Grady Gang

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Grady Gang was a New York sneak thief gang during the 1860s.

The Grady Gang was organized by fence John D. "Traveling Mike" Grady following the American Civil War. Operating in Broadway's "Thieves Exchange", Grady would regularly purchase around $10,000 in stolen goods. He soon formed his own gang from many of the prominent thieves of the decade including Billy "The Kid" Burke, "Boston" Pet Anderson, Hod Ennis, Eddie Pettengill, and Jake Rand. The gang's most successful theft was the robbery of $2 million in cash and bank certificates from financier Rufus L. Lord on March 7, 1866. By the end of the decade most of the gang members retired, however, Grady would continue operating as a fence. Later he competed against rival fence Marm Mandelbaum who had formed a gang of her own. Grady however bought out Mandelbaum by offering her gang members much higher prices then she could afford to pay and was quickly eliminated as a competitor.

[edit] References

• Asbury, Herbert. The Gangs of New York. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928. ISBN 1-56025-275-8
• Sifakis, Carl. Encyclopedia of American Crime, Facts On File, Inc.: New York, 1982.