Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel was born on February 28, 1906, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the second of five children in an impoverished Jewish immigrant family. His early life steamrolled into crime—he dropped out of school young, joining local gangs and developing protection rackets that terrorized local pushcart vendors.

It was in those seedling years that he forged a lifelong partnership with Meyer Lansky. Together they formed the Bugs and Meyer Mob, specializing in hijacking, bootlegging, and murder.

Siegel's mixture of charisma and lethal instinct caught the attention of the New York mob elite—leading to his alleged involvement in the critical 1931 hits that reshaped organized crime: first, taking out Joe Masseria on April 15, then eliminating Salvatore Maranzano on September 10—all paving the road for Lucky Luciano’s Syndicate reign.

Though he danced lively through mob circles, law enforcement rode close behind. His only legal defeat came on February 28, 1932, when he was fined $100 for gambling and vagrancy.

In the tough streets of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a teenage Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and Meyer Lansky forged an unlikely but powerful partnership. Lansky, the brains with a knack for mechanics, teamed up with Siegel’s raw brutality to form the Bugs and Meyer Mob, one of the era's most formidable Jewish-American gangs.
They specialized in bootlegging, car theft, hijacking liquor trucks, running protection rackets, and delivering violent hits—years before Murder, Inc. stood up shop .

Siegel’s empire slowly shifted west. In Southern California, he expanded his reach through numbers rackets, prostitution rings, and ties to Hollywood’s glamorous elite—and even consorting with iconic stars like George Raft and Clark Gable. At the same time, his romantic view of weaponry took him to Italy, where he famously tried (and failed spectacularly) to sell a bizarre explosive called "atomite" to Mussolini.

The crown jewel—or crime crown—of Siegel's career was his takeover of the Flamingo Hotel project in Las Vegas. Originally started by William Wilkerson, the project was lagging due to lack of funding. Siegel, with backing from Lansky and other syndicate figures, stepped in, wresting control and overseeing the project's explosive growth in cost—from a planned $1–1.5 million to a staggering $6 million. He built the Flamingo in excess, fashion, and influence; telling nervous contractors, “Don’t worry... we only kill each other.”

When the Flamingo opened on December 26, 1946, it was a glitzy debut—but hemorrhaged cash. It shuttered by February, then reopened by March 1, 1947, finally turning profit—but mob patience had worn thin. Skimming allegations, out-of-control spending, and Virginia Hill’s frequent trips to European banks set syndicate leaders on edge. 

On June 20, 1947, Siegel died dramatically. Reading the newspaper in Virginia Hill’s Beverly Hills mansion, he was ambushed by a sniper wielding an M1 carbine—shot four times, including two in his head.