# Detroit Special Agent in Charge's letter on organized crime conditions in Detroit (17 June 1939)

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/fbi-vault-purple-gang-p03-detroit-conditions-letter-1939/

John S. Bugas, Special Agent in Charge at Detroit, answers a Bureau request for current organized crime conditions. Under 'Gangs in Detroit' he calls Abe Bernstein 'the original head of the Purple Gang' and names his brothers Joe, Izzie and Raymond.

The letter is headed Post Office Box 2118, Detroit, Michigan, June 17, 1939, addressed to Inspector M. E. Gurnea in New York, and signed John S. Bugas, Special Agent in Charge. It answers a Bureau letter of June 10, 1939 "in which this office was instructed to submit current information relative to general organized crime conditions in Detroit." It covers the Detroit police, prostitution, gambling and numbers, and a race-track arrangement before reaching the section shown above.

Under "Gangs in Detroit" it says: "At present there are no known gangs or mobs of hoodlums operating as such in Detroit. Detroit, four or five years ago, was the headquarters for the notorious Purple Gang that operated for a while and controlled a great number of illicit and semi-illicit activities in this area." It says the gang "was dissolved through the activities of the Detroit Police Department" and that its remnants had turned to "handbooks, big money gambling, the numbers racket, and like operations." It continues: "The original head of the Purple Gang, ABE BERNSTEIN, presently resides at the Book Cadillac Hotel, Detroit, Michigan, and receives a very substantial income from the race track wire service in Detroit."

On the next page: "ABE's two brothers, JOE and IZZIE BERNSTEIN, are alleged to be affiliated with him in wire service activities. A fourth brother, RAYMOND, is said to be in the Michigan State Prison, Marquette, Michigan, where he was sent as a result of his participation in the killing of three CAPONE gangsters in the Collingwood Massacre." It names Izzie Swartz and Charlie Leiter as "two lieutenants of BERNSTEIN's in the old Purple Gang." The letter goes on to an allegation about a later killing, attributed only to what "has been stated"; this page does not repeat it. Several names are redacted under FOIA exemption (b)(7)(C).

The letter is the Detroit office's own summary, drawn from informants and agents. The description of the Collingwood victims as "CAPONE gangsters" is the letter's wording. No court record of the Collingwood case is filed here.

## Sources

- FBI Records: The Vault, Purple Gang Part 03, pp. 62-64: https://vault.fbi.gov/Purple%20Gang%20%28aka%20Sugar%20House%20Gang%29/Purple%20Gang%20%28aka%20Sugar%20House%20Gang%29%20Part%2003/view