THE BLACK HAND FORUM

Pretty sure Murder Inc was used by LCN for murder contracts. After the gang was locked up LCN began to use their own men more for murders. The thought was if they farmed out the hits to Murder Inc it would distance the family from the murders. But once Murder Inc was exposed by the informants this changed things. While Murder Inc was around they were an effective tool for LCN until it was exposed. This is what I have read and of course that is all we have from this time period. There were plenty of Jewish hit men used by LCN outside of Murder Inc as well. Remember Italians and jews were from the same ghettos for the most part.

Buchalter´s gang was definitely real. But I have a problem with the idea that this gang was exclusively used by LCN for murder assaignments. They were not paid killers for LCN. LCN had their own killers, within their own ranks, who did the dirty work when it was needed. The number of killings attributed to this gang is inflated. But yeah, Buchalter´s gang killed a lot of people (perhaps a couple of dozens). But these killings were probably related to Buchalter´s struggle with other gangs and his attempt to keep himself out of prison.

One guy who was arrested with Buchalter´s gang was Jimmy "Dirty Face" Feraco. He seems to have had connections also to the Mangano Family. But we can´t say for certain that Feraco was made (neither can we say that he was a member of Buchalter´s gang actually). We can put Louie Capone in same cathegory. Sadly, there are no member lists from this era. That´s something that needs to be kept in mind when discussing made members.

Murder Inc was a media created label that didn't exist in real like. It was an overlapping group of organized criminals, some from the Mangano/Anastasia crime family, some from the Luciano/Genovese/Costello Family, some from the Lansky-Siegel group, some from the Lepke-Shapiro group, and Abe Reles's gang in Brownsville. Louis Capone, one of the guys executed with Lepke, was probably a made Mangano crime family member.

I don't think that they were, otherwise they would not have taken orders from a non-Italian like Lepke. I think that history has inflated the importance of Murder, Inc.'s role in history and another poster (possibly HK) has theorized that Murder, Inc. is really just a term which is interchangeable with Lepke's actual crew. Guys like Albert Anastasia were never "members" of Murder, Inc. - rather, they were simply liaisons between Lepke's gang and their own families.

Lepke had both Jews and Italians in his organization and had ties to Cosa Nostra, but were any of the Italian members of his gang actually made in the mafia, apart from Jack Parisi and Frank Carbo? For example, I read somewhere Neil Dellacroce was a former Murder Inc gunman, but was he made before or after the gang was dismantled? I also remember someone on RealDeal said Louis Capone was probably made, but I can't find that post anymore.