June 1, 2007
Hunting Down Vito Genovese
in WWII Italy
by Tim Newark
Top Mafia Mobster Vito Genovese fled New York in
1937 and settled in with the Fascist regime in mainland Italy. When the Allies
invaded Italy, he swiftly changed sides and became close to the senior Allied
administration. It would take a remarkable young CID officer by the name of
Orange C. Dickey to hunt him down.
Mafia Goldmine
As the Allies entered Vito Genovese's realm in
Nola, near Naples, in the autumn of 1943, he offered to help them as translator
and guide to the region. U.S. Major E.N. Holmgreen, the civil affairs officer in
Nola, was so impressed with Vito Genovese that he wrote him a letter of
recommendation on Nov. 8, 1943.
"The bearer [of the letter], Vito Genovese,"
wrote Holmgreen, "is an American citizen. When the undersigned arrived at Nola
District as CAO [civil affairs officer], Mr. Genovese met me and acted as my
interpreter for over a month. He would accept no pay; paid his own expenses;
worked day and night and rendered most valuable assistance to the Allied
Military Government. This statement is freely made in an effort to express my
appreciation for the unselfish services of this man."
That Genovese could afford to appear unselfish is
no big surprise. He knew he had just struck a new criminal gold mine—the black
market in American military goods. The FBI later quoted a U.S. attorney's report
on his activities during this period.
"During the war he [Genovese] acted as translator
for numerous American military government officials," stated the report, "and at
the same time was active in black-market activities. These activities consisted
of stealing United States Army trucks, driving them to supply depots, loading
them up with flour, sugar and other supplies, which material was then driven to
a place of concealment and unloaded. The trucks were then destroyed."
Vito Genovese continued to make a fortune from
his mastery of the black market in wartime Italy until August 1944. Luke
Monzelli, a lieutenant in the Carabinieri, claimed that a young Italian army
sergeant investigated the discovery of a mysterious freight carriage full of
cereal and salt parked in a siding near Nola. He revealed the link between
Genovese and senior Sicilian Mafiosi, but was told to forget about it—it was a
secret military matter. He was later transferred out of the region, as was
Monzelli.
It would be up to a fearless and determined
24-year-old U.S. Sgt. Orange C. Dickey to blow Genovese's cover.
Trapping the Mobster
Sgt. Dickey gave his testimony of his
investigation regarding Vito Genovese before three law officers in the Brooklyn
office of District Attorney George Beldock on Sept. 1, 1945.
"I arrived in Italy on or about the 19th
day of December 1943," he reported. "My assignment was intelligence sergeant of
a service squadron. I was appointed criminal investigation agent [Criminal
Investigation Division] on the 2nd of February."
He first came across the name of Vito Genovese in
late April 1944. At that time, he was investigating black market activities in
olive oil and wheat in Italy between Foggia and Naples. Dickey had a lucky break
in that a former senior gang member of the Camorra, the Neapolitan Mafia, had
married an American girl and bought his way out of the organization. This man
now pointed the finger at Vito Genovese, calling him the head of the Mafia in
southern Italy. During the first part of May, Dickey single-handedly began a
thorough investigation of Vito Genovese in the district of Nola, east of Naples.
"On or about the 2nd day of June, I
proceeded to a vineyard located approximately seven miles from Nola proper in
the Commune of San Gennaro, where I found several United States Army trucks
which had been destroyed by fire. In tracing these trucks by serial numbers and
other identification means, we found the trucks had been stolen from docks in
Naples and been driven to a quartermaster supply depot, where they were loaded
principally with flour and sugar, after which they were driven to the area where
they were found by myself, and the supplies unloaded onto cars and transported
into nearby towns, for sale—after which the trucks were destroyed."
Shortly after this discovery, Dickey arrested two
Canadian soldiers who had deserted their posts to serve as drivers of these
stolen trucks.
"The important part of their statements," said
Dickey, "is the fact that they were told that when they reached the point of
destination for these trucks, they were to say 'Genovese sent us'… And the truck
is parked and they are paid off and then leave the area."
Dickey continued to gather his evidence and then
presented it to his superior officers. They gave him the okay to arrest
Genovese. On the day that Genovese was arrested, a copy of a report from the
Allied Provincial Public Safety Officer in Viterbo, north of Rome, was sent to
the office of Col. Charles Poletti, then commissioner of Allied Military
Government in Italy. Getting wind of the mobster's imminent arrest, U.S.
administrators wanted to clarify exactly what their relationship had been with
Mr. Genovese.
"Careful examination of the records and
antecedents of the above named [Vito Genovese] has been made of all employees on
the AMG [Allied Military Government]. Payroll of this Province, and it is
definite that such a person is not employed in this Provincial organization."
That was hardly surprising as Genovese operated
way to the south of Viterbo, around Naples. The report then tried to identity
the mobster with another bad character.
"In the records of the Questore, a subject named
Vito Genovese di Giuseppe, born on 12/7/88, at Avignano, resident in America for
many years, was charged on 9th July 1935, before a Military Tribunal
in Naples for the offence of desertion, and was sentenced to one years
imprisonment in a Military Prison. He is known by the nick-name of 'Mafrita,'
and it would appear that this man is identical to the subject of the enquiry."
