SMUGGLING IN HUMANITY

Shannon News, 24 July 1928, Page 4

SMUGGLING IN HUMANITY

In spite of the stringent restrictive measures adopted by both the American and the Italian Governments to limit emigration from the latter country to the United States, a considerable num- 1 ber of Italian peasants succeed in cross ‘ ing the Atlantic and landing in America, states the Koine correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph.” Owing to the risks involved and tho necessity of wholesale bribery and corruption, anyone willing to be smuggled across to America must be prepared to pay at least £2OO. So many Italian peasants have made their fortunes in America during the last 2Q years, however, that- the poorest peasant to-day will beg, borrow or steal the necessary money to go to America.

Quite frequently entire-families mysteriously disappear from sm&ll villages and towns in Southern Italy. It is well known that they have emigrated to America or Canada, but all the efforts, of the police to trace them invariably prove fruitless.

The disappearance of peasants from the village of Pontelandolfo, near Bencvento, recently assumed such alarming proportions that the police were ordered to leave no stone unturned in solving the mystery. Fortunately a clever police commissioner discovered a good clue. An elderly man in the village had suddenly grown wealthy. He owned a motor car, vvhich ho used preferably during the night, and the police commissioner discovered that the destination oi the nightly trips was Naples, and that four or five peasants were taken, there on each trip.

Twenty-three natives of Pontelandolfo were subsequently traced on board an Italian steamer at the port of Messina, in Sicily. It took some time to find them, as they - were most cleverly hidden in a specially built compartment in the hold, covered over with cargo, buf, well ventilated and.,communicating by means of a narrow passage with the deck.

All the ships in, Italian ports bound to America or Canada were immediately searched, and ten of ,them were found provided with the specially-built hiding-place for clandestine migrants. Documentary evidence explaining In detail the organisation of stowing away and smuggling peasants to America has been secured by the police, who arrested hundreds of accomplices not only in Southern Italy but also at Fiume and other Adriatic ports, where scores of intending emigrants were found in hiding 'either on board outgoing ships or in private houses on shore. The elderly man of Portelandolfo, who was arrested, had (amassed a considerable fortune. He owned property m Naples, had current accounts for large sums in several banks, and he confessed that £IO,OOO represented passage money paid in advance by intending emigrants whose date of sailing had not yet been fixed. Another clandestine emigration agent was arrested at Trieste, and the police are now searching for others.