Murder Inc, a brief history and some notable crimes #truecrime

Murder Inc

When a coalition of criminal organizations has a problem that they need eliminated, how can they do so without starting a massive war between the factions involved? This was the issue faced by the National Crime Syndicate, a association of primarily Italian and Jewish gangsters based out of New York City, so they established a team of assassins based in Brooklyn. Using ice picks, firearms, knives, and even drowning to dispatch their targets, this enforcement arm of the syndicate was prolific with an estimate 400 to 1000 victims in the short time it was active. This network of hitmen was headed by Louis Lepke Buchalter, and the man who would become the face of the organization Umberto Albert Anastasia, otherwise known as the Lord High Executioner.

The national crime syndicate was formed in 1929 as the brainchild of Johnny Torrio in an effort to organize so that the criminals could maximize the profits that were rolling in as a result of the massive expansion of bootlegging due to Prohibition. Torrio met with other leaders in Atlantic city in May of 1929 with a roster that included infamous men such as Charles Lucky Luciano, Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel, Louis  Buchalter, Nucky Thompson who operated a corrupt political organization in the city, Umberto Anastasia and many more.

One of the problems that the syndicate faced was conflict within the organization. They needed an enforcement arm to handle any such situations. If someone needed to be eliminated the case was brought before the leadership referred to a the Commission who would vote in favor or against the action. If individual gangs were to commit these crimes themselves there was higher likelihood of revenge attacks and the potential for a total collapse of the alliance and all out war.

Having a specialized crew of hitmen on hand would minimize violence and help to make the most out of the syndicate members illegal operations. After all war is bad for business. And as nations discovered many years ago; a standing army has its own benefits- it reduced the time it took to rally your troops, but it also led to the soldiers becoming more effective as they were able to focus on honing their skills.

Before the syndicate was formed there were pretty strict divisions between gangs along ethnic lines, but that limited their earning potential and the ability to take full advantage of the environment that prohibition had created. Prohibition made alcohol illegal in the United States from 1920 to 1933. Of course this did not mean that drinking stopped overnight, instead it allowed criminals to rake in huge amounts of money selling illegal liquor. Al Capone alone is said to have taken in the equivalent of a billion dollars a year in todays money.

So the commission tasked the small organization that had been started by Meyer Lansky and Buggsy Siegel with such eliminations. Control of was passed to Louis Lepke Buchalter and Umberto Anastasia, who assembled teams of assassins based out of Brooklyn. These men would be paid a salary as well as bonuses for carrying out contracts rather than being paid on a per contract basis only as is typical with hitmen.

Some of the notable names in this bunch were Abe Reles, Harry Philadelphia Phil Strauss who is said to have been the most prolific with hundreds of suspected hits, Frank Abbadando, Louis Capone, Harry Maione, and Martin Goldstein. These men and more would be dispatched to outside cities to handle sensitive business with the advantage of being unknown to the victims and the local authorities.

Almost every single one of the people targeted by murder Inc was an informant or a mobster who had stolen money from the syndicate. Such was the case of Abraham Wagner in 1932. The 26 year old had built a business for himself selling booze and narcotics with his brother on the lower east side of Manhattan. But the game had changed and had become more violent, yet Wagner was reluctant to follow suit.

After surviving an assassination attempt on a crowded street, Wagner sent his brother to broker a peace with the Mazza gang. Instead of an end to the bloodshed, Wagner lost his brother to his ruthless competition. At that point, he gave up and he and his wife, Goldie, packed their bags. On their way out of town, Abe went to the police and gave them information on his rivals.

The couple would end up in St Paul, Minnesota where under a new name, Abe ran a fruit stand. But back in New York, his trip to the police would not go unforgotten. He had broken one of the cardinal rules, and 2 men, George Young and Joseph Schafer were dispatched to Minnesota once word got back the bosses where Wagner was hiding.

The pair ambushed Abe and shot him 7 times as he ate dinner then began pistol whipping him. Their concern was the punishment not their own freedom and they were quickly apprehended. While the tentacles of the syndicate ran deep, they were not able to shield Young and Schafer from justice. Instead of the death penalty, however the two men recieved life in prison which would be served out at Stillwater Penitentiary.

