The Holbrook news., 1922-03-31
True Detective Stories TEN YEARS LATER

O 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- ing such move, had taken care that their trails were we'll covered, and at the trial they produced flock of wit nesses who swOre to alibis which ef- feotually prevented a conviction.
 As MOrello and his companion passed out of the courtroom, after the case against them had been dismissed, LupO remarked in voice loud enough for 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 tue head of the secret service said nothing at the time.
 It 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 MOrrlstOwn, N. J. Flynn's men found that the trail led directly into Little Italy" In New York, right up to the door of a grocery store 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 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 commercials, Flynn first tapped several of the barrels con. 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 upon roll of the "MOrristown Elves" 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. It was 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 Primo and his associates went to the peni- tentiary, but Lupo and Morello walked out of the courtroom still sneering at the 'brainless American detectives"
 During the years that followed eOunterfeiting operations and Black Hand murders, extOrtion and black mail of all kinds were almost traced to Lupo and MorellO-almost. Appar- ently 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 in on them, the pair slipped out through some legal loophOle prepared in ad- vance.
 It was nine years after the original Lupo-M MOrello case that Flynn got wind of the fact that the Italian colony in New York was planning big counter feiting coup. The only thing lacking, according to the information which reached government headquarters, was a printer.
 A few days later, young Italian named COmita, who claimed to be a printing expert who had been forced to leave Italy on account of participa- ton in number of Mafia Outrages, applied to LupO for a position. The re- cruit was put through 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 in the very heart of the counterfeit plot.
 Comito reported that the gang was operating from small farm near Highland N. Y., and that thousands of dollars in spurious currency was ready te be released.
 But Lupo," he added, "is prepare ing to take trip to Italy and won't be back until the spring.
 "Very we'll" 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 re- lease of the LupO-Morello combination that the secret service sprung it's trap and rounded up 16 Italians. Dur- ing the trial which followed, physi cians and other witnesses swOre to alibis which had been previously pre-. pared But the government, aided by Comito's first-hand evidence and the testimony of the men who had been trailing the Italians proved every point in its case, though it took the evidence of 300 people to do it.
 As a result, LupO and Morello went to the federal prison in Atlanta for % ranrs and Flynn WAS well satisfied