Thomas Draper (criminal)

Etching from 1907

Thomas "Shang" Draper (1839–1883) was a professional criminal in New York City.

Draper ran a waterfront saloon in his native New York City where he performed a confidence scam using an underage girl to lure a mark to a dark hotel room (which Draper owned) only to rob him. Draper acquired his distinctive nickname "Shang" from the "Shanghaiing" trick he used to play on his unsuspecting patrons. Draper would drug a bar patron with laudanum and by the time the fellow awoke, he would have been pressed into merchant marine or naval service, sometimes for a foreign land.

Draper was a contemporary of Frederika Mandelbaum, a notorious gangleader in her own right. Mandlebaum installed Draper, one of her trusted lieutenants, in a bank robbery gang fronted by George Leslie.

Thomas Murphy of the Brooklyn Police spots Draper hiding in a pile of rubbish at a summer house on Patchen Avenue.

Draper died in 1883 in New York.

References

• Asbury, Herbert. The Gangs of New York. New York, 1927.
• Conway, J. North. The King of Heists: The Sensational Bank Robbery of 1878. New York, 2009.

External links

• Thomas Draper's case.; A Prisoner wanted in two states, and in two New York Counties, The New York Times