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32-862: According to writers on organized crime, the Syndicate was an idea of Johnny "Fox" Torrio , and was founded or established at a May 1929 conference in Atlantic City . It was attended by leading underworld figures throughout the United States, including Torrio, Charles "Lucky" Luciano , Al "Big Al" Capone , Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel , Frank "Prime Minister" Costello , Meyer "Little Man" Lansky , Joe "Joey A" Adonis , Dutch Schultz , Abner "Longie" Zwillman , Louis "Lepke" Buchalter , Gambino crime family head Vincent Mangano , Atlantic City Crime Syndicate boss Nucky Johnson , gambler Frank Erickson , Frank Scalice , and Albert "Mad Hatter" Anastasia . Others described

64-489: A gang of Brooklyn mafiosi who carried out murders in the 1930s and 1940s for various crime bosses. It was headed by Buchalter and Anastasia, who reported to commission members Lansky and Adonis, and included many infamous mobsters. Murder Inc. consisted of two factions. One was the Jewish Brownsville Boys headed by Abe "Kid Twist" Reles , who reported to Lepke Buchalter and Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro . The other

96-484: A heart attack in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, New York while he was sitting in a barber's chair waiting for a haircut; he died several hours later in a nearby hospital. Torrio has been portrayed several times in television and motion pictures: Herbert Asbury Herbert Asbury (September 1, 1891 – February 24, 1963) was an American journalist and writer best known for his books detailing crime during

128-472: A home on the South Side. On May 11, 1920, Colosimo drove to Colosimo's Cafe to meet an associate he had never met before. He was shot and killed a few minutes after entering the restaurant by a gunman hiding in the cloak room. A bullet entered Colosimo's brain, behind his right ear. Contract killer Frankie Yale had allegedly traveled from New York to Chicago and personally killed longtime gang boss Colosimo at

160-498: A journalist ultimately employed by The New York Times , where she spent most of her career as a reporter. After his final book, The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition in 1950, he retired from writing. Asbury died on February 24, 1963, at the age of 71 from a chronic lung disease. The 2002 film Gangs of New York by director Martin Scorsese about the underworld and civil strife / riots among immigrant groups from

192-613: A reporter for various newspapers including The Atlanta Georgian , the New York Sun , the New York Herald and the New York Tribune . In 1928, he decided to devote his time exclusively to writing. During this time, he wrote numerous books and magazine articles on true crime. He was also involved in screenwriting and wrote several plays which appeared on Broadway . None was successful. Asbury married Edith Evans Asbury in 1945,

224-455: A sensation: The Boston Watch and Ward Society had the magazine banned . Mencken then journeyed to Boston, sold a copy of his magazine on Boston Common , and was arrested. Sales of the recently founded Mercury boomed, and Asbury became a celebrity. Asbury then focused his attention on a series of articles debunking temperance crusader Carrie Nation . The following year he wrote a biography of Francis Asbury . Herbert continued working as

256-564: A story that H. L. Mencken published in his magazine, The American Mercury , in 1926. The story profiled a prostitute from Asbury's hometown of Farmington, Missouri . The prostitute took her Protestant customers to the Catholic cemetery to conduct business, and took her Catholic customers to the Protestant cemetery; some in Farmington considered this woman beyond redemption. The article caused

288-722: A top lieutenant in Colosimo's organization, rising to underboss by 1914. In 1919, Al Capone arrived in Chicago and started working as a bouncer and bartender at one of the Colosimo gang establishments, the Four Deuces at 2222 S. Wabash Street. When Prohibition went into effect in 1920, Torrio pushed for the gang to enter into bootlegging , but Colosimo stubbornly refused. In March 1920, Colosimo secured an uncontested divorce from Victoria Moresco. A month later, he and Dale Winter eloped to West Baden Springs, Indiana . Upon their return, he bought

320-540: Is unsurpassed in the annals of American crime; he was probably the nearest thing to a real mastermind that this country has yet produced". Torrio was born in Irsina (then known as Montepeloso), Basilicata , in Southern Italy , to Tommaso Torrio and Maria Carluccio originally from Altamura , Apulia. When he was two his father, a railway employee, died in a work accident ; shortly after, Torrio immigrated to James Street on

352-758: The Bowery Boys and the Brooklyn Rippers; they soon moved up to the Five Points Gang. One of Torrio's associates, Frankie Yale , eventually hired Capone to bartend at the Harvard Inn, a bar in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn. By 1909, Torrio moved to Chicago . "Big Jim" Colosimo , who had become head of a burgeoning vice empire in Chicago is reputed to have invited him to the city to help him deal with Black Hand extortionists. After doing so, Torrio became

