Almost every criminal mind started off with the urge for theft or to steal something, mainly for reasons of personal use or financial gain. Through the centuries, the criminals developed an addiction to stealing, including priceless jewels, fine and expensive art, money, all kinds of machines, illegal substances, and even human organs. But between all of the biggest organized crime scams and the simplest small-time crimes, car theft always has occupied a special place in that world. Back in the old days in Chicago, during the Great Depression for example, every 30 seconds an automobile has been stolen around the area and chances were 1 in 143, if you lived in that time, that it was going to be yours. Also, in those days chances of recovering the stolen car were quite little or to be precise, they were 14 %. In most cases the punishment for the theft was small, like for example if a young individual stole an expensive car, it was treated as a slap-on-the-wrist crime, but if someone had stolen $10,000, than he was considered a very bad guy and the crime was also considered quite serious and that’s why the car theft became a common thing which completely got out of hand as a certain type of criminal activity.
Now, that same criminal activity can be divided in three major categories, such as the first group which were the “joy-riders”, the second category which belonged to the individuals who stole cars as a necessary adjunct to other criminal activities, and the third category belonged to the individuals involved in organized auto-theft rings for resale purposes.
For years, the auto-theft activity was one of the most frequently unsolved crimes because in those days it was mostly committed by teenage joy-riders. When a youngster stole a car, got away with it, and bragged to other young gang members about it, suddenly it became an infectious “decease” among the rest of the young crowd. The act of joyriding became so serious that many young boys were prosecuted under the Dyer Act of 1919 and until the 1930’s the federal government did not draw a distinction between joyriding and professional car theft. Obviously one of the main differences was that the car locks supposedly prevented theft from joy-riders, but a professional thieve would simply cut padlocks and chains with bolt cutters.
1927 real high school girls working as mechanics
For example, the infamous Forty-two Gang which was a group of teenage boys who committed an endless series of crimes on Chicago’s West Side during the late 1920’s and early 30’s, they mostly concentrated on auto theft and became very good at it. They were very notorious around the neighbourhoods by terrorizing the streets in stolen cars and committing all kinds of crimes and stunts, which some might’ve ended up being fatal. Some of the older members even had skills to “whip” corners, a very interesting getaway method in which a driver took a corner as fast as possible on two wheels. Just like in the movies. For example, in 1929, the cops went on a chase with a stolen Sedan and when they caught up with the criminal, they couldn’t believe their eyes because there was a very young boy sitting behind the wheel. Also, on April 11, 1929, police detective Thomas Donnelly and his squad saw three youths riding along Taylor Street in an automobile which they suspected had been stolen. The cops went after the three young thugs and so in panic, the boys abandoned the car and started running. After a search around the neighbourhood, one of the cops saw a foot beneath a board which blocked a narrow passage between two houses. He pulled the foot and found one Joe Cozzi, alias Malone, 17 years old, and right behind him, crouched Sam Fosse, also 17 years old, and another one Joseph Nuzzlo, 16 years old. The Nuzzlo boy was taken to the Juvenile home as for his two comrades, they were taken to the detective bureau and, after it was found that the car was stolen, they were locked up. Cozzi admitted that he had stolen more than 15 other automobiles in less than a month, with other members of the 42 gang. The young boy explained to the cops that he wanted get money to hire a lawyer for his old brother, who was serving a term in Pontiac reformatory, also for cat theft.
42 gang member Joe Cozzi
So according to the previous examples, by now many homeless and starving boys, with little else to occupy their time, joined up in this so-called “car-stealing” adventure and practiced their new skills. According to some sources, the older members of the gang taught the youngsters in the methods of stealing or hijacking cars. They also would train the younger members in using the cars after they already stole them, which brought them to the second category of auto-theft, meaning no more “joy-riding”, but instead using the stolen car for other criminal activities such as robberies, kidnappings and in some cases even murder. Also in the dirty alleys, members would set up barrels and tires as an obstacle course so the younger members can learn on how to do fast driving and “whip” corners at the same time.
