Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime
First page of the Detroit Special Agent in Charge's letter of 17 June 1939 on general organized crime conditions in Detroit, from the FBI Vault Purple Gang file, Part 03
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FBI Vault file on the Purple Gang (aka Sugar House Gang)

The FBI Vault's four-part release of Bureau file 62-HQ-29632 on the Detroit Purple Gang: 1932 to 1959 letters and memoranda from the Detroit, New York and Miami offices, mixed with newspaper clippings the Bureau pasted into the file.

Date
1932/1959
Kind
case-file
Source
FBI Records: The Vault
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Docket
Bureau file 62-HQ-29632 (printed on the Part 01 cover)
Rights
A record of the Federal Bureau of Investigation released under FOIA through the FBI Vault. A work of the United States government, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. Newspaper clippings that the Bureau pasted into the file are third-party material and are not reproduced here.

The Vault lists four parts under the title “Purple Gang (aka Sugar House Gang)”: Part 01 (59 scanned pages), Part 02 (97 pages, its cover headed “Purple Gang Cross-References”), Part 03 (98 pages) and Part 04 (Final, 96 pages). The Part 01 cover prints Bureau file number 62-HQ-29632. This archive read all four parts through the viewer’s OCR text layer and read the cited pages as images. The date range on this page is that of the documents read, not a catalog date.

Five documents from the file have their own pages here: the Detroit Bureau of Investigation letter of 25 March 1932 sending Detroit police photographs to New York during the Lindbergh inquiry, the New York office’s letter of 1 June 1932 on the same pictures, the Detroit letter of 28 November 1933 on the deaths of Abe Axler and Eddie Fletcher, the Detroit Special Agent in Charge’s survey of 17 June 1939 (the page shown above), and a Miami memorandum of April 1948.

Much of the file is newspaper clippings the Bureau collected, including a Washington Post item of February 1934, a New York Times item of April 1935 and a Detroit News retrospective of 28 November 1937. Those clippings are third-party newspaper content. They are not cleared and are not quoted here. Part 04 was surveyed only through OCR; its mid-1940s and 1950s memoranda and clippings were not checked against the images, and nothing on this site rests on them. Many later pages carry FBI redaction stamps.

itemDetroit Bureau of Investigation letter sending Purple Gang photographs to New York (25 March 1932)A three-page Bureau of Investigation letter from Detroit, written during the Lindbergh kidnapping inquiry, lists thirteen Detroit police photographs and states that all the men pictured except Joe Tocco 'are known to be ring leaders of the Purple Gang'.itemNew York Bureau of Investigation letter on the Purple Gang pictures in the Lindbergh inquiry (1 June 1932)Letter of E. J. Connelley, Special Agent in Charge at New York, enclosing for the Director 'a collective picture of the various members of the so-called Purple Gang in Detroit' and suggesting the pictures go to the New Jersey State Police.itemDetroit Bureau of Investigation letter on the deaths of Abe Axler and Eddie Fletcher (28 November 1933)Special Agent in Charge Wm. Larson at Detroit sends the Director Detroit Times clippings on 'the murder of two alleged members of the Detroit Purple Gang, Abe Axler and Eddie Fletcher', with their Detroit police numbers.itemDetroit Special Agent in Charge's letter on organized crime conditions in Detroit (17 June 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.itemMiami office memorandum 'Detroit Purple Gang' (April 1948)An FBI office memorandum from the Special Agent in Charge at Miami to the Identification Division lists seven men, with aliases and police numbers, said 'according to information received by the Miami Office' to be 'presently members of the notorious DETROIT PURPLE GANG'.