Meyer Lansky (Polish:Majer Suchowlinski – Russian Mejer Suchowljanski or Maier Suchowljansky) was an American mobster, associate of the Luciano family. He was born in Grodno in the Russian Empire – nowadays Hrodna in Belarus – on July 4, 1902 and died in Miami on January 15, 1983. Nicknamed in the media "Mastermind of the Mob" ("the brain of the mafia") ) he was for many years the treasurer of the National Crime Syndicate - hence his other nickname, "The Ganglang Finance Chairman", making him one of the richest and most powerful leaders of American organized crime.
He had teamed up with Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Siegel and Frank Costello, with expertly maintained discretion. He developed a gambling empire in the United States, as well as abroad. He is supposed to have a gambling empire with casinos in Las Vegas, Cuba (during the pre-Castro era), the Bahamas and London. Although he was part of the Jewish mafia, he was able to have a great influence on the Italian-American mafia and was able to consolidate his influence in the criminal world and by extension on the civil world (although many debates took place as to his real influence and he himself has always denied the accusations against him).
An FBI agent who investigated his activities declared that Lansky was so brilliant that "if he hadn't been a criminal, he could have been the CEO of General Motors [the first American company at the time]". He had an extraordinary memory. During numerous searches by the FBI or other authorities, no written document that could be used against him by the courts has ever been found. Some speculate that Lansky would have kept in his memory all the data on his illegal assets. So much so, that despite numerous indictments, he has never been sentenced except for illegal betting.
Young years
He was born as Maier Suchowljansky in Grodno (then the Russian Empire, now Belarus) to a Jewish family that suffered from the pogroms. His family immigrated to New York in 1911 via the port of Odessa7, with his mother and brother. They join his father who had already immigrated in 1909. They settle in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. As a child, Lansky benefited from observing the tricks of craps players on the street, while pursuing religious studies. As a teenager, he met Bugsy Siegel, a future high-profile Jewish mobster, who would become a friend and one of his most loyal business partners. In 1918, he ran a craps gambling hall, but after Lansky graduated in mechanics, they turned to stealing cars and reselling them, which was much more lucrative.
Lucky Luciano, future founder of the Commission (counsel of the Mafia) said that he met Lansky when he extorted the young Jews of the neighborhood to "offer them his protection". Lansky would have curtly refused this proposal, and his courage impressed all the more as his future partner was (and remained) small, 1m58. As a teenager, he tried unsuccessfully in pimping, while working in a factory, until 1921. Before Prohibition, he organized gangs, with other Jews, in order to thwart Irish and Italian gangs. Lansky and Bugsy Siegel, became very close associates, their gang becoming known as The Bugs, and Meyer mob. They extorted merchants, immigrants and pawnbrokers. They were considered one of the most violent gangs operating during Prohibition.
Ascension during prohibition
Arnold Rothstein, a great bookmaker and financier of the underworld, noticed him and offered him, in 1921, to participate in his network of bootleggers. Lansky and Siegel known as Bugs, and Meyer Gang collaborates with Dutch Schultz. Lansky's cooperation with Luciano became very close and symbolized the new links between Jewish and Italian criminal groups. They form The Broadway Mob and supply smuggled whiskey to every speakeasy from Manhattan to New York. Associated with Bugsy Siegel and Frank Costello, their liquor trades, burglaries and rackets ensured them great influence and a large fortune. Bugsy and Siegel start a car rental business which they use to cover up their smuggling activities. They integrate into the Moe Sedway case. Occasionally, they transported goods for other Rothstein partners, including one for Waxey Gordon in 1927. But the convoy was attacked, three people were shot and the goods were stolen. Gordon, mad with rage, wants to attack Lansky but Luciano intervenes.