It wasn’t long before many young members had earned a well-deserved reputation as Chicago’s best car thieves and wheelmen, skills which often came in handy in the underworld. There could be no doubt that the stealing of a car and a hair-raising getaway at the same time was way more preferable to being caught for example. So in time, some of the youngsters had become professionals in the job thus drawing the attention of senior organized crime gangs which later played a significant and at times a leading role in this criminal activity and slowly forming it into a business.
The young wheelmen came most handy during Prohibition because many bootleggers needed cars for transportation of booze or other illegal activities and they even ordered for expensive cars for their own use, for much lower price obviously because they were stolen. The youngsters had garages somewhere around the West Side and Cicero areas, and from there they sold all kinds of stolen cars to the racketeers. According to some sources, the young criminals rented the garage through one Cicero bootlegger, who in turn collected the rent or took one stolen car every month instead of cash. Once a month, the youngsters would go all around the bars and took orders for automobiles from the senior gangsters and bootleggers and since most of the members of the 42 gang were from Italian heritage, their connections in the bootlegging world were also Italian, mostly Sicilian, and slowly the gangsters took the role as criminal mentors.
From this point on, the gang “graduated” in the third level of the criminal activity which was organizing an auto-theft ring. In those days many of the youthful organized car-theft rings were controlled by other professional thieves or non-related criminals such as bootleggers, racketeers or members of the Mob. The car-theft racket wasn’t something which one individual could’ve dominate it as a whole, but instead each ring operated independently from the other rings and the control of one ring was usually vested in one person with the most connections to finance the operation or setting up necessary alternation facilities and arranging disposition of the stolen cars. In time, the young thieves devised their own so-called lexicon or slang regarding the car theft business. For example a “Bent” or a “Kinky” meant stolen car, or a “Dauber” a car painter who worked quickly and made a “Slicker” which meant a newly painted stolen car, or a “Dog-House” which meant a small garage which was used as a safe house for hiding stolen cars until they cooled down.
By now the 42’s knew all of the basic steps of stealing a car, like taking off the ignition lock, connect the wires, break the steering lock and drive off but the senior racketeers also taught the young criminals on how to change the numbers of the stolen cars, without being detected that it was changed. During the late 1920’s Joe Newel, head of the Automobile Theft Bureau, reportedly said “The greatest transformation that takes place in the stolen machine is in the clever doctoring of motor serial numbers because this is the first thing a thief does to a car.” The scheme went something like this: the youngsters would write down the models and dates of production of the stolen cars and give it to someone who had a connection all the way in New York. After that the guy in New York would watch for cars of the same description and copy off the numbers and then send them back via mail, concealed between pages of magazines or books.
Back in Chicago, the 42’s would receive their numbers and with the help of one experienced mechanic, they would change the numbers of the stolen cars with the help of special instruments to measure the depths of the numbers so all can be of even depth. It was possible for them to “re-stamp” an 8 over 3 where the 3 is a round top 3 for example, or 4 over 1 which was pretty easy or to change 5 to 3 etc. After changing the numbers, the youngsters would throw vinegar over the engine so the numbers would look rusty. From this point on, the 42’s were selling the stolen cars at prices from $80 to $500 per car, obviously depending on the model. Like for example, Fords went from $80 to $90, Buick or Chrysler went from $150 to $200, a Peerless and Packard for $200 and Cadillac sedan for $300. After that the youngsters would split the cash in two or three ways, depending on the number of individuals involved in the theft.
If someone got caught by the police, the youngsters usually bought their way out by paying off the cops with $20 or $50. But in some cases, guns were drawn and lives were taken during the arrests. For example in 1934, Policeman Stanley Bobosky was a member of the States Attorney’s special team for automobile thievery who went after the men, said to be heads of car-theft rings, which employed many youths to steal cars. One day, Bobosky was following a suspicious car on which he had previous info of being stolen. At Lake Street and Western Avenue, Bobosky ordered for the car to stop and as he stepped from his car to question the three occupants, one of them shot him in the left side, thus fleeing the scene. Few hours later, the cop died from the gunshot wound at the Washington Boulevard hospital.
