Max Greenberg

Rum-running, Deceased Person

1883 – 1933

36

Who was Max Greenberg?

Max "Big Maxie" Greenberg was an American bootlegger and organized crime figure in Detroit, Michigan and later as a member of Egan's Rats in St. Louis. He oversaw the purchasing of sacramental wine from Orthodox rabbis, then allowed under the Volstead Act, which were sold to bootleggers in the St. Louis-Kansas City, Missouri area during Prohibition. He was also associated with mobsters in this particular method of acquiring illegal liquor including Waxey Gordon, Meyer Lansky and Arnold Rothstein.

By the early 1910s, Max Greenberg had joined the Egan's Rats and become one of their best members. Max, his brother Morris, and two others were suspected in the murder of Sam Mintz on December 5, 1914. It was disclosed that Mintz had informed on the boys in an arson/insurance scam they were running. Greenberg managed to beat the rap. Max Greenberg was also believed to have played a key role in the Rats' first known bank robbery, that of the Baden Bank on April 10, 1919. The take was $59,000.

Soon after the Baden bank heist, Max Greenberg, Ben Milner, and Edward "Big Red" Powers were sentenced to Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary on an interstate theft charge, stemming from the Egan-sponsored robbery of some railroad cars in Danville, Illinois. Egan gang boss William Egan and Missouri State Senator Michael Kinney managed to finagle the three men pardons from none other than President Woodrow Wilson himself.

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Born
1883
Detroit
Religion
  • Judaism
Nationality
  • United States of America
Profession
Died
Apr 12, 1933
Elizabeth

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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