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How Did The Purple Gang Lose Their Power?

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"These boys are not like other children of their age, they're tainted, off color."(Wikipedia) a suggestion that the “Purple gang” was named after one of the first leaders named Sammy Purple. “The Detroit News reported that the gang didn’t start up until 1919” (Jones “The Color Purple: Detroit’s Early Mob”) The Purple gang had started before the prohibition of producing alcohol. When the Detroit issued the law is when the gang started to operate as bootleggers. How did the purple gang lose their power? (Not including prohibition) They were strong and popular in Detroit and parts of Canada. Everyone feared them but respected what they were doing. But many respected them for starting the illegal bootlegging. Many wanted to compete with them …show more content…

On January 17, 1920, the city of Detroit banned liquor. Instead of making things better for the community mobsters had other ideas and saw this as an opportunity. The Purple gang was born out of this event. The Purple gang started bootlegging liquor and drugs. The only way to get is was to through the Purple gang. The Purple gang started and saw how successful the bootlegging business became since Detroit’s ban. When the gang got bigger they decided to expand their business ideas. Like hiring out gang members as hitmen. The Purple gang got their liquor from Canada and Toledo Ohio. In Canada it was legal to produce alcohol. The Canadian producers send it under water through Lake Huron and members of the Purple gang would pick it up. In Toledo it was illegal so they had to produce it secretly and send it to Detroit. The Purple gang was a predominantly Jewish gang. They operated in the 1920s to the 1930s. Towards the end the gang started to collapse due to gang wars and the members became vulnerable and started to flee. Not many of the member made it out of Detroit without a punishment. The purple gang had members like Henry Shorr who was a one-time partial boss and was killed by fellow gang members. The Purple gang had many betrayals towards the end of the gang’s

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It was easy for authorities to find and obtain the alcohol since it was just in the open. Bootleggers then had to find ways to hide the alcohol in their vehicles so it was not in the open when they transported it. To do this bootleggers began modifying their vehicles, they found ways to the hide the alcohol in the bumpers of their vehicles. They also modified their cars to have secret compartments in the trunks, seats, and many other places.

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People would spend ridiculous amounts of money on alcohol because they wouldn’t know the next time they could get it, even at the cost of them getting into legal trouble. Many people didn’t care if they could get in trouble for having it. Once you were in the business of bootlegging there was no leaving because the money was great and people. Low ranked Bootleggers would get trapped in the business selling it. Also there bosses were very intimidating that they were scared that they would be killed for quitting.

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