During the 14 years of Al Capone's reign, there were 700 mob murders in Chicago; of these, 400 were ordered by Capone himself.
Alphonse Fiorello Caponi is much better known by his nickname Al Capone. He was born, according to his own statement, in Naples in 1899 (according to another version, in Castelamaro four years earlier). In 1909, the Caponi family, like many other Italians, moved to New York in search of happiness. Richard (Richard) Caponi, the eldest son, became a policeman. His brother Alfonso (Al Capone) chose the opposite path. But he started out harmlessly enough - as a butcher's assistant in Brooklyn. However, he was soon drawn into the criminal environment.
To begin with, Al Capone worked in one of the local gangs as a helper boy, but his abilities were soon noticed, and the guy was helped to retrain as a professional killer. His first “wet case” was the murder of an obstinate Chinese who did not want to share the income from his restaurant.
Meanwhile, the struggle for the presidency in the “Sicilian Union” was unfolding in the country. During the struggle, Frank Aiello destroyed the head of the union, Big Jim Colosimo, in order to install Johnny Torrio in his place. Frank Aiello and Johnny Torrio invited Canone to Chicago in the mid-1920s. Capone, having gone through the stages of working as a bartender and bouncer, takes the nickname Al Brown and becomes Torrio's assistant. From now on, he is a bootlegger, that is, a person involved in the illegal sale of alcohol (Prohibition was in effect in the USA at that time). At the same time, Al Capone created a reliable combat cover group.
The “Sicilian Union” of gangsters that emerged at the beginning of the century made the hitman profession a popular one. Within the framework of the commonwealth mafia clans in the 1930s, the so-called “Murder Corporation” was even created, uniting full-time criminals - executors of mafia death sentences.
When the police succeeded in getting some of the arrested Mafiosi to speak in 1940, it revealed, as Mafia scholars write, "a picture of a veritable death-for-hire industry - a gigantic killer enterprise that spread its tentacles throughout the country and operated on an incredible scale with punctuality, precision and the extraordinary efficiency of a well-oiled machine..."
The stage for the creation of a kind of murder community was prepared during a meeting of underworld leaders in Atlantic City in 1929. At this meeting, in addition to Al Capone, Joe Torrio, Lucky Luciano, and Dutch Schultz were present. During the creation of the crime syndicate, the distribution of territories and sectors of activity, representatives of the top of the American criminal world swore to strictly implement the secret code that they developed and which from now on was supposed to regulate relations between various gangs.
Each leader of a gang of bandits had the right to control the life and death of his people within the established competence. Outside the gang he led, even on his own territory, he was prohibited from holding court on his own. He had to necessarily bring the issue that arose for discussion to the highest council of the criminal syndicate, consisting of the most powerful leaders, called upon to monitor the observance of order within the organization, to consider everything controversial issues, threatening to lead to bloody skirmishes, and resolutely suppress any undertakings that could harm the syndicate.
The Supreme Council made a decision by a simple majority of votes after a kind of trial, where the accused, who was usually absent, was defended by one of the members of