The conflict degenerates into what will be "War of the Jews" when Arnold Rohtstein is assassinated in 1928. Two factions oppose for the control of the alcohol traffic, on the one hand Waxey Gordon, on the The other, The Broadway Mob. The war will be deadly on both sides. In 1932, Gordon puts a contract on Siegel's head with the three Fabrazzo brothers as executors. Siegel survives and kills one of the three brothers. Finally, Lansky and Luciano find a peaceful way to end the conflict. In 1933, they informed the prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey. of Gordon's hidden income. Indeed, the latter had difficulty justifying his businesses, as well as his lifestyle, knowing that 'he does not pay taxes. The same year, he is sentenced to ten years in prison.
Lansky is also known to be a racketeer of labor unions and also pressures contractors through their intermediaries. In 1927, during the Fourth Labor Union War, Lepke Buchalter and Jacob Shapiro assassinated their former boss, Jacob Orgen, because the latter refused to follow Lansky's instructions. They are the basis of the prototype of what will become Murder Incorporated. Created by Lansky and Siegel, it is a kind of killer brigade to ensure assassination contracts, led by Lepke Buchalter and Albert Anastasia. Lansky became an American citizen in 1928.
He pushed his teammates to create a common pot to bribe the authorities and be able to continue their activities. Gifted with numbers, he quickly managed the accounts of their business.
The Castellammarese War
Lansky works closely with Luciano but they can't do without Mustache Pete like Joe Masseria. He begins to create an opposition between the Grease Ball and the Young Turkey (which can be translated as the young savages). Masseria takes a dim view of the collaboration between Luciano and Frank Costello, a Calabrian. But even more so when Italians associate with non-Italians like Jews, whom they see as a major potential risk like the Seven Group. In retaliation, Luciano is kidnapped by three armed men, beaten and stabbed but he survives. During the clash for supremacy on the New York crime scene between Joe Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano, Masseria is finally eliminated by Maranzano with the complicity of Luciano on the advice of Lansky.
During the Castellammarese war, Lansky gave Luciano (as often throughout their careers) important advice, allowing him to take a dominant position on the mafia scene. Shortly after, Luciano, with the help of the Bugs and Meyer Mob, decides to eliminate Maranzano September 10, 1931. He then played a leading role in the development of the Commission (or Crime Syndicate).
Back to the Game:Building an Empire
After the end of prohibition Lansky refocused on gambling, invested heavily, and in 1936 his activities expanded nationwide, including Florida and New Orleans, the same year his former partner Luciano stopped. These activities were never abandoned, he resumed, after the death of Dutch Schultz, the control of the lotteries of the Italian districts.
Frightened by the conviction of Al Capone in 1931 for tax evasion, Lansky realizes that he himself is in danger, from 1934 and thanks to the banking laws passed in Switzerland, he decides, to protect himself to transfer his profits to a numbered account in a Swiss bank. (Later, according to Lucy Komisar, he would have bought an off-shore bank and through a whole network of financial transactions carried out money laundering, so that nothing could ever be proven against him).
In 1935, Lansky, after an investigation, saw the Luxol factory in Elberfeld closed and his Vienna smuggling network dismantled. The drug supply is met by large shipments of heroin from Shanghai, which are manufactured in heroin refineries owned by the Chinese triads and delivered by a network of men to the United States.
When Prohibition ended, Lansky invested heavily in the gambling industry. He began with the casinos of the spa town of Saratoga, where he had already established himself under the rule of Rothstein, in association with Frank Costello and Joe Adonis. He paid the governor of Louisiana, Huey Pierce Long, handsomely so that the New York mobsters could operate hotel-casinos in New Orleans. He repeated this operation in Hot Springs, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Florida. In the latter state, he set up a veritable gambling empire around Miami and, faced with the hostility of the natives, had to multiply his donations to various associations to be accepted.
Lansky's success in this sector is due to two elements:
First, Lansky and his network have the technical expertise to run their business based on knowledge of mathematics and Lansky's theories of chance on the most popular games;
Second, Mafia relations of Lansky provide legal and physical security to its establishments against other sponsors of crime and law enforcement (including through the payment of bribes).
