Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1951-10-05

either Vincent Mangano or Joseph
Profaci."
Mangano is said by New York
police to be active in Brooklyn
waterfront rackets. We had planned
to question him, but our hearing
time was consumed by other de-
velopments. His brother Philip Man.
gano, also active on the waterfront
and publicly identified as promi-
nent in the Malta. was questioned
by tn e committee in executive
closed session. A month after our
New York hearings, Philip Man.
gano was found dead in a Brook
Ign swamp, shot three times in the
head
Agent Follmer told how the Mar
cotic Bureau in the early l94Os
broke up a vicious Mafia-backed
Kansas City narcotics ring. "All of
these persons" he related, were
members of the Malta, or Black
Hand, and were financed in the
narcotics traffic as a group by the
Malta. This Malta subsidiary placed
the illicit drug traffic on a business
like basis and hired a legal advisor,
supervisor, general manager, trav-
cling representative, a bookkeeper,
and an extensive retail sales force
AT St. Louis, a branch office
operated under John WHALE, who
was in turn under the domination of
Thomas Buffa and Tony Lopiparo,
chiefs of the St. Louis Mafia."
1n St. Louis, some months later,
the committee summoned Gang
ster Lopiparo, alias "Lopip," to
ask him about his presence with a
group of Sicilian gangsters in Tia
Juana, Mexico, about the time Bin
aggio and Gargotta were murdered
in Kansas City. Lopiparo at first
was sullen, snarling witness. He
crouched in the witness chair and
refused even to admit he had been
in Tia Juana. When I asked him on
what legal ground he could JUS
tify his refusal, he snapped back:
Haven't l got a CONSTITUTIONAL
In 1912" Follmer went on, at
was determined that one of the
sources of supply for the Kansas
City group was a Malta organization
in Tampa, Fla, which in turn re-
ceived Struggled drugs from Mar
settles, France, via Havana, Cuba.
1t was also indicated that Sebastino
Mani, one-time Brooklyn M i a
hoodlum, now established in Cali
fornia, had furnished several large
shipments of drugs to the Kansas
City syndicate from New York"
When the committee said that
Lucky Luciano, now in exile in Italy
after his deportation from the United
States, was operating as the inter-
national arbiter of crime, an as
sociate of Luciano's in Italy pro-
tested that once again poor Mr..
Luciano was being maligned. We
do not think so. There was too much
solid evidence.
During World War IL, there was
lot of hocus-pocus a out sup
posedly valuable servicec that LII
clano, then convict, was sup
posed to have furnished the mill
tary authorities in connection with
plans for the invasion of his native
Sicily. We dug into this and OBJ
tanned number of conflicting stor-
les. This is one of the points about
which the committee would have
questioned Governor Dewey, who
committed Luciano's sentence, if the
governor had not declined our in
vitation to come to New York city
to testify.
One story which we heard from
Attorney Moses Palakoff was that
naval intelligence had sought out
Luciano's aid and had asked Poa-
kof to be the intermediary. Pola-
koff, who had represented Luciano,
said, 1.-THE theory behind it was
that the government ha6 the Ger
mans pretty well spotted, but they
were afraid that if any sabotage
might be done it you'd be done
through Italians, who weren't we'll
spotted He was referring to sabo-
tage along the New York water
front. From retired naval COM
mander, who had a hand in the af-
fair, we received inconclusive testi-
mony as to the substance and value
of the information obtained from
Luciano
Next Week: Tie Wire Service:
Public Enemy No. l.