6 Meyer Lansky

Meyer Lansky was called the “mob’s accountant” as he was one of the major figures during the origin of organized crime in New York. He ran several casinos by making mobsters invest in them. His multimillion-dollar disaster led him to be charged with federal tax evasion in 1970. He was instrumental in the formation of a national crime syndicate.

During the pre-Prohibition days and immigrating from Russia, Meyer Lansky worked with New York City racketeers and mobs for the development of Las Vegas and Havana as open cities. He ran casinos in London and the Bahamas. He laundered his profits through Swiss banks. He was a key figure in the Jewish-Italian mob that came to be known as the “American Mafia.” 

He was known as the behind-the-scenes financier who avoided any attention. He used to work with Benjamin Siegel. Lansky was later found to have been ordered to kill him because of his meetings with crime figures in the US. He was the inspiration for Hyman Roth’s character in The Godfather, Part II. Lansky was eventually caught and convicted of tax evasion charges. (Source)

7 Arnold Rothstein

Arnold Rothstein, a Jewish gangster nicknamed “the Brain,” was infamous for drastically changing organizational corruption from a thuggish activity to a big business. He was involved in the 1919 World Series fix along with bootlegging and narcotics and corruption in professional athletics. He was one of the most powerful criminals, forged an empire, and was one of the wealthiest gangsters in history. 

Rothstein, at the age of 28, moved to Manhattan and established a casino where he had fixed many races and won. He had a huge network of informants and he was willing to pay huge sums for information. He was a millionaire by the time he was 30. 

His life was the inspiration for the movie The Great Gatsby. He became the kingpin of organized crime in the Prohibition Era after being a loan shark and a gambler when the US was banned from selling and manufacturing liquor. His connections helped him to an interesting position as a “fixer.” He was well known for carrying a large wad of $100 bills. He used to bet on anything except the weather, as he used to say he couldn’t control it. (Source)

8 John Dillinger

John Dillinger, during the Depression, was an American gangster who terrorized people by killing men, robbing banks, and staging three jailbreaks. His robbery gang was trained in military-level tactics with detailed getaway maps, modern weapons like submachine guns, and bulletproof vests. The FBI used up around two million dollars for his manhunt, which was way more than the 500,000 dollars he stole with his gang. 

John Dillinger was known as the “Jackrabbit” for the moves he had up his sleeve to get (Source) away from the police. The United States declared him as the first “Public Enemy # 1.” He was locked up in Michigan City where he learned planning of robberies with strategic thought and a high degree of precision. The Bureau of Investigation was ramped up into the FBI because of him.

After a very bold prison escape, his gang was gaining a substantial amount of notoriety. Newspapers wrote very highly of the gang’s training and discreteness. From 1933 to 1934, the gang committed several bank robberies in the Midwest. The heists were planned very meticulously. Once the gang members posed as an alarm-system sales rep to get into the vault and have access. Another time, they entered as a film crew who were shooting scenes from a bank robbery. 

9 Joseph Mengele

Joseph Mengele, the “Angel of Death,” was a physician who worked in the German concentration camp where he did deadly experiments on prisoners. He was one of the teams that selected victims for the gas chambers. He is a well-known war criminal who mass-murdered people for his brutal experiments. 

Mengele was a Nazi doctor who performed several unethical and deadly experiments at the Auschwitz death camps. He, being one of the most clever criminals of all time, supervised the selection of prisoners for either torturing or immediate extermination. He was eager to expand the medical field with some groundbreaking work. In the name of treatment, he injected thousands of inmates with petrol to chloroform to experiment with the after-effects. 

After he somehow managed to escape imprisonment after the war. He then moved several times and took several identities. A team of forensic experts was trying to find him, but all their efforts were in vain.

A reward of $100,000 was promised to anyone who gave information on the fugitive because of the global spike in the interest of catching him after several testimonials came out about his experiments. Many sightings of him were reported around the world, but he was never caught and allegedly died when he was living under another person’s identity. (Source)

10 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Theft

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Theft is the biggest art theft and the largest-value private property theft in modern history. The clever criminals posing as police officers tied up the guards to steal 13 works of art from the museum which was worth $500 million on March 18, 1990. None of the artworks were recovered, even after the FBI offered a $10 million reward for information regarding the theft. 

Isabella Stewart Gardner Heist is the largest property theft in the world. In the early hours of March 18th in 1990, uniformed police officers entered the museum saying they were responding to a distress call.

The guard followed protocol and let them in. As per the fake officer’s request, the security stepped away from the watch desk, which gave the opportunity for the fake officers to handcuff them. 

Around 13 valuable works were stolen, and the case is still on high priority. The heist was 81 minutes long, and the museum and FBI are still looking for leads to the case so that the art pieces can be returned. The museum still keeps the empty frames where the works were stolen in the hopes that they will return someday. (Source)