Lepke

[JeremyTheJew]

anyone have fbi notes or files on Lepke??
probably the biggest jew racketeer (idk why that word goes w all the old timers) besides maybe Lansky.
Only boss to ever get executed. Electric chair


he had three huge rackets:
-Garmet industry (before Lucchese I'm assuming?)
- Big Heroin importer. hed get his dope sent in furniture and stuff like that. I think he was probably also the biggest there as well??
- Murder Inc

so that's there different rackets tied with a different fams. example murder inc w anastia. then he worked w Genovese as well w dope I think?? as well as Lansky.
then I'm sure tied in w luke in Garmet Industry

[Wiseguy]

anyone have fbi notes or files on Lepke??
probably the biggest jew racketeer (idk why that word goes w all the old timers) besides maybe Lansky.
Only boss to ever get executed. Electric chair


he had three huge rackets:
-Garmet industry (before Lucchese I'm assuming?)
- Big Heroin importer. hed get his dope sent in furniture and stuff like that. I think he was probably also the biggest there as well??
- Murder Inc

so that's there different rackets tied with a different fams. example murder inc w anastia. then he worked w Genovese as well w dope I think?? as well as Lansky.
then I'm sure tied in w luke in Garmet Industry

According to Al D'Arco, Lucchese agreed to cut Lepke in on the family’s drug business in exchange a piece of the garment center.

But it wasn't just Lucchese. Luciano and the Genovese family were also partners with Buchalter and other Jewish racketeers in the garment center early on. Joe Bonanno also had interests there too.

[JeremyTheJew]

so was Lepke among equals at this time?
when did Lepke come to power? he is not mentioned during Castellmarese War? did he take over someones gang??
and ik that he was the head of murder inc, was that also his gang?? abe reles, Shapiro bros, all the Brownsville boys

[eboli]

so was Lepke among equals at this time?
when did Lepke come to power? he is not mentioned during Castellmarese War? did he take over someones gang??
and ik that he was the head of murder inc, was that also his gang?? abe reles, Shapiro bros, all the Brownsville boys

Lepke was seen as an equal as a non-italian can be at the time. He rubbed shoulders with Lansky and Luciano and he was a trusted guy. He had so much trust in his friends he didn't want to hear what his best friend Gurrah Shapiro was telling him how they are going to hand him over to the feds on a platter when he was a wanted man in the late 30's.

Lepke & Gurrah Shapiro began expanding after killing their former boss Jacob "Little Augie" Orgen in 1927. Little Augie took over Nathan Kaplan's rackets on the Lower East Side after his murder in 1923. His HQ was in the area between Monroe, Madison and Rutgers streets. During their time killing for Orgen they met other jewish killers who were members of Murder Inc. later on. Both Lepke and Gurrah continued to expand their organization pretty much until they became wanted men. In the mid-30's they whacked their biggest rival - Louis "Pretty" Amberg and took control of his rackets in Brooklyn. He was killed by members of Murder Inc. on the samy day as Dutch Schultz, so his murder wasn't front page material. Lepke was deep in the garment industry since the 20's, so later on when Lucchese said he'll cut him in or whatever meant they won't muscle in on Lepke's operation, because that was dangerous.

Murder Inc, was basically the remnants of the various smaller gangs (mostly jewish) who acted as killers for organized crime. Most of them were recruited by Lepke, Shapiro, Lansky, Siegel, Anastasia. A lot of them came from Bugs and Meyer mob too. Abe Reles was in some kind of administrative role as he was gang leader for a time. Despite looking like a complete moron on mugshots, he was far from it and actually managed to earn money in various ways.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Those were some tough Jews.

[Wiseguy]

so was Lepke among equals at this time?
when did Lepke come to power? he is not mentioned during Castellmarese War? did he take over someones gang??
and ik that he was the head of murder inc, was that also his gang?? abe reles, Shapiro bros, all the Brownsville boys

Here's what Raab wrote in Five Families -

"Lucky Luciano, the only godfather with close ties to top Jewish gangsters during Prohibition, had little difficulty in absorbing Jewish Garment Center rackets into his own dominion. Jewish hoods became junior partners and vassals of Luciano in one of the city's largest and most profitable industries. According to Joe Bonanno, who shunned mergers and deals with the Jewish underworld, Luciano in the mid-1930's was the dominant mob figure in the garment industry."

