Gabriel Vigoritto, from National Archives, Notorious Offenders File |
Stopping
the Professionals?
In response
the post-World War II crime wave, the FBI coordinated their efforts with local
and state authorities to stem the tide, but the FBI’s major endeavor was far
more focused on the organized crime side of the auto theft industry. With the
FBI laboratory cooperation, VIN and engine block alteration could be detected
using the agency’s metallograph. And the FBI also shared information from its
national automotive paint file that correlated make and model with color and
pigment. One visitor to the laboratory in 1949 described FBI scientists at
work:
I stood in
a room about 20 feet square. The blinds were drawn and the room was dark,
except for a single light over the center of a workbench. Its powerful rays
focused on two square magnetic terminals from which thick cables ran to a black
switchboard.
An F.B.I.
agent in a smock threw a lever and a heavy humming filed the room. . . . The
assistant handed him a sample bar of cast iron about a foot long which had been
cut from a larger piece of metal.
“Notice
there isn’t a mark to indicate where the stamped number has been ground off,”
the agent said. I ran my fingers over the metal. There was not a scratch.
“Now watch,”
he said, placing the bar between the terminals. The humming rose to a whine. The
assistant picked up a rubber hose and poured an oily, red fluid on the metal. “Magnetic
oxide of iron in oil solution,” he explained.
Thin curls
of blue smoke arose from the ends of the bar where they touched the terminals.
The agent pointed. I saw nothing but soupy red riffles on the bar. Then,
suddenly, numbers appeared, faint at first, then clearly visible. There they
were; 456-431. The agent scribbled a note and turned off the current. The
numbers vanished.
“When the
serial number was tamped on the metal, molecules were disturbed,” the agent
explained. “This
magnetic flux sends a powerful electric current the bar, and the impulses are
interrupted en route by the same molecular disturbances. You might say the
impulses are forced to detour, upward and downward. In doing so they agitate
the magnetic oxide of iron we poured on the bar. The agitation takes the
outline of numbers making them visible."39
The
demonstration of scientific instrumentation impressed the journalist, but in
fact it did little as a quick fix. Car theft rings were big business, and it
often took luck, happenstance, or human frailty rather than systematic
science-based criminology to break the work of a well-organized gang. Particularly
during early post-World War II years, cars were in short supply, both in the
United States and also in South America and Europe. Auto theft rings
proliferated in America, and their membership could be as small as three
individuals or as large as twenty or more. One organization exported between
300 and 400 cars a year in 1949. Indeed, between the late 1940s and early 1950s
the New York Times was replete with
articles of smashed auto theft rings, centered not only in New York City but
also elsewhere.40 For example, one ring was located in the south and
specialized in 1949 and 1950 models, while another gang in California consisted
of ten Air Force privates who stole only new cars. Often, key figures in these
organizations were used car dealers, perhaps because they had access to bills
of sale and other materials that could be used as proof of ownership. Other key
gang members who were garage attendants could acquire duplicate keys, and of
course mechanics and car painters played a crucial role in vehicle alterations.
The foot soldiers behind these operations were everyday people, including
butchers, cab drivers, electrician’s helpers, dock checkers, railway policemen,
musicians, and housewives. And despite all of the science at the FBI’s
disposal, these gangs were often discovered after a chance traffic violation,
or a report of a car for sale well below the market price.
Organized
car theft was also potentially violent, and this aspect was captured in Clyde Edgerton’s regional
novel set in 1950, The Bible Salesman.41
This work is a humorous, homespun, Piedmont tale, in which car theft is one
focus. The story is about a 20-year old Bible salesman by the name of Henry
Dampier, and the place is the hard-scrabble red clay south, with its marginal
poor and those who prey upon them. Henry, a con man in his own right, obtains
free Bibles and then sells them. But as it turns out, he is conned by someone
much more experienced and at times violent--Preston Clearwater, who is a part
of a car theft gang. Attracted to Clearwater by the latter’s new 1950 Chrysler,
Henry becomes a driver of the Chrysler and then later stolen cars. In spite of
these events, Henry thinks that he is actually doing good, convinced by
Clearwater that he is working for the FBI in an effort to break up car theft
rings! Car theft is definitely a part of this novel, but only peripherally, as
the author’s thrust is far more on faith, love, doubt, and human foibles. Clearwater
and his cronies employ more muscle than guile, and only chop shop operations
are described in any detail. If one learns anything about auto theft from this
work it is painting operations at the chop shop. The application of a special
rubbing compound that was applied to a freshly repainted car produced a patina,
thus decreasing possible suspicions that the worked-over car was hot. In the
end, Henry is absolved of guilt and is rewarded by finding love, while
Clearwater met a violent end.
