Philip Mariano Fausto Musica (1877 – December 16, 1938), also known as F. Donald Coster, was an Italian swindler whose criminal career spanned parts of three decades.
By importing cheese, olive oil, and spices directly from Italy (as opposed to using a middleman), he was able to underprice his competitors.
The Musicas moved to a home in Bay Ridge in Brooklyn and became leaders of the city's Italian community.
Musica bribed dock officials to replace the real bills of lading with phony ones listing the weights of their shipments as substantially lighter than they really were.
Not long after getting out of jail, Musica founded the United States Hair Company, ostensibly to sell hairpieces that fashionable women of the day used to create elaborate hairstyles.
Musica sent his mother to Italy with the ostensible purpose of getting loans to finance the shipment of long strands of human hair across the Atlantic.
To get as much money as possible out of the company before being unmasked, Musica sought a $370,000 loan from Bank of Manhattan (now part of JPMorgan Chase), pledging 216 crates of hair as collateral.
Musica got word that the bank had alerted federal authorities and proceeded to strip his Bay Ridge home of virtually everything of value.
They got on a ship, intending to escape to Panama, but private detective William J. Burns was able to track them down by following a $12 steamer trunk Philip had bought at the Knickerbocker.
Musica pleaded guilty in return for the dismissal of all charges against his family, claiming he'd been bilked by two European firms.
He was then hired as a special investigator with the New York State Attorney General's office under the alias William Johnson.
In 1920, after briefly going into the poultry business, Musica founded the Adelphi Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Company,[3] under the alias Frank D. Costa, with Joseph Brandino as his partner.
However, the great majority of Musica's profits came from bootleggers who bought his tonic in large quantities and distilled out the alcohol to make beer and liquor.
Operating as a doctor, Musica was able to secure a permit to import 5,000 gallons of raw alcohol per month.
Three years earlier, Musica had turned state's evidence against Brandino after the two were arrested for a Prohibition violation.
Using the proceeds from Adelphi, Musica moved to the tiny suburb of Mount Vernon, New York in 1923, where he set up Girard & Co., another company that made Dandrofuge tonic.
His brother Arthur, under the alias George Vernard, set up W.W. Smith & Co. On paper, it was a sales agency that handled a large volume of Girard orders.
To lend his scheme greater legitimacy, Coster asked Price Waterhouse to audit Girard & Co.
Relying entirely on fraudulent documents provided by Girard, Price Waterhouse listed the company as having $1.1 million in sales, profits of $250,000 and assets of $295,000.
Also, he and his wife Carol (whom he had married after wrecking her previous marriage to a business associate) moved to an 18-room, seven-acre estate in Fairfield.
Coster wanted to become a major player on Wall Street and saw his chance when he found out that McKesson & Robbins, a well-respected drugmaker and distributor, was up for sale.
Coster grew even richer, buying a 28-room mansion in Fairfield, a yacht, racing horses, a stable of cars, and a castle in Monroe, Connecticut.
Coster's downfall began in 1937, when McKesson's board ordered him to convert $2 million of his crude drugs into cash to build up profits and reduce outstanding debt.
After an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Coster, Vernard, and George Dietrich were arrested and released on bail on December 13.
Donald Coster, the now-disgraced drug tycoon, was really two-time convicted fraudster Philip Musica.
Unwilling to face almost certain conviction and a long prison term, he locked himself in the bathroom and shot himself in the head on the morning of December 16.
Coster-Musica had carried out swindles on a widespread scale, including drug smuggling, weapons sales, and crooked dealings, and was a member of many prominent clubs.