The National Crime Syndicate was the name given by the press to supposed loosely-organized organized crime syndicate, set up in the 1930s, by Charles "Lucky" Luciano and based in New York City.

As revealed by the findings of U.S. Senate Committee in the 1950s chaired by Estes Kefauver, it was described as a confederation of mainly Italian and Jewish organized crime groups, only some of which belonged to the Cosa Nostra, throughout the U.S.

The supposed enforcement arm of the Syndicate was what the media dubbed Murder, Inc., a gang of Brooklyn thugs who carried out murders in the 1930s and 1940s for various crime bosses. It was headed by Abe Reles, who reported to mobsters Louis Buchalter and Albert Anastasia.

In his 1991 biography of Meyer Lansky, Little Man, journalist Robert Lacey argues that no National Crime Syndicate ever existed. "Edgar Hoover's personal position, that the Mafia did not exist, has proved to be as erroenous as the Kefauver's Committee's belief in a national conspiracy."Rorbert Lacey, Little Man: Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life, (Little Brown & Co., 1991), pp. 200-207.

See also

• Meyer Lansky
• Lucky Luciano
• Murder, Inc.

References