Murder, Inc.

Murder, Inc. (or Murder Incorporated or the Brownsville Boys; known in syndicate circles as The Combination) was the name given by the press to organized crime groups in the 1930s through the 1940s that acted as the "enforcement arm" of the American Mafia and Jewish Mafia, the early organized crime groups in New York and elsewhere. Originally headed by Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, and later by Albert "The Mad Hatter" Anastasia, Murder, Inc. was responsible for between 400 and 1,000 contract killings, until the group was exposed in the early 1940s by informer and group member Abe "Kid Twist" Reles. In the trials that followed, many members were convicted and executed, and Abe Reles himself died mysteriously after falling out of a window.