Role during the Second World War
Lansky's partner, Luciano, was imprisoned in 1936. He was replaced by Frank Costello and served on the National Crime Syndicate "Commission" as head of the Genovese family and he was also the head of the National Crime Syndicate. Luciano tries to get a reduced sentence or go to a less rigorous detention center. At the end of 1941, the United States entered the war, the activity of German submarines on the coasts of the United States from 1942 and the German saboteurs infiltrated on the port of New York caused a lot of damage. Luciano, through Lansky, would have offered to work with the United States Navy or their Secret Service. Indeed, the US Navy is the victim of sabotage and the growing success of German submarines worries the American staff. After District Attorney Frank S. Hogan investigates Joseph "Socks" Lanza, the Secret Service realizes that Lanza controls Fulton Fish Market. He is approached. However, his influence on the port is not strong enough, especially in the case of the port workers' strike, and Lanza informs the Navy's military intelligence, to turn instead to Luciano, who is much more influential with the workers in the ports. docks and their union.
In particular, on April 11, 1942, a lunch in the Longchamps restaurant on West 58th Street with Lansky, Moses Polakoff (Luciano's lawyer), District Attorney Gurfein and intelligence officer Carles Haffenden took place. Since his incarceration, Polakoff and Lansky have great difficulty communicating with Luciano in his Dannemora prison, they offer that Luciano be sent to Sing Sing prison, but this is refused. A meeting is organized on May 12, 1942 in Meadow prison in Comstock, New York, where the Naval Intelligence service was able to conduct a discreet meeting with him. Thanks to this collaboration several German spies are arrested in the port areas. Lansky also uses his network of aides and informants to track down spies, but he insists that he alone act as the intermediary between his informants and the naval intelligence services. Thus, among his collaborators there are Vincent Alo, Johnny "Cockeye" Dunn and Eddie McGrath and he allows the infiltration of naval intelligence agents among the port workers.
At the end of the war, the United States Navy still officially denied any cooperation with Lansky, Luciano and other members of organized crime.
In 1954, an official investigation by New York State Magistrate Judge William B. Herlands concluded that "Salvatore Lucania" and other prominent Mafia officials actively participated in the during World War II, in military activities for the United States.
Las Vegas:The Flamingo
Lansky and other gangsters invest in the construction of the hotel and casino "The Flamingo" in Las Vegas. Construction of the building is supervised by Bugsy Siegel. When the construction cost increased sixfold and Siegel also transferred $2,000,000 to Switzerland, his position became untenable. To discuss the Flamingo problem, investors meet in secret in Havana, Cuba. While the other mafia bosses want to kill Siegel, Lansky does everything to give his friend a second chance. In a second meeting, meanwhile, the casino started making a bit of a profit. Lansky, again, with the support of Luciano, manages to convince the other investors to give Siegel even more time.
But The Flamingo is starting to lose money again. At a third meeting, the other investors decide to eliminate Siegel. It is known that Lansky himself had to give his final consent for the assassination despite his long friendship and status in the mafia.
