BLACK HAND IN U.S.A.

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11583, 28 July 1923, Page 13

BLACK HAND IN U.S.A.

SYNDICATES OF CRIME REVELATIONS IN VIRGINIA.- ' Four men have been hanged at Moundsville, West Virginia, as members of the villainous Black Hand Murder Syndicate in that State. The syndicate specialised and gloried in all kinds and degrees of crime, ranging from commercialised prostitution to deliberate multiple murder. Other arrests and penalties may follow. The sentenced men were:—Hanged: Nicholas vSalamante, Philip Oonnizaro, Dick Ferri, Samuel Muratore. Imprisoned: Parsy Corbi, for life; Philip Miesische, 18 years. This Black Hand organisation wa* but a branch of the Italian Black Hand Society of America, that has branches in various parte of the country and many ramifications in Chicago, New York, and other large cities. The branch had its headquarters it» Fairmont and Clarksburg. Its mem pers were charged with murders, bombings, burnings, and o-ther crimes over many years. No fewer than seven murders com* mitted in Clarksburg County alone were charged against this hand of criminals, and the secret papers of the organisation showed nine other persons listed for death. The ritual, all in Italian, when translated for the police along with other papers confiscated, bared the innermost secrets of the Black Hand. Like fraternal organisations, it had different degrees, the highest and most honoured—-the Santa Xozita—requiring the commission of at least seven murders as a pre-requisite. The others, ranging in the order of their importance, were the Sigarro, the Camorra, Ditermo, and the Piciotti. Here is a quotation from the ritual: “By good members in this society is meant those capable of performing the most murders, robberies, etc., with the utmost secrecy." According to Rocco Fiorello, star witness for the State in the Black Hand prosecution, who was a former secretary of the Camorra, and who turned State’s evidence against the organisation, Dick Ferri, who drew a death penalty for his part in one murder, had committed seventeen different murders, and 1 was a highly honoured Santa Nozita, of whom there were only twentv-two in the entire United States.