Eric Wulterkens and Gavin Schmitt share their episode entitled "Counterfeiting." Gavin teaches us about some Wisconsin counterfeiting crimes back in the 1900s. The mafia get up to some wacky hijinks along the way...

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David Kalsow 0:00

This episode of APC Presents is brought to you by the Appleton podcast Co-op, a collaborative community of podcasters in Northeast Wisconsin. For more information, visit Appletonpodcast.com. I'm David Kalsow and you're listening to APC presents, where I showcase independent podcasters from Northeast Wisconsin. And this episode, we're going to do something I'm going to start calling Dave's faves. So last week, we talked to Eric Walterkens, who is the co-host with Gavin Schmidt on the Milwaukee Mafia podcast. Their podcast is all about the history of mafia in Wisconsin. Eric plays the listener role, and Gavin is a historian. He's written over nine books, not all of them on the mafia, but plenty of them. He's a very well learned guy. I really hope you enjoyed this episode from the Milwaukee mafia called "Counterfeiting."

Gavin Schmitt 1:01

You're listening to Milwaukee mafia, your weekly podcast dose of Wisconsin mafia, and true crime history.

Eric Wulterkens 1:10

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Milwaukee Mafia podcast. I'm Eric Wulterkens.

Gavin Schmitt 1:14

I'm Gavin Schmidt.

Eric Wulterkens 1:15

And Gavin, what do you got for us today?

Gavin Schmitt 1:18

Well, so before I begin, I have to explain this one, and I have to apologize to people.

Eric Wulterkens 1:26

Oh, man, people don't like it when you break start with an apology.

Gavin Schmitt 1:31

Well, I have to. First of all, people aren't going to know this. But this is actually the third time we've tried to record this episode. And oh, it's that it? Yeah, it's counterfeiting. Yeah, right. Yep. Yep. So it's, we're a little bit out of order on this one, we recorded it. We started to record it once. We had a cat interruption, we started to record it a second time. And the sound just wasn't good enough. So we put it on the shelf. But it's coming back today. The reason I have to apologize is because this is the episode in which a man shoots another man at the Boston store. And we have referred to it Oh, we've referred to it in other episodes. And not that that's a big deal. But if someone was like, I don't remember that. That's why because it was never aired before. Oh, so when did you figure that out? And were you when I was going through these notes? And you're like, oh, man, yeah, that's too funny.

Eric Wulterkens 2:35

All right, well, you've left them in suspense. And now they get to hear about the man who shoots the man.

Gavin Schmitt 2:41

Eric Wulterkens 5:35

What one thing that I think I remember from the last time we recorded this episode, was that the kids that that were trading the money and to get new money, had a name, do have a name, and you didn't reference it. And I remember the name being kind of funny. For some

Gavin Schmitt 5:50

reason, it is it isn't. And I'll mention it there. It comes up in my notes, I'll venture that when we get there. Yes, there's a funny name. Okay. So we'll we'll just hold off on that. But yes, it does come up. So the moggy police department are getting these complaints about these counterfeit coins turning up in different places around town. There's similar complaints coming in and Racine and Kenosha and of course, Chicago, and the Milwaukee Police think well, maybe there's a connection here. But they thought, you know, there's probably somebody local doing this, probably not people going back and forth all over the place doing this. I think that they were probably right, our story really begins when a cold dealer brings a delivery to a boarding house. He brings in the call, the landlord does not have enough change on hand to purchase the call. So he goes to one of his tenants there a man named Carlos akoni. And Carlos like, Oh, yeah, I can pay for the call, you can just pay me back later. He offered over some change, and no big deal. The problem, of course, is that when the dealer left and is on his way back to, you know, the factory, or his house, or wherever you came from, he starts looking at the coins, and he's like, these are not real coins. You know, maybe they would have fooled somebody but this is a guy who's handling money every day. He knows what money looks like, and he's not falling for it. He goes to the police and he says there's something wrong here and he says where he got that from? Police are like, okay, we're on it. The next morning, detectives surrounded the boarding house and three of them stood in the front while Leonard Schweitzer was in the alley to prevent any attempted escape. The precaution paid off sooner or Kony came out the side door and was chased back into the building by Schweitzer who grabbed at her coneys collar almost pulling into the ground. An elderly man not named in the papers, an elderly man stepped into view and threw a chair at the police's feet, caused it causing them to fall. Tsar Kony ran out the front door, this time knocking over a girl with a pail of beer. I remember that for the first time we did this story as well. Yeah, always the pail of beer. He made it about 60 paces before the detectives overtook him. He was arrested with one counterfeit quarter on him. But they went back to his room and they found his passport, all kinds of phony coins in his pants. under the mattress, they even find found a roll of 60 quarters inside a telescope, which is odd, but that's what they found. They didn't find any equipment that would actually make the coins. So they thought that he must be working for somebody else if thought that his job was and here's the funny word. We are pusher.