On June 20, 1947, Siegel was shot in Beverly Hills, California. Twenty minutes after Siegel's assassination, Lansky's associates, including Gus Greenbaum and Moe Sedway, enter the Flamingo and take possession. According to the FBI, Lansky obtained a financial interest in the Flamingo for the next twenty years. Lansky said in several interviews later in his life that if he had been with him, "...Ben Siegel would be alive today"
This event marks a transfer of power from the New York crime families to the Chicago Outfit over Las Vegas. Although his role has dwindled considerably from previous years, Lansky is credited with advising and helping Chicago godfather Tony Accardo settle in the city
Cuba
After the end of the Second World War, in 1946, Lucky Luciano was released on the condition that he return permanently to Sicily. However, Luciano secretly travels to Cuba, where Lansky organizes a meeting of the country's top mafia bosses, called the "Havana Conference". This meeting of the National Crime Syndicate takes place on December 22, 1946 at the Nacional Hotel. This conference is the largest since the Atlantic City conference in 1929 and the Chicago meeting of 1932. Present at this meeting were Joe Adonis, Albert "The Mad Hatter" Anastasia, Frank Costello, Joseph "Joe Bananas" Bonanno, Vito Genovese, Moe Dalitz, Tommy Lucchese, all from New York, Santo Trafficante Jr. from Tampa, Carlos Marcello from New Orleans and Stefano Magaddino, a cousin of Joe Bonanno from Buffalo. Anthony Accardo, and the Fischetti brothers, Charlie “Trigger-Happy” and Rocco represent Chicago while Kosher Nostra interests are represented by Lansky, Dalitz and Phil “Dandy” Kastel of Florida. The first to arrive is Luciano, deported to Italy and who came to Havana with a false passport. He and Lansky share the same vision for New Havana, wanting to legitimately invest heavily in the gaming sector.
The various stakeholders are working to reorganize the operations of the American mafia for the next few decades, including in particular the structuring of drug trafficking between Europe and the United States. According to the testimony of Luciano, who is one of the only ones to testify to the meeting in detail, he confirms that he is confirmed as the great godfather of the mafia, where he must lead from Cuba before finding a way to be able to return legally to the States. -United. Stars from the entertainment world are also present at the meeting. Like Frank Sinatra who came with his friends, the Fischetti brothers.
Luciano runs many casinos with the acquiescence of President Fulgencio Batista, although the US government pressures the Batista regime to deport Luciano. In 1947, Luciano had to leave Cuba after the American government threatened Cuba with suspending deliveries of medical supplies.
One of Batista's closest friends in the Mafia is Lansky. They are friends and formed a strong business association that would last for a decade. During a stay at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York in the late 1940s, a mutual agreement was reached, in exchange for interest and commissions, Batista allegedly offered Lansky and the Mafia control of casinos and racetracks. of Havana. In 1952, Lansky offered President Carlos Prío Socarrás a $250,000 bribe to return Batista to power. Once Batista is back in power, he revives the gaming industry. The dictator contacts Lansky and offers him an annual salary of $25,000 to be an unofficial gaming industry minister.
In 1955, Batista again changed the laws regulating gambling, guaranteeing a gaming license to anyone who invested at least $1 million in a hotel or $200,000 in a nightclub. Lansky holds, through his relationship with Batista, a central position in the gambling industry in Cuba. Unlike the procedures for acquiring a gambling license in Las Vegas, investors do not have to justify the origin of the funds. As long as the investors make the necessary investments, in return they benefit from the government's share of a ten-year tax exemption, aid for the construction of buildings and exemption from taxes for the importation of equipment. and furnishing of establishments. In return, the government receives $250,000 for each license granted, plus a percentage of each casino's profits. Cuba's 10,000 slot machines, even those that dispensed small prizes for children at fairgrounds, are procured by the province run by Batista's brother-in-law, Roberto Fernandez y Miranda de Batista. The army general and sports director with the government, Fernandez even gave up all the parking meters in Havana as a token of goodwill.
Import duties were lifted on materials for building hotels and Cuban contractors were given the “exceptional” right to import far more material than necessary and the sale of this excess material generated considerable profits. It has been rumored that in addition to the $250,000 to obtain the gaming license, bribes could have been paid to corrupt politicians.
