Iron County news. [volume] (Hurley, Wis.) 1913-1950, 1921-11-19
True
Detective Stories
TEN YEARS LATER

NNE Of the first acts of William J.
~ Flynn after taking charge of the
/ New York office of the United
( States secret service was TO order the
arrest of two Italians, Vincenzo LupO
and Giuseppe Morello, on charges Of
/ manufacturing and passing counterfeit
/ money. But the Sicilians. anticipat-
I ing such a move, had taken care that
/ their trails were well covered, and at
the trial they produced flock of wit
nesSes who Swore TO alibiS which eff
+ feCtually prevented a conviction.
/ AS Morelo and his companion
/ passed out of the courtroom, after the
case against them had been dismissed,
/ Lupo remarked in a voice loud enough
+ fer Flynn to overhear: "Those pigs
/ of American detectives haven't the
brains TO get the evidence they need.
/ They'll never land US"
The man who later became the head
of the secret service said nothing ut
4 the time
1t was three years before Flynn
( again came into contact with the two
/ Italians, and again the federal forces
had to be content with the losing end
of the argument.
This time the case was the famous
one of the "Morristown Fives"-five-
dollar bills printed in precise imitation
Of the currency issued by the National
Iron bank Of Morristown, n J. FIynns
men found that the trail led directly
into Little Italy" in New York, right
up to the door of a grocery store
1 owned by Giuseppe de Primo But
there, apparently, it disappeared into
thin air
Flynn investigated the matter very
/ carefully from the outside but the
only suspicious 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 bar
/ rels 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 counterfeits, Flynn
first tapped several of the barrels con-
4 signed to De Primo But these were
/ filled to the brim with oil of the pre-
/ else 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 roll of the "Morristown Fiyes,"
manufactured in Italy,
In the roundup which followed this
discovery, LUpo and Morello were
gathered in by the government agents
and charged with passing counterfeit
money. 1t was a moral certainty that
i the two Sicilians had had hand In
the plot-in fact, Flynn suspected that
I they were the ring-leaders-but none
of the others would implicate them,
even to save themselves. De Primo
and his associates went to the peni-
Tertiary, tut Lupo and Morello walked
/ out Of the courtroom still sneering at
the 'brainless American detectives"
During tire years that followed
counterfeitine operations and Black
Hand murders, extortion and black
mail of all kinds were almost traced
to Lupo and Moreuo-almost Appar-
emily they worked as far west as Chi
cago and south to New Orleans, but
every time the police or the govern
ment agents started to close ia on
them, the pair slipped out through
some legal lOophole prepared in adj
vance.
II was nine years after the original
Lupo-Morello case that Flynn got wind
Of the fact that the Italian colony IN
New York was planning a big counter
feiting coup. The only thing lacking,
according TO the information which
reached government headquarters, was
"a printer
A few DAYS later. a young Italian
named Comita, who claimed to be a
printing expert who had been forced
10 leave Italy on account Of participa-
tion in a number Of Malta outrages
applied to Lupo for a position. The re-
cruit 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 II
wasn't long before the secret service
had an operative planted ID the very
heart of the counterfeit plot.
Comito reported that the gang was
operating from a small farm near
Highland y y, and that thousands Of
dollars in spurious currency was ready
to be released
"But Lupo' be added els prepar-
Ing 10 take a trip to Italy and won't lie
back until the spring"
Very well, replied Flynn I'VE can
wait. Just lay low until he returns.
Then well nail the whole bunch"
II was early in the following year
ten years after the first arrest ana re-
case of the LuppMorefla combination
that the secret service spraag It's
trap and rounded up 1G Italians. Dur