But the fight wasn’t over because that same year the government managed to break up more than few auto-theft rings around the Chicago area. The cops made many arrests and discovered many stolen cars and motors under haystacks, buried under the ground, concealed in manholes or thrown in vacant lots. The cops arrested one alleged “King of Car Thieves” from the West Side known as Ray Anatori. He was a 20 year old criminal, who when arrested the cops found two pistols and one shotgun concealed in the stolen car. Another youthful gang on which the cops also managed to break up maintained a garage at 3816 Montrose Avenue and dealt in cars by a manufacturer who placed numbers on the transmission only. Used cars of this make were bought and the transmissions were easily changed for those in stolen cars. The system was so perfect that only few of the stolen cars have been recovered. The cops even managed to break up one of the largest car theft rings at the time, which was operated around the Posen, Tinley Park, Blue Island and Dixmoor areas. This was another quite young, same as the 42’s but non-Italian gang, and the other difference was that these fellows stole the cars and besides reselling them, they also striped some of the stolen cars out of their parts and resold those same parts separately. According to some reports, after the theft they would strip the car in less than 24 hours and resell all of the stolen parts in the next few hours. After that all of the parts which were no longer needed or couldn’t be sold, the young criminals buried them few feet under the ground. This was one of the first examples of what would be known decades later as the “chop-shop” racket.
Even though the government managed to put up a quite a strong fight against this so-called car-stealing disease, by the mid 1930’s many of these thieves used the auto-theft business as a stepping stone to higher levels of criminality, such as gambling and extortion. According to some statistics, 70% of all male felons were in fact graduate car thieves and many infamous gangsters started their long-time criminal careers in the same fashion. Few of the most notables were alleged members of the 42 gang such as Sam Giancana, Marshall Caifano and Charles Nicoletti. For example, back in 1925, at the age of 17, Sam Giancana was arrested for auto-theft and was sentenced to 30 days in the House of Correction. In 1927, he was again arrested for auto-theft but this time the case was dismissed, probably because of corruption since the 42’s were known for keeping a stash of money in case of “rainy days” such as this one. Marshall Caifano was also arrested for auto-theft at the age of 17, and as for Nicoletti he was arrested for auto-theft countless times same as his future partner in crime Phil Alderisio who was also arrested in Wheaton, Illinois back in 1933 on suspicion of being involved in a car theft ring.
During the late 1930’s, Chicago’s underworld was already out of the bootlegging business and was highly interested in the gambling and labor racketeering businesses and so my point is that there wasn’t much space or interest for the car theft business. By 1940, organized automobile thieves have virtually been driven out of business, because according to some statistics from that time, automobile thefts have declined in Chicago from 35,233 annually to 2,863 for 1939. The crime activity decreased during World War II especially the juvenile auto theft, probably due to the actions of more careful owners who were mindfully aware that tires and gasoline were in short supply and insurance companies were refusing to replace either stolen tires or stolen cars. Also the syndicate such as the Chicago Outfit wasn’t much involved in the racket until the 1950’s. During the 1940’s, many of the gangsters became involved in extorting car companies and so they mostly drove new cars, or in other words, they bought their own cars. Also if some of the gangsters wanted to transport something illegal, such as stacks of cash, weapons or gambling devices, they usually used rental cars which were taken under false names. But the real truth was that they had many other highly lucrative sources to make money and didn’t bring the heat over their heads by getting involved in car thefts.
