CRIME CRAWL · ORGANIZED CRIME PATH
Follow three documented turning points through Detroit's Prohibition-era underworld—from labor racketeering to gang warfare and the convictions that helped break the organization.
THE PATH: The Purple Gang did not emerge from one event, and it did not disappear after one prosecution. These three files show an organization using coercion in a legitimate industry, becoming associated with spectacular gang violence, and finally losing leading members to prison. The path supplies Detroit history without entering Ralph Palmer's later investigations.
BEFORE THE HEADLINES
The Purple Gang grew through place, opportunity and criminal partnerships. No single incident created its power; each stage widened the field in which its members could operate.
The gang's core developed among young men from Detroit's lower east side. Historical accounts connect some early members to Bishop School and describe the group first as the Sugar House Boys or Sugar House Gang. The Burnstein brothers—Raymond, Joseph, Isadore and Abraham—later became central figures.
Canada sat across a narrow international border while American Prohibition created enormous demand. Purple Gang members hijacked liquor moving across the Detroit River and became participants in wider smuggling and distribution networks.
FOLLOW PROHIBITION DETROIT →The gang remained a loose criminal confederation rather than a public institution with a formal chart. Its influence extended through gambling, protection, labor racketeering and violence. Fear discouraged witnesses, while criminal and business connections broadened its reach.
THREE DOCUMENTED STOPS
A gang-connected association pressured Detroit cleaning businesses to join, pay and follow its price structure. Historical accounts describe intimidation, property damage, assault and bombing during the campaign. Thirteen defendants were tried for extortion in 1928 and acquitted.
OPEN THE FULL FILE →Three men were killed in a Detroit apartment building in a case associated with Purple Gang warfare. The event became known for the use of a machine gun. This path does not publish an exact apartment pin until a stronger location record is secured.
OPEN THE FULL FILE →Joe Lebowitz, Hymie Paul and Isadore Sutker were killed at Apartment 211, 1740 Collingwood Avenue. Sol Levine later testified. Ray Burnstein, Harry Keywell and Irving Milberg received life sentences, and the case became a turning point in the Purple Gang's decline.
OPEN THE FULL CRIME FILE →WHEN POWER FRACTURED
The Purple Gang's decline was not one clean ending. Internal violence, testimony, convictions, deaths and competing organizations steadily reduced its collective control.
Sol Levine's testimony helped produce life sentences for Ray Burnstein, Harry Keywell and Irving Milberg. Removing central figures weakened an organization that had long benefited from frightened or unavailable witnesses.
OPEN COLLINGWOOD MANOR →By approximately 1935, historical accounts describe the alliance as splintered. Members had been killed, imprisoned or divided by rivalry. Other organizations occupied parts of the underworld the Purples no longer controlled, although individual former members continued criminal activity afterward.
PHOTO & SOURCE NOTE
These photographs establish atmosphere and identifiable Purple Gang context; neither is presented as a photograph of the Cleaners and Dyers attacks, the Milaflores killings or the Collingwood Manor crime scene. Historical wording is assembled from multiple records and remains inside this website. READ OUR SOURCE NOTES →
CONTINUE IN THIS CATEGORY