George "Bugs" Moran
The subject of a three-part FBI file. A 1946 memorandum for the Attorney General calls him "formerly the leader" of the Chicago North Side gang; newspapers of 1925 to 1930 reported him charged in the Torrio shooting in 1925 and missing in 1930, and a 1929 feature said the February garage killings had been aimed at him.
- Aliases
- Bugs Moran, George C. Moran (1946 FBI memorandum)
- Role
- "formerly the lea[der of] the Chicago North Side gang which was the rival of the Capone gang in the late 1920's and early 1930's" (FBI memorandum for the Attorney General, 8 January 1946; the Bureau's statement, not a court finding)
- Rights
- Biography on this page is limited to what the cited FBI records, works of the United States government in the public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105, and the filed newspaper pages of 1930 or earlier state. Press statements are labelled as such.
On the record
- 1925-01-27 — Associated Press, Evening Star, 28 January 1925: "George Moran, pal of O'Banion, was charged last night with having attacked Torrio," although Torrio and his wife denied Moran was in the car. A press report of a police charge.
- 1929-12-03 — Bruce Catton, NEA feature, Washington Daily News: Moran "succeeded Weiss, taking up the fallen leader's mantle," and the February 1929 garage attack "had been aimed at Bugs Moran." A journalist's account.
- 1930-06-09 — International News Service, Washington Times: police were searching for "George "Bugs" Moran, gang leader, and five other enemies" of the Capone forces, and friends and police believed he might have been killed. A press report of rumor.
- 1932-06-12 — Bureau of Investigation memorandum of 19 July 1932 (Vault Part 01, read on the page images): agents near Antioch, Illinois, were approached by two men whom they later identified from a Chicago police showup and photographs as "George "Bugs" Moran" and a man whose name is redacted, "Bugs Moran being the one who drew a revolver on Agents." The agents' own report; no charge appears in the pages read.
- 1946-01-08 — Memorandum for the Attorney General signed by J. Edgar Hoover (Vault Part 02, read on the page images): George C. Moran of Owensboro, Kentucky, said to lead a group of bank burglars in four states, "has been definitely identified as George "Bugs" Moran." It asks authority for a technical surveillance of his residence. A statement of the Bureau's information, not a charge.
The role line quotes the FBI’s 1946 memorandum; a received stamp covers part of the word “leader of,” and the bracketed letters supply it. The memorandum states what the Bureau understood in 1946. The newspaper statements in the events list are journalists’ and police claims, labelled as such.
No record filed here gives Moran’s dates of birth or death, his later prosecution, or his imprisonment. The memorandum prints a residential street address in Owensboro; it is not repeated on this site. A National Archives photograph catalogued as “George Moran,” Leavenworth inmate No. 2307, belongs to an earlier inmate series and is not this man.
Records
itemFBI Vault, George (Bugs) Moran, Part 01: Bureau of Investigation memorandum of July 19, 1932The first part of the FBI's Moran file. Its legible core is a two-page memorandum reporting that on June 12, 1932 two men approached agents near Antioch, Illinois, one of them drawing a gun, and that agents later identified the two from Chicago police photographs as George "Bugs" Moran and a second man whose name is redacted.
itemFBI Vault, George (Bugs) Moran, Part 02: memorandum for the Attorney General, January 8, 1946A two-page memorandum over J. Edgar Hoover's name telling the Attorney General that a resident of Owensboro, Kentucky named as the leader of a group of bank burglars had been "definitely identified as George "Bugs" Moran," and asking authority for a technical surveillance of his residence.
itemFBI Vault, George (Bugs) Moran, Part 03 (Final): teletype, routing slips and newspaper clippings, 1950sThe last part of the FBI's Moran file: a largely illegible teletype, Bureau routing slips, and clipped newspaper articles from the 1950s. The clippings are not quoted or reproduced here.
clippingEvening Star, 28 January 1925, page 3: Gang 'Lord' Dying, Avengers GatherAn Associated Press story from Chicago on John Torrio's condition after he was shot, reporting that George Moran, "pal of O'Banion," had been charged with the attack and that Vincent Drucci and Earl Weiss were in custody.
clippingWashington Daily News, 3 December 1929, page 8: Imprisonment Costs Capone His Rule of Chicago RacketsA Newspaper Enterprise Association feature by Bruce Catton on the Chicago rackets while Al Capone was in prison, with a photograph captioned "'Bugs' Moran, above, rising star of Chicago gangdom." The claims in it are the writer's.
clippingWashington Times, 9 June 1930, page 1: "Bugs" Moran and 5 Pals MissingAn International News Service dispatch from Chicago reporting a shooting, a police search for George "Bugs" Moran and five others, and a dated list of killings between May 31 and June 9, 1930.
clippingEvening Star, 14 February 1929, page 1: Seven massacred as five posing as officers line up gangmenThe Evening Star's front page of 14 February 1929 carries the Associated Press report, filed the afternoon of the shooting, that seven men were shot in the rear of the S. M. C. Cartage Co. garage at 2122 North Clark street, Chicago.