The untouchables didn’ t kill the Outfit’s Enforcer
Everyone knows the blood-soaked and bulletridden tale of how Al Capone became the gangster king of Chicago.
But what about the man who took over “the Outfit” after “Scarface” was sent to jail for tax evasion?
Step forward Frank Nitti, the most powerful mobster you’ve never heard of.
One of Capone’s top henchmen, actually born Francesco Raffaele Nitto near Salerno in Italy in 1886, he was in charge of all strongarm and “muscle” operations and was known as “the Enforcer”.
Nitti emigrated to the US aged seven and settled in Brooklyn near the Capone family, where he fell in with Al’s older brothers, joining their criminal gang the Navy Street Boys.
Pitching up in Chicago in his mid-20s, Nitti’s bootlegging activities brought him to the attention of gang boss Johnny Torrio and his newly-arrived soldier, Al Capone.
Nitti rapidly rose through the ranks from being one of Capone’s bodyguards to running his liquor smuggling and distribution operation, importing whisky from Canada and selling it through his speakeasies.
Known for his leadership skills, when Capone was jailed on a gun charge in 1929, Nitti was named as one of three mobsters to run the Outfit in his place.
Two years later, both Nitti and Capone were sentenced for tax evasion but, while Al copped an 11-year-stretch, Frank got out in a year-anda-half and took his place as the new boss.
Under his leadership, the Outfit branched out from prostitution and gambling into controlling labour unions and extortion, leading to an attempt on Nitti’s life, which he survived.
The Chicago police burst into his office and shot the unarmed mobster three times, and court testimony later insisted the hit was ordered by newly-elected Mayor Anton Cermak, who wanted to eliminate the Outfit in favour of gangsters who’d answer to him.
In 1943, however, Nitti was one of many mobsters indicted for extorting Hollywood, the studios having cooperated with them to avoid union trouble.
A severe claustrophobe as a result of his prison term, Nitti dreaded another sentence. So on March 19, he began to drink heavily, loaded a .32 revolver and headed for a local railroad yard where he shot himself.
That might sound wrong if you’re a fan of the 1987 film The Untouchables, in which Nitti is thrown off a Chicago roof by Elliot Ness during Capone’s tax trial in the ’30s.
Ness is furious after he learns Nitti killed his Irish cop friend – Sean Connery’s Oscar-winning role – but despite his reputation, savvy Nitti always had hitmen do the dirty work.