Eric Wulterkens 8:32

Yes. Some some would say funny. Some would say offensive. But it's

Gavin Schmitt 8:37

not. It's not offensive, though. Yeah, it's completely not related. Right? No, it's I mean, it's just means that he's he's pushing money. That's strange. That didn't mean that back then. Okay. So at the stations or county, he refuses to speak with the police. But his landlord is more than happy to speak with the police. So he tells them about what he knows. And he says, You know what is kind of strange. He's unemployed, but he always seems to have money. So the something was up with that. The Secret Service did not actually have offices in Milwaukee at this time. So agents had to come in from Chicago. And they said, Oh, yeah, we know him. He's one of the gang of Italian counterfeiters that goes back and forth between Chicago and Milwaukee. I have no idea if they know this is true. Or this is just something they told the papers. I don't know why they would know that. But yeah, that's what started with the arrest. They were like, Oh, yeah, he's one of the he's one of these guys. We know we've been on to him for a while now. Yeah. Now in counterfeiting, I should point out I mean, it was very profitable. Today, when you make coins, it costs more to make the coins and the face value of the coins are so it's really every time we make more coins, we're losing money. But at that time, silver was actually pretty cheap. So if you got a 50 cent piece, you could make it for 25 cents by melting it down and reshaping it $1 could be made for 50 cents. So really, if you had a good enough mold, you could just keep melt And read making over and over and over again. So the counterfeiting process was really all dependent on how good your molds were. And I don't know if you had to do this in high school, we used to have to, we had a shop class where we have to make molds that are like sand and we pour molten metal in there. Yeah. Okay. So you you understand the process? And yeah, and it's like, sometimes you look good. And sometimes the edges are kind of rough. So

I'm curious, you kind of alluded to this, and I want to clarify to do this. So is this how was it kind of common counterfeit back then where they would take like a quarter melted down and make two quarters? Yeah. Is that kind of what I'm getting from what you're saying? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I

mean, you can bet that you'd have to mix it with something else to, you know, double the amount of the metal but yeah,

but so it was, when you had a counterfeit coin, it was if you handle money enough, it was very easily easy to tell that something was wrong, right? Because it was always going to be it wasn't like they were going on getting real silver creating an almost exactly like a real

Right. Right. It would have some silver in it. But it wouldn't be right. I mean, otherwise, it would defeat the whole purpose. But, but But yeah,

yeah, I suppose because back then, the coin was probably worth what the silver was worth. It was made up, right.

