Lansky, Meyer

Lansky, Meyer

 orig. Maier Suchowljansky

(born July 4, 1902, Grodno, Russia—died Jan. 15, 1983, Miami Beach, Fla., U.S.) Russian-born U.S. gangster. His family immigrated to New York in 1911. As a young man he joined Bugsy Siegel in auto theft, burglary, and liquor smuggling. In 1931 he allegedly organized the murder of crime boss Joe Masseria and joined Lucky Luciano in forming a national crime syndicate. By 1936 he had developed gambling operations in Cuba and the U.S., putting Siegel in charge of Las Vegas. In the 1960s he extended his gambling empire to the Bahamas and elsewhere in the Caribbean while continuing to run narcotics-smuggling, prostitution, labour-racketeering, and extortion rackets. His holdings in 1970 were estimated at $300 million. In 1979 the House of Representatives Assassinations Committee linked Lansky with Jack Ruby, the nightclub owner who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of Pres. John F. Kennedy. Though convicted of income-tax evasion in 1973, he remained free on appeals.