izzy and moe, federal anti-booze agents

One hundred years ago today … Isidore Einstein and Moe Smith were crack agents in the Bureau of Investigation’s attempt to stem the spread of illegal hootch. As members of the “Flying Squadron of James Shevlin, they made a bust at 199 Green Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The News shouted it out.

Note: we previously introduced “Izzy” Einstein in our August 12 post.

The duo were unlikely law enforcement agents.

Entering 1920, at the start of Prohibition, Einstein was a 40 year-old postal clerk who was hesitantly hired by Shevlin on the grounds that he could convincingly go undercover as a customer at illegal alcohol purveyors.

In his 1966 The Epic of New York: A Narrative History, Edward Robb Ellis offers a lengthy depiction of the duo. Einstein joined first the force first, and then roped in his friend Smith, who owned a cigar store.

They wore disguises. They used offbeat approaches. They never looked like Prohibition agents. Izzy disguised himself as a longshoreman, Park Avenue dude, poultry salesman, and football player and even blackened his face with burnt court to resemble a Negro. . . . For more than five years newspaper readers chuckled over the antics of the two rolypoly agents. They were the best Prohibition agents in the service. They confiscated 5,000,000 bottles of liquor, woth $15,000,000, and thousands of gallons of booze in kegs and barrels. (518-9)



The pair apparently annoyed their bosses by drawing too much media attention, and were fired in 1925.

But in September, 1920, Izzy and Moe were just getting started, and just starting to appear in newspaper writeups, such as when they targeted Murray’s on West 43 Street.

Reference/further reading:

Ellis, Edward Robb. The Epic of New York City. New York: Basic Books, 1966.

WRITTEN BY JONATHAN GOLDMAN, SEPTEMBER 9, 2020.

TAGS: law enforcement, federal, Volstead, alchohol, crime, celebrity