While juvenile joy riders were
responsible for the majority of auto thefts during the 1950s, during every
decade of the twentieth century, organized gangs played a significant and at
times a leading role in this criminal activity. The 1956 film Hot Cars opens with handsome car
salesman Nick Dunn demonstrating a Mercedes 190SL to the beautiful Karen Winter
(Joi Lansing).42 Despite his charm and a drink, Winter drives away without
purchasing the vehicle. Later that evening Dunn again fails to close a sale,
this time with prospect Arthur Martell (Ralph Clanton). Dunn lets his customer
know that the MG-TD he had been looking at was previously in a rollover wreck,
and by doing so ostensibly impressed Martell by his honesty. Dunn’s failures
lead to his firing at the end of the night, but the next day Martell summons him
to his office, reveals to the salesman that he is in the car business and was
just scouting the competition the night before. By offering the now-unemployed
but honest Dunn a job, he takes the beleaguered salesman out of a tight
financial spot, especially so because Dunn’s young son is grievously ill and in
need of a major and costly operation. The job with Martell turns out to be a
bust, however, because in reality his car business is a front for a multi-state
stolen car operation. Yet, after initially quitting, Dunn returns to the job
due to his son’s health issues, knowing full well that it is a dirty business. But
it pays well, and Dunn is a family man in financial distress. Dunn, with his
life now sold away, quickly rises in the organization, and gains enough trust
that he is taken to the “refrigeration plant,” where hot cars are moved to
“cool down.” At the shop, serial numbers on motors are filed, and cars are given
new paint jobs and reupholstered. Dunn is informed that papers are no problem
either, for a printing and engraving business exists within the Martell
organization. There is one fly is this ointment, however. State police
investigator Davenport (Dabbs Greer) starts snooping around the car lot, and
later gets too close to breaking the ring when he attempts to buy a hot car.
As ring leader Martell states to
Dunn, stealing cars amounted to “not hurting anyone,” as insurance covered the
loss and the “buyer gets a good deal.” But when Detective Davenport is murdered,
Dunn is implicated. It was Smiley Ward (Mark Dana) and not Dunn who did the
killing, but initially that is not what the police surmised. Dunn, who had a
loving wife (and also forgiving as it turns out), was without an alibi after a one-night
affair with Winters, who all along was in the employ of Martell. As the
investigation unfolds, the lid is finally blown off, and Dunn is seen for what
he truly was, a pawn in a complex game. A subsequent confrontation between Dunn
and Martell assistant Smiley Ward resulted in a spectacular fight on an
amusement park roller coaster, with Ward plunging to his death, and Dunn
ultimately vindicated. Whatever its shortcomings as a B-grade film with a
largely unknown cast, Hot Cars
portrayed car theft as a crime involving hardened criminals who were not averse
to resorting to violence when forced to do so. Car theft has victims up and
down the line, and is more than victimless; it is an evil that touches on
behavior beyond a direct connection with the automobile.
In reality, the head of a
ring was rarely brought to justice. It took from the 1930s to 1950s to end the
career of “the king of car thieves” Gabriel Vigorito. Vigorito had served a
ten-year sentence during the 1930s for violating the Dyer Act, when, with
letters of support from New York congressmen and Senator Copeland, he was given
a conditional parole in 1939.43 The intervention of Senator Royal Copeland
is most puzzling given Stephen Fox’s characterization of Copeland in Blood and Power: Organized Crime in
Twentieth Century America.44 Paradoxically, Copeland conducted
the first congressional hearings on organized crime in 1933! Fox described
Copeland as “hard to place in the political landscape: a big-city Democrat, but
conservative; a county doctor, always friendly and helpful in personal
contacts, but tied to the Hearst and the Tammany machine.”45 After
his 1933 anti-crime campaign, however, Copeland returned to other interests,
particularly to pure food and drug legislation. His support of Vigorito raises
the question of whether Copeland the crusader ultimately became Copeland the
corrupted by the end of the 1930s.
