# Meyer Lansky

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/people/meyer-lansky/

A 1952 Justice Department release in the FBI Vault states that he "allegedly has gambling interests in Hollywood, Miami, Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Las Vegas, Nev." He told the Kefauver Committee he had "the race track, and a casino, Nationale" in Havana from 1937 until the war, and FBI reports place him in Havana gambling until the revolution. An FBI Miami report records his March 1971 indictment on a charge of conspiring to skim profits from the Flamingo Hotel Casino.

This page is limited to the records cited. No federal record opened for this page states a family or rank for Lansky. Joseph Valachi's 1963 testimony that Lansky and Vito Genovese "do everything together" is a witness's opinion, not a placement in any family. A 1958 FBI New York report connects him with the "casino in the new Hotel Havana Riviera," but the line is a fragment after a withheld page, and a 1958 informant report that he "had a large interest in the casino" at the Hotel Nacional is relayed in a 1971 FBI summary; neither is a finding. The Justice Department release and the FBI reports state allegations and charges. They are not findings. An indictment is a charge, and the records opened do not give the outcome of the Flamingo case.

Newspaper statements that no one could operate in Havana without his approval, or that he was Batista's partner, are quoted in the Fifth Circuit's opinion in [Time, Inc. v. McLaney](/items/courtlistener-time-v-mclaney-406-f2d-565/) only as press clippings a reporter relied on; the court made no such finding, and this page does not adopt them. His Havana records are gathered on the [Havana](/havana/) page. Of the Vault's 27-part Lansky file, Parts 01 to 04 and 06 to 10 were read for Havana references and Parts 20 and 22 for the Flamingo case; the viewer would not open Part 05.

## Sources

- FBI Records: The Vault, Meyer Lansky: https://vault.fbi.gov/meyer-lansky/Meyer%20Lansky%20Part%2001/view
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, New York World-Telegram & Sun collection: "No known restrictions on publication for NYWT&S staff photographs." Call number NYWTS - BIOG--Lansky, Meyer--Gangster; reproduction number LC-USZ62-120718.: https://www.loc.gov/item/98506512/
- Kefauver Committee, Hearings, Part 7: New York-New Jersey (Lansky testimony, October 11, 1950), Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/investigationofo07unit
- Turkish v. Kasenetz, 832 F. Supp. 565 (E.D.N.Y. 1993), CourtListener (background statement on a 1971 plea): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1428694/turkish-v-kasenetz/