A Las Vegas media empire funded with profits from smuggling arms to Jewish guerrillas in Palestine? Sounds about right. Recently declassified FBI documents on the case of legendary newspaper editor and onetime mob associate Hank Greenspun have been posted by Grant Smith’s Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy..
…The 775 pages of documents detail the story of how Greenspun parlayed profits from illegal gun-running into a Las Vegas media empire, according to IRmep. Greenspun was the long time owner and editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal turned Las Vegas Sun newspaper…Greenspun’s smuggling career evidently began in the late 1940s when he and associates stole 58 crates of .30 and .50 caliber machine guns from the U.S. Navy and smuggled them from Honolulu through Mexico to Jewish fighters in Palestine, IRmep said.
With a 10% kickback from the deals, Greenspun amassed a fortune of over $500,000 in just a few years, the documents show, enabling him to purchase his newspaper in 1950. He was eventually found guilty of violation of the Neutrality Act, but handed only a slap on the wrist–a $10,000 fine and zero jail time… More
