From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
American mobsters
Meyer
(1908?1931),
Irving
(1904?1931) and
Willie Shapiro
(1911?1934), collectively known as the
Shapiro Brothers
, were the leaders of a group of
Jewish-American mobsters
from
New York City
and based in
Williamsburg
. Well established in the local garment industry, long dominated by
Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro
and
Louis "Lepke" Buchalter
since the 1927 death of
Jacob "Little Augie" Orgen
, the two began to move against them in the summer of 1931.
As the two sides battled for the garment industry in Brooklyn, Irving and Meyer were killed by
Joseph
and
Louis Amberg
; Irving was gunned down near his apartment on July 11, and Meyer was found shot to death in the basement of a tenement building on Manhattan's
Lower East Side
on September 17, 1931. On orders from Buchalter, Willie was killed by
Murder, Inc.
members
Martin "Bugsy" Goldstein
and
Abe "Kid Twist" Reles
, supposedly buried alive in a sandpit in the marshland of
Canarsie
by Reles, the Amberg brothers,
Frank Abbandando
and
Harry Maione
, on the night of July 20, 1934.
Reles implicated Buchalter in the murders during talks with District Attorney
William O'Dwyer
after agreeing to become a government informant in 1941. His later testimony resulted in the convictions of Buchalter and the rest of Murder, Inc., who were all sentenced to death.
References
[
edit
]
- Sifakis, Carl.
The Encyclopedia of American Crime
: Second Edition Vol. II (K?Z). New York: Facts On File Inc., 2001.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Downey, Patrick.
Gangster City: The History of the New York Underworld 1900?1935
, Barricade Books 2004, 2009
External links
[
edit
]
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