'Black Hand Gang', U.S. Postal Inspection Service history page (cite and link only)

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s History Spotlight page “Black Hand Gang” is the agency’s short modern account of extortion by threatening letters sent through the mail. This archive cites and links it only. Its text and images are not reproduced here, and nothing below is quoted from it except its case names.

In summary, the page describes a 1909 investigation in Ohio by Postal Inspector Frank Oldfield, which it calls the “Society of the Banana” case, with sixteen arrests in December 1909, and a later Chicago case against Paul Mennite and Pietro Mecca. The Ohio arrests and verdict are supported by the National Archives files of the Northern District of Ohio (indictment, verdict), and the Chicago case by the federal case file (NAID 49550600).

Not corroborated here. The page’s description of the Black Hand as the first organised crime ring in America, its statement about hubs in Cincinnati and Chicago, its description of Mennite and Mecca as brothers, its account of a threatening letter to Inspector Oldfield, its mention of another shooting, and the name “Society of the Banana” itself are not found in any primary record opened for this section. They are the agency’s present-day statements.