Albert “Allie” Tannenbaum, born January 17, 1906, in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, grew up immersed in the working-class reality of early 20th-century America. At age three, his family moved to Manhattan’s Lower East Side, before settling in Brooklyn, where he left school at 17. His early jobs ranged from stock boy and salesman to a position at his father’s Loch Sheldrake Country Club.

At age 25, a fateful meeting with Jacob “Gurrah” Shapiro—a close associate of gangster Louis “Lepke” Buchalter—changed everything. Shapiro recognized Tannenbaum’s potential for underworld enforcement and introduced him to the Syndicate’s darker side.
He started as a strikebreaker and enforcer, earning $50 weekly—eventually rising to $125 per week as a full-fledged Murder, Inc. hitman.

Tannenbaum’s most infamous execution was that of Harry “Big Greenie” Greenberg in Los Angeles. Buchalter assigned the hit to eliminate a potential witness. Tannenbaum trailed Greenberg from Montreal to Detroit, finally catching up in L.A., where he killed him with help from Bugsy Siegel under Siegel’s supervision. 

Following his violent acts, Tannenbaum shifted roles, from executioner to informant. In 1940, he broke ranks with the Syndicate under pressure from Brooklyn prosecutors and provided testimony in key trials, such as those against Lepke Buchalter and Charles Workman for their roles in numerous mob executions, including the Dutch Schultz murder. His cooperation helped dismantle portions of Murder, Inc.’s powerhouse as the enforcement arm of the National Crime Syndicate.

In 1950, Tannenbaum reemerged as a criminal informant in the Jack Parisi murder trial. Even from Atlanta, where he was living at the time, he testified and provided insider context to the prosecution. Though the trial ended in acquittal, the case further emphasized Tannenbaum’s departure from the code of silence. Albert "Tick-Tock" Tannenbaum passed away in November 1976 at about 70 years old.