Well, if it was melted down, but otherwise, the face value is actually more. Oh, it is. Yeah. Okay. So counterfeiting is it's, again, it's fairly common. While there are counties in jail awaiting trial, other men are arrested for counterfeiting. There's a few more men who are caught between Milwaukee and Chicago. One of them is a man named Theodore Murdock, who gets to be a little bit notorious later on, not really relevant to our story. But he gets known because he gets brought to Leavenworth, which is where everybody who's counterfeiting got brought. And he ended up escaping by hijacking a train with a wooden gun. So he was out for a little while. Even a barber in Milwaukee was caught passing a counterfeit $2 bill. So it was going around often enough. So Tony had his day in court. He claimed he didn't know where the that he didn't know the coins were counterfeit, and that he had received them from another Italian immigrant, who he refused to name. Nobody really believed that story, especially with how many fake coins he had in his room. I mean, if he would have had like a couple coins in his pocket, maybe. But when he has entire rolls of fake coins, that's, you know, a little suspicious. He pleaded for leniency. He said, my wife and family their home is in Palermo, which is in Sicily. They're in the earthquake district there now. I mean, maybe they're alive. If they are alive, they're wandering homeless and hungry about the ruins are homeless, totally destroyed by the earthquake. While I was in the county jail. I have only a few short months to live. I have consumption and will probably never see my wife and family again, asked for the mercy of the second half of this is true. He did have consumption, which is what we now call tuberculosis. So he That's true. The earthquake story is probably full of crap. There was there was an earthquake that happened that year in Sicily. It measured 7.1 on the Richter scale. It is to this day, the worst earthquake in European history. It killed you're not even going to believe this. It killed 75,000 people Wow. But it did not happen anywhere near where his family was. Pretty sure they were just fine. He was sentenced to two years of hard labor and send off to Leavenworth. Okay, next we have Angelo bronto Angelo bronto was arrested along with Stefanos arconi, same last name. And Santo Marino and they were accused of passing counterfeit money. rando had passed a phony $2 bill at a saloon but he claimed quote, I had a fix. And while in that condition, my money was exchanged for counterfeit money by an unknown person. I do not know what it means to have a fix. Okay. Like I don't know if this means he was drunk or Yeah, drugs or what that means. But whatever it was, he was in some condition where somebody went in his pockets, took his money and put counterfeit money in. This sounds very believable, right? They didn't they didn't think this happened. They've kind of doubted it. So they were brought to court and the case was pushed off for a little while because the police were hoping they could find where these coins were being made as well. We keep harassing these guys for this money. But where are they actually making it? They believe that these were part of an organized gang that was making passing the counterfeit money again between mark and Chicago. Could they find it? They did not find it? No, of course not. Now, while at the police station, San Marino tried to escape but he was quickly apprehended. Now. He comes from Santa flavor. A soldier those are companies By the way, in Santa Fe. If you remember back to the very beginning of this podcast, that's where most of these malarkey guys are coming from when he can mauga you live with his brother, Nicola Marino who worked as a butcher, they had good ties to the mafia. They were close friends with Gordon Ibanez. And here we go. His brother Nick Marino is the guy who shoots another man at the Boston store. And the reason for this is allegedly, he purchases a go kart, and I don't know what gokart means, at this time. This is what the paper calls a go kart and wanting to go kart is delivered to him. It did not come with a blanket. And that upset him so much that he shot the delivery man at the Boston store. And we're going to have a full episode

just trying to figure out what a go kart is. Yeah, it's okay. It's something you have to have a blanket for.

Yeah, I mean, I can't imagine what it would be right. And it's obviously not what when we say go kart is obviously not that. Yeah, so I don't know. But he was very upset about so if somebody out there knows what a go kart is, please

email us. Yeah, that's no, I'd like to I'd like to know we would like clarification on this.

Okay, so these guys are now in jail awaiting trial. Again, counterfeiting does not stop just because these guys are in jail. The detectives get a tip from a grocer in raided a Third Ward home of a man named john hood. lukovitch. noting here that again, he's in the Third Ward, which is where the tongs look, but he is not Italian. And they uncover, quote, a bonafide counterfeiters den, they were held back by his wife, who scratched the detectives and thought, again, quote, like an Amazon to keep them away. After they restrained her a search commence. The police had finally hit the jackpot whether her dutkiewicz was supplying the local Italians with fake coins or not. I don't know. I mean, it could just be a coincidence that he lives in the same neighborhood. But either way, he was definitely supplying somebody. They removed a rug from the kitchen floor to trap door was discovered inside they found a few stairs that went to a shallow shoulder height basement that contained counterfeiting equipment that addictive found plaster molds, furnaces, metal files, sandpaper of metal ladle for pouring the molten metal into the mold, a vise and a bunch of semi completed counterfeit bills. So I don't know what goes into making a counterfeit bill but they were only half made six phony half dollars were nearby. But what they did not find was the man himself. JOHN had lukovitch. His wife has questions and she said, I haven't seen him in three days. I have no idea. She said that he traveled around a lot. In fact, they only recently come to Milwaukee from Minnesota. I don't know anything about any of that. So they're brought into the police station, of course. And at this point, well, now they're certain to change their mind. They're going to they're actually going to talk now, now that they're in the police station. She said that after her husband was gone for a few days, they had no money or food in the house. So she opened a chest just to see what was in there and found it was full of coins. She gave some coins to her sister and told her sister to go to the store and buy food for everybody in the family or sister didn't know any better. So she took the money and brought it to the grocery store. And the grocer said can't take the head. And he had another person follow them home who marked down the address and turn them into the police. So they they knew what happened they had maybe they didn't know at the time, but I think they figured out pretty quickly and I suspect the wife probably around six the next morning. patrolmen sees john hadoo kovitch return home and the patrolman ducks behind a fence. As lukovitch approaches the front door, the patrolman jumps out surprising the man and he puts him under arrest. A search of his pockets finds $30 but then the man said I'm not gonna do kovich I'm actually a man named Dan mellish. I just happen to live here at the station. They quickly find out this was not true. He was in fact, john hadoo kovitch. Not Dan mellish. Clever ruse, though. Very, very good trick.