Lansky, betting on the renovation of the Montmartre Club, made an excellent deal which quickly became the place in Havana. He also long wanted to install a casino in the elegant Hotel Nacional, which overlooked the Malecón. Lansky planned to take a ten-story wing of the hotel to create luxury suites for big players. Batista approves of Lansky's idea, despite the objections of American expatriates such as Ernest Hemingway, and the elegant hotel opens in 1955 with a show by Eartha Kitt. The casino is an instant hit. At that time, it was the largest hotel-casino in the world outside of Las Vegas
Once all the new hotels, nightclubs and casinos were built Batista rushed to collect his share of the profits. At night, Batista sends his collector to collect 10% of Santo Trafficante's share for the Sans Souci cabaret and casinos in hotels in Seville-Biltmore, Commodoro, Deauville and Capri (partly owned by actor George Raft). Lansky's share in casinos like Habana Riviera, Nacional, Montmartre Club and others is estimated at 30%. What the total gains and profits actually brought to Batista and his entourage through corruption could never be assessed. But the slot machines alone brought about $1 million to the regime's bank account.
Cuban Revolution
The Cuban revolution of 1959 and the arrival of Fidel Castro in power cooled the investments of the mafia in Cuba. On New Year's Day 1959, as Batista prepared to flee to the Dominican Republic and then to Spain (where he died in exile in 1973), Lansky celebrated $3 million in sales for the first year of operation of his $18 million 440-room hotel, the Habana Riviera. Many casinos, including those belonging to Lansky are looted and destroyed that night.
On January 8, 1959, Castro invaded Havana and moved into the Hilton. Lansky fled the next day to the Bahamas and other Caribbean destinations. The new Cuban president, Manuel Urrutia Lleó, closes the casinos. With the departure of Fulgencio Batista and the arrival of Fidel Castro, to maintain his criminal and lucrative activities, he tried unsuccessfully to bribe the new ruler to try to stay on the island in exchange for building hospitals and schools. .
In October 1960, Castro nationalized hotel-casinos and declared gambling illegal. This results in a seizure of Lansky's assets and the drying up of his income from Cuba. He loses about $7 million. With Miami's casinos bankrupt, Lansky is forced to rely solely on his income from Las Vegas.
Return to the United States
Lansky and his associates return to the United States and reorganize in Florida. Lansky reconnects with an old associate dating from Prohibition, John Pullman, who would found the Bank of World Commerce in 1991 in the Bahamas. Pullman has a close business relationship with Banque de Pelgrine, which in turn is used by Meyer Lansky.
With his return, Lansky is under close FBI surveillance and bugging. For example, in the spring of 1962, after being hospitalized with heart problems at Trafalgat Hospital, the hotel room he booked was riddled with microphones. The FBI tries to invest his entourage and he is openly observed by their agents. Sometimes Lansky even talked to them about morale or other things.
In the 1960s, Lansky retired from gambling in Nevada when Howard Hughes bought out all the casinos in Las Vegas for tax reasons. Later in the 1970s, the Mafia would re-enter Las Vegas through the truckers' unions and Lansky would serve as a front man until 1979 when the FBI brought the whole system down. Lansky sells his shares through the Miami National Bank managed by his longtime partner, Samuel Cohen. Cohen would be convicted of conspiracy in 1972 and sentenced to one year in prison.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Lansky invested in the drug trade. On the one hand, the profits from the traffic are higher there and on the other hand, Luciano, since his expulsion to Sicily in 1946, has structured the international traffic of heroin from Europe to the United States (the famous French Connection). In addition, Lansky tries to reinvest in prostitution but mainly invests in golf courses and hotels.
La traque
In March 1970, placed under surveillance and tracked by the FBI, he was arrested by the police for possession of drugs and he was released on $50,000 bail. In the summer of 1970, he chose to settle in Israel with his second wife Thelma "Teddy" (although initially little focused on his Jewish identity), benefiting from the law of return. Arrived at Lod airport, he obtained a three-month visa. He was received by his old friend and business partner, Joseph Stacher, who had lived in Herzliya since 1965. Lansky lives in a luxury hotel in the city, the Accadia, in apartment 337. He has his furniture moved from Miami. He plans to move to Ramat Aviv on the outskirts of Tel Aviv to a house on Oppenheimer Street, where Transport Minister Shimon Peres used to live.