Before they worked for the Syndicate the hitmen from Brooklyn had been part of different factions vying for control. Abe “kid twist” Reles, Harry Strauss, and Martin Goldstein had been working for 3 brothers, Meyer, Irving, and Willie Shapiro who controlled most of Brownsville. Reles decided with his 2 friends that they deserved a bigger slice of the pie the gang was taking in from their slot machines, loansharking, prostitution, and union operations.

The brothers were not pleased when they learned that some of their employees were running their own money making schemes for themselves. They knew that something had to be done or their empire would being to fall apart. A trap was set, and Reles and Goldstein were lured to the Shapiro’s headquarters with a third man, George Defeo.

Instead of finding their targets, the three were met with a hail of bullets. They were able to escape but both Reles and Goldstein had been wounded. Not only that, but as the ambush took place, Meyer Shapiro abducted Reles’s girlfriend and assaulted her. This brutal attack infuriated Reles even more, fueling his need for revenge.

The three men knew they had to act quick or the Shapiro’s would take them out of the game permanently. Fortunately for them, the had connections to Meyer Lansky through associates of Defeo, and Reles reached out to one of their competitors, Harry Maione and his crew who were more than happy to coordinate to topple the Shapiro’s Brownsville empire.

The newly formed alliance created a vicious bunch of assassins that would be more than useful to the organization that Lepke Bychalter was creating. Abe Reles’s friend Louis Capone talked the crew up to Albert Anastasia who in turn discussed the usefulness of the Brownsville mobsters.

Over the next few years, they hunted down the 3 brothers one by one, though there are some reports of a drive by perpetrated by the Shapiro’s on A pool hall owned by Martin Goldstein. Reles is said to have looked out and seen the brothers shooting from their car. This last attempt at holding on to power failed and soon they were eliminated, by the newly formed group that referred to themselves as the Combination.

First they found 27 year old Irving. The combination had learned the location of one of their targets apartment and on July 11 1931 they moved on it. Irving returned home and as he walked up to his apartment he found he lights were off in the hallway. As Irving walked up to his front door, Reles and Goldstein emerged from the shadows and opened fire. As Irving crumpled, Abe grabbed him and dragged him out into the street where he shot him several more time before leaving him in plain view.

The gang caught up with 22 year old Meyer on September 17 1931 as he drank in one of Manhattans speakeasy’s. Reles, Maione, and Goldstein grabbed him and threw him into a car. They took Meyer to a the cellar of an apartment building on the lower east side of Manhattan. He had been shot once through the ear.

Of the three brothers, Willie would have the worst end. When they caught him on July 20, 1934 he was 23 years old. A witness would report seeing a suspicious group of men filling in a hole in the marshy area of the Canarsie neighborhood of Brooklyn. When the authorities dig up the hole, they found the badly beaten remains of young willie.

The investigation found dirt in his lungs, indicating that he was buried alive. It is believed that the perpetrators of this crime were Reles, Maione, Abbadando and the Amberg brothers, Louis, Joseph, and Hyman. The Ambergs had built their own reputation in the Brooklyn underworld.

As an interesting side note, Joseph and Louis Amberg would meet with their own ends not long after what they did to Willie Shapiro. On September 30th of 1935, Jospeh and his driver, a man named Morris Kessler, were pulled from their vehicle by 3 gunmen, one wearing a suit and the other 2 in mechanics overalls.

The unknown assailants lined them up against a wall and gunned them down then fled. The suited man drove away in stolen car which was found later with 2 firearms in the backseat. His brother Louis who went by Pretty, had an even more violent demise. On October 23rd, 1935 just weeks after the assasination of his brother police were just starting to relax the surveillance of the Amberg gang. They had expected Louis to retaliate.

But on the morning of that fateful day, the opposite would happen. Police were called to the scene of a car fire in Brooklyn. Inside they found Louis, stripped with a bag over his head and his hand tied with metal wire. The cause of death was a shotgun blast and ax blows. Incidentally this crime is attributed to Murder Inc and occured the day before the assassination of infamous crime boss Dutch Schultz.

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