So this dutkiewicz Yeah, by the way, I don't think this Voodoo kovitch was in the original story that we know did? I don't think so. But so he's not Italian whatsoever. No, nearly no ties to the mafia. But this is the one person that we do know, actually was creating money. Correct? Because if you remember on on our previous recording, we talked about the possibility that everybody that you talk about, in all the mafia members that you talk about that are actually doing counterfeiting there, they weren't really doing or they're never busted with a large amount of money. Right? Yeah. And, you know, kind of speculated that maybe there wasn't no person that was feeding these people with money. Maybe this wasn't even a mafia. Thing doing counterfeiting the word just mafia members that were criminals and they found out about counterfeiting money and they were like, do you think that's possible that this guy could have just been an altar guy making fake money and had relationships with mafia members or

if it's possible, like I said, He lives in the Third Ward. So everybody who lives like within a few blocks of him is Sicilian. Yeah. You know, so he's definitely in that community. There's never like a direct connection established, like between him and him. Yeah, maximal. Yeah. And I'm off. And I don't know if I, I don't know if I mentioned this a little bit later on. But when you guys go to prison, like even the prison records, there's no evidence whatsoever that he's talking to anybody.

Yeah. So you never see letters going in and out from right, from mafia members sending him letters or whatever.

Right. Right. So it's weird because he lives in the right neighborhood and be interacting with these guys. But I can't prove that. So it could just be an incredible coincidence. I don't know. But either way, he's supplying somebody either that or he's going out constant shopping sprees. I don't know, but is making large amounts of money.

And at this point in time for him to be living in the Third Ward. Not be Italian. Isn't that kind of strange? It's a little strange. I mean, I'm sure there was people other people not Italian. Yeah, vast majority of the people where

the vast majority were Italian. I mean, there Yeah, there's exceptions. I mean, but it is odd. It's definitely

odd. And then couple on top of that, that he's definitely creating fake money. Yeah, even adds to the suspicion of it.

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Yeah. So he actually went after he's arrested and they find out that he is who he they think he is. And he's not this other meetup guy. He's actually very talkative. He tells the authorities that he was trained by a well known counterfeiter, who he does not name and that he, his mentor, and another member had recently come to Milwaukee from Minnesota. But then he got in a fight with the man who trained him on how to counterfeit and he sent his mentor back over to Minnesota to go away. We don't know because he wouldn't name anybody else. He wouldn't give up other names. We don't know who his mentor. I would love to know who his mentor was. If that's even a true story, but we don't know. So again, he's willing to confess to this but he's not going to give anybody he pleads guilty. So he ends up going off to Leavenworth. Angelo Brando pleads guilty. He goes off to Leavenworth. And so these guys are getting sent off, even though they're involved on related cases. hadoo kovitch and Brando are actually in court on the same day. It just happens a timeout that way. And it's kind of weird. So Brando goes to court. Angelo Brando goes to court and he's still he's maintaining He's like, I'm not a counterfeiter. I don't even know these guys that you arrested me with. I have no idea what's going on. This is the guy, you know, claims they were switching money in his pocket. So he's in court and in the middle of court, he starts having a fit, and he's spasming around, a falls over his chair flips over, he falls on his back, he rolls around. He starts like drooling and biting his own wrists and he's bleeding all over from biting himself. There's something really wrong with this guy. But this did not help. He was still found guilty and he was, you know, sent off to Leavenworth. So unfortunately, whatever he was trying to pull there Didn't work. So these people, these other people that we've been talking about they, they didn't really have a large amount of money right on them, but they still went to Leavenworth. Yes. Like,

I mean, any counterfeiting is immediately going to Leavenworth It seems that

way. Like anybody who comes up, like who came up in my research anyway. I mean, no matter how small the amount was, the minimum they were going to get was a year. And the this is how it works. Like, if you're under a year, if you're sentenced to under a year, you can go to the county jail. But once they sentenced to one to one year in one day, it's automatically prison. Okay. Yeah. So like a lot of these sentences like, they'll be like 70 to one year in one day. So then you get shipped off to Leavenworth. So Santo Marino, another one of these guys caught with with Brando. He goes to trial for passing counterfeit bills, and he's actually almost acquitted. The first time the jury votes 11 to one. So it's a hung jury. They have a second trial. And at this time, rather than go to the second trial, he pleads guilty, and he gets sent to Leavenworth why he pleads guilty? I don't know because he almost got off the first time.