Except that this man was not the same Genovese.
'Mafrita' was almost a decade older than the gangster who had been running a
criminal empire in the United States while he was in prison in Italy. The same
report did, however, acknowledge that Genovese was employed by Maj. Holmgreen
and three other U.S. officers. Now that was the real Genovese.
Whether this report was a genuine attempt to
identify the mobster or a smoke screen to distance the U.S. administration in
Italy away from him, we will never know. It was dispatched on the exact day that
Genovese was arrested.
On Aug. 27, 1944, Vito Genovese arrived in the
office of the Town Mayor of Nola to request a travel permit. An armed chauffeur
accompanied him. While the Mafioso's bodyguard parked the car, Dickey made his
move.
"I approached Vito Genovese, in the company of
two English soldiers, and requested that he accompany me to the Military Police
Office in Nola, which he did... Immediately after the arrest of Vito Genovese, I
proceeded to downtown Nola and confiscated the vehicle in which Genovese had
been riding. This vehicle was an Italian civilian car, Fiat model 1500.
"I searched the vehicle and in the compartment in
the rear of the front seat—I mean the private front seat – I found two Italian
weapons, one a 9mm Beretta and the other a 7.65 Victoria, both fully loaded."
Military Custody
A few hours after the arrest of Genovese, Nicola
Cutuli arrived at the AMG offices in Naples. He was Questore of Rome, the most
senior investigative police officer in the country. He demanded that Genovese be
released into his custody and taken to Rome. The Americans refused. Later, CID
officers found a sheet of paper with Cutuli's name on it in Genovese's
apartment.
While Dickey proceeded with the paperwork of his
arrest, an informant in Nola gave him a copy of a book entitled Gang Rule in
New York City, by Craig Thompson and Raymond Allen, published in 1940. In
the book, he found a photograph of Genovese and it identified him as a former
gangster associate of Lucky Luciano. Dickey showed his prisoner the picture.
"Sure," said Genovese, "that's me when I was in
New York City."
When Dickey asked him about running the black
market in Italy, he denied some of the charges but accepted others. Dickey then
contacted the FBI and they informed him that Genovese was wanted for questioning
over a murder in New York.
Coincidentally, earlier in the month, a New York
newspaper report Aug. 9, 1944, said: "The whereabouts of all six [wanted for the
murder of Ferdinand Boccia] were said to be unknown but an interesting sidelight
on Genovese was that he was reported recently to have been in Italy acting as an
interpreter for the Allied Military Government there."
"The Army officials are going to bring him back,"
said Brooklyn D.A. Thomas Hughes. "How or when he will brought back I cannot
say."
With Genovese safely under arrest, Dickey
searched Genovese's apartment in Nola and found a bundle of documents. "Among
these papers," remembered Dickey, "there was a small paper on which was written
a number, easily identified as the number of a U.S. Army truck. Beneath this
number was written, "The Shed." In a previous case I had learned that the shed
was a large underground storeroom and was used as a storage place for contraband
wheat."
Dickey then went to Genovese's apartment in
Naples where he found large quantities of PX supplies, such as soap, candy bars
and cigarettes. He also found a powerful radio receiver—used for receiving
information on the arrival of valuable contraband. Among the documents found in
Genovese's apartments were several business cards and other papers that linked
him to prominent businessmen in the area as well as judges, the town mayor of
Nola, the president of the Bank of Naples, and AMG officers.
There were nine official AMG travel passes,
several just made out to the bearer—a sign of Genovese's influence within AMG.
They even entitled the bearer to fill up with American gas. One was made out to
a local leading dealer in olive oil. Two papers signed by AMG officers entitled
Genovese to receive American food supplies—in violation of Army regulations. One
business card belonged to Innocenza Monterisi, a mistress of Genovese who,
according to Dickey, also supplied women for Allied officers.
But nowhere was found any significant stash of
money. Dickey had his suspicions about a safe deposit vault in Banco del Lavoro
in Nola. Genovese denied having a vault or a key for it. The bank records said
the vault belonged to the gangster, but despite going before a Tribunal in
Naples, a court order was refused to Dickey to force its opening. Dickey knew
that one of Genovese's henchmen had visited it on the day he was arrested. A
U.S. Army seal was put on the vault to prevent its opening.
Genovese was still in military custody in
November, as Dickey waited for an arrest warrant to arrive for him from the
United States. But no one wanted to make a decision on what to do with him.
There was no suggestion even of putting him on trial for black market charges in
Italy.
"At this time," said Dickey, "the Army did not
seem very interested in returning this man to the States, and I was told that I
was 'on my own, to do anything I cared to.'" It was an extraordinary situation,
but clearly Genovese's associates in and outside the U.S. Army were working
their influence as best they could and stopped any fast action on Genovese in
the hope that Dickey might get fed up with the procedure and let him go.
That this might be the tactics of very highly
placed U.S. officers was demonstrated when Dickey visited Rome to talk to Col.
