In 1947, Opium was sent "across" in small "cans" holding six ounces, these would be sold for $250.00 each. On July 5th it was announced that the Mexico crop of opium exceeded a record 32 tons or more near the U.S.Border. Although Mexican pilots flew south, few ventured north because of the risk transporting drugs by air even though the Custom and Naroctics Bureaus of the Treasury Department had no planes of their own in 1947. Starting scheduled flights into the U.S. would enable large profits to be made by those will to take the risks.
Money generated by the sale of drugs required laundering, and gambling was one way to do that. In November 1946, gangster Paul Roland Jones approached Sheriff Steve Guthrie of Dallas and promised him a starting salary of $150,000 a year if he allowed his friends from Chicago to bring slot machines and floating crap games into Dallas. Jones said that his boss Jack Ruby was in charge of this operation and that he was due to arrive in the spring of 1947. Guthrie said he would think it over and agreed to another meeting. However, Guthrie was an honest man and turned to the Texas Rangers for help.
Led by W. E. "Dub" Naylor, the Rangers made a secret tape recording of the second meeting between Jones and Guthrie. It took a month to gather enough evidence to arrest or drive out these gangsters. Among those arrested was Jack's sister, Eva Ruby, the owner of a restaurant in Dallas and a partner in sending opium to Chicago. Victory over these mobsters was short-lived, for Jack Ruby arrived the following year and started various gambling enterprises around the city.
During this same period Jack Ruby was involved in counterintelligence. Officially, he was an aircraft mechanic in the Army Air Corps from May 1943 until February 1946 at various bases in the South. His brother Sam was also in the Air Corps as an informer, keeping an eye on communists and nazis and writing letters to his brother Jack about his observations. Although Sam wrote the letters as if they were to his brother, he actually addressed the envelopes to a counterintelligence officer.
On three separate occasions in about summer 1943, early 1944, and early 1947, Ruby went to a union hall in Muncie, Indiana to participate in meetings with communists. The union hall was on the third story of a three-story building, where gambling often happened during evenings and weekends. Ruby met with Russian Jews, some of whom were communists.
In 1947 Joe Campisi and his brother Sam Campisi bought the Idle Hour Bar in Dallas. This was the year the Campisis first met Ruby.
Additionally, Ruby was an informer for the FBN (Federal Bureau of Narcotics). After the shooting of Oswald, Mort Benjamin, an FBN agent in New York, found a file showing that Ruby had been an informer since the 1940s. When Benjamin returned to read the file again, it was missing. Apparently, someone had taken every document related to the FBN's relationship with Ruby and destroyed it.
Ruby's work as an informer is comparable to that of an employee at the TSBD (Texas School Book Depository). Joe Molina, credit manager for the TSBD since February 1947, knew Bill Lowery, an undercover agent for the FBI. In 1955 Molina and Lowery became interested in a leftist group called the American GI Forum, an organization that had the goal of fighting injustices perpetrated against people of Mexican descent. Molina and Lowery were among six individuals who formed the Dallas chapter of the GI Forum. The following year Lowery nominated Molina as chairman.
Money generated by the sale of drugs required laundering, and gambling was one way to do that. In November 1946, gangster Paul Roland Jones approached Sheriff Steve Guthrie of Dallas and promised him a starting salary of $150,000 a year if he allowed his friends from Chicago to bring slot machines and floating crap games into Dallas. Jones said that his boss Jack Ruby was in charge of this operation and that he was due to arrive in the spring of 1947. Guthrie said he would think it over and agreed to another meeting. However, Guthrie was an honest man and turned to the Texas Rangers for help.
Led by W. E. "Dub" Naylor, the Rangers made a secret tape recording of the second meeting between Jones and Guthrie. It took a month to gather enough evidence to arrest or drive out these gangsters. Among those arrested was Jack's sister, Eva Ruby, the owner of a restaurant in Dallas and a partner in sending opium to Chicago. Victory over these mobsters was short-lived, for Jack Ruby arrived the following year and started various gambling enterprises around the city.
During this same period Jack Ruby was involved in counterintelligence. Officially, he was an aircraft mechanic in the Army Air Corps from May 1943 until February 1946 at various bases in the South. His brother Sam was also in the Air Corps as an informer, keeping an eye on communists and nazis and writing letters to his brother Jack about his observations. Although Sam wrote the letters as if they were to his brother, he actually addressed the envelopes to a counterintelligence officer.
On three separate occasions in about summer 1943, early 1944, and early 1947, Ruby went to a union hall in Muncie, Indiana to participate in meetings with communists. The union hall was on the third story of a three-story building, where gambling often happened during evenings and weekends. Ruby met with Russian Jews, some of whom were communists.
In 1947 Joe Campisi and his brother Sam Campisi bought the Idle Hour Bar in Dallas. This was the year the Campisis first met Ruby.
Additionally, Ruby was an informer for the FBN (Federal Bureau of Narcotics). After the shooting of Oswald, Mort Benjamin, an FBN agent in New York, found a file showing that Ruby had been an informer since the 1940s. When Benjamin returned to read the file again, it was missing. Apparently, someone had taken every document related to the FBN's relationship with Ruby and destroyed it.
Ruby's work as an informer is comparable to that of an employee at the TSBD (Texas School Book Depository). Joe Molina, credit manager for the TSBD since February 1947, knew Bill Lowery, an undercover agent for the FBI. In 1955 Molina and Lowery became interested in a leftist group called the American GI Forum, an organization that had the goal of fighting injustices perpetrated against people of Mexican descent. Molina and Lowery were among six individuals who formed the Dallas chapter of the GI Forum. The following year Lowery nominated Molina as chairman.
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