But by the end of the day, the remaining car theft rings still supplied the Chicago mob from time to time with stolen cars for various reasons, mostly for dirty jobs. One prominent gang which was still highly involved in the car theft business was led by George Soeder. He was one of the rare car theft ring leaders who was in his 40’s and still controlled the racket from the Melrose Park area. First the gang bought two new cars of different makes, just to get legitimate bills of sale so they can study and to learn numbering systems. Then the gang began stealing cars of the same makes and altered only the last digit of the serial number of each stolen car, so the letters and other characters of the numbering system would remain. They forged bills of sale with legitimate dealers' names, and sent the forgeries in with applications for certificates of title for the purchasers to whom they sold the stolen automobiles. The gang even arranged the delivering of the cars with certificates and license plates but later all of the innocent purchasers found that their cars had been stolen.
Abandoned stolen car in 1942
To go into further details, the thieves purchased wrecked cars, usually under fictitious names and then the wrecks were cut up and later disposed of, thus preserving only the serial plates and titles. After that, cars were then stolen which matched the wrecks in body, style and colour and the serial plates of the stolen cars were removed and the serial plates from the cut up wreck were attached instead. These operations were usually performed in so-called body shops, which were operated as alleged legitimate enterprises. From this point on the stolen cars were now ready for resale and the title paper which was obtained with the wrecked car, served as the first step in acquiring an adequate paper on which to sell the car. Soeder also had a partner known as Paul Hanson who helped in transporting stolen cars across state lines. But in 1945, the States Attorney was quite mad because of his previous statements about almost removing the car theft as a crime in the city of Chicago and so he made a case against Soeder and sentenced him to 25 years in prison as one of the country’s biggest car theft dealers, a statement which I hardly believe was true.
Another prominent car theft gang, which operated after WWII and came from the city’s West Side, was led by Carl Fiorito. This guy was mostly involved in narcotics but also in all kinds of robberies or burglaries, from stealing diamonds to stealing truck tires. He also worked as a fence for stolen property but he also resold stolen cars. But according to numerous reports, his gang also had stolen more than $1,000,000 worth of truck and automobile parts in just few years. Even though he was leader with only 4 feet 11 inches tall, Fiorito’s so-called main “street workers” was a young band of thieves known as the Priorello brothers, Sam, Dominic and Cosmo Jr. The brothers came from a long blood line of thieves and they owned a garage at the rear of their home on the West Side, which was established as a bona-fide business years ago by their father Cosmo Priorello Sr. Another one of Fiorito’s partners was James Holzer, another prominent car thief also from the West Side, and together they owned a garage at 63 East 14th Street. At the garage, they had six so-called mechanics, all African-American, including the most experienced one George Grisby and his younger brother Charles, and also Herman Harvey, Wilson Williams and Daniel Williams.
Everything went smooth until February, 1950, when the cops followed Fiorito in another car, while driving to one of his garages on the Near South Side. The cops waited for the criminal to get inside the garage and after they raided the place thus arresting 11 men including Fiorito, Holzer, the Priorello brothers and all of their car mechanics. The cops discovered four trucks and three cars, all stolen and some altered with stolen parts, and a huge quantity of stolen auto parts. At the Piorello garage on the West Side, the cops found a newly painted stolen truck with its serial and motor numbers defaced, and they also seized a great number of blank, unstamped license plates. In general, the stolen merchandise was to be sold on the black market for nearly $500,000. All of the men were convicted in criminal court on charges of receiving stolen property and many of the defendants were also sent to quite small prison sentences for their involvement in the car theft ring.
In later years, Carl Fiorito worked for one of the cruellest mobsters in the city, Fiore Buccieri who soon will organize a huge car theft ring for the organization. You see, these so-called “new era” car thieves at the time such as Fiorito were caught in most cases with 2 or 3 stolen cars tops and a lot of car parts maybe but the thing was that these guys did their job with the “speed of light”. They only needed 24 hours to be done with a car whatever it was needed to be done, and it was out on the market. In the old days, for example the youthful 42 gang did the same thing, but the thing was that the cops sometimes found garages in their areas stashed with over 50 stolen cars which was a huge number in those days because the youngsters were over filled with orders. But soon those same old days were about to be back.
