The ones who are/were the richest/wealthiest do not advertise it, let it be known, freely spend their money, or are not that open about it like the people Barry wrote about it and others have been.
That's why I really don't post in these threads. There's no way of really knowing. Wiseguys don't leave financial records for posterity.
To that point: Hank Messick, a tabloid author, wrote in his book that Lansky was the richest and most powerful mobster--"worth $300 million." But Lansky was one of the rare few gangsters who had a competent biographer. Robert Lacey, in "Little Man - Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life," interviewed Messick, who said he heard the $300 million figure second-hand and ran with it. Lacey estimated that Lansky was worth $5 - $6 million at his peak--not chickenfeed then or now, but hardly the stuff of $300 million. "He was the accountant, not the boss," Lacey concluded. Too bad for Lansky: the Justice Dept. got incensed by the $300 million figure and harassed Lansky for the rest of his life.
Some OC writers believe that Louis (Lepke) Bucholter was the richest gangster in history. No way of confirming that.
