In early 1927, it held up Nathan Wolf’s drugstore for the Eighth Opportunity and you can went out having $sixty inside the bucks

Given Tommy’s penchant to have enhancing their gangster bona fides, his version of incidents is probably overstated

Of the june out of 1926, the fresh new brothers were residing New york in an equipped area on second-floor away from a reddish-brick rowhouse toward West 11th Road. A week later, they robbed the newest Beck-Hazzard shoe shop, plus with the 8th Method, and you can took $twenty five. These were relatively small takes, but the brothers do later claim to have committed numerous so much more high-profile armed burglaries, along with one financial theft.

Tommy was in the new dense of trouble and you will invested six months from inside the solitary confinement

Yes, its factors lead these to the interest from the police. New york Cops Administrator Joseph An effective. Warren indexed this new Duffy Brothers into a long desired directory of holdup gangs, together with the loves of your own Laughing Group, the new Harlem Terrors (called new Sucker Group), and the Horror and you may Aspirin Gangmissioner Warren guaranteed to help you free new city of which scourge.

One to night inside the February 1927, the brand new brothers was in fact oiling their revolvers to set up for a beneficial holdup when one of the guns ran from and you will shot Joe when you look at the new remaining shoulder. Tommy hurried his sister so you can Saint Vincent’s Medical, but a few stops away. Indeed there, medical professionals treated brand new injuries – and you will called the Nyc Cops Agencies. Detectives arrested the fresh new Duffys and you can featured their place, in which they discover the newest revolvers. A research throughout the Nyc Every day News described the new Duffys because “immigrant brothers provided astray from the revolver advertisements.” Questioned because of the papers, Tommy and you can Joe claimed to have considered crime on account of impoverishment and you will admitted simply to the fresh Nathan Wolf’s and Beck-Hazzard stickups. The latest investigators sensed they were responsible for many others. Each other brothers was indeed found guilty out of theft in the 1st degree and sentenced so you can 20 to 25 years inside jail. Joe is actually twenty four and you can Tommy was twenty-two. They will not be qualified to receive parole up until March 1947, twenty years afterwards.

The fresh new Duffys was basically 1st delivered within the Hudson River in order to Sing Play but have been in the near future separated. Joe went along to Auburn State Prison, where in fact the tough “Auburn system” from solitary confinement and you can enforced quiet got setup. Tommy decided to go to Clinton Condition Jail within the Dannemora, also known as Absolutely nothing Siberia for its freeze-cold winters. Throughout their remains, one another brothers knowledgeable fatal riots where several guards and you may inmates was indeed slain. But Tommy asserted that whenever you are to the these were well looked after because of the their gangster relatives, just who sooner or later used their “governmental eliminate” to track down him or her from prison.

For the April 1930, immediately following helping a small more than three-years, new Duffys’ sentences was basically commuted to help you deportation by the Ny Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt. “It appears to be to be this new practical move to make, to help you deport them,” said Roosevelt, who had been 2 years regarding are decided on U.S. president. Tommy mentioned that “the fresh new Diamond mob within the Nyc got choosing the fresh new palm oils for me personally,” definition that they had greased somebody’s palm with a bribe. Likely to be, Roosevelt merely need the Duffy brothers out of the nation. However, whatever the specifics, the brand new brothers was put into steerage toward SS Duchess out of Richmond, and you will turned up into Scotland toward You.S. Freedom Go out, erican gangster approaches to The uk.

T the guy title throughout the Scottish Each week Information read: “Living due to the fact a western Gangster.” Mcdougal, called close to a tool-carrying photograph, is Tommy Duffy. Authored 18 months following the brothers’ return to Scotland, the content is actually an excellent lurid facts regarding violent holdups and you may bank robberies straight-out of a celebrity gangster visualize. It actually was a massively overstated and sometimes ludicrous account regarding round-blazing shootouts and you may high-rates pursuits offering an one-to-Z throw away from well known gangsters.