Jacob Shapiro

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Jacob "Gurrah" Shapiro (May 5, 1899 – June 9, 1947) was a New York mobster who, with his partner Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, ran labor racketeering in New York for about two decades and helped form the Murder, Inc. organization. Born in Odesa, then part of the Russian Empire (now Ukraine), Shapiro and Buchalter became linked to Meyer Lansky, Lucky Luciano, and Arnold Rothstein as they moved into criminal power.

They started in the Garment District by working for Jacob Orgen, infiltrating unions and extorting both unions and clothing manufacturers to skim money from dues. After Orgen allied with Jack "Legs" Diamond, Shapiro and Buchalter moved to take over his operation. On October 15, 1927, Orgen was killed and Diamond was wounded in a shooting that helped Shapiro and Buchalter seize control. They built a large criminal monopoly by terrorizing unions and businesses.

Murder, Inc. grew as the enforcement arm of the National Crime Syndicate, a broader crime alliance created by Luciano and Lansky in 1929 to reduce violent gang wars. The Syndicate opposed mass violence against prosecutors, but in the early 1930s U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Dewey began cracking down on organized crime. Dutch Schultz proposed killing Dewey, but the Syndicate rejected the plan; Schultz was later killed by Murder, Inc. in 1935.

Dewey’s investigations put Shapiro and Buchalter in the crosshairs. In October 1936 they were convicted under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and sent to Sing Sing Prison for two years. Shapiro hid for a year before surrendering to the FBI on April 14, 1938. On May 5, 1944, he was convicted again of conspiracy and extortion and sentenced to 15 years to life.

Meanwhile, Buchalter was executed in Sing Sing on March 4, 1944. Shapiro remained in prison until his death, which occurred from a heart attack (coronary thrombosis) on June 9, 1947, at Sing Sing. He believed that if Dewey had been killed, they would have stayed free. Shapiro is buried in Montefiore Cemetery.