That seems really suspicious. It's almost like somebody told him to, yeah, plead guilty. I

don't, I don't know. Because Yeah, as soon as you plead guilty, you know, you're going to prison. So I'm not really sure what his plan was there.

I mean, could have been just could he not afford a lawyer again, maybe something like our third guy

rested in this in this batch is stephanos. Our County, now he comes to he's in America as early as May 1902. He moves in with other people in Milwaukee, and he moves into the Guadalupe Benny household. So he's actually living with the mob boss, which doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it probably means something. Because I can't imagine that, that the boss is sharing his house with a lot of people, unless he really trusts them. So this should should tip them off at this guy is somebody he's arrested, of course, and unlike the other guys, he's actually bailed out of jail. He's bailed out by a bondsman, who is Dr. Philip kazusa. And I'm probably saying that wrong, but we'll just go with it. He's notable for a few reasons. One, he is the very first doctor, Italian doctor in Milwaukee, he got a pretty well known for that. And he was aware of the fact that a lot of people in Italian community report, they were new immigrants, whatever. So he would accept alternate payments. like he'd say, Oh, just have me over for dinner a couple times, we're fine. So he was actually really cool about that. He also got to be known later on, because he's the father in law of a mob guy who will come into play later. Not for a while down the road, but the name will come up again, eventually, the problem here is bond is posted. And sarcone. When his trial comes up, he's nowhere to be found. Of course, he first pleased to Chicago in Chicago, he is arrested. And you might recall this, because this is a pretty memorable thing. He's arrested in Chicago, they don't know that he's wanted for counterfeiting, because they're not that good about communicating this sort of thing. And but he is arrested for a completely unrelated crime, and that is stealing a horse and dying the horse. Yeah,

so look like a different horse, which is a whole story. And it's really, I don't know what that is. Because obviously, this was a thing, you steal somebody else's horse, and so they don't know it's their horse who died another color.

So he gets, you know, arrested for that. But apparently, this isn't that big of a deal, because he hasn't actually kept in jail. They just kind of tell him, you know, show up for court when you're ready. So he takes this as an opportunity to like, Okay, that was pretty close. I'm getting out of here. And he leaves and he goes all the way back to Sicily. He does not come back. Which is really unfortunate for the guy who bailed him out. Because if you know how it works when you post bond, if someone doesn't show up, you're stuck with it. Hey, here's the money. Yeah. So his Bond was $2,000. Which adjusted for inflation. Would you like to know how much money yes, I play $47,000. So this doctor is now $47,000. Bummer. Going back to our original guy, Carlos arconi. The others are counting here so that to make this more confusing than it has to be. He arrives at Leavenworth immediately, he fails. physical exam. He's this is the guy who also had tuberculosis, but he's got he's got serious heart problems on top of that. So the prison doctor tells the warden, this guy is not going to live very long. Don't expect him to serve out his sentence. And the warden is like, Okay, all right, we have to get ahold of his family, let them now you know, we'll make an exception, you come to the prison, you can visit him, he might not live out a sentence. The funny thing here is they asked for, like, who they should contact, he says, oh, I'll give you the address of my cousin, the cousin. They whose address they get is the guy who just fled back. So they send this letter to Sicily and say, Hey, just so you know, your cousin might be dying and let the family know to come visit him. So it is I'm sure the warden has no idea that this guy that there's nothing with letter two is supposed to be in Leavenworth for counterfeiting. But he's just telling him I get your cousin's really sick. Just a general note here. Leavenworth actually was pretty new at this point. It had only opened up as a prison for the general public in 1903. So it's only been open about five years or so. And the federal government was a pretty new as far as getting into the whole prison game. The Bureau of Prisons was not even created until much later 1930. And Alcatraz didn't open till 1934 should give you any like this is way before Alcatraz Leavenworth is like the original federal prison. It used to be the prison they would send military guys to when they write did things you're not supposed to do with military. Yeah. So Oh, you know this. Yeah,

I know that. Okay. So that's actually how I know. Okay, do you know guys who went there? No. Okay.

