Ronald (Ronnie) Kray and Reginald (Reggie) Kray were English organised crime figures, and identical twin brothers, who operated in the East End of London from the late 1950s until their arrest in 1968. With their gang, known as the Firm, the Kray twins were involved in murder, armed robbery, arson, protection rackets, gambling and assaults. At their peak in the 1960s, they gained a certain measure of celebrity status by mixing with prominent members of London society, being photographed by David Bailey and interviewed on television.
Jack "Spot" Comer was a Polish-born English gangster who rose to rule London's underworld.
William Charles "Billy" Hill was an English criminal, linked to smuggling, protection rackets and extreme violence. He was one of the foremost perpetrators of organised crime in London from the 1920s through to the 1960s. His gang managed cash robberies and, in a scam, defrauded London's high society of millions at the card tables of John Aspinall's Clermont Club.
The Irish Mob is a usually crime family-based ethnic collective of organized crime syndicates composed of primarily ethnic Irish members which operate primarily in Ireland, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, and have been in existence since the early 19th century. Originating in Irish-American street gangs – famously first depicted in Herbert Asbury's 1927 book, The Gangs of New York – the Irish Mob has appeared in most major U.S. and Canadian cities, especially in the Northeast and the urban industrial, including Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Chicago.
Francis Davidson Fraser, better known as "Mad" Frankie Fraser, was a diminutive English gangster who spent 42 years in prison for numerous violent offences.
Jack McVitie, best known as Jack the Hat, was an English criminal from London during the 1950s and 1960s. He is posthumously famous for triggering the imprisonment and downfall of the Kray twins. He had acted as an enforcer and hitman with links to The Firm, and was murdered by Reggie Kray in 1967.
The Clerkenwell Crime Syndicate, also known as the Adams Family or the A-team, is an English criminal organisation, allegedly one of the most powerful in the United Kingdom. Media reports have linked credited them with wealth of up to £200 million.
George Cornell was an English criminal and member of The Richardsons, who were scrap metal dealers and criminals from South London.
Charles "Darby" Sabini was a British-Italian mob boss and considered protector of Little Italy during the interwar years.
George Albert "Italian Al" Arthur Dimeo was a Scottish-Italian criminal and enforcer, who operated in Little Italy, London.
The Arifs are a south-east London-based Turkish criminal organization heavily involved in armed robbery, drug trafficking and other racketeering-related activities within London's underworld since the late 1960s. Following the downfall of the Kray brothers, the Arifs were one of several criminal organisations who took control of the London underworld including the Clerkenwell crime syndicate and the Brindle family with whom they were engaged in a highly publicised gangland war during the 1990s.
James Alfred Moody was an English gangster and hitman whose career spanned more than four decades and included run-ins with Jack Spot, Billy Hill, "Mad" Frankie Fraser, the Krays, the Richardsons and the Provisional IRA. Described by police detectives as "extremely professional" and "extremely intimidating", Moody's speciality was robbing armoured trucks and he used a chainsaw to saw through the side of security vehicles.
The one-armed bandit murder was a criminal case in the north east of England. The case involved the murder of Angus Sibbet in 1967. The ensuing trial resulted in life sentences for Dennis Stafford and Michael Luvaglio. Both men were released on licence 12 years later.
Freddie Foreman is an English publican, gangster, former associate of the Kray twins and convicted criminal.
British firms are organised crime groups originating in the United Kingdom.
Legend is a 2015 biographical crime thriller film written and directed by American director Brian Helgeland. It is adapted from John Pearson's book The Profession of Violence: The Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins, which deals with their career and the relationship that bound them together, and follows their gruesome career to life imprisonment in 1969.
The Astor Club was a nightclub which operated in Mayfair, London from the 1930s to the late 1970s. The haunt of royals and car dealers, gangsters and landed aristocrats, it was a fixture in London nightlife, with the most famous years of the club being the decades between 1950 and 1970. The Astor was one of the most prestigious of a number of nightclubs and "hostess clubs" which flourished particularly in the period between the end of the Second World War in 1945 and the opening of the 1960s and 1970s discothèques. Such watering-holes had almost all disappeared by the 1980s, when discos and nightclubs merged into the nocturnal "clubs" of those years, a situation which led up to the present-day London night-time economy.
Roberto Alberto Rossi was a British-Italian gangster and former associate of the Kray twins known as the "General of Clerkenwell". He stood trial for murder in 1975 but was acquitted. A journalist linked him to 11 murders, a figure which he did not dispute.
Joseph Henry Pyle, known as Joey Pyle or Joe Pyle, was an English gangland boss, convicted criminal, and pioneer and promoter of unlicensed boxing, who operated in London from the 1950s until his final arrest and conviction in 1992. An associate of the Krays and the Richardsons, and "one of the most feared members of the London underworld", he was known as the "London Don of Dons" by the New York Mafia. Less well known to the general public than many of his contemporaries in the underworld, Pyle was a key police target during his criminal career, but although arrested and charged many times, he seldom served time in prison, unlike many of the gangland figures with whom he was associated.