Charles Poletti, then commissioner of Allied Military Government in Italy. "I
wanted him to tell me whether I should try him by civilian authorities," said
Dickey, "whether Allied Military Government intends to try him, or whether the
U.S. Army has control, or what I should do with him."
Poletti Asleep
Dickey arrived at Poletti's headquarters at 10
a.m. and was told to go straight to his office and walk in. Excited at the
prospect of finally getting some advice on what to do next with Genovese, Dickey
pushed open the door of Poletti's room. But he wouldn't be getting any sense out
of the colonel.
"He seemed to be asleep," remembered Dickey. "He
had his arms folded on the desk and his head down on his arms."
Dickey returned two more times that day to see
Poletti but did not get to speak to him. "On both these occasions his office was
jammed with people… I was kept waiting on both occasions for long periods, and
after making several attempts to talk to him, I left… [Poletti was] just walking
around, giving orders to the girls; but it didn't seem to be essential business,
just more or less enjoying himself."
It was outrageous behavior from Poletti who,
obviously, did not want to be dragged into the Genovese affair. Dickey then
bumped into Brig. Gen. William O'Dwyer in the hall outside Poletti's office.
O'Dwyer was on leave as district attorney from Brooklyn to serve in Italy. He
knew all about the Genovese case but underlined the policy of his boss, Poletti,
to steer well clear of it and advised Dickey to bypass his senior officers and
deal directly with Brooklyn D.A. Thomas Hughes. (O'Dwyer would be later charged
by a grand jury of incompetently failing to prosecute senior mobster Albert
Anastasia.)
Returning from Rome to Naples, Dickey reported
Poletti's behavior to his immediate superior officer. "He took no particular
notice of the information," recalled Dickey, "said that he had heard rumors to
that effect previously, and with a few casual remarks it was dismissed. So that
is the last that was said about Genovese up until the time I made an all-out
effort for his extradition."
Dickey pressed on, but by now Genovese was
getting desperate. The mobster offered Dickey $250,000 to forget about the whole
matter and let him go. At the time, the U.S. sergeant was earning just $210 a
month.
"Now, look, you are young," Genovese told him,
"and there are things you don't understand. This is the way it works. Take the
money. You are set for the rest of your life. Nobody cares what you do. Why
should you?"
When Dickey refused the money, the mobster turned
nasty and threatened his life and that of his family. Dickey would not be
intimidated. Finally, in January 1945, Dickey got the news he had been waiting
for. With the help of the War Department, the Brooklyn D.A.'s office had set in
motion extradition proceedings. The news traveled fast.
Just seven days later, Genovese's American
mobster friends swung into action. The one witness to his involvement in the
murder of Boccia was Peter La Tempa, but he was in jail. No problem for
Genovese's friends.
On Jan. 15, 1945, La Tempa awoke in his cell with
acute gall stone pains. The valuable witness was then given sedatives strong
enough "to kill eight horses." Luciano later claimed it was Frank Costello and
his associates that set up the murder. With the only major witness against
Genovese gone, the mobster no longer feared returning to the United States. In
fact, he was glad of the free return journey.
"Kid," he said to Dickey, "you are doing me the
biggest favor anyone has ever done to me. You are taking me home. You are taking
me back to the USA." Dickey was designated Genovese's guard on the voyage across
the Atlantic. Handcuffed together they set sail on board the steamship James
Lykes and arrived in New York on the morning of June 1, 1945.
No one met Dickey and his gangster prisoner at
the port. He had to organize his own transport to arrive at the district
attorney's office of Kings County in Brooklyn that afternoon. He presented
himself to the policeman on duty and Asst. D.A. Edward A. Heffernan came down to
greet them. When Heffernan recognized the mobster chained to Dickey's wrist, he
whispered into the young man's ear.
"Do you mind my saying," said Heffernan, "I am
surprised. We never expected to see this boy back here." (Heffernan would later
be charged, alongside his boss O'Dwyer, of failing to successfully prosecute
gangster Anastasia.)
When Genovese finally appeared before a U.S.
court in June 1946, all charges were dropped against him for lack of evidence.
"By devious means," said the county judge, "among which were the terrorizing of
witnesses, kidnapping them, yes, even murdering those who could give evidence
against you, you have thwarted justice time and again."
Dressed smartly in a double-breasted blue suit,
white shirt and maroon tie, Genovese smiled. He was now free to continue his
career as one of the top Mafiosi in America and exploit his links with the old
Mafia in Sicily. Dickey's heroic efforts had all been in vain.
Genovese went on to prosper as top gangster in New York, diminishing fellow
Mafiosi, such as Frank Costello and Meyer Lansky. But in 1959, his luck ran out
and he was nailed for a narcotics deal and sentenced to 15 years in prison,
where he died in 1969.
Dickey became a legend to other CID agents in Italy, but
little is known about his life after he left the army. A request to the CID
archivist revealed little and they had no record of his later career or death.
Tim Newark is the author of the recently published
Mafia Allies: the True Story of America's Secret Alliance with the Mob
(Zenith Press).