Amleto Vespa
Amleto Vespa (10 April 1884 – between 1941 and 1944)
Biography
Vespa was born in the town of
He met his wife Jeannine (Nina for short) in Vladivostok, where she and her mother, as Russian aristocrats, had fled after the 1917 revolution.[1]
Vespa and his wife moved across the Chinese border to Harbin in 1920, and worked for Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin until Zhang's assassination in 1928. The Italian consulate in Tianjin had arrest and deportation orders issued for Vespa, who was accused of smuggling weapons and dealing in drugs on behalf of Zhang. To avoid arrest and deportation, he managed to obtain Chinese citizenship in 1924.
After the
Secret Agent of Japan
Through an Australian reporter, Vespa published an account of his life in
Vespa claimed that the Japanese sold monopolies in gambling, prostitution and opium to racketeers to help pay for the conquest of China. In Harbin alone, Vespa counted 172 brothels, 56 opium dens and 194 stores selling narcotics. However, the situation was confused because there were five distinct Japanese security organizations in Manchuria, often at odds with each other, and individual officers sometimes kept for themselves money that was intended to pay for Japanese arms. Vespa sold protection to other racketeers and organized gang raids against rivals of the monopolies.
Vespa mentions that the areas under
Vespa also reported that many monopolies were awarded to ethnic Koreans. These monopolies included chimney sweeping and supplying Manchukuo flags, which were attempts to extort money from the local population.
The Kaspé Affair
Vespa's book also gives details of the
The Lytton Commission
Vespa also reported that Japanese secret agents were instructed to prevent complaints and petitions filed by the local population from reaching the members of the
Last years and death
His double agency discovered, Vespa managed to take refuge in
Amleto and Nina had two children, Italo and Ginevra/Genevieve. After Vespa's disappearance, they moved to the United States. Genevieve joined the League of Nations as an interpreter, while his son became an aeronautical engineer, completely changing his identity.[1][2]
After the war, Genevieve visited the Italian Embassy in Shanghai and was shown documents informing that her father had been taken prisoner by the Japanese, who took him to Taiwan and executed him there or perhaps in the Philippines. However, together with most of the archive, those documents were destroyed in a mysterious fire inside the embassy shortly after.[1][2]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Francesco Totoro, The spying game. Amleto Vespa's Chinese Affair (1884-1944), translation of Amleto Vespa spia in Cina (1884-1944) , 2014
- ^ a b c d e f g Mattia Fonzi, I misteri sull'incredibile storia di Amleto Vespa: agente segreto aquilano, NewsTown, 15 February 2015 (in Italian)
- Vespa, Amleto (1938). Secret Agent of Japan. Little, Brown & Co.; 1st edition (October, 1938). ASIN: B00005XV1I.
External links
- "Books: Japanese Rackets". Time (October 24, 1938).
- Biography (in Italian)