Call me Al: Mobster falls after prosecutors follow the money
As a man who loved extravagant things, and who smirked in court as prosecutors rhymed off his purchases of expensive cars and luxury silk underwear, gangster Al Capone’s criminal career ended on a decidedly unglamorous note.
On October 17, 1931, Capone was convicted and later jailed of tax evasion, as prosecutors were unable to find a way to charge him with the more serious crimes of bootlegging, extortion and murder.
Al Capone was born Alphonse Gabriel Capone on January 17, 1899 in Brooklyn, New York. His penchant for violence started early when he was thrown out of school aged 14 for hitting a female teacher in the face.
He soon became involved in New York’s underworld, and got into a bust-up that ended with him being slashed three times on the left side of his face, earning him the moniker “Scarface”, a nickname he apparently loathed.
In 1919, Capone moved to Chicago on the invitation of his mentor and crime boss Johnny Torrio. By 1925, Torrio had retired and handed over his criminal empire to Capone, who was only 26 at the time.
Capone, however, inherited not just Torrio’s lucrative business but also his gangland feuds, and instantly became the primary enemy of the Irish North Side Gang who were out for revenge after Torrio had their leader, Dean O’Banion, murdered at his own flower shop in 1924.
Despite their best efforts, the North Side Gang could not touch Capone, and he ruled Chicago with a violently iron fist, with more than 200 murders in the city being traced back to his outfit.
While seen as a Robin Hood figure for a time due to his penchant for charitable donations, the tide of public opinion turned against him after the gruesome 1929 St Valentine’s Day Massacre, which was widely believed to have been committed on his orders.
On the morning of February 14 four men, two dressed as police officers, entered a garage run by the North Side Gang, lined the seven men inside against a wall, and opened fire on them. It is suspected that Capone was trying to eliminate their leader, Bugs Moran, but he was not inside the building when the attack happened.
After the massacre, Chicago business leaders pushed US President Herbert Hoover to crack down on Capone’s nefarious activities in their city.
The Bureau of Internal Revenue realised they could charge Capone for money laundering and tax evasion.
Capone had claimed he had no income so could not pay tax, but the Bureau argued that if they could prove that Capone lived an extravagant lifestyle, that then in turn proved that he did indeed have an untaxed cash flow coming in from somewhere.
After a lengthy trial Capone was sentenced to 11 years in prison and spent the majority of his sentence in Alcatraz, San Francisco.
By 1938, untreated syphilis had began to reduce his mental capacity, and he died in Florida at his family home at age 48 in 1947.
Capone is still an iconic figure in American history, and has been played by some of Hollywood biggest actors. Robert De Niro
played him in the 1987 film The Untouchables, while more recently Tom Hardy took him on in 2020’s
critically panned Capone.