The Mayfair Mafia
eBook - ePub

The Mayfair Mafia

The Lives and Crimes of the Messina Brothers

  1. 224 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Mayfair Mafia

The Lives and Crimes of the Messina Brothers

About this book

This true crime history reveals the shocking career of the London mafia family that ran a thriving prostitution empire for decades.
 
From the mid-1930s into the 1950s, one immigrant Italian family ran London's thriving vice trade. The five Messina brothers imported prostitutes from the Continent on an industrial scale, acquiring British citizenship for the women by phony marriages. Taking 80% of these women's earnings, the Messina family became fabulously wealthy, purchasing expensive properties, cars and influence.
 
As this revealing and absorbing account describes, the brothers ruled with a ruthless combination of charm, blackmail and threats of disfigurement and death that were all too credible. It took a sensational Sunday newspaper exposé to get the authorities to put an end to their criminal reign. A series of dramatic arrests and trials followed, as one by one the brothers were imprisoned and deported for crimes including immoral earnings, attempted bribery and firearms offenses.
 
Such was their fortune that numerous potential beneficiaries came forward, most recently in 2012. Dick Kirby, an author and former Metropolitan police officer, presents a vividly detailed and thoroughly researched narrative of the five Messina brothers in this revealing and riveting read.

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Yes, you can access The Mayfair Mafia by Dick Kirby in PDF and/or ePUB format. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Contents
  6. About the Author
  7. Acknowledgements
  8. Foreword
  9. Prologue
  10. Chapter 1 The Start of the Family Business
  11. Chapter 2 Marriages and Importations
  12. Chapter 3 Marthe Watts and the War Years
  13. Chapter 4 Threats, Lies, Bribes, Prison
  14. Chapter 5 Enter Duncan Webb
  15. Chapter 6 ‘Smash this Gang of Ponces!’
  16. Chapter 7 ‘Arrest These Four Men!’
  17. Chapter 8 The Messinas in Europe
  18. Chapter 9 ‘A Lovely Lunch’
  19. Chapter 10 Alfredo’s Trial
  20. Chapter 11 Lies and Arrogance
  21. Chapter 12 Hindin’s Account
  22. Chapter 13 The Summing-up
  23. Chapter 14 ‘An Evil Man’
  24. Chapter 15 Attilio’s Return
  25. Chapter 16 Ponces, Dodgy Cops and Bent Briefs
  26. Chapter 17 Attilio Revisited
  27. Chapter 18 A Case of Procuration
  28. Chapter 19 Arrests in Belgium
  29. Chapter 20 Questions in the House
  30. Chapter 21 Enter Scotland Yard
  31. Chapter 22 The Messinas Fight Back
  32. Chapter 23 The Hunt for Carmelo
  33. Chapter 24 A Very Dodgy Marriage
  34. Chapter 25 Miscellaneous Ponces
  35. Epilogue
  36. Bibliography
  37. Plate section