Extortion and racketeering

Part 2 - The rise of organized crime in Canada and the hold of Mano Nera

Toronto — During the first years of the 20th century Canada didn’t have a courageous police detective like Joe Petrosino, or a powerful Mafioso like Vito Cascio Ferro. But it did have the Mano Nera (Black Hand), an organization which supposedly was originally born to protect immigrants and which turned into a terrible gang of thugs who would squeeze money out of small entrepreneurs in the neighbourhoods of North America’s various Little Italy’s.
The extortion racket had been invented by don Vito Cascio Ferro*, a Sicilian boss who emigrated to the United States in 1901. "Let us wet u pizzu" — the beak — said extortionists to designated victims when demanding money. In 1903 the New York Herald was the first newspaper to publish the news of an extortion letter received by a shopkeeper and signed with the imprint of a black hand (mano nera). (No one knows how long the racket had been in operation before it came to the Herald’s attention.) According to the Herald the organization, which was bleeding small Brooklyn shopkeepers dry, was controlled by Annunziato Cappiello, an immigrant of Calabrian origin.
The early 1900s saw several similar organizations take their first steps in Canada. In 1908 the police came into possession of a letter signed by this sinister organization. It happened in Fort Frances, a small town in northwestern Ontario, just 220 miles southeast of Winnipeg. But this wasn’t an isolated example. On December 7, 1908, Nicholas Bessanti and a fellow Italian who went by the name of Joe Ross (Italians at the time anglicized their names in order to avoid incidents of bigotry), sent an extortion letter, written with red ink and in Italian, to a local baker, Louis Belluz.
The outcome was an unhappy one for the extortionists. Bessanti told the investigators he had been forced to join the Mano Nera. "I took an oath of allegiance and obedience to the association," were his words.
He told the police that the pact included theft, arson and murder as ordered by the leader of the gang. Most importantly the gang members protected one another to avoid police investigations. Bessanti explained that they would meet every Saturday night when they would decide on what their next move should be. "Who disobeyed the laws of the Mano Nera was punished, and in extreme cases even with death," he said.
In Welland, Ontario — on the Niagara Peninsula — where many Italians were involved in the construction of the Welland Canal, the police came into possession of several extortion letters that were sent to small businesses. These documents are important in order to understand the kind of environment this criminal phenomenon thrived in. In one of these letters, sent to a Fred Guido, the extortionists asked for a payment of $5,000 to be delivered "at 3 a.m. in the Catholic cemetery". In the final paragraphs of the letter, they wrote: "We know you’re a person who can afford to pay, if you don’t you will have problems".
Many details of the Mano Nera’s modus operandi came to light during a trial held in Hamilton in 1909, following the arrest of John Taglierino, Samuel Wolfe, Carmelo Columbo and Ernesto Speranza, who were charged with extortion against Salvatore Sanzone. It was the first great judicial case involving the Mano Nera in Ontario.
The police arrested Wolfe, Columbo and Speranza thanks to Sanzone’s collaboration. The investigation quickly led to the head of the organization, Taglierino, who was the author of the letters sent to Sanzone, the owner of a grocery shop in Hamilton.
The four men were charged and found guilty, but Sanzone lived in terror for many years afterwards. Other cases involving the Mano Nera were recorded during that period in the northern mining community of Copper Cliff, as well as in Burlington and Niagara Falls.
Another sensational case found its ending in a courtroom in Welland on February 21, 1928, when Giuseppe Italiano of Niagara Falls was sentenced to nine years in jail, 18 strokes of the whip and deportation from Canada.
It all began on November 2, 1927, when Frank Mango, owner of a shoe shop on Portage Road, a few steps from the Falls, received a letter marked with the unequivocal symbols: a dagger, a heart, a cross and a coffin. In the letter, sent from Buffalo, New York, there was a death threat and a request for $4,000. On November 7, following another warning, an explosive blew up the front porch of Mango’s house.
Ten days later Mango received a visit from Giuseppe "Joe" Italiano, also a Niagara Falls resident. It was a very straightforward conversation. "The Brotherhood wants the money", said Italiano without mincing words. Mango replied he didn’t have $4,000 and accepted to pay $400 in four installments. Italiano cashed the $300 unaware they were in marked notes, and on the fourth payment the boss fell into a police trap.
On the day of sentencing in Welland, the presiding judge used strong words against the Mano Nera and against Italiano: "There’s no place in Canada for your organization", he said. That was the last case involving the Mano Nera in the Niagara peninsula.
But these cases were not the first time organized crime appeared on the Canadian scene. Even before the birth of Canada in 1867, a criminal gang had been terrorizing the Markham Township.
All of its members were of British origin and they were well known for their violence. Known as the "Markham Gang", they swindled, robbed and murdered. They formed a sophisticated organization complete with a cryptic language and a code of allegiance and obedience.
"The associates" wrote the weekly newspaper British Colonist in a supplement published on July 8, 1846, "were requested to follow certain rules and to not betray the secrets of the organization, to help financially, but also to provide false alibi’s to fellow members who were arrested by the police. Those who violated these rules were subject to severe punishments and the traitors risked their lives."
The trial against Robert Burr, one of the members of the Markham Gang, began on June 25, 1846 and revealed the brutality of the organization. With the help of three accomplices, the accused had broken into the house of John Morrow, who was physically beaten along with his wife in front of their children. "Our faces were masks of blood," the woman told the judges, "and our children were frightened by those men’s brutality".
"It’s not your life we want, but your money" Burr had shouted to Morrow.
It was revealed that before the gang’s blitz, a fake Methodist priest visited every house, letting the gang know which families were the richest. Burr, Nathan Case, and Hiram and James Stoutenborough were sentenced to death. The death penalties were then commuted to prison sentences by the Attorney General of Upper Canada, which was a common practice in the British colonies.
Several newspapers at the time tried to hide the true origins of the gang members, pointing out distinctions between those born in Britain and those born in North America. They also referred to poverty and the underdevelopment of certain areas.
But a report by the Toronto Examiner indicated that many of the members of the "Markham Gang" were British, most even "sons of respectable farmers, married with children," and in some cases "farmers themselves with more than 200 acres of land." Obviously this had nothing to do with poverty and obscure origins.
Politics were also used as a cover-up, indicating that many gangsters had taken part of the 1837 rebellion in Upper and Lower Canada against the ruling élite known as the "Family compact," a powerful political and economic dynasty which once ruled Canada.

* Years later Don Vito Cascio Ferro would confess to killing Joe Petrosino.

(Translated by Emanuele Oriano)

Publication Date: 2001-06-24
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=83