The Kray Twins and the Jewish Roots of their Criminal Empire

Reginald and Ronald Kray, better known as Reggie and Ronnie Kray or the Kray twins, are the two most famous gangsters in British history. This is largely because both, and especially so in the case of Reggie, intentionally courted fame (1) as opposed to shunning the limelight as gangsters had previously done.

They were not small-time gangster since, as Fergus Linnane points out, the Krays ‘achieved local control in the East End in the 1950’s before moving into the protection, drinking club and gambling rackets of the West End.’ (2)

In addition it is worth noting that they expanded their criminal enterprise to the cities of Birmingham and Leicester before they were brought to book. (3) They were also heavily involved in the pornography business (4) and by the mid-1960s they ran over half of the illegal gambling dens in London. (5)

Now while I have noted elsewhere that the Krays themselves - probably through one of their grandmothers - are known to have had jewish ancestry and their father Charles Kray was an alcoholic ne’er-do-well gambler who refused - like his sons - to serve his country. (6)

What I have not mentioned however is that the rule of the Krays over the East End, in the light of their jewish pedigree, is not without serious precedent given that these same rackets were previously ruled by such gangsters of jewish origin as Jack ‘Spot’ Comer (born Jacob Colmore) (7) and Isaac Bogard (aka ‘Darky the Coon’) (8) from the early 1900s to the 1950s. Indeed these two individuals, Corner and Bogard, played an important, but oft hidden, role in the famous Battle of Cable Street against Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists in 1936. (9)

There were even wholly jewish gangs, such as the Bessarabians and the Odessians, who repeatedly fought over who got to the rule the protection rackets business in London’s East End. (10) In addition to such famous armed heists as the Heathrow Raid of 1948 (aka the Battle of Heathrow), lead by Jack ‘Spot’ Comer, by entirely jewish gang including such individuals as Sammy Josephs, Frank Daniels and Teddy Macher. (11)

When you add in that the half-Italian/half-jewish Sabini family ruled the entire British world of betting on horse-races in the 1930s with Alf Solomons as one of their major figures. (12) It becomes evident that the jewish heritage of the Kray twins is central to understanding their ascendancy in the jewish-dominated criminal underworld of Britain in the twentieth century.

A direct link comes in the fact that the Kray twins idolized Jack ‘Spot’ Comer and initially wanted to work for him in his largely jewish crime gang. (13) Instead Comer took them to the Epsom races as his bodyguards in 1955 and shortly afterwards retired to live a comfortable life on his ill-gotten gains. (14) This gap in the market (so to speak) served as the inspiration for the beginning of the meteoric rise of the Kray twins.

The close association of the Kray twins doesn’t end with their beginning their rise in the jewish dominated gangs of the London East End in 1955, but simply continues. A good example is their association with Peter Rachman, a vicious jewish property mogul and pornographer intimately involved in the notorious Profumo Affair, (15) whose methods have been described by Linnane thus:

‘Savage dogs were used to assault tenants, intolerable neighbours were installed, all-night noisy parties held and essential services cut off. When the sitting tenants were forced out the flats were let to prostitutes and West Indians at exorbitant rents. Some of the properties became brothels. He took rents totalling some £10,000 a year from a single house in Hereford Road, Paddington, and he owned between 80-100 properties. He also began running call girls.’ (16)

The association of the Kray twins with Rachman was as the muscle behind his velvet glove; the twins provided the brutal thuggery necessary to ethnically cleanse working class Britons from their neighbourhoods, while Rachman paid the twins protection money on his various properties in return. (17) Rachman also willingly provided intelligence to the twins about potential targets which they could use to expand their business interests.

One such case is Esmeralda’s Barn - a gambling club in Knightsbridge - in 1960 which Rachman believed would net the Kray twins a large income and where he believed the owner Stefan de Fay would easily agree to sell out if threatened by gangsters. (18) De Fay folded like a pack of cards when the marauding thugs sent by the Krays threatened him and sold up for £1,000 with the Krays proceeding to make £40,000 a year in profit. (19)

As such then it is clear that when we talk of the Kray twins and their criminal empire; we should also be very aware that the roots of this success were founded in the jewishness of both the Krays and the world of organized crime in London. It was - as we have seen - a connection that was maintained till the Krays were imprisoned for murder.

References

(1) John Pearson, 2001, ‘The Cult of Violence: The Untold Story of the Krays’, 1st Edition, Orion: London, p. 4
(2) Fergus Linnane, 2003, ‘The Encyclopedia of London Crime & Vice’, 1st Edition, Sutton: Stroud, p. 152
(3) Ibid, p. 153
(4) Fergus Linnane, 2000, ‘London’s Underworld: Three of Centuries of Vice and Crime’, 1st Edition, Robson: London, p. 175
(5) Ibid, p. 171
(6) See: S
(7) Pearson, Op. Cit., p. 17; Linnane, ‘Encyclopedia’, Op. Cit., p. 46
(8) Ibid, p. 29
(9) Ibid, pp. 46
(10) Ibid, p. 26
(11) Ibid, p. 129
(12) Ibid, pp. 21; 62; 239-240
(13) Linnane, ‘London’s Underworld’, Op. Cit., p. 166
(14) Ibid.
(15) Ibid, p. 220
(16) Linnane, ‘London’s Underworld’, Op. Cit., p. 220
(17) Linnane, ‘Encyclopedia’, Op. Cit., p. 157
(18) Ibid.; Linnane, ‘London’s Underworld’, Op. Cit., p. 170
(19) Linnane, ‘Encyclopedia’, Op. Cit., p. 157