Meyer Lansky

Meyer Lansky was an American gangster. It was born under the name of Maier Suchowljansky, in an Jewish family, in Grodno (then Russian part of Poland, currently in Bélarus), in 1902 and died in Miami in 1983. Called in the media Mastermind off the Mob (the brain of the Maffia), it was during many years the treasurer of the National union of the crime (from where its other nickname, The Ganglang finances chairman ), associated with Lucky Luciano and Frank Costello, with a learnedly maintained discretion. An agent of the FBI which inquired into its activities declared that Lansky was so brilliant, that " if he had not been a criminal, he could have been the chairman of General Motors undertaken American at the time ".

Youths

Its family immigrated with New York in 1911. In its childhood, Lansky benefitted from the observation of the easy ways of the players of craps (play of die) in the street, while following religious studies. Lucky Luciano, future founder of the Commission (council of the Maffia) told that it met it as it rackettait the young people Juif S of the district to offer his protection to them. Lansky would curtly have refused this proposal, and its courage impressed more especially as its future associate was (and remained) of small size. Teenager, Lansky was employed like " large bras" by trade unionists and tested itself without success with the Proxénétisme, while working in a manufacture, until in 1921. Before the Prohibition, it organized gangs, with others Juif S, in order to thwart the gangs Irish and Italy NS. Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, another future Jewish gangster of great scale, became very the close associated ones, their band was known like The Bugs and Meyer mob . They rackettaient the tradesmen, the immigrants and the pawnbrokers, but their speciality, thanks to competences in Mécanique of Lansky, was the flight of car.

The rise

Arnold Rothstein, large bookmaker (taking of bets) and financier of the underworld, noticed it, and proposed to him, in 1921, to take part in its network of bootleggers (alcohol traficants) with Lucky Luciano, with which Bugs and Meyer Gang already frequently collaborated. The co-operation of Lansky with this last became very close and symbolized the new bonds between Jewish and Italian criminal groups. Associated with Bugsy Siegel and Frank Costello, their alcohol traffics and their rackets their a great influence and a broad fortune ensured. Lansky invests its share in houses of play. It pushed its fellow-members to create a common pot to corrupt the authorities and to be able to continue their activities. Endowed for the figures, it quickly managed the compatibility of their business. At the time of the War of Castellammarese (conflict between the two principal godfathers of New York), Lansky lavished on Luciano (like often with the wire of their careers) of important councils, making it possible this last to take a dominant position on the gangster scene. He played then a leading role during the development of the Commission (or Trade union of the crime).

An empire of the play

When Prohibition was completed, Lansky invests massively in the sector of the play. It started with the casinos of the thermal city of Saratoga, where it had been already established under the cane of Rothstein, in partnership with Frank Costello and Joe Adonis. It paid grassement the governor of Louisiana, Huey P. Long, so that the New Yorkean gangsters can exploit hotel-casinos with La Nouvelle-Orléans. He repeated this operation with Hot Springs in the Arkansas, the Kentucky, and in Florida. In this last State, it set up a true empire of the play around Miami, and in front of the hostility of the autochtones, had to multiply the gifts with various associations to be made accept.

Encouraged by the cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, Lansky took the control of several hotel-casinos, of which it raised standing, with Havana, in the years 1940 and 1950. In Las Vegas, it took part without conviction in the operations of Bugsy Siegel, and tried without success to avoid its execution by the Trade union.

Tracking

In 1970, placed under monitoring and tracked by FBI, it chooses to settle in Israel (although initially little carried on its Jewish identity), while profiting from the law of the return, but Israeli the Prime Minister, Golda Meir, refused his immigration, informant that the arrival of a dangerous criminal was undesirable. After a long tour in the plane passing by Switzerland (where it would have had a bank) and the Paraguay, where it was expelled by the local government, it had to land in Florida, where it was stopped by FBI for racket. Also shown insult with court and tax avoidance, it was left there without judgment, in particular thanks to a defect of procedure.

Lansky dies out of a cancer in 1983, without to have ever been in prison. A lawyer of Miami, Alvine Malnik, is regarded today as the heir to his business.

In the cinema

  • Francis Ford Coppola, in the second opus of the Godfather , represents Meyer Lansky by the character of Himan Roth, the man of the Maffia Jewish which tries to run the Corleone family. In film, one sees it to try to flee towards Israel and to make take part Michael Corleone in the casinos of Havana.

  • Meyer Lansky is also interpreted by Dustin Hoffman in the film " The Lost City" or " Cuba" good-bye; realized by Andy Garcia

in 2005. A film of any beauty.

Books

  • Lansky , by H. Messick. Berkeley, 1971.

  • Yiddish Connection , by R.Cohen

Internal bond

External bond

  • E Library Crime: Meyer Lansky
  • E

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