Despite the
support of many citizens of New York City and Brooklyn who wrote on his behalf,
it took only a few years before Vigorito was in trouble again, charged with
illegal trafficking in untaxed alcohol, extortion, coercion, and the selling of
black market gasoline. Beginning in 1948, Vigorito and his gang stole Cadillacs
and exported them to South America and Europe. It was only when a number of FBI
agents infiltrated the gang that the full extent of its operations emerged.
Later, the New York Times reported that
Vigorito’s operation handled more than $1 million in stolen cars in 1952.46
Since Vigorito was isolated from the operation, it was difficult to pin illegal
behavior directly to him. Finally, his fortunes faded after 1954, when 49
witnesses lined up to testify against him.47 However, even then, along
with three of his sons and two nephews, “Blah-Blah” still managed to run his
ring from Fort Leavenworth prison.48 Finally caught writing
communication letters directing lieutenant “Buck” Murray, Vigorito spent the
remainder of the 1950s tightly locked up, ever proclaiming that he was “framed.”
As Vigorito
served his time, other masterminds or kingpins working independently quickly
replaced him in the New York City metropolitan area with operations of their
own. Harold Wapnick, a small-time money lender when he was first arrested for
auto theft in 1956, was one such businessman. Unlike Vigorito, whose only
education had come from the street, Wapnick was an accountant with degrees from
St. John’s University and Columbia University.49 By 1962 Wapnick had
put together an acquisition, modification, and distribution production line
that was described in the New York Times:
At one time, Wapnick had sixteen men working for him. In the
six-month period before their arrest, the ring’s members disposed of at least
sixty cars. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and city detectives said the
gang handled 20 per cent of all the cars stolen here.
The ring operated in this way. Charles Gersh, Jose Monteiro
and MacAlan Gladding ran junk yards where late-model wrecked cars were stripped
of their identifying numbers and license plates. George Dooley, Dominic Schiavo
and Walter Bedell stole cars corresponding to the models in the yards.
Philippe Roy and Harmon Gripper ran an outfit called
Automotive Reconstruction Enterprises, where the stolen cars were equipped with
the identification of the wrecked vehicles and repainted to conform with them. Then
James LaFazia and David Brill delivered the cars to points in Connecticut,
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and California.50
News
stories about organized auto theft rings abound during the 1960s and 1970s, and
there often were common elements associated with each case, regardless of where
the thieves called home.51 While not new, some rings stole cars to
order, and in one case their customers included a professional football player,
an entertainer, and a screen star. Another gang stole to order lemons in the
possession of their owners, a remedy before lemon laws were enacted. Cadillacs
and Lincolns were the preferred marques, although one New Jersey gang
specialized in Volkswagens. Particularly during the 1960s, there were
accusations of mafia involvement in the auto theft business, usually involving
lower-level functionaries tied to major crime figures including the Columbo
family. Due in part to the construction of interstate highways during the
decade, the radius of operations expanded considerably, and in the case of the
New York City area, Florida became a major destination for stolen cars. Police
were integral members of a number of these groups, as were department of motor vehicles
employees who processed new registrations. Finally, stripping cars was
commonplace, as thieves worked with wrecking yards to crush the body shell,
thus destroying the most important piece of evidence. The transition from joy
rider to hardened criminal is best illustrated by Table 2-10.
Interstate
highways proved to be analogous to the great rivers in nineteenth century
America, and to counter the flow of hot cars between states, police departments
and the insurance industry introduced electronic communications and computers
during the 1960s. The teletype machine, first used by law enforcement in 1927, was
tied to local and then regional networks in 1963. Although they proved limit
deterrence due to the lack of a standardized data format, in 1965 a nationwide
information system was proposed that later became the Law Enforcement Teletype
System (LETS) in 1966. Western Union machines used punched paper tape,
transmitted license and registration information twenty-four hours a day, seven
days a week. However, access was limited as more and more users availed
themselves of the system. Switching devices located in Phoenix, Arizona were
the first step in developing a more elaborate system that was proposed in 1966
by the FBI and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The following
year, two IBM 360 computers housed at the FBI’s National Crime Information
Center were put into use, containing records that were capable of being
accessed on demand. Consequently, the NATB’s 3x5 card system located in Chicago
was translated onto 80 column punch cards. The NATB developed its own computer
capabilities by 1970, starting first with an IBM 20 machine and then upgrading
to an IBM 370 in 1973. This development resulted in the North American Theft Information
System (NATIS), a technology that allowed NATB regional divisions to communicate
via cathode ray tubes. Information could now be sent to offices in seconds,
which was critical given the rise in auto thefts during the 1970s.
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