Argentina last week enjoyed a gangster trial with super-Chicago trimmings. The star defendant: a 29-year-old, olive-skinned hellcat named Agata Galiffi who had wanted to be a movie star. She looked like a hard-eyed Joan Bennett.
Called "Flor de la Maffia" (Flower of the Black Hand), Agata came from a distinguished line of scoundrels. Father Juan Galiffi left Italy just ahead of the cops, murdered his way to control of gangland in Rosario, Argentina's second city. He prospered, sent his daughter to a fashionable school in Buenos Aires, planned a socialite wedding.
But Agata had other ideas. When her father was deported for rubbing out a rival, she took charge of his gang, whose activities included bank robbery, kidnapping, blackmail, extortion. Soon she muscled in on the Rosario race track, cleaned up by fixing the races. With her head triggerman, Arturo Placeres, Agata liked to speed through the streets of Rosario in a black Packard sedan with impressive (but faked) number plates.
When the police finally nabbed them, Agata shielded Arturo with her own body to give him time to pull a gun. Instead, Arturo surrendered. Agata spat, "You coward!" and slapped him.
Sentenced to seven years' imprisonment, she cried: "I am the victim of destiny."