A BODY OF RUFFIANS

Waipa Post, Volume 37, Issue 2191, 2 August 1928, Page 7

A BODY OF RUFFIANS

Writing in the Wide World Magazine on the subject of the organised criminal syndicates that have given the American police so much trouble, a writer deals with the fiendish activitis of ruffians known as "Racketeers." This new type of blackmailer he says, is organised into syndicates or unions in which no "blackging" is permitted under penalty of death. The "racketeers" are most dangerous and detestable criminals. If the victims —often rogues of a better class than themselves—refuse to "come across," they first use the method indirect. This consists of the drawing of plans of the man's house and the compiling of an exact report as to his movements from the time he wakes un,til 'he goes to sleep. For this purpose he is patiently shadowed for some weeks until everything possible is known about him. Then one night hi ! s windows are smashed. That is warning number one. Warning number two is a trifle more drastic. It consists of a bomb at his front door. If he still remains obdurate, then "direct action" is used. The victim is waylaid, and taken to one of the torture-cellars of the gangs, which are said to exist in almost every large city. Here he has his arms or legs broken. Even worse horrors may be perpetrated, for the "racketeers" number skilled surgeons among their ranks. Occasionally their programmme is varied by the throwing of bombs into the business establishment of the victim. Quite recently some of these "racketeers" confessed—probably under the third degree," itself a highly refined form of torture—that they had arranged to incapacitate for life by "bonecrushing" large numbers of men who had offended in various ways. These scoundrels appear to have adopted the methods of the Inquisition to suit their evil purposes.