Crime in New York City Southern Italian emigration. Lucky Luciano established Cosa Nostra in Manhattan, forming alliances with other criminal enterprises, including the Jewish mob, led by Meyer Lansky, the leading Jewish gangster of that period. from 1920 to 1933, Prohibition helped create a thriving black market in liquor, upon which the Mafia was quick to capitalize. Since 1990, crime in Manhattan has plummeted in all categories tracked by the CompStat profile. A borough that saw 503 murders in 1990 has seen a drop of nearly 88% to 62 in 2008. Robbery and burglary are down by more than 80% during the period, and auto
Edward Isaac Ezra Ezra brothers squandered the family fortune and by the mid-1920s had decided to trafficking in illicit drugs." After 1925 Judah and Isaac both moved to San Francisco, where they were among the very first to import narcotics from Asia to the United States. The Ezra brothers formed a connection with Italian Mafiosi Antone "Black Tony" Parmiagni, Charles "Lucky" Luciano and Frank Costello, Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky, and with Ye Ching Ho (Pinyin: Ye Qinghe), also known as Paul Yip (or Paul Yi), an agent of Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang and with the approval of Chiang's Nationalist government, "which relied on opium