Ignazio Lupo

Ignazio Lupo 1910

Alias: Lupo the Wolf

Born: March 19th 1877 Palermo

Nation­al­ity: Sicilian

Died: Jan­u­ary 13th 1947

Where: Brook­lyn

Cause: Nat­ural Causes

Son of Rocco Lupo and Onofria Sai­etta, Ignazio Lupo arrived in New York in 1898, he was flee­ing arrest in Palermo after killing a cus­tomer of his dried goods whole­sale busi­ness. Lupo opened a store on E72nd Street with a cousin named Sai­etta. After falling out with Sai­etta he moved his busi­ness to Brook­lyn, sell­ing olive oil, cheese and wine.

In 1901, Lupo moved his busi­ness from Brook­lyn back to Man­hat­tan. He opened a saloon at 8 Prince Street and had an import shop next door at 9 Prince Street. In 1902 Lupo sold the saloon to Giuseppe Romano, a bar­ber from First Avenue.

In April 1903, “The Bar­rel Mur­der” case began after a body was found in East 11th Street. On Thurs­day 16th April 1903, Lupo, was arrested at 430 43rd Street in con­nec­tion with the killing. His apart­ment was forcibly entered whilst he was asleep. Feign­ing ill­ness, a physi­cian was called from the Roo­sevelt Hos­pi­tal to check him out, he was deemed fit and taken in to cus­tody. In his flat they found a dag­ger and three revolvers. Lupo was even­tu­ally cleared due to lack of evidence.

He was arrested again after the trial in rela­tion to a 1902 coun­ter­feit­ing case, Lupo was charged by a Grand Jury on Thurs­day 30th April 1903 and held on $5000 bail. Pietro Inz­er­illo was also arrested on a bench war­rant from the US Dis­trict Court. He was indicted along with Lupo on the coun­ter­feit­ing charge. The charge dated back to 18th Sep­tem­ber 1902 when Lupo had mailed a let­ter to Sal­va­tore Matise aka Andrea Polora in Canada. The let­ter was found to con­tain a sin­gle five dol­lar coun­ter­feit note. Inz­er­illo and Lupo were finally bailed from the coun­ter­fet­ing charge on June 25th, 1903. They would later for­feit this bail, but the charges were even­tu­ally dropped.

After the Bar­rel trial had fin­ished in June 1903, Lupo gave up his import store at 9 Prince Street and opened a new store with his father at 39th Street. The store closed a year later after the death of his mother. Lupo then opened another new store at the seven storey build­ing 210–214 Mott St. It was reported to be “one the most impres­sive import stores in the neigh­bor­hood, many of the locals could only dream of shop­ping there”.

In 1904, Lupo joined the Morello fam­ily when he mar­ried one of the Morello sis­ters. Giuseppe Morello and Lupo started a real estate com­pany, the Ignazio Flo­rio Cor­po­ra­tion. They were involved in the con­struc­tion and sale of prop­er­ties in Harlem and the Bronx but ran into trou­ble in 1908, the com­pany folded and was inves­ti­gated by the Bankers Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­ica. The com­pany office was based at 630 E138th Street, also the home of Giuseppe Morello.

Lupo was arrested on March 7th 1906 after he was iden­ti­fied by John Boz­zuffi, an Ital­ian boy who had been kidanpped and held on 59th Street. Lupo was sent to the tombs in default of $1000 bail.

In Novem­ber 1908, Lupo claimed bank­ruptcy against his import busi­ness. On Mon­day 30th Novem­ber 1908 the store was closed under order of the US Court. The receivers moved in, and the inven­tory for his store only reached $1,500. Lupo was miss­ing, and his debts were up to $100,000. The attor­neys for the receivers dis­cov­ered that Lupo had made around $50,000 worth of pur­chases in the week lead­ing up to his dis­ap­pear­ance . Most of the goods had been deliv­ered to ware­houses, and paid for with loans that Lupo had taken out. The pro­duce he pur­chased included meat ($5,000), oil ($5,000) and canned goods($6,000). On Fri­day 4th Decem­ber 1908, $50,000 of goods were found on a transat­lantic pier in New York, sent there by Lupo they were bound for Italy. The receivers also dis­cov­ered Lupo was the owner of real estate in Harlem worth $110,000 and that he had just taken out new mort­gages on his prop­er­ties before dis­ap­pear­ing. On Decem­ber 16th, Sal­va­tore Manzella, an importer of wine and Ital­ian pro­duce at 196 Eliz­a­beth St, filed for bank­ruptcy. William Blau, the receiver, pre­sented Manzella to Judge Holt when he refused to show his accounts. Manzella tes­ti­fied that for over three years he had been a vic­tim of extor­tion from Lupo the Wolf, and as a result he had lost his busi­ness. He also claimed that Lupo, one week before he dis­ap­peared, had vis­ited his store and taken over $1000 in cash.

After the busi­ness went bad in 1908 he trav­elled to Bal­ti­more and Buf­falo to try and raise money with­out any luck. In Jan­u­ary 1909, Lupo stayed in Ardo­nia with the Oddo fam­ily. They ran a cheese farm about nine miles from Sal­va­tore Cina’s farm. Lupo stayed there under the alias of Joseph La Presti as he was try­ing to avoid his cred­i­tors from his failed Mott Street busi­ness. Whilst stay­ing at the farm Lupo also trav­elled to High­land to check the qual­ity of the coun­ter­feit print­ing that was being pro­duced by Anto­nio Comito for the Morello gang. On Novem­ber 1st 1909, Lupo moved to Bath Beach and rented a house under the alias of Joe La Presti.

On Novem­ber 12, 1909, Ignazio Lupo walked into the office of his receivers with his coun­sel, Charles Bar­bier. He had been miss­ing for a year after his store was served with bank­ruptcy. He made a claim that he had been black­mailed for $10,000 which left him broke and caused him to flee to Bal­ti­more and Buf­falo. Lupo was arrested on Novem­ber 17th in con­nec­tion with the extor­tion of Sal­va­tore Manzella. He was arraigned on Novem­ber 22nd, how­ever Manzella failed to appear and Lupo was dis­charged. He was imme­di­ately rear­rested by a Deputy Mar­shall in rela­tion to a coun­ter­feit­ing charge from Sep­tem­ber 1902, he was later released on $5,000 bail.

On Jan­u­ary 8th, secret ser­vice agents gath­ered at 8804 Bay 16th Street, Bath Beach, Brook­lyn. A search of the upstairs rooms revealed a revolver, let­ters, pass­ports, and a bank book con­tain­ing the names John Lupo, Joseph La Presti and Giuseppe La Presti. They arrested Lupo and Palermo in con­nec­tion with the High­land coun­ter­feit­ing case.

In the result­ing court case Lupo was sen­tenced on the first count to 15 years hard labour and a $500 fine. On the sec­ond count, 15 years hard labour and a $500 fine.