is showing. This question can only be answered by actual evidence, and there isn't much. There is a lot of myth and legend, and maybe you want to "print the legend," but that's not history. It might be fun to paint Rothstein as the George Soros of organized crime, funding every gangster and vice in early 20th century New York, and giving the big name mobsters their start, but the actual evidence just isn't there. A lot of the misinformation about Rothstein can be traced back to "The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano," which is essentially a hoax. So what are we left with? Contemporary newspaper articles, a biography written by his widow, and a legitimate quote from Luciano who said Rothstein was in debt to him. Mayer Lansky may have admitted that he knew him, but gave no details.

Grouchy, Antiliar is right. I didn't do this thread to say that everything that is said about Rothstein was wrong, but just to understand what exactly this character's role was in the American underworld of the 20s and tried to figure out what is right and wrong. The only things I know about him for sure is that he was involved in gambling, bootlegging, and narcotics. We know that Luciano's so-called bio is almost entirely total bullshit and therefore misjudges most people. But if ever you have a contrary opinion compared to what some people say, please develop it.

by **Antiliar** » Sat Aug 15, 2020 7:00 pm

Grouchy Sinatra wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2020 6:29 pm
The accounts of Luciano being influenced by Rothstein ARE evidence. Just like witness testimony in court is considered evidence. A lot of the conclusions here are based on the strength of cooperating witnesses. No video proof, in most cases no audio proof, no pics, just an informant saying so.

What accounts? Aside from the hoax book I mentioned, what accounts?

by **Grouchy Sinatra** » Sat Aug 15, 2020 6:29 pm

What bias is that? There's a bias in believing Jewish gangsters influenced Lucky Luciano and his approach to the rackets? What's the bias in disbelieving it? What's the bias in starting a thread titled "Debunking Arnold Rothstein" and Rothstein never really is debunked?

It's as if you want video evidence of Rothstein and Luciano hanging out. Well the technology wasn't available yet. So I guess there's no proof ANY history happened before film cameras were invented.

The accounts of Luciano being influenced by Rothstein ARE evidence. Just like witness testimony in court is considered evidence. A lot of the conclusions here are based on the strength of cooperating witnesses. No video proof, in most cases no audio proof, no pics, just an informant saying so.

by **Antiliar** » Sat Aug 15, 2020 3:23 pm

Grouchy Sinatra wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2020 1:09 pm So, the thread is titled "Debunking Arnold Rothstein", and nobody actually debunks Arnold Rothstein? Just a bunch of people saying that they don't believe he was ever that powerful? It seems to me a lot of people just don't want to believe Rothstein was an influence on Luciano and his racketeering ambitions. I don't know why people are so adverse to this. How would it spoil anyone's view of the American mob if Luciano and the other founding fathers of the commission were influenced by Jewish gangsters? I mean it's pretty obvious they were.

Your bias is showing. This question can only be answered by actual evidence, and there isn't much. There is a lot of myth and legend, and maybe you want to "print the legend," but that's not history. It might be fun to paint Rothstein as the George Soros of organized crime, funding every gangster and vice in early 20th century New York, and giving the big name mobsters their start, but the actual evidence just isn't there. A lot of the misinformation about Rothstein can be traced back to "The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano," which is essentially a hoax. So what are we left with? Contemporary newspaper articles, a biography written by his widow, and a legitimate quote from Luciano who said Rothstein was in debt to him. Mayer Lansky may have admitted that he knew him, but gave no details.

by **Grouchy Sinatra** » Sat Aug 15, 2020 1:09 pm

So, the thread is titled "Debunking Arnold Rothstein", and nobody actually debunks Arnold Rothstein? Just a bunch of people saying that they don't believe he was ever that powerful? It seems to me a lot of people just don't want to believe Rothstein was an influence on Luciano and his racketeering ambitions. I don't know why people are so adverse to this. How would it spoil anyone's view of the American mob if Luciano and the other founding fathers of the commission were influenced by Jewish gangsters? I mean it's pretty obvious they were.

by **motorfab** » Sat Aug 15, 2020 7:26 am

Interesting, thanks for sharing. The only point on which I can express myself is this one :

CabriniGreen wrote: ↑Sat Aug 15, 2020 4:05 am In 1930 he financed a clandestine laboratory in Turkey, and thereafter narcotics from Turkey and China were routed to Paul Ventura (alias Paul Carbone), the Corsican crime boss in Marseilles, and then forwarded by American Express to Parisian restaurateur Louis Lyon for packaging and shipment to America. In 1930 and 1931, on behalf of the Eliopoulos syndicate, Peruvian diplomat Carlos Fernandez Bacula made six trips to New York, each time carrying 250 kilograms of narcotics under the protection of his diplomatic passport.