Rambo. Yeah. But yeah, Leavenworth was originally like a military prison. So okay, john hadoo kovitch Angela Brando. They show up in Leavenworth. Brando is amazingly, he's granted trustee status. And a trustee is somebody who's kind of like get special permission to roam around because they have work they have to do kind of cool this guy who is something seriously wrong with him. And he's a counter fear, but they're like, you seem okay. They let it they let him roam around. And it's weird because while he's roaming around, he keeps getting in trouble for talking to people when he's not supposed to talk. I don't know why there's strict rules, or at least we're strict rules about when and where you can talk to other inmates. But there were he ends up striking up like a conversation with these guys, you might remember this from Well, the first time we did it, with these guys out of Ohio, Salvador and Sebastian Lima. And these guys were pretty well known because they were members of a mafia gang. That was called the Society of the banana. Okay, can't forget that one, the Society of the banana, which was essentially a Black Hand gang that was mostly with it was black and stuff, sending letters to people, and they ended up getting brought down by the Postal Inspector to that area, because, you know, they're sending things in the mail you're not supposed to send in the mail, like death threats. So he strikes up conversations with these guys, total side note there. I mean, if anyone's interested in that story, there is a really good book out there. I don't remember exactly what it's called. But if you look up society to the banana, or you look up Frank Oldfield, which is the guy who brought them down, you find the book, it's pretty good. And you find just how weird these guys were. Because unlike any other mafia group, they had an actual ledger of the known members. Group carry. Yeah, he's saying, Yeah, so which, like, I don't know, who thought that was a good idea. But they had meetings where they would keep track of who their members were. They had like their corporate minutes. Yeah, notes about everything. They were planning and stuff. Yeah, they did. They did, which is really dumb, but that's what they did. So Brenda's talking to these guys. But what's really interesting about him is when you look at the letters that he was sending and receiving in prison, he's in regular contact with Vito Guadeloupe and the mob boss in Milwaukee. He's also sending letters to a man named Charles Lucchese who lives at the core of any house. I have no idea who Charles Lucchese is, if somebody does, let me know because that's a name that I have no other record of other than this, and it's weird again, that he's living at this house.

So he obviously probably had something to do with the mafia, but just apparently most likely never got enough trouble. Yeah, just enough exposure, even for us that for anybody for there to be any record of it, I

guess. Exactly. That's crazy. He's also sending and receiving letters from Rosario dispenza, who's not a name that most people are familiar with. But he was actually the mafia boss in Chicago at the time. So this is a guy who is trading letters with both the mob bosses in Milwaukee and Chicago. So if there's anybody who's is connected in counterfeiting between walk in Chicago, it's probably this guy.

And you said this guy, really, he's tied to the mafia, but he was never really, anybody in the mafia was just a guy in the mafia, right, like, so. The fact that he had this kind of he was having contact with people have this much power was very strange.

It was very strange, at least to me. I mean, as I have to say, like, every time, you know, I could only know what the records are there. I mean, for all I know, this guy was was actually some big important guy. I don't know that. But there's no record of that. You know, he wasn't constantly being arrested, or he wasn't, you know, talked up in the papers for any reason at all. The only reason I know about him at all is because he got caught for this counterfeiting thing. She wouldn't have got caught for that his name would have never come up.

Yeah. And but yeah, he just has direct line contact all these big important people. Yeah, it's just unbelievable. Yeah. So. So there is a whole lot missing to his story.

