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Murder, Inc. was the enforcement arm of the American Mafia, consisting primarily of Jewish and Italian American assassins from Ocean Hill, Brownsville, and East New York in Brooklyn, New York City. Between 400 and 1,000 people were assassinated by the group, but in the early 1940s Abe Reles exposed the leaders of the group, and the organization was wiped out as its leaders were executed by electric chair.
History[]
Lepke Buchalter
Murder Incorporated was founded as The Bugs and Meyer Mob by Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky, who formed a strong part of the Jewish Mob in New York. The group later became a contract killing organization in 1929, and several Jewish and Italian-American criminals joined the group. They killed between 400 and 1,000 people in contract killings, and they were hired as the enforcers of the American Mafia and Jewish Mob; Murder, Inc. played a large role in the Castellammarese War in the early 1930s in addition to other mob disputes. In 1935 they whacked Dutch Schultz when he attempted to assassinate a US government official against the orders of The Commission.
The Murder Incorporated group was ratted on by Abe Reles in the early 1940s, and men such as leader Lepke Buchalter and Harry Strauss were convicted of murder and executed by electric chair. Most of the leaders of the group were executed by the government, and although the Mafia succeeded in assassinating Reles in revenge for his treachery, Murder, Inc. was destroyed.