Word: attilio
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...each went into the family business: prostitution. At first they were successful in a small way, with a chain of North African brothels. But when they aimed at bigger things, there was trouble: Salvatore Messina was jailed in Egypt for six months, and when the other brothers-Alfredo, Eugene, Attilio, Carmello-tried to set up houses in France, Spain and Italy, they ran afoul of competitors...
...making the police hesitant to try again, for fear of being wrongly accused of persecuting innocent men. The war years were golden years for the Messinas. After 1945 they scoured the Continent for likely women-for-sale, spent lavishly to enchant their prey. Of her date with Attilio, one girl says: "For the first time in my life, I felt someone wanted me. His voice was so soft, so ingratiating. I said to myself after our first meeting, 'This is a gentleman...
Latin Passports. Brother Attilio, returning to Britain as Alfredo's replacement, was promptly sentenced to six months as a pimp. So Carmello and Eugene ran the business from Belgium; using Brazilian and Cuban passports, they traveled from Rome to Paris to Vienna, recruiting new girls. A typical example was pretty Belgian Marie Vernaecke, who was set up in a Mayfair flat, married to a complaisant Englishman to qualify for British citizenship; she earned the brothers around $5,600 a month. Unfortunately, Belgian police caught Carmello and Eugene in a nightclub just as they were closing a deal with...
...that time, Attilio had finished his British sentence and was ready to take over things again. But the unexpected happened at long last: one of the girls talked. Ill, exhausted and unwanted after ten years' labor for the Messinas, 39-year-old Edna Kallman told the police that Attilio hired a maid to watch her, and to knock on her bedroom door if she spent more than ten minutes with a client. Once, when she complained of having to work daily, in sickness and in health, he shouted: "I'm tired of this! I could...
Smashed Ring. This time Attilio got four years, and his brother Carmello six months. Furthermore, the authorities had finally searched out the tangled ancestry of the Messinas, proved they were Italians from Sicily and not, as they claimed, Maltese who were entitled to British citizenship. Carmello was deported, and Attilio will be when he gets out of jail. "The Messina vice ring was finally smashed!" cried the London Daily Express...