A large drug operation was uncovered on this date in 1920 when dealer Salvatore Messina was shot down at 4:30 that Saturday afternoon in what detectives called "a fight over cocaine." Their investigation led them to the Brooklyn home of father and son traffickers Giovanni and Louis Mauro, where they found seventy-five thousand dollars worth of the drug as well as a .45. From there the detectives went down the block to in-law Giuseppe Gangarossa's house and uncovered another one hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of the white powder and an Italian model double barreled .45.
After the raids police said that they had proof that Gangarossa had killed Messina. Louis Mauro admitted to being part of a five hundred-person drug smuggling ring that operated along the Brooklyn water front. He said that sailors mainly brought the stuff in from Italy but that his last shipment came in from Germany. Once he had the cocaine he would sell it to small dealers in New York as well as send larger shipments to a man in Philadelphia.
Need more dead guys in suits? If you have a copy of gangster city check out pages 160-161
"He must have done something. They don't kill you for nothing." - Chicago Gangster Ted Newberry. Rubbed out January 7, 1933
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