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The Mayfair Mafia: The Lives and Crimes of the Messina Brothers by Dick Kirby (Paperback, 2019)

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ISBN-13: 9781526742612, 978-1526742612.

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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 expos 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. Such was their fortune that numerous potential beneficiaries came forward, most recently in 2012. The author, a much published former Metropolitan police officer, has researched the remarkable criminal careers of the five Messina's and the result is a riveting and shocking read. AUTHOR: Dick Kirby was born in the East End of London and joined the Metropolitan Police in 1967. Half of his twenty-six years' service was spent with Scotland Yard's Serious Crime Squad and the Flying Squad. Kirby contributes to newspapers and magazines on a regular basis, as well as appearing on television and radio. 'The Guv'nors', 'The Sweeney', 'Scotland Yard's Ghost Squad', 'The Brave Blue Line', 'Death on the Beat', 'Scourge of Soho', 'London's Gangs at War' and 'Scotland Yard's Gangbuster' are all published under the Pen & Sword True Crime imprint and he has further other published works to his credit. In retirement he lives near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.