BLACK HAND GANG.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 January 1922, Page 4

BLACK HAND GANG.

VENDETTA ASSASSINS

secrets OF iTalian Murder SOCIETY.

Secrets of the Italian murder society in this country, which, originating in New York as a branch of the Comorra. has extended its activities to all the great cities of the United States’, have Ijceu wrested by. tlie police from the eight men recently seized here, writes the New York correspondent of an English daily. ; , As a result, a police drag-net has been spread all over tlie country, and there is every hope that,the secret organisation of blackmailing, swindling assassins who for many years have preyed upon the Italian colonies here \ and executed the death decrees of the leaders in Sicily, will at last be wiped out and its members rounded up. It was feuds among the inner rings ■ and outer rings of the.society in, various cities, notably Detroit and New • York, which led to the present promising situation. Six men in Detroit have quite recently been shot down from behind by vendetta assassins sent from New York The revelations of Bartolo and his former accomplices have now led to the tracking and arrest of several Italians in Detroit. A DETECTIVE’S FATE. Hut what to the police is the most important development of all is that, thanks to Jlnrtolo, they have obtained a clue to the slayer of Detective-Lieu-tenant Joseph Patrosino more than 12 years ago. Patrosino was one of the, cleverest sleuths whose exploits brighten the annals of the Police Department. By years of patient work and amazing disguises he had ingratiated himself in the inner circles of Italian secret societies here for their undoing, and was greatly feared. Following up a long series of murder clues that led straight to Palermo, he was sent to Italy to devise means of preventing Camorra criminals from entering the United States. His departure from this country was believed to be known only to the beads of the New York Detective Bureau and of the Federal Secret Service in Washington. On March 12th, 1909, lie arrived in disguise at Palermo. ' That same evening, as lie was strolling in the market place, lie was stabbed through the heart. liis successor as chief,of the Italian Detective Squad, Lieutenant Michael Fiaschetti, recently came near meeting a similar fate under identical circumstances. TRACKING THE TRACKER. He left secretly for Italy, hut on his arrival at Naples a'code cablegram from Police Commissioner Emright awaited him. It informed him that it had been discovered that two Italians trailing him had left on the same boat that ho had, and instructed him to give up his mission, evade the men if he could, and return home at once. Fiaschetti registered under an assumed name at an hotel and kept to his room for the rest of the day. At night, effectively disguised, he slipped out. When in the morning he returned lie found that his room had been entered and all his effects ransacked. Leaving everything behind and again disguised lie departed at once and made his way to Rome, and thence by a roundabout route to France and home.