<P> In 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment was adopted, and prohibition took effect throughout the United States . Canada became a major port for running alcohol products because the Canadian federal government approved and licensed distilleries and breweries to manufacture, distribute, and export alcohol . </P> <P> Like most major cities at the beginning of the 20th - century, Detroit's immigrant neighborhoods were stricken with poverty and some became breeding grounds for crime and violence . From the Hastings Street neighborhood known as Paradise Valley in Detroit's lower east side, most of the Purple Gang's core members went to Bishop School where all were placed in the division for problem children . The gang members were the children of immigrants from eastern Europe, primarily Russia and Poland, who had come to the United States in the great immigration wave from 1881 to 1914 . </P> <P> The gang of boys were led by four brothers: Abe, Joe, Raymond and (Isadore) Izzy Burnstein, who had moved to Detroit from New York City . </P> <P> They started off as petty thieves and shakedown artists, soon progressing to the more lucrative areas of crime such as armed robbery, extortion, and hijacking under the tutelage of older neighborhood gangsters (Charles Leiter and Henry Shorr). </P>

Who was the leader of the purple gang