By the early 1950’s the city’s most powerful criminal organization known as the Chicago Outfit was changing its form into a different organization, which by coincidence this time was led by former members of the 42 gang such as Sam Giancana and Sam Battaglia on one side, North Side members Ross Prio and James Allegretti on the other, and Paul Ricca and Louis Campagna at the top with Tony Accardo still as their chief executive. In the old days the Outfit had a so-called “high council” of two to three members or bosses and one so-called chief executive to run the day to day operations. But by the mid 1950’s, two of the Outfit’s most powerful crew bosses were Giancana and Prio, with Giancana as the Outfit’s new chief executive. The reason is simple and that is the numerous natural deaths of some of the crime leaders and also the numerous government cases against the remaining ones.
Now, Giancana loved cars and I personally believe that he still loved the cash from the racket, and by the late 1950’s some of Prio’s men already had established a car theft ring for transporting stolen cars across the country’s borders. One of Prio’s lieutenants Dominick Nuccio had an underling and professional car thief known as Gerald Covelli. Covelli and one of his associates Max Olshon devised a plan to transport stolen cars from Chicago and Springfield, Illinois to Houston, Texas, while crossing state lines which was a federal crime, and once the cars reached their destination, they were smuggled into Mexico and Guatemala for resale. The boys had set up a ”dummy” auto firm, known as the Almar Motor Co. in Milwaukee to ship the stolen cars to Guatemala. It was believed that the actual stealers of the cars were Covelli, Olshon and another guy known as Michael Slepcevich. Also many new model cars with power steering and air conditioning were parked at Dock Number 5 at the Port of Long Beach in Long Beach, California, also awaiting shipment to Guatemala. It was a huge business which became a quite lucrative illegal operation but didn’t last long. According to some government reports, in those days the business generated over $20,000 a week or $160,000 in 2016 money.
In February, 1959, Covelli, Olshon and Slepcevich were arrested by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and were charged with interstate transportation of stolen motor vehicles. All of the defendants confirmed that they lived in Chicago and also all three added that they were bartenders by profession. U.S. Commissioner Billy Costa accepted the charges and set $50,000 court appearance bonds for each man. Once they reached the FBI offices in Huston, Olshon began cooperating right away and was debriefed thoroughly by the agents for more than several hours. Story goes that Covelli also began cooperating with the feds but with limited information. But besides his small cooperation, later that same year, Covelli was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for auto theft at the U.S. Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. While in jail, Covelli was again visited by the feds but this time he agreed to fully cooperate and began providing information about his fellow Outfit guys back in Chicago such as James Allegretti, Joseph DiVarco, the three Doms and Ross Prio. As additional info, seven years later or to be precise in June, 1967, Gerald Covelli was killed by a car bomb in Encino, California on orders from the Outfit’s top administration.
By the early 1960’s Sam Giancana was still the undisputed boss of the Outfit and he still had other different sources such as making profits out of the car theft racket. During this period many people, especially the rich class from Central and South America or from all around Europe and the Middle East, wanted to drive U.S. model cars such as Cadillacs, Corvettes or Lincolns. Also by this time the Outfit had a special criminal team which was headed by the boss himself and was known as “The Combine”. The Combine was a collection of some of the top criminal leaders from the organization, both Italian and non-Italian, who were mostly involved in international operations such as exporting vending machines and gambling equipment, thus making connection in high places all over the world. With the help of these transatlantic connections, many U.S. stolen cars had been transported all around the world. As a sign of respect, also many expensive stolen cars were shipped around Central America and Europe as Christmas presents for some officials or business partners there, who in turn returned the favour by letting the gangsters to freely operate their highly lucrative gambling operations. Many states in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East all had a high demand for imported cars and once the cars have reached their destination, it was extremely difficult for any law enforcement agents to track them down.
