Correspondents' Correspondence Italy's New Industry
SENIGALLIA, SILVIO F.
Correspondents' Correspondence BRIEF TAKEOUTS OF MORE THAN PERSONAL INTEREST FROM LETTERS AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED BY THE EDITORS. Italy's New Industry Rome-One of Italy's newest...
...Between January 1, 1960-June 30, 1975, the country witnessed 334 kidnappings, with over 45 billion lire ($70 million) paid in ransom...
...These are staffed by soldiers handpicked by the men at the top-and all are no doubt eager to climb up the ladder of success in the new industry-Silvio F. Senigallia...
...Italy's New Industry Rome-One of Italy's newest industries is kidnapping...
...A few weeks ago, a high school student, Cristine Mazzotti, was wantonly murdered after her ransom had been paid...
...Italy's most sensational kidnapping case involved the grandson of oil billionaire John Paul Getty, 17-year-old Paul Getty III, who was playing hippy with some foreign students in Rome when he was carried off...
...Moreover, the recycling of ransom money-all bank notes are photographed by the police-requires international contacts and long-range financial planning...
...besides, they add, if strictly adhered to, the Guy proposal would only create a completely new category of criminal-the kidnap usurer, possibly connected to the kidnappers themselves...
...While some small-time hoodlums have attempted to get rich quick, and neo-Fas-cists and extreme Leftists have occasionally abducted people to finance their political activities, the Mafia is thought to be responsible for about 90 per cent of the kidnappings...
...To run its abduction business, the crime syndicate, already raking in half a billion dollars a year from drug, prostitution and protection rackets, has established a network of tightly controlled cells...
...As a result of the current crime wave, a number of Italians in the upper economic brackets have begun to hire bodyguards-so-called gorillas-to protect themselves and their families...
...The proposed legislation, however, is highly controversial...
...The warning was made even more grisly by the Italian postal system, which, in its usual chaos, managed to deliver the package only after considerable delay...
...Whatever the solution, there is, by now, little debate over the identity of the malefactors...
...Among the more prominent recent victims have been the jeweler Gianni Bulgari, a member of the international jet set, and Giuseppe D'Amico, an elderly ship owner who was kept for weeks in a hut in the wilds of southern Italy...
...But 15 years ago the sordid business started to spread and today it is thriving...
...During the '50s, the poor and socially backward island of Sardinia was hit by a series of abductions, mostly associated with traditional local vendettas...
...Hence they favor tough deterrents like the death penalty rather than what they see as unenforceable preventive measures...
...As Bulgari pointed out after his release, only a large organization has the capital, manpower and facilities for a successful job...
...Other critics argue that freezing assets is no answer because desperate wealthy persons can always borrow money...
...The statistics do not include the abduction earlier this year of a famous race horse, American-bred Wayne Eden, returned after a few weeks of illegal studding, or the demand for money made not long ago to prevent the removal of a corpse that was awaiting burial...
...Many law-and-order advocates believe no law can restrain a family from trying to save a loved one's life...
...Discovery of the girl's body deeply shocked a previously apathetic public, and in response Minister of Police Luigi Guy announced the introduction of a bill in Parliament that would freeze the assets of a victim's relatives and prohibit their negotiating with the kidnappers...
...The boy was freed in December 1973 following five months captivity and the payment of a reported $3 million-though not before his left ear had been mailed to a Rome newspaper by the kidnappers to convince the family that they meant business...
...Others, such as the famous sculptor Giacomo Manzu, have sent their children to Switzerland to be out of danger...
Vol. 58 • October 1975 • No. 20
