Word: messina
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Pimps & Panders. In 1934 Eugene Messina, describing himself as a merchant, traveled to London to investigate conditions. On the surface, Britain appeared sternly moralistic, with puritanical drinking laws and a prim observance of the Sabbath. But it was also full of men devoted to pleasure and prepared to pay. The Messinas decided that what London vice needed was organization, and they set out to provide it. To his delight, Eugene Messina discovered that it cost no more in legal fines to obstruct a London street with a tart than with...
Pavement Patrols. On paper, the Messinas were ostensibly in business as antique dealers, diamond merchants, exporters, and one by one they took on British-sounding names-Raymond Maynard, Charles Maitland, etc. Each brother had three or four addresses. Frequently a girl who paid her earnings to one brother lived in a flat owned by another. As the boys became more polished, they got themselves measured for Savile Row suits, and liked to keep a wary eye on the pavement patrols of their girls by cruising Curzon Street and Shepherd Market in Rolls-Royces. By the 1950s, the police estimated that...
...trouble in 1947, when he slashed a rival body-trader with a razor, but he celebrated his release-after two years in prison -by buying a $16,000 black-and-cream Rolls. In 1950 Reporter Duncan Webb of the Sunday People ran a well-documented exposé of the Messina brothers. Four of them promptly left the country. Only Alfredo, against whom Reporter Webb found no evidence, stayed on in a London suburb with his so-called "wife," Hermione Hindin, a fulltime prostitute. Arrested and accused of living on Hermione's earnings, Alfredo said he was aghast to learn...
Smashed Ring. This time Attilio got four years, and his brother Carmello six months. Furthermore, the authorities had finally searched out the tangled ancestry of the Messinas, proved they were Italians from Sicily and not, as they claimed, Maltese who were entitled to British citizenship. Carmello was deported, and Attilio will be when he gets out of jail. "The Messina vice ring was finally smashed!" cried the London Daily Express...
...Last week Eugene was keeping busy in his Belgian jail cell signing checks for rent and taxes on his London property, which, according to the Sunday People, is still being used for the customary purposes by Messina girls. And two more of the ubiquitous brothers are still on the loose somewhere in Europe...