While it is undeniable that Rothstein was involved in narcotics, I have my doubts that he financed a laboratory for Carbone. Even if it is not impossible that he financed part, it was above all a client and Carbone (and Spirito) had enough means to do it on his own. And above all he died in 1928, so impossible for 1930. On the other hand I think that he was one of the first to have heroin imported in mass to the USA. I believe it is in this thread where I say he sent Yasha Katzenberg to buy the product from factories when it was legal in Europe.

I have little information on Lyon, except that he had his hands in nacrotics, that he got caught for it in the 30s and that it seems that he was associated with Carbone.

If Lepke was well associated with A.R., it is interesting to note that his powder supplier was JP Stefani in Paris (although Marseille was involved in the shipments, it was mostly a port of entry, raw opium was processed at Paris and was then sent and shipped from the port of Le Havre).

François Spirito made several trips to N.Y. in the 1930s. I doubt it was for tourism. So I think he met guys like Buchalter. And above all he was Neapolitan, so I bet my shirt that he did business with the 5 Families.

by **CabriniGreen** » Sat Aug 15, 2020 4:18 am

Debunk away.....

by **CabriniGreen** » Sat Aug 15, 2020 4:17 am

“Rothstein, however, always played the odds, and the profit margin in trading illicit narcotics wasn’t wide enough until 1921, when the Supreme Court ruled that it was illegal for doctors to prescribe narcotic drugs to addicts. It was at this point, when the legitimate outlets vanished, that Rothstein cornered the wholesale black market. Using a procedure he had developed for smuggling liquor, he sent buyers to Europe and organized front companies for importation and distribution. By the mid-1920s he was in sole control of the lucrative black market in heroin, morphine, opium, and cocaine, and had set up a sophisticated system of political payoffs, extortion, and collusion with the same gangsters who would eventually kill him and divvy up the spoils of his vast underworld empire.
Yes, Rothstein was fatally flawed. Discretion was the cardinal rule of any criminal enterprise, yet in July 1926 he posted bond for two employees who had been “been arrested for smuggling a substantial quantity of narcotics from Germany. Rothstein likewise posted bail for drug runners arrested in 1927 and 1928. Alas, posting bond for his employees brought the attention of the press upon his business associates, and that indiscretion – plus the fact that his protégés felt it was unfair that one man should control all the rackets – cost him his life.[\B]

In the end the evil genius, who preyed upon human weakness, was destroyed by the folly of pride. On the evening of 4 November 1928, Rothstein was shot in the groin while in his room at New York’s swank Park Central Hotel. It was a terrible wound, intended to inflict maximum pain, and Rothstein died several days later amid much controversy and mystery. To this day his murder remains officially unsolved. However, many of his secrets were revealed as a result of his bookkeeper’s penchant for keeping accurate records.

by **CabriniGreen** » Sat Aug 15, 2020 4:09 am

I “THE CHINA CONNECTION, CORRUPTION, AND NATIONAL SECURITY

The Ezras had established their contacts prior to the Hague Convention, at a time when the Astors and relatives of the Roosevelts (Russell and Company in Boston) had increased their family fortunes by shipping opium from Turkey, Iran, and India to China. However, while most American shippers complied with the Hague Convention, many of Europe’s colonial powers felt no obligation to honor rules set by sanctimonious American moralists, and the Opium Bloc inserted loopholes in the agreement that allowed them to continue to legally trade opium in the Far East, alongside clandestine traffickers like the Ezras.
International drug control policy improved in 1928 with the creation of a Permanent Control Board “Board at the League of Nations. The purpose was to prevent diversions by having licit manufacturers of narcotics report to the Control Board. Further controls were established in 1931 when, with the League’s Limitation Agreement, European manufacturers agreed to stop overproducing narcotic drugs. But exceptions in the trade of opium remained. Great Britain in particular had relied on the opium trade to support its colonial empire since the eighteenth century. Under the aegis of preserving free trade, the British fought two Opium Wars in the nineteenth century, thus encouraging the spread of addiction throughout the Far East. So in the 1930s, Shanghai’s British, French, and international concessions were still the easiest places in the world to make banking and shipping arrangements for the opium trade. As Professor Parssinen notes, “By 1933, China and Japan had become the major exporters of opiates to the US illicit market, a position which they held throughout the decade.

Liquor, gambling, drugs, political corruption, international smuggling...

Rothsteins legacy...

THE BLACK HAND FORUM

Debunking Arnold Rothstein

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