He was one of the leaders of the French Connection, and inspired the film Borsalino, which featured Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo.

When Spirito was 15 he started working for a gangster called Antoine la Rocca, and got involved in armed robbery and the white slave trade.

[4] In 1913, whilst in Alexandria, Egypt, part of la Rocca's network that brought women from Paris to work in Egyptian brothels, Spirito rescued Paul Carbone.

They set up a laboratory in Bandol, near Marseille[5] to refine the raw opium from Egypt,[6] Turkey[7] and Indochina into heroin, some of which was sent to Lucky Luciano in the United States.

With the money made in Paris they opened brothels all over France, staffing them with women from Europe and South America.

[4] During the inter-war period, Carbone and Spirito allied themselves with the mayor of Marseilles, Simon Sabiani, and acted as his enforcers,[10] and in return received political protection.

[13] During World War II, Carbone and Spirito joined the Carlingue which collaborated with the Germans in France; in return, the local civilian authorities in Marseilles were expected to ignore their criminal activities.

Whilst he was in custody, on 24 October, the French Court of Appeal found him guilty, in his absence, of theft and sentenced him to 20 years of hard labour.

In February 1952, a federal court in New York sentenced Spirito to two years in prison on drug trafficking charges.