[JeremyTheJew]

that's interesting.
so... the Garmet Industry went from Lepke/Lucchese to Luciano/Gambino??

What were. they actually doing??
-extort local factories
-probably ran all the trucks
-overseas shipments for narcotic routes
-as well as legit income

anything else??

[Wiseguy]

that's interesting.
so... the Garmet Industry went from Lepke/Lucchese to Luciano/Gambino??

What were. they actually doing??
-extort local factories
-probably ran all the trucks
-overseas shipments for narcotic routes
-as well as legit income

anything else??

Luciano may have been involved as early as Lucchese or even earlier.

D'Arco said Lucchese gave the trucking to Thomas Gambino as a wedding present when he married Lucchese's daughter. However, it was a sore point with the Lucchese family. D'Arco said he had no right to do that.

Anyway, it wasnt a case of a single family in control at a given time. The Genovese and Lucchese families got involved the earliest. As I said, Joe Bonanno also had interests early on. Years later, on the Castellano tapes they were heard talking about how the Gambinos, Genovese, and Colombos each had a third of the Greater Blouse, Shirt, and Undergarment Association.

After the Gambino brothers made a plea deal to get out of the trucking industry in the early 1990s, the last mob case was in 1997 and involved the Luccheses, Gambinos, and Genovese shaking down garment center businesses.

Yes, extortion of garment shops was one racket. Also monopolizing the trucking with vastly inflated prices. Loansharking was always a big racket in the garment center too as clothing firms often needed cash to keep them afloat from one season to the next.

[Pogo The Clown]

Lucchese Acting Boss Joseph Defede was busted in 1998 for extortion in the garment center.


Pogo

[Wiseguy]

Lucchese Acting Boss Joseph Defede was busted in 1998 for extortion in the garment center.


Pogo

You're right, that last case (which included DeFede) came down in April 1998.

[eboli]

so... the Garmet Industry went from Lepke/Lucchese to Luciano/Gambino??

It went Lepke -> Luciano - > Lucchese -> Lucchese/Gambino as the most dominant forces behind it, but like Wiseguy said, other families had stakes in it at different times. The jews were the first to get involved in the racket as early as 1910 and Luciano was deep in it by 1928.

[DPG]

FBI files from the Kansas City Massacre believed Luciano and Lepke to be so close that they called them the Luciano-Buckhalter Mob. This is 1933 I believe. During the investigation looking for Verne Miller a phone tap and mail cover was placed on Lepke. They followed him to Hot Springs and placed a tap on Bugsys Waldorf Hotel Hotel room based on a phone call placed from Lepke room at the Arlington. The tap on Lepke didn't last long because agents following him noticed he and his wife moved from luxury hotel to hotel about every 2 to 3 weeks. Thing is they weren't worried one bit about either one of them, so whatever info they got from the taps they didn't concern the investigation of the Massacre was not included in the files. Boat taps were abandoned because they gathered no Intel.
Now this part im not to sure about because I can't remember where I read it and don't know if the timeline adds up, but it says the drugs Lepke had coming in to the Brooklyn apt were coming from Bugsy in California. This was based on a trip Lepke made to California in order to visit Bugsy at his sister's house, where he was staying for a time after he moved there. It went on to say Bugsy had taken over all dope routes from Mexico shortly after arriving and that Lepke became his partner. Like I said that is coming of the top of my head and I can't remember where it comes from. But Bugsy already having family in California kinda throws cold water on the whole being 'sent west' narrative for me. That along with the fact that he bought into at least one Vegas casino before muscling in on the Flamingo project, kinda changes how I see his association with East Coast Mafia guys outside of Lepke and Lanksy.