There definitely is and unfortunately, that's probably going to stay that way. Yes. No, Marina, we unders Leavenworth and he's in regular contact with his brother they Boston store shooter. He only ever writes one letter to Vito guardalavaca name, but he didn't receive a reply. I don't know what that says about him. But, but I guess I mean, they knew each other. But I guess they weren't that close. He was also granted trustee status. So he was able to roam a little more freely. And it actually the reason he got trustee status was because he could actually speak English really well, which is kind of uncommon among these guys. You know, it's weird to think about that, because obviously, we're talking in English right now. Yeah. But a lot of these guys this business was all conducted in Italian or Sicilian or whatever their English was, generally speaking, not very good at this point in time. That was a big deal. If you could speak English. All of these guys are back out of Leavenworth in the next few years. And nobody doesn't know that long. Carlos are coming, he returns to Milwaukee. hadoo kovitch ends up going back to Minnesota. Angelo bronto. I don't know where he ends up. I have no idea. Again, I'd love to know more about this guy. I don't know if he gets so it just disappears. Yeah. Like, I don't know. It's weird, because, again, for people who don't know, like, a big part of how I do this research is like, I'm looking at census records and things like that. So after this, the next big census would be like 1920. And he doesn't show up in there at all, at all. I mean, he might maybe he's moved to California or something. But he's not living in Milwaukee of Chicago. I mean, he's gone. So I don't know where he went. And Santo Marino ends up moving off to Brooklyn. So he's, he's kind of out of the area, too. So how did you find that St. Marino had moved to Brooklyn. I mean, okay. The reason I know that is big, is through ship records. Because he ends up actually after this, when he gets out, he leaves and goes back to Sicily. And then he comes back again. And when you sail across the Atlantic Ocean, you have to fill out a form on the ship. It's called the ship manifest. And you have to write where you're going to be living when you arrive. And he wrote his uncle's name and address in Brooklyn. Now it's possible after that he maybe just live there for a few weeks, and then came back to Milwaukee, I don't know. But initially, when he came back, he came to Brooklyn.

So you're sitting there you actually go through and look at ship records. Yes. To see the movement of people.

Yeah. Well, it's a serious business. Yeah. May I say? Boring? Oh, yeah, sometimes it is sometimes. And after this, it seems like counterfeiting just sort of slowed down. I mean, it never ever stops. I have a note on my notes that says, you know, if you google blocking and counterfeiting, like, even just like in the last few years, people are still getting caught for it. It happens. But it's not like it used to be it's it's very uncommon. And usually when they get caught now, like, it's kind of laughable, like what people get caught with, because it doesn't even look like money. So they've definitely made it harder to make fake money than they used to be. But yeah, it's pretty much as far as like it goes in the Italian section of Milwaukee. It all just kind of stopped. The last one that I really know about was in February of 1916. When these guys are passing counterfeit coins in a saloon, and they end up you know, getting arrested for that, but even there, that was barely even a headline, I went from being like, as big as the counterfeiters caught Milwaukee. It's been like page three, we got a couple counterfeiters. So already within a few years, it's not even considered like that exciting anymore. So that's sort of like the end of the counterfeiting. We'll maybe we'll We'll come up again later on, because during World War Two, there's a brief bump up in, in counterfeiting. But otherwise, that's pretty much like just these few years. It's like a peak here. And then it kind of stops just kind of giving a scale of

this being one of the things that the mafia was into and Milwaukee, was this, was this just a blip in the radar that they were doing this? Was this a big part of their organized crimes schemes? Or?

Well, again, I always have to use the disclaimer, I mean, I can only go up over the records that I have. But based on the records that I have, I would lean more towards it being a blip, because other than the fact that you know, they're exchanging letters with these mob bosses, so obviously, the mob bosses are aware that this is happening. There aren't really any names that like, aren't going to come up later on. And like be these guys were like, Oh, yeah, these

are these guys are coming up again. And again, these big names. These guys are for the most part pretty forgettable. So it seems like it was something you did. I mean, obviously, it's a way to make money, and they'll do anything they can to make money. But what doesn't seem like they were putting a whole lot of effort into this. It almost seems like they may be tried to get it started. And it just never caught on. Like they just never had a lot of success with it. And then, you know, enough, there are people that were out there trying to get it started, got arrested, got went off to Leavenworth and then came back. And they're just like, yeah, we're just not going to do that anymore. It just didn't work out very well for us. But I'm assuming in other areas, this was a huge thing for

Yeah, for the mafia. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like I said, like, so there's the the mike dash book, The first family. And I mean, these guys were really sophisticated in New York. I mean, they were I don't know if it was like their primary thing they did, but it was definitely one of the big things they did. So they had it figured out of how to actually keep it going.

And I'm just curious, was that around the same time to do it around the same time that yeah, it was going to Milwaukee? Yep.

I mean, I don't remember the exact timeframe. It might have been a year or two sooner or something like that. But yeah, generally speaking, same time.

So year, two sooner. Milwaukee catches on that New York is out doing this. He tried to jump into it and just fail miserably at it. Yeah. It would be my guess, you know?

