Bugsy Siegel, as a teenager, was running the protection racket on street car peddlers (and I post about street peddlers because nearly all of them have a cart rolling on wheels, and some were very cool. Who knew the organized crime element was taking a cut?)

 before becoming a bootlegger in Prohibition, joining the "Syndicate" (mob), spinning off an independent group with Murder Inc, then heading out to LA and becoming the biggest narcotics importer on the west coast

His girlfriend was known as the Flamingo, and that's why he named his casino in Vegas the Flamingo when it opened in 1947, for his girlfriend. 

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-you-should-know-26940277/

As a boy of 14, Siegel left school and joined a gang on Lafayette Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He committed mainly thefts until he met Moe Sedway, and they developed a protection racket in which he threatened to incinerate pushcart owners' merchandise unless they paid him a dollar

https://barrioboychik.wordpress.com/tag/bugsy-siegel/
https://themobmuseum.org/notable_names/benjamin-bugsy-siegel/

Siegel began his gang by offering, in return for regular payments for his services, to "protect" pushcart peddlers' carts and goods from the frequent burglaries and vandalism that plagued them. 

The unsuspecting and penniless cart owners would almost always initially turn down Siegel's offer. Flying into a rage, Siegel would douse the carts in kerosene, light them on fire, and demand payment. The peddlers, having little choice, would pay Siegel, falling under his "protection."

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/lasvegas-siegel/