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Gangs had stuck to gambling and prostitution but overnight the Government created a whole new black market worth billions a year.

There were just 1,500 federal agents given the job of enforcing Prohibition – about 30 per state.

New York racketeer Arnold Rothstein, whose men rigged the 1919 baseball World Series, was one of the first to catch on, bringing booze over the Canadian border.

“Prohibition was Graduate School for gangsters. It was a whole new level,” says Jonathan.

By the mid-1920s Charles “Lucky” Luciano had become New York’s top bootlegger and a multimillionaire, along with Meyer Lanksy and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, all working under Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria.

Rival operations ran through other crime families, including Salvatore Maranzano, which led to violence. Historian Jeff Burbank, of Las Vegas’s Mob Museum, says: “About 2,000 people were killed in gangland slayings during Prohibition. In New York alone, there were 1,000.”

And 10,000 people also died from ingesting “rot gut,” or alcohol stolen by mobsters from industrial plants.

Mobsters often failed to boil the toxins out of the alcohol, mixing it with sweet liquids to mask the smell.

If the crime was bad in New York, it was nothing compared to Chicago.

Gangster Johnny Torrio was disappointed his boss Big Jim Colosimo rejected bootlegging. “So Torrio had him whacked,” says Jonathan. “He formed The Outfit with right-hand man Al Capone.”

At first rival gangs kept the peace, but in 1922, Dion O’banion lured Torrio to a meeting on the pretence of buying a brewery together. O’banion tipped off the police and Torrio was sent down, sparking Chicago’s Beer Wars, which left 475 mobsters slain in just four years.

“Once out, Torrio was shot seven times. He survived but decided it was time to retire,” says Jonathan. “And that’s when Capone took charge.”

At his height, New York-born Capone was raking in £70million a year (around £1.08billion in today’s cash) – mostly from beer.

Not only did he sell liquor to 10,000 speakeasies but he oversaw its supply from Canada to Florida.

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