Mussolini and the Mobsters

The Explosive Bugsy Siegel

In 1922, when Fascist dictator Benito “Il Duce” Mussolini came to power in Italy, he immediately launched an all-out war on the Mafia in Sicily. This wasn’t to America’s benefit as it launched an exodus of gangsters to the U.S.

While Mussolini obviously had an aversion to gangsters, he still found himself dealing with them in the future. As Mussolini was preparing to join Adolf Hitler and Germany in war in 1938, he was approached by Count DiFrasso with news of a new explosive, Atomite. His wife, the Countess Dorothy DiFrasso, along with her friends Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and Marino Bello had witnessed a demonstration of the explosive in the Imperial Valley desert in the U.S. At the demonstration, it tore apart two small mountains.

Mussolini forwarded the threesome $40,000.00 and requested a demonstration in Italy. The three arrived, along with the two chemists who developed the explosive. Unfortunately, the demonstration in Italy, in front of dignitaries from Mussolini’s war ministry, was a failure. Il Duce demanded his money back and seized the Count and Countess’s residence, Villa Madama.

While staying in the stables as a guest of Mussolini, Siegel, a Jew, had the opportunity to rub shoulders with Herr Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, and General Hermann Goering, the leader of Hitler’s Luftwaffe, who were also guests of Mussolini. Not a fan of the Nazis, and aware of their anti-Semitism, Siegel decided he’d kill them. The Countess, unfortunately, talked him out of it. It would have been the only good hits Siegel ever made.

 

A Hit for Mussolini

No one likes a critic—especially a dictator. In 1937, in an effort to avoid a murder charge, Vito Genovese fled to Italy, where he quickly ingratiated himself with Mussolini and his son-in-law and foreign minister, Count Galeazzo Ciano.

Back in New York, antifascist, anticommunist editor Carlo Tresca (1875-1943) was criticizing Il Duce in his newspaper, Il Martello. Tresca had known the dictator since 1904 and had left Italy as an exile. Looking to gain favor with the dictator, Genovese offered to take care of Tresca.

On January 11, 1943, Tresca, who was strolling along New York’s 5^th Avenue, with another Italian exile, Giuseppe Calabi, was shot twice by a lone gunman, who fled in a car. The shooter was future Bonanno Family crime boss Carmine Galante. He’d acted on orders that had come from Genovese in Italy.

As his friend laid dead in the gutter, Calabi got the license number on the getaway car: 1C-9272. Earlier that day, Galante was visiting his parole officer in Manhattan and a police officer had recorded the license number as the vehicle he left in. Galante was questioned, but claimed to have taken a subway and gone to the theatre to see Casablanca, despite not remembering much about it. It was 1943 and New York was on dim-out orders, so witnesses were unable to identify the gunman on the dark street and Galante walked free. Mussolini gave Genovese the title of Commendatore, one of Italy’s highest honors.

That wasn’t it for Genovese during World War II. On July 10, 1943 the U.S. 7^th Army landed at Gela and Licata on the south Sicilian coast. When southern Italy fell the Allies set up a military government headquarters in Nola near Naples, Genovese’s home town. Genovese became one of their trusted interpreters. While providing this service, he also ran a black market in stolen American food, trucks, petrol and anything else he could get his hands on.

Genovese held no loyalties, happy as long as he benefited. A crack military detective, Orange Dickey stumbled on Genovese’s black market and came across the information he was wanted in the U.S. He arrested him and set about arranging his return to America, which took months. He finally took him back himself. Luckily for Genovese, one of the witnesses who was supposed to testify against him turned up dead and the government’s case became weak. Genovese, who had sided with Mussolini and then the Allies, went free.