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384-650: The Lower East Side of New York City with his widowed mother in December 1884. She later remarried. His first jobs were as a porter and bouncer in Manhattan. While he was a teenager, he joined a street gang together with another James Street resident Robert Vanella and became its leader; he eventually managed to save enough money and opened a billiards parlor for the group, and from there grew illegal activities such as gambling and loan sharking. Torrio's business sense caught

416-517: The 1840s to the Civil War era revitalized interest in Asbury, and many of Asbury's works, mostly chronicling the largely hidden history of the seamier side of American popular culture, have been reissued. In 2008, The Library of America selected an excerpt from The Gangs of New York for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime . Although his books have long been popular within

448-685: The 19th and early-20th centuries, such as Gem of the Prairie: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld , The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld , Sucker's Progress: An Informal History of Gambling in America and The Gangs of New York . The Gangs of New York was later adapted for film as Martin Scorsese 's Gangs of New York (2002). However, the film adaptation of Gangs of New York

480-617: The Atlantic City meeting as a coordination and strategy conference for bootleggers . According to the findings of the United States Senate Special Committee in the 1950s, chaired by Estes Kefauver , the National Crime Syndicate was a confederation of mainly Italian and Jewish organized crime groups throughout the United States. The media dubbed the enforcement arm of the Syndicate " Murder, Inc. ",

512-652: The Mafia. Yet they are not the same thing," probably referring to the American Mafia . Although many of its members were imprisoned, and some were executed, the demise of the organization is as uncertain as its origins. By the late 1940s, Murder Inc. and most of its non-Italian components were defunct. Some individuals, such as Lansky, continued to operate as affiliates of Italian groups. Johnny Torrio John Donato Torrio (born Donato Torrio , Italian: [doˈnaːto ˈtɔrrjo] ; January 20, 1882 – April 16, 1957)

544-736: The North Side Gang had it not been for Mike Merlo , head of the Unione Siciliana labor organization. Merlo had a vested interest in keeping the peace between Chicago's gangs, and he convinced Torrio to forestall any violence against the North Side Gang. Mike Merlo died of cancer on November 8, 1924. On November 10, three men entered O'Banion's Schofield's Flowers shop under the pretense of buying flowers for Merlo's funeral and shot O'Banion dead. The killers are reputed to have been Frankie Yale , John Scalise , and Albert Anselmi, acting on Torrio's behalf. O'Banion's death placed Hymie Weiss at

576-591: The United States, as Benito Mussolini began putting pressure on the Mafia in Italy. He is credited with helping to organize a loose cartel of East Coast bootleggers, the Big Seven , in which many prominent gangsters, including Lucky Luciano , Longy Zwillman , Joe Adonis , Frank Costello , and Meyer Lansky played a part. Torrio also supported the creation of a national body that would prevent all-out turf wars between gangs that had broken out in Chicago and New York. His idea

608-452: The behest of Torrio. Although suspected by Chicago police, Yale was never officially charged. Colosimo was allegedly murdered because he stood in the way of his gang making bootlegging profits, having "gone soft" after his marriage with Winter. Torrio headed an essentially Italian organized crime group that was the biggest in the city, with Capone as his right-hand man. However, many other gangs were active in Chicago at this time, and Torrio

640-530: The eye of Paul Kelly , the leader of the Five Points Gang . Torrio's gang ran legitimate businesses, but its primary concern was the numbers game , supplemented by incomes from bookmaking, loan sharking, hijacking, prostitution, and opium trafficking. Al Capone , who worked at Kelly's club, admired Torrio's quick mind and looked to him as his mentor. Capone had belonged to the Junior Forty Thieves,

672-513: The gang to Capone, and fled to New York. In late 1925, Torrio moved to Italy with his wife and mother, where he no longer dealt directly with the mob business. He gave total control of the Outfit to Capone and said, "It's all yours, Al. Me? I'm quitting. It's Europe for me". Torrio left a criminal empire which grossed about $ 70,000,000 a year ($ 1,241,304,000 in 2024 dollars) from bootleg liquor, gambling and prostitution. In 1928, Torrio returned to

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704-551: The head of the North Side Gang, backed by Vincent Drucci and Bugs Moran . Weiss had been a close friend of O'Banion, and the North Siders made it a priority to get revenge on his killers. In January 1925, Capone was ambushed, leaving him shaken but unhurt. Twelve days later, on January 24, Torrio and his wife Anna were ambushed outside their home by Weiss, Drucci, and Moran. Torrio was shot several times and nearly killed. After recovering, he effectively resigned, handed control of

