TRUE DETECTIVE STORIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 309, 30 December 1922, Page 17

TRUE DETECTIVE STORIES.

I ■ » REMARKABLE CRIMES RECALLED. leXIX—TEN TEARS LATER. (Copyright, 1920, by the Wheeler Syndicate, Inc.). One of the first acts of William J. Flynn, after taking charge of the New Tork office of the United States Secret Service, was to order the arrest of two Italians, Vincenza Lupo and Guiseppe Morello, on charges of manufacturing and passing counterfeit money. But the Sicilians, anticipating such a move, had taken care that their trails were well covered, and at the trial they produced a flock of witnesses who swore to alibis which effectively prevented a conviction. As Morello and his companion passed out of the courtroom, after the case against them had been dismissed, Lupo remarked in a voice loud enough for Flynn to overhear: "Those pigi of American detectives haven't tbe brains to get the evidence they need. They'll never be able to land us." The man who later became the head of the Secret Service said nothing at tbe time. 'But he determined to keep a watchful eye upon the pair, for. as he figured, they would continue their counterfeiting operations, and, sooner or later, they would make a fatal slip. It was three years before Flynn again came In contact with the two Italians, and again the Federal forces had to be content with the losing end of the argument. This time fche ease was the famous one of the "Morristown dollar bills printed In precise imitation of the currency issued by the National Bank, of Morristown, N.J. Flynn's men found that the trail led directly into "Little Italy" In New York, rrght np to the door of a grocery store owned by Guiseppe de Primo. But there, apparently, it disappeared into, thin air. Flynn Investigated the matter very carefully from the outside, bnt the only suspicions circumstance that he could discover was that De Primo was importing a ■much larger quantity of olive oil than his business appeared to warrant. On account of the duty, olive oil is usually Imported in barrels and then canned or bottled on this side—the empty cans being shipped from Italy ready for use. Feeling certain that there must be some connection between the olive oil and the mysterious counterfeiters, Flynn first tapped several of the barrels consigned to |De Primo. But these were filled to the I brim with oil of the precise quality mentioned in the'bills of lading. Then, merely |to make certain that he had not neglected- : any possible angle of the case, the .Secret Service man ripped open one of the boxes of "empty" cans. Instantly the mystery was solved. The cans contained roll upon noil of the "Morristown Fives," manufactured in Italy and shipped to De Primo, to be passed in this conn try! In the round-up which followed this discovery, Lupo and Morello were gathered In by the Government agents and charged with passing counterfeit money. It was a moral certainty that the two Sicilians had had a hand in the plot—in fact, Flynn suspected that they were the ring leaders—but none of the others would Implicate them, even to save themselves. De Piimo and his aassoclates went to the penitentiary, but Lupo and Morello walked out of the courtroom, still sneering at the "brainless American detectives." •Dnring the years that followed, counterfeiting operations and Black Hand murders, extortion and blackmail of all kinds were almost traced to Lupo and Morello—almost. Apparently they worked as far west as Chicago and south to New Orleans; but every time the police or the Government agents, started to close in on them, the pair slipped out through some legal loophole prepared In advance. It was nine years after the original Lupo Morello case that Flynn got wind of the fact that the Italian colony in New York were planning a big counterfeiting coup. The only thing lacking, according' to tbe Information Which reached Government ■headquarters, was a printer. A few days later, a young Italian named Comlto. who elataed to be a printing expert who had been forced to leave Italy on account of participation in a number of Mafia outrages, applied to Lupo for a position. The recruit was put through a grilling cross-examination, but Flynn had seen to it that he was supplied with the proper answers to all the questions, and it wasn't long before the Secret Service bad an operative planted In the very heart of the counterfeiting plot. Comlto reported that the gang was operating from a Small farm near Highland, I N.Y.. and that thousands' of dollars iv j spurious currency was ready to he j released. • "But Lupo," he added, 'is preparing to take a trip to Italy and won't be back until the spring" "Very well," replied Flynn. "We can wait. Just lay low until he returns. Then we'll nail the whole bunch." It was early In the following year—ten years after the first arrest and release of i the Lupo-Morello combination —that the [Secret Service sprung Its trap and rounded up sixteen Italians. During the trial which foflowed, physicians and other wit--1 nesses swore to alibis which had been previously prepared. But rhe Government. I aided by Comlto's first-hand evidence and the testimony of the men who had been j trailing the Italians, proved every poiut in Its case, though It took the evidence of i three hundred people to do it. | As a result, Lupo and Morello went to I the Federal prison in Atlanta'for 23 years, .and Flynn was well satisfied with the 150 per cent Interest upon his original investment of ten years' work.