Benjamin Siegel
Feb. 28, 1906, to June 20, 1947.
"Bugsy"
Siegel was one of the few Prohibition Era gangsters who were native born Americans. He was born in Brooklyn in 1906.
While still young, he became a close friend of Meyer Lansky and was acquainted with Charlie Luciano. Siegel and Lansky (the "Bug and Meyer Mob") entered the organized crime world as young guards for illegal liquor shipments. They proved useful friends to Luciano and Frank Costello as an East Coast network of cooperative bootleggers (The Seven Group)was established. And Luciano reportedly made use of Siegel in dispatching "Joe the Boss" Masseria at Scarpato's Nuova Villa Tammaro restaurant on April 15, 1931.
As Prohibition ended, the crime Syndicate formed by Luciano and his allies sent Siegel west to help out with Jack Dragna's gambling operations in southern California. Hollywood was made for Bugsy. His personal tastes ran toward the showy and expensive. And his good looks nearly resulted in a movie career.
Siegel also became attracted to the legal gambling oasis of Las Vegas, Nevada, and started dreaming of setting up a first-rate casino in the desert. He would eventually build the Flamingo on loans from his powerful criminal friends. Some insist that Siegel "founded" Las Vegas gambling. In fact, gambling houses dotted the landscape before he arrived. But Siegel did devise that mix of gambling, high class style and glitzy show business that would become the Las Vegas trademark.
All that cost money, however - too much money, his mob associates felt. And when the Flamingo failed to make the predicted returns on their investments, the members of the Commission decided that Siegel was robbing them and would have to be eliminated.
He was shot to death June 20, 1947, at the Beverly Hills home of his girlfriend Virginia Hill. Lansky and friends inherited interests in the Flamingo and would reap financial benefits from the operation for years.
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The American "Mafia"