August Del Gracio
August Del Gracio | |
|---|---|
| August Del Gazio | |
 Mugshot taken by the German police in 1931 after an arrest for narcotics | |
| Born | July 10, 1893 |
| Died | 1950 |
| Other names |
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| Spouse | Anna Walker |
August "Augie" Del Gracio was an Italian American gangster and mob enforcer in the 1920's, 30's and 40's in New York and Europe. He held a high position in the Mafia, serving first as a lieutenant for Elie Eliopoulos and later for Frank Costello and Lucky Luciano, earning the ire of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) in the process. He was also a key figure in the Tammany Hall corner squads, running the corner of Baxter and Hester for the mayoral campaign of 1933.[1] The Commissioner of the FBN, Harry Anslinger, wrote that Del Gracio was a "much-travelled punk," and a "patent-leather hood," placing him at #89 in his bureau's internationally distributed FBN BLACK BOOK, featuring their most wanted notorious international narcotics smugglers.[2] Anslinger also wrote that Del Gracio was: "an East Side mobster of whom it was said he would sell his own sister if the price was realistic."[2]
While he might have only made 89th on the FBN's list, the Central Narcotics Bureau of the Egyptian Government and its leader, Russell Pasha, made him their 12th most wanted person in the world in the 1930's.[1][3] He was in and out of prison over the decades – over a dozen times between 1918 and 1930 – but never stayed in prison long, if at all.[4] He later bragged about his cunning ability to kill informants before he was able to be sentenced. Del Gracio was eventually captured by German police officers after a strange and convoluted drug deal gone awry, in which the German police connected him to a wider narcotics network that stretched the length of the globe, as far from New York City as Afghanistan, Turkey, Iran and China.[4][5][6] However, his final arraignment before the start of World War II was not until 1937, being sentenced to two months in what one newspaper described as a "Nazi jail."[7]
During World War II, he was one of the key figures in initiating Operation Underworld, which was a US government program wherein members of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) worked with members of the Sicilian Mafia to protect the movements of American troops as they advanced through Italy during World War II and to protect key naval shipyards in the US from strikes and sabotage.[8] Del Gracio's efforts managed to secure Lucky Luciano a full pardon from New York State Governor Thomas E. Dewey.
During the war, Del Gracio was also one of the first unwitting experimental "subjects" of the US government's search for a mind control drug, also known as the truth drug experiments.[9] While several employees of the Manhattan Project had already been tested, Del Gracio was considered by Stanley Platt Lovell to be the first "field test." He was dosed without his knowledge with THC-A by FBN District Supervisor George Hunter White, a high-ranking narcotics agent for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) and head of counterintelligence at OSS at the time.[10][11] These experiments were the blueprint for the later MKUltra program.[10]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Apoyan, Jackie (2023-11-08). "Mobsters blamed for Election Day violence in New York City 90 years ago". The Mob Museum. Retrieved 2025-07-23.
- ^ a b Harry J. Anslinger and Will Oursler (1961). The murderers. Internet Archive.
- ^ Tyrone Daily Herald, August 28, 1933, Page 4
- ^ a b "SEIZED IN GERMANY ON NARCOTIC CHARGE; August (Little Augy) Del Gracio of New York Held With Half Ton of Contraband. HUGE SHIPMENT IS MISSED 1,430 Pounds Believed to Be on High Seas or Already to Have Reached United States. Police Here Uninformed". The New York Times. 1931-12-06. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-07-23.
- ^ "Gangster - Opium's Orphans: The 200-Year History of the War on Drugs". erenow.org. Retrieved 2025-07-22.
- ^ "BAnQ numérique". numerique.banq.qc.ca (in French). Retrieved 2025-07-22.
- ^ "U. S. SMUGGLER CONVICTED". California Digital Newspaper Collection. Santa Ana Journal, Volume 2, Number 244. February 12, 1937.
- ^ Apoyan, Jackie (2021-02-05). "The mystery of Lucky Luciano's 'invaluable service' to the country". The Mob Museum. Retrieved 2025-07-20.
- ^ Marks, John (1979). "THE SEARCH FOR THE "MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE"" (PDF). CIA Reading Room (confiscated from Abottabad Compound). Penguin Books. pp. 6–8.
- ^ a b McWilliams, John C. (1991). "Covert Connections: The FBN, the OSS, and the CIA". The Historian. 53 (4): 657–678. ISSN 0018-2370.
- ^ "Stranger Than Fiction". Science History Institute. Retrieved 2025-07-19.