Italian villagers vie in vain for

slice of Hamilton mobster's loot

An offer they can’t resist

By Lee Lamothe – National Post

News that Italian government officials are trying to dispose of a million-dollar fortune left by a Hamilton-based Mafia boss has sparked a frenzy in a small Italian village as residents try to prove the dead gangster’s blood runs through their veins.

In the mafia-controlled village of Plati, a hamlet on the slope of the rugged Aspromonte mountain of Calabria, people are jamming the town hall to peruse birth and death certificates and any other documentation that might put them in line for a piece of Rocco Perri’s fortune.

The problem is, there is no hunt for Perri’s heirs.

And there might not be a million dollar inheritance.

With emails from Plati and Ontario pouring into his computer, Toronto-based organized crime writer Antonio Nicaso admitted he might be at the root of the misunderstanding that has southern Italy abuzz with dreams of an instant fortune.

Mr. Nicaso, who has written several books on the Mafia, went to Plati in December to interview relatives of Perri for a book about the mob boss, who earned a fortune selling bootleg liquor to American gangsters during Prohibition.

"Plati is a very small village and when I went to do my interviews I went to the town hall to search for documents," he says. "Rumour built upon rumour and somehow people decided I was with the government, searching for relatives who were entitled to Rocco Perri’s fortune."

Once word spread through the village, dozens of applicants began rooting through the town’s documents as well as shaking their own family trees for diaries and letters. Family photos were examined to see if there was any resemblance to Perri, no matter how faint.

There may well be a fortune in the story someplace, Mr. Nicaso said. His research shows Bessie Starkman, Perri’s wife and partner-in-crime had $900,000 in four Hamilton banks in 1926, when the couple’s bootlegging operation was in full swing. The Perri-Starkman profits were kept in her name.

"Four years later, when she was assassinated, her will showed she had only $68,000, Mr. Nicaso says.

Where the rest went has long been a matter of speculation.

Mr. Nicaso believes that Ms. Starkman, who often travelled to the United States, might have carried the cash over the border to invest under another name.

This is supported by Mr. Nicaso’s discovery that Mr. Perri, who vanished in April 1944, after surviving almost 15 years of murder attempts and bombings, did not get fitted for concrete shoes and dropped into Hamilton Harbour, as is widely believed. He instead quietly moved to the United States under an assumed name, Mr. Nicaso said.

"I have a letter written by Rocco Perri on June 10, 1949," he said. "And I found a cousin in Italy who said he really died in 1953 in Massena, New York."

Mr. Nicaso said it is likely that Starkman made investments in the United States and, after her death and his own disappearance, Perri drew off the investments until he died.

When Mr. Nicaso gave an interview a year ago about his forthcoming book, to be released this fall by John Wiley & Sons, he provided an e-mail address to include in the story so Perri’s relatives could contact him.

That came back to haunt him when his December research trip was misinterpreted as government-sponsored hunt for relatives and inquiries started flooding in.

This week, when the press in Italy heard about the run on the Plati town hall, stories began to appear, citing the Perri bootlegging fortune and the deaths of several of Mr. Perri’s close relatives. The only people left who could claim the fortune, the media reports said, would be distant relatives and descendants.

And as the news stories appeared, more and more hopeful Perri relatives appeared. In the southern province of Calabria alone there are an estimated 3,000 people with the Perri name. Several live in Plati, where there are only 20 surnames among the 3,500 population.