Danny Walsh

Danny Walsh
Born	1893 Cumberland, Rhode Island, United States
Died	February 2, 1933(1933-02-02) (aged 40) Pawtuxet Village, Rhode Island
Cause of death	Kidnap-murder
Occupation	Bootlegger

Daniel L. "Danny" Walsh (c. 1893 – February 2, 1933?) was an organized crime figure in Providence, Rhode Island involved in bootlegging during Prohibition. He was the top underworld figure in southern New England, and last major Irish-American gangster in the region, until his kidnapping and apparent murder in 1933.

Born in the Cumberland mill village of Valley Falls, Walsh was a clerk in a Pawtucket hardware store before he entered bootlegging in 1920. First driving alcohol shipments for other local bootleggers, by the mid-1920s, he had established a formidable bootlegging operation which included planes, automobiles and a fleet of boats, one of them the legendary rum-runner called the "Black Duck", earning him a reputation as one of the most successful, if not colorful, bootleggers on the east coast. Considering himself a “gentleman farmer”, Walsh had spent much of his money on thoroughbreds which he raised for his farm in Charlestown, Rhode Island, although he owned two high-class apartments in the east side of Providence and a waterfront mansion in Charlestown.

Rhode Island was known for its lax enforcement of the Volstead Act, being one of two states which refused to ratify the 18th Amendment. The federal government charged Walsh not with bootlegging but with tax evasion, regarding $350,000 in back taxes and penalties owed the Internal Revenue Service, although Walsh and authorities agreed on a lesser sum.

Following the aftermath of the , Walsh enjoyed enormous wealth as one of the country's largest bootleggers. One of four Irish-Americans in the "Big Seven", his frequent business trips to New York were speculated by the press to be meetings with other members of the "combine" which included New York's William "Big Bill" Dwyer and Owney "The Killer" Madden and Boston's Joseph Kennedy.

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