François Spirito | |
|---|---|
 François Spirito circa 1934 | |
| Born | 23 January 1900 |
| Died | 9 October 1967 (1967-10-10) (aged 67) |
| Occupation | Criminal |
| Parent(s) | Dominick Spirito Rosina De Nola |
François "Lydro" Spirito (23 January 1900 – 9 October 1967)[1] was a French gangster. He was one of the leaders of theFrench Connection, and inspired the filmBorsalino, which featuredAlain Delon andJean-Paul Belmondo.[2][3]
Spirito was born inMarseille on 23 January 1900 to Dominick Spirito and Rosina De Nola.[1] By the age of 12 he already had a police record for theft. When he was 13 he moved into his own flat and adopted the French name François. He was part of a juvenile gang that terrorised and stole around the docks. When Spirito was 15 he started working for a gangster called Antoine la Rocca, and got involved inarmed robbery and thewhite slave trade.[4]
In 1913, whilst inAlexandria,Egypt, part of la Rocca's network that brought women fromParis to work in Egyptianbrothels, Spirito rescuedPaul Carbone. Three rival pimps had kidnapped Carbone and left him buried up to his neck in sand in the desert. Spirito and Carbone struck up a life-long friendship and business partnership.[4]
Once recovered from his ordeal, Carbone wanted to leave Egypt, and persuaded Spirito to go toShanghai with him. Here the pair got involved inopium smuggling. This lasted for about a year until the outbreak ofWW1, when the pair returned to France toenlist.[4]
After the end of the war, Carbone and Spirito left forSouth America. InPeru they started pimping and soon had 20 women working for them.[4] The pair returned to Marseille in 1919, where they engaged in pimping and opium smuggling.[5]
The Carbone-Spirito clan gained more and more influence in the Marseille underworld. By the late 1920s they were involved inprostitution, thewhite slave trade,protection rackets and various forms of trafficking. They were involved indrug trafficking, especiallyheroin andcocaine. They set up a laboratory inBandol, nearMarseille[5] to refine the raw opium from Egypt,[6]Turkey[7] andIndochina into heroin, some of which was sent toLucky Luciano in the United States. They owned a bar in rue pavilion, the Amical Bar, and the Beauvau restaurant in rue Beauvau. Their empire was run from these establishments.[5] In Marseille alone they had more than 25 brothels, mostly staffed by youngJewish womenforced into prostitution.[4]
Carbone and Spirito were also active in Paris, where thePrefect of Police,Jean Chiappe, was a friend of Carbone.[8] They initially set up an up-market brothel inMontmartre.[4] At this time all the brothels in Paris were controlled by an obese Italian, Charles Codebo.[9] Carbone and Spirito couldn't get him to lose weight so they muscled-in on his operation. With the money made in Paris they opened brothels all over France, staffing them with women fromEurope and South America.[4]
During theinter-war period, Carbone and Spirito allied themselves with the mayor of Marseilles,Simon Sabiani, and acted as his enforcers,[10] and in return received political protection.[11] When Carbone and Spirito were arrested for the murder of financial consultant Albert Prince in 1934,[12] Sabiani came to their aid.[13]
DuringWorld War II, Carbone and Spirito joined theCarlingue whichcollaborated with the Germans in France; in return, the local civilian authorities in Marseilles were expected to ignore their criminal activities.[14] They also profiteered fromblack marketeering, supplying German soldiers with hard to obtain goods.[15]
Carbone died on 16 December 1943 in a train crash caused by theresistance sabotaging the train.[16] Spirito carried on the clan's affairs.[4] After theFrench Liberation, Spirito fled toSpain and thence toSouth America.[4]
In 1946, Spirito moved toMontreal. From here he organised smuggling heroin shipments intoNew York. The distribution in New York was handled by theLucchese Crime Family.[4]
Spirito was arrested in New York on 23 August 1951, on suspicion of drug smuggling. Whilst he was in custody, on 24 October, the French Court of Appeal found him guilty, in his absence, of theft and sentenced him to 20 years of hard labour. The French authorities requested his extradition on November 15 of that year. In February 1952, a federal court in New York sentenced Spirito to two years in prison on drug trafficking charges.[17] At the end of 1953, soon after his release from prison, Spirito was deported from the U.S. to France for entering the country illegally.[4]
Spirito died on 9 October 1967 in Toulon, France.[18]
Paul Carbone.
