Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime

Record

Case file

1935/1957

FBI Records: The Vault

FBI Vault: Louis (Lepke) Buchalter, Part 01

First of four parts of the FBI's Buchalter file: a New York field report of August 1935 on the fur dressers antitrust case, a 1937 letter from the United States Attorney, the November 1937 report that names Shapiro and Buchalter as fugitives, and 1955 and 1956 Bureau summaries.

Date
1935/1957
Kind
case-file
Source
FBI Records: The Vault
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Rights
A record of the Federal Bureau of Investigation released under FOIA. A work of the United States government, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. No page image is stored here; the scans are at the Vault URL.

The Vault titles this part “Louis (Lepke) Buchalter Part 01.” It has 50 scanned pages and was read through the viewer’s OCR text; the page images were not checked one by one. Cover sheets carry the Bureau file numbers 62-9937 and 60-1501 (serials 64, 140X, 237 and 340). These are FBI file serials, not court dockets.

As far as the OCR can be read, the part holds a New York field report of August 1935 on the fur dressers antitrust investigation, which sets out the arrest records of Buchalter and Shapiro; a July 1936 Identification Division transcript; a November 1937 letter from the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York; a New York report of November 1937 whose title was changed to name Shapiro and Buchalter as fugitives; and Bureau memoranda of August 1955 and July 1956 that summarize the case. Pages 45 and 49 are FOIPA deleted-page sheets.

The reports name relatives and give addresses. This archive does not repeat them. The OCR is noisy, and only legible names and dates are given here. The Bureau’s later narrative of the case is in Part 03.

itemFBI Vault: Louis (Lepke) Buchalter, Part 02Second part of the FBI's Buchalter file, 1937 to 1939: a New York report on his background and finances, 1939 report pages, the Bureau memorandum of July 5, 1939 on the fugitive hunt, and a Los Angeles report on a search made in August 1939.itemFBI Vault: Louis (Lepke) Buchalter, Part 03Third part of the FBI's Buchalter file: the Bureau's narrative "The Furdress Case" ending with his surrender on August 24, 1939, Los Angeles report pages from 1939, a 1956 memorandum, a 1966 Portland memorandum, and pasted newspaper clippings. Page 16 is stored here.itemFBI Vault: Louis (Lepke) Buchalter, Part 04 (Final)Final part of the FBI's Buchalter file, Sub A Section 13: mostly newspaper clippings from August 1939 that the Bureau collected on the New York racketeering grand jury, the combined reward and the search, with later clippings on Shapiro.itemFur Dressers Case (FBI history page)The FBI's own account of its 1932 to 1939 antitrust investigation of the Protective Fur Dressers Corporation and the Fur Dressers Factor Corporation, in which Louis Buchalter and Jacob Shapiro were named defendants, through Buchalter's surrender on August 24, 1939.