He began an uphill struggle to stay in Israel that lasted 14 months until Israeli Interior Minister Josef Burg refused to extend his residence permit on the eve of Yom Kippur. Reason motivated by an arrest warrant issued by the United States for charges of illegal betting. The Israeli government believed that Lansky wanted to continue his illegal activities in Israel and throughout the Middle East, especially the arrests of mobsters like Benjamin Spiegelblum (alias Ziegelbaum), Bernard Rosa and Jacob Markus during a business meeting related with Lansky. The latter were deported on May 31, 1971. Lansky hired a well-known lawyer, Yoram Alroy, to counter his upcoming deportation. On September 3, 1971, he gave an interview on Israeli television.
Lansky makes generous donations to Israel or Jewish institutions in the United States and claims to want to invest several million dollars in the Israeli economy. But nothing helped, the Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, refused his immigration, declaring that the arrival of a dangerous criminal was undesirable (he is with Joseph Joanovici and Robert Soblen one of the only three Jews that Israel never accepted). He was expelled from Israel on November 5, 1972. Following his expulsion, Israel passed a law prohibiting criminals from benefiting from the law of return. After a long journey by plane passing through Switzerland, Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, from where he was expelled by the government.
Last years and deaths
He had to land in Florida, where he was arrested by the FBI. In 1973, a federal court attempted a third time to charge him with loan sharking because of the testimony of a repentant informant, Vincent "Fat Vinnie" Teresa. Also accused of contempt of court and tax evasion, he escaped without conviction on November 3, 1976, in particular because of the lack of credibility of the testimony because of Teresa's membership in the Patriarca family of Boston.
After his dismissal, Lansky is constantly on his guard, he meets his friends or business partners alone, in public places or shopping centers. When he is in the car with his driver, he is always on the lookout to find public booths to be able to make a phone call. Towards the end of the 1970s, the FBI finally dropped surveillance of Lansky. His main associates at this time were Samuel Cohen and Alvin Malik.
On October 11, 1977, Lansky's stepson, Richard Schwartz, 48, was shot dead behind his Bay Harbor Islands restaurant. This assassination is in retaliation for the assassination of Craig Teriaca, 29, following an altercation that took place in a Miami club run by Alvin Malik24, between him and Craig Teriaca, apparently on June 30, 1977, in the Club Miami Beach Forge Restaurant . Craig Teriaca is the son of mobster Vincent Terriaca who presumably avenged his son's death.
Lansky spent his final years in Miami. He was diagnosed with lung cancer on November 15, 1982. Lansky, who had always been a heavy smoker, had part of his lungs removed to prevent the formation of metastases. But the cancer spreads to the diaphragm, then to all of the kidneys and the spine. He begins chemotherapy, which slows the progression of the cancer, but he loses his voice and his appetite. He spent his last days at Mount Sinai Hospital in Miami. Despite his state of weakness, he resists but he ends up asking his wife:“Let me go” (let me go). He died on January 15, 1983, at the age of 80, without ever having been to prison. He is buried in Mount Nebo Cemetery, 5900 SW 77th Ave in Miami.
Inheritance
He leaves behind a widow (Thelma "Teddy" Sheer Lansky (née Schwartz; † 1997) and three children. He divorces his first wife in 1946. Officially, Lansky owns almost nothing and his wife even has problems paying hospital bills. At that time, the FBI estimated his fortune at $300 million, hidden in numbered accounts, but it was never discovered.27 In September 1982, Forbes magazine named him one of the 400 most rich people of the United States.