736-513: The rackets and retire to Colorado. Torrio agreed to buy O'Banion's share and gave him half a million dollars. On the morning of the deal, the police (including the police chief) raided and shut down the brewery. Torrio, O'Banion, and several others were arrested. Torrio was indicted on bootlegging charges, a repeat offense for him with mandatory jail time. Torrio realized he had been betrayed and conned out of $ 500,000 by O'Banion. Torrio would have immediately attempted to retaliate against O'Banion and

768-558: The true crime genre, commentators such as Lucy Sante , Tyler Anbinder and Tracy Melton have suggested that Asbury took journalistic liberties with his material. However, Asbury's books generally feature lengthy bibliographies, noting the newspapers, books, pamphlets , police reports and personal interviews he drew upon for his works. Most are footnoted, citing source material by publication title, date and page. In 2005, Tracy Melton claimed in his book Hanging Henry Gambrill: The Violent Career of Baltimore's Plug Uglies, 1854–1860 that

800-502: Was an Italian-born mobster who helped build the Chicago Outfit in the 1920s later inherited by his protégé Al Capone . Torrio proposed a National Crime Syndicate in the 1930s and later became an adviser to Lucky Luciano and his Luciano crime family . Torrio had several nicknames, primarily "The Fox" for his cunning and finesse. The US Treasury official Elmer Irey considered him "the biggest gangster in America" and wrote, "He

832-691: Was in his early teens, he and his siblings Mary, Emmett and Fred Asbury became disenchanted with the local Southern Methodist church. During World War I , Asbury enlisted as a private in the United States Army . He was later promoted to sergeant and then to second lieutenant . He served in France until his lungs were severely damaged in a gas attack (as a result, he had health problems throughout his life). He received an honorable discharge in January 1919. Asbury achieved first notoriety with " Hatrack ",

864-514: Was so loose that Gangs was nominated for "Best Original Screenplay" rather than as a screenplay adapted from another work. Born in Farmington, Missouri , he was raised in a highly religious family which included several generations of devout Methodist preachers. His great-great uncle was Francis Asbury , the first bishop of the Methodist Church to be ordained in the United States. When he

896-480: Was the Italian Ocean Hill Hooligans led by Harry "Happy" Maione , who reported to Albert Anastasia. Bugsy Siegel was involved in many of Murder Inc.'s murders, but as a leading figure instead of a soldier. In his biography of Meyer Lansky, Little Man (1991), journalist Robert Lacey argued that no National Crime Syndicate ever existed. "The idea of a National Crime Syndicate is often confused with

928-525: Was the smartest and, I dare say, the best of all the hoodlums. 'Best' referring to talent, not morals". Virgil W. Peterson of the Chicago Crime Commission stated that his "talents as an organizational genius were widely respected by the major gang bosses in the New York City area". Crime journalist Herbert Asbury affirmed: "As an organizer and administrator of underworld affairs, Johnny Torrio

960-592: Was unhelpful with the encroachment of the Gennas into the North Side despite his pretensions to be a settler of disputes. As a result, the North Side Gang responded by hijacking Genna beer shipments. In May 1924, O'Banion learned that the police planned to raid the Sieben brewery on a particular night. Before the raid, O'Banion approached Torrio and told him he wanted to sell his share in the brewery, claiming that he wanted to leave

992-561: Was wary of being drawn into gang wars and tried to negotiate agreements over territory between rival crime groups. In 1920, Torrio built an agreement between most of Chicago's bootlegging gangs into a city-wide cartel. The smaller North Side Gang led by Dean O'Banion was of mixed ethnicity and was a member of the bootlegging cartel. In 1924, the North Side Gang discovered that the Genna brothers, close to Torrio's gang, were selling their booze in North Side Gang territory. O'Banion went to Torrio, who

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1024-638: Was well received, and a conference was hosted in Atlantic City by Torrio, Lansky, Luciano and Costello in May 1929; the National Crime Syndicate was created. Torrio was charged with income tax evasion in 1936 and, after several failed appeals, was sent to prison in 1939, serving two years. In 1940, a property that Torrio co-owned with Vanella, Jack Cusick, and Capone was sold at auction to satisfy Capone's tax delinquencies. After his release, he lived quietly until his death. On April 16, 1957, Torrio had

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