Lansky, Meyer (1902–1983), was an American gangster who became known as “the Mob’s accountant.” Lansky helped establish a national crime syndicate (criminal organization) that operated in the United States in the 1930’s and 1940’s.
Maier Suchowljansky was born to a poor Jewish family in what is now Hrodna, Belarus, in 1902. He moved to the United States with his parents and two siblings in 1911. His parents could not remember the date of his birth, so U.S. customs authorities gave him the birthday of July 4, the date when he immigrated to the United States. The family settled in New York City’s Lower East Side. At that time, the neighborhood was made up of poor immigrants. As a youth, Suchowljansky became close friends with Bugsy Siegel , one of the local neighborhood hoodlums. He stayed in school long enough to complete an 8th-grade education. He Americanized his name to Meyer Lansky and began working at an early age as a laborer in a tool and die shop. Lansky became a U.S. citizen in 1928.
By 1918, Lansky and Siegel were running a floating crap game—that is, an illegal dice game, played for money, that moves from place to place to avoid law enforcement authorities. The pair also ran a bootlegging operation, but soon moved on to a much more profitable stolen-car ring. Bootlegging involves the production, transportation, or sale of illegal alcoholic beverages . Together, Lansky and Siegel formed a violent street gang called the Bugs-Meyer Mob. They also established Murder, Inc., a band of killers that hired out its services to other criminal organizations.
By the end of the 1920’s, Lansky and Siegel had joined with the New York gangster Charles (Lucky) Luciano, the Chicago gangster Johnny Torrio, and others to form a national crime syndicate. Because he was good with numbers, Lansky became the syndicate’s banker and money launderer. Money laundering is the process by which money obtained illegally is made to seem lawful.
By 1936, Lansky had established gambling operations in Florida, Louisiana, and New York. He expanded his operations to the Caribbean island nation of Cuba . The mob’s casinos thrived in Cuba for more than 20 years because of the profits paid to the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista . After Batista was overthrown by Fidel Castro in 1959, Lansky moved his gambling operations to the Bahamas and other areas of the Caribbean.
Lansky also financed gambling casinos in Las Vegas , including his friend Bugsy Siegel’s luxury Flamingo Hotel and Casino. In addition to gambling and bootlegging, Lansky was involved in drug smuggling, labor racketeering , prostitution, and extortion—that is, obtaining money or property by making threats.
Lansky fled the United States in 1970 to avoid being arrested for income tax evasion . He attempted to settle in Israel under that country’s Law of Return. Under the Law of Return, any Jewish person born outside of Israel can immigrate to the Jewish state. However, Israel eventually expelled him, and seven other countries rejected his appeal for sanctuary. In 1972, Lansky returned to the United States, where he faced several indictments (formal accusations of crime). But he was declared too ill to stand trial and eventually was cleared of the charges.
Despite his many run-ins with the law, Lansky was convicted only twice—once for gambling, in 1953, and once for contempt of court, in 1973. He was said to have accumulated a personal fortune of about $300 million. Lansky died of cancer on Jan. 15, 1983, while living in seclusion in Miami Beach, Florida.
