Waxey Gordon

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Waxey Gordon actually Irving Wexler (born January 19, 1888 in Manhattan , New York City , USA , † June 24, 1952 in Alcatraz ) was an American mobster , who is now part of the Kosher Nostra . During the American alcohol prohibition of 1919–1932 he was one of the largest organizers of alcohol smuggling on the east coast of the United States .

Life

Gordon was born to Polish emigrants in the Lower East Side of Manhattan . To date, different dates of birth are in circulation; January 19, 1888 was engraved on the tombstone.

He initially hired himself as a skilled pickpocket , which earned him his nickname "Waxey". Benny "Dopey" Fein took him into his gang in the early 1910s, whose members were hired as thugs in labor disputes and strikes in the city's Garment District . Waxey took particular care of the gang's gambling activities; he is said to have accumulated around 100,000 US dollars from these activities by 1914 alone.

He helped organize the gang and was considered the “power broker” of gambling in the Garment District , which was why Arnold Rothstein noticed him and hired him for his own purposes at the beginning of the alcohol prohibition . However, Gordon did not become a direct member of the Broadway mob , but formed one of the pillars of the Seven Group and controlled the east coast of the USA and New Jersey .

He smuggled large quantities of whiskey across the Canadian border and ran several breweries and distilleries . With an annual income of 2 million US dollars, he stayed in hotels from Manhattan to Philadelphia and had appropriate attic apartments there .

Presumably he controlled more alcohol with his organization than corresponding gangs of the American La Cosa Nostra . Waxey Gordon supplied the districts that were not served by the Broadway mob with his cheap booze . In the New York City metropolitan area, the Kosher Nostras already dominated 70% of the black market, the American Cosa Nostra 25% and the rest was operated by Irish gangs or other groups.

When Arnold Rothstein was assassinated in 1928, Gordon's power base began to crumble. Although he entered into an alliance with Lucky Luciano , Meyer Lansky and Louis Buchalter , both sides clashed again and again and numerous members of both sides were murdered. So in 1932 Gordon put the three Fabrazzo brothers on Bugsy Siegel ; he survived and personally killed one of the brothers.

A year later, on April 12, 1933, unknown people murdered Gordon's business partners Max Hassel and Max Greenberg in a hotel in Elizabeth, New Jersey . Gordon himself narrowly escaped the assassination attempt. At the time of the fatal shooting, he had left the hotel room. Almost three years later, Frankie Carbo - a member of Murder, Inc. and friend of Bugsy Siegel - was arrested in New York for the alleged commission of the crime. Carbo was released after six months of pre-trial detention for lack of evidence and an unbelievable witness.

Lansky and Luciano, themselves under pressure from Thomas E. Dewey in 1933 , provided the prosecutor with information. Gordon could hardly explain now how he financed his empire and why he had not paid taxes so far. He was therefore sentenced to 10 years in prison that same year.

Like all kosher nostras , Gordon had always tried to keep his family out of his illegal business. When his son died in a car accident, his marriage to the daughter of a rabbi fell into crisis.

When he was released, his organization was destroyed, which he himself quoted in front of journalists as saying: "Waxey Gordon is dead, meet Irving Wexler, the businessman". He went alone to California and there during the Second World War started a large-scale black market in sugar, which also brought him into contact with the drug trade, the smuggling of which was then often disguised as the sugar trade.

In 1951, the trafficking in heroin could be proven because he had sold to an undercover agent . He was sentenced to 25 years in prison and taken to Alcatraz Island , where he died of heart failure in 1952.

literature

  • Robert J. Kelly: Encyclopedia of Organized Crime in the United States . Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000. ISBN 0-313-30653-2
  • Charles Phillips / Alan Axelrod: Cops, Crooks, and Criminologists: An International Biographical Dictionary of Law Enforcement, Updated Edition . New York: Checkmark Books, 2000. ISBN 0-8160-3016-2
  • Carl Sifakis:
The Mafia Encyclopedia . New York: Da Capo Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8160-5694-3
The Encyclopedia of American Crime . New York: Facts on File Inc., 2001. ISBN 0-8160-4040-0

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Waxey Gordon in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved January 8, 2015.
  2. ^ Alfred W. McCoy : The Politics of Heroin. CIA complicity in the global drug trade , Lawrence Hill Books. 1972 (Review Edition), ISBN 0-06-012901-8
  3. ^ John Dickie: Cosa Nostra: The History of the Mafia , Frankfurt a. M. 2006, Fischer Verlag, pp. 265,265,273ff, 279ff, 291ff, 351,358,362ff, 381ff, 419. ISBN 978-3-596-17106-4
  4. ↑ To Be Questioned in Murders. New York Times , May 22, 1933 (English)
  5. ↑ GORDON TO TESTIFY HE WAS UNDERLING; His Defense Will Be That Not He but 2 Slain Gangsters Got Beer Wealth. New York Times , November 30, 1933 (English)
  6. ↑ SEIZED IN DOUBLE MURDER .; Fight Manager Held Here for Slayings in Elizabeth in 1933. New York Times , January 18, 1936 (English)
personal data
SURNAME Gordon, Waxey
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wexler, Irving (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American mobster
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1888
PLACE OF BIRTH Manhattan , New York City , USA
DATE OF DEATH June 24, 1952
Place of death Alcatraz , USA