Danny Greene: The Irish Mobster

Unlike most mobsters, Danny Greene did not start out in organized crime. In fact, he started out as a longshoremen working on the docks of Cleveland's lucrative transport/export industry. He earned a repetition of a tough guy who had no problem with roughing up some people for whatever the reason.

After a lot of hard work and gained respect from his work ethic and attitude - Greene became a union organizer and eventually when the union boss job title was available - he was a shoe in.

After becoming the union boss, he gained great respect from people in higher societies including government officials, rich business owners and also interested mobsters.


But it was the time that he spent with corrupt mobsters that influenced him the most. Greene liked the money that he saw and decided to take some plays out of the mobs playbook. He starting renovating the whole union office. The only problem was a lot of the money he was receiving for renovation and other projects were going right into his own pocket. Even when the renovation were over he kept receiving money for them and kept stuffing the money right into his pockets. He also ran many other rackets on the docks that were illegal with no real worry of being caught or brought up on charges - it was said he was so confident he never even really tried to hide it.
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He gained so much confidence because of something he called the grievance comity. A bunch of tough roughneck deckhand workers that would visit you if you had a problem with the way Greene was running things. These were not people you wanted to see unless you wanted to take a beating until you decided your problem was solved.

Eventually, this activity would earn him an investigation. With the way he carelessly embezzled his money, it was not that hard to indict Greene and convict him of the crimes. But Greene received nothing more than a slap on the wrist. A $10,000 fine and a loss of his job would be the only penalties he would receive for his corruption.

After that, it was not hard for Greene to find work. One of the most powerful mobster in Cleveland, Alex "Shondor" Birns, approached him and asked him to be his muscle. Greene already liking what he had seen from the mob so far, agreed. After a while of doing work for the mob - Birns approached Greene and asked him to do his first murder. Greene agreed and suggested to use a bomb. A bomb would take care of the evidence and would surely get the job done. Birns liked the idea and okayed Greene to move forward.

The only problem was Greene botched the bombing and nearly blew himself up by accidentally letting the bomb blow up in his car. When questioned by authorities, he said someone just came by and threw a bomb in the window of his parked car - he shrugged it off and told authorities, he survived because "It's the luck of the Irish".

After the botched attempt, there was still more work for Greene, including using his muscle to influence the Cleveland garbage system in the mobs favor. But there was one job that Greene was asked to do that would change his relationship with the mob forever.

He was asked to work with a partner that Birns had set up for him - Greene obliged. The only problem was the partner turned out to be a drug dealer. Birns fronted over $70,000.00 dollars for a job, but the drug dealer spent the money on cocaine to double the profit of the job. Unfortunately, cops would raid the apartment of the drug dealer and the partner ended up dumping the coke and losing Birns' money and the profit.


This issue put Greene in a sticky situation. Birns wanted Greene to pay back the $70,000.00 since the partner and the money was unreachable. Greene reluctantly refused because he believed since the drug dealer was Brims' guy, it should be Brims' loss. In the underworld - a situation like this only ends in one or two ways - someone pays or someone dies.

Birns put a $25,000.00 hit on Greene's head and gave the contract to whoever wanted to take it.

This would ignite a war between the mob and Greene and his group of Irish pals he put together called the Celtic Club. The club was mainly made up of Irish gangsters standing their ground and standing proud for their Irish heritage. Greene would have several attempts made on his life which he survived - always saying "It's the luck of the Irish".

A bloody war would erupt between the two groups; bombs were frequently used for a means of murder. But one of the most important bombs took place in 1975, right outside of Birns' favorite bar and across the street from a church. After finishing a drink, Birns walked to his car and started it up - Birns' car blew up in the streets of Cleveland on the eve of Easter. One of Cleveland's biggest mob/underworld figures was dead.

This only promoted the war between the mob and Greene - more bombs and more murders ensued. Everyone wanted Greene to tell his crew to stand-down, even his investigating detective asked him to stand-down for his own safety because the mob was known for never backing down and he was sure to find himself blown up as well. But Greene had no interest, he said he would never back down to the mob and said he was hell-bent on running the mob out of Cleveland.

After more bloodshed and the bombing and murder of Greene's number two-man,  Greene was still not deterred. Greene often stood out in the open perhaps taunting his enemies. He never really laid low and even was brought up on manslaughter charges after being shot at and returning fire killing the would-be assassin - charges were later dropped. His place where he lived was blown up while he was in it - again he escaped using the old saying "it's the luck of the Irish".


But the luck would run out. As Greene walked to his car October 6, 1977, in Lyndhurst, Ohio, a bomb was set off and the green light on Greene's head was finally over (the Irishman was dead.)


In the wake of Greene's death, his wish final came true. He went to war to get the mob out of Cleveland so he could have the turf; he may have never got the Cleveland turf, but for the most part neither did the mob. Thanks to the apprehension and corporation of an out-of-town mobster, Ray Ferritto, who placed the bomb in Greene's car and set it off - because of his testimony, roughly 22 Cleveland organized crime figures were convicted and sent to prison. Since then Cleveland has been a much quieter place.