The Mayfair mafia
Kirby, Dick2019
Books, Manuscripts
Find it!
It is a little known fact that one immigrant Italian family ran London's thriving vice trade unchecked from the mid-1930s for some twenty years. The five Messina brothers imported prostitutes from the Continent on an industrial scale, acquiring the women British citizenship by phoney marriages. Demanding 80% of 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 all too credible threats of disfigurement and death. It took a sensational Sunday newspaper exposé to get the authorities to act. A series of dramatic arrests and trials followed and one by one the brothers were imprisoned and deported for crimes including immoral earnings, attempted bribery and firearms offences.
Main title:
The Mayfair mafia / Dick Kirby.
Author:
Kirby, Dick, author
Imprint:
Barnsley : Pen & Sword True Crime, 2019.
Collation:
224 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN:
9781526742612 (pbk)
Dewey class:
364.1060942109043364.106094210904364.106
LC class:
HV6453.G7
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
2534192