Yeah. So yeah, that's a running theme that you'll see like, any of these schemes. It's it's like a carbon copy across the country, the blackhand letters, every major city had them, you know, where they started, I don't know. But everybody was copying everybody on that. The counterfeiting, different gambling, the different kinds of prostitution they were doing throughout the years. It's like any major city, you'd see the same things like, almost identical everywhere. And it wasn't like they were, you know, calling people up be like, Hey, how are you running your business? Like, they just all kind of figured these things out. It wasn't just one big conglomerate that was doing it all? Yeah, let's just that they looked over and saw, hey, they're doing that. Let's try to do that. And then yeah, and then they would jump on to it. Which makes sense. That's the way things work. Sure, sure. It's just It's weird, like how any given crime has like its peak years. And it's like the peak. It's not like, it's the peak year this city. It's like the peak year everywhere. And then it's gone again. Yeah.

And then maybe 10 years later, it might come back. Sure. But do we revise it or revive it? or something?

Yeah, but it's just a weird phenomenon. I got I got one little one last thing. If all right, you got any questions? If you got any questions, throw them out now. Otherwise, I got one last. No, I think I'm good. Okay. So I just wanted to I don't know how much time we're running over on now already? Oh, well, I'll tell you after we're done. Okay. All right. Well, either way. Just a quick note, I wanted to talk about the research because the problem with researching this is the way that the records are kept the court records, the federal court records from Milwaukee are kept in Chicago, the Leavenworth prison records are kept in Kansas City, and the secret service records are kept in Maryland. Okay, so I had some roadblocks when I did this, because this I did this research, maybe you know, 10 years ago or so. And I was able to get some of the Leavenworth records are really easy. Even though I didn't actually go to Kansas City. There was a guy who works for the National Archives. So it was very helpful and he was able to give me what I needed. The reason I bring this up, is anybody who wants to try to replicate this today is in a much better position than I was 10 years ago. Because almost all the Leavenworth records are now online on the National Archives website. So I had to actually go through and request them and pay these duplication fees and It was a hassle and whatever. Now you just go to the National Archives and search a name and you'll get the whole record is right on there, you're gonna get the most shots, the whole deal, the federal courts are still not online. So that's still, that's still a hurdle. But the secret service records have been going online. The ones that would be relevant here are not, but I imagine they will be sooner or later because they've been going through and adding them. So a lot of cities, New York, they've put online, and some other cities, they've put I think New Orleans is another one they've put online, so they're working on it. So if anybody were to try this now or five years from now, you'll probably find things that I missed just because I, I wasn't going to go out to Maryland to do research. I don't have that kind of time or expense to just see if I can find something randomly. So there are pieces that could be found that I didn't find. And maybe you know, who knows, maybe Angela, Brenda, maybe there's a piece of the story in there. But just wanted to throw that out there. For anybody who's curious how the research is done, or wanting to do it themselves. It's getting easier. I mean, the internet for all its its greatness and terribleness of finding records, it's actually pretty great. And in 10 years, it'll took you six months to do some sort of research, you'll be able to do it in 10 minutes, probably in 10 years on the internet. Yeah, the National Archives, I have to give them credit has been really, really good about trying to get as much as possible online. I mean, they've got millions of pages, so it's gonna take forever, but but they're trying. Yeah.

Super cool. Well, I think that'll wrap it up for this week. Sorry about the, the length of the episode we tried to whatever, we probably should have put a disclaimer out there because we knew this one was going to take a little bit so. But anyways, if Gavin if you want to hit him up with some contact info. Sure.

You can find me at Milwaukee mafia.com or Milwaukee mafia@gmail.com. Whether you prefer the website or an email, always happy to hear from anybody with any questions or comments. If you have an idea for a future show, please let us know. Otherwise, I'm just going to keep going through in chronological order. But if you want to actually get out of the 1910s feel free to ask. Alright, thanks, everybody. And we'll see you next week. Thank you.

Thanks for tuning in to the Milwaukee mafia podcast. Join us next week for another look back at Wisconsin mafia and true crime history.

I feel like I've heard all those Italian names before in big mafia movies. And now it's interesting to hear a little bit more of the real history behind them. But I still have two big questions at the end of this episode. How long does it take to dye a whole horse and what happened to the Society of the Banana? Questions that are racking my brain but I guess I'll just have to keep on listening to find out. For more fantastic Wisconsin mafia history, go and follow and listen to the Milwaukee Mafia podcast wherever you'd like to listen. The links will also be in the show notes below. Next week, I'll be talking to a broadcast news journalist turned podcaster Raquel Lamal. I'm David Kalsow, your neighborly podcast nerd. Thanks for listening