According to biographer Robert Lacey, Lansky's financial situation in the last two decades of his life deteriorated considerably, resulting in him having problems paying for medical care for his disabled son who, in truth, died in poverty. Lacey estime que son influence et ses revenus occultes dans les cercles de la mafia ont été grandement exagérés. Pour Lacey, il n’y a pas de preuves « pour soutenir le fait que Lansky soit un génie du mal, le cerveau, le tireur de ficelle, l’inspirateur et le parrain du crime organisé ». En tout cas, à ce jour, le FBI n’a jamais trouvé les 300 millions $ de sa fortune présumée. Il conclut en fonction des preuves qu’il a rassemblées, notamment des interviews des membres survivants de la famille, que la richesse de Lansky et son influence ont été grandement exagérés et qu’il était plus un comptable pour les gangsters qu’un gangster lui-même. Sa petite-fille raconte à l’auteur T.J English qu’au moment de sa mort en 1983, Lansky laisse un héritage de 37 000 $ en cash. Sur les dernières années de la vie de Lansky, quand les journalistes lui demandent ce qui n’a pas fonctionné à Cuba, Lansky ne se donne aucune excuse « I crapped out » (« j’ai échoué »). Lansky va jusqu’à affirmer qu’il avait perdu jusqu’aux derniers pennies à Cuba.
Hank Messick, un journaliste du Miami Herald qui a enquêté durant des années sur Lansky, explique que la clef pour comprendre Lansky, ce sont les gens qui l’entourent. Il explique que « Meyer Lansky ne possède pas de biens propres, il possède les gens ». D’après le témoignage du procureur de Manhattan, Robert Morgenthau, la réalité concernant Lansky est qu’il a gardé d’énormes sommes d’argent auprès de prête-nom durant des décennies et il ne possède quasiment rien à son nom. Récemment, la propre fille de Lansky, Sandra, a témoigné que son père avait effectué un transfert de 15 millions $ sur le compte de son frère au début des années 1970, lorsque Lansky a eu des problèmes avec les impôts. Quant à savoir combien Lansky possédait réellement ? Cela ne sera probablement jamais connu. Mais selon toute vraisemblance, il n’est pas mort ruiné.
Lansky, à la différence de Cosa Nostra, n’a pas construit la Kosher Nostra pour transmettre le pouvoir à sa disparition. Aucun de ses enfants n’a été impliqué dans ses affaires illicites. Mais un avocat de Miami, Alvin Malnik (de), est aujourd’hui considéré comme l’héritier de son business. Il le connait depuis les années 1950 lorsqu’il a défendu contre l’administration fiscale. Il a par ailleurs épousé une nièce de Lansky. En 1983, Le Reader’s Digest le qualifie comme son « héritier présumé ». Meyer Lansky est incontestablement l’un des mafieux les plus habiles et intelligents de l’histoire du crime.
Meyer Lansky dans la culture populaire
Au cinéma
Francis Ford Coppola, dans le deuxième opus du Parrain, représente Meyer Lansky par le personnage de Hyman Roth, l’homme de la mafia juive qui essaye de couler la famille Corleone. Dans le film, il essaye de rejoindre Israël et de faire participer Michael Corleone dans les casinos de La Havane. Lansky téléphona lui-même à Lee Strasberg (qui obtient une nomination aux Oscars pour son rôle) pour le féliciter de sa performance dans le film, se souvient Anna Stasberg, la veuve de Lee. Lansky lui dit « Vous m’avez bien joué » et en ajoutant « Pourquoi ne pas m’avoir rendu plus sympathique » .
Maximilian « Max » Bercovicz, le gangster joué par James Woods dans l’opus de Sergio Leone Il était une fois en Amérique est inspiré par Meyer Lansky.
Il est également incarné à l’écran par :
Mark Rydell dans le film Havana en 1990.
Ben Kingsley dans le film Bugsy de Barry Levinson en 1991.
Patrick Dempsey (connu pour son rôle dans Grey’s Anatomy) dans le film Les Indomptés en 1991.
Dustin Hoffman dans le film Adieu Cuba réalisé par Andy García en 2005.
À la télévision
Anatol Yusef dans la série Boardwalk Empire depuis 2010.
Richard Dreyfuss dans le téléfilm Lansky en 1999.
Dorin Andone dans le téléfilm La Malédiction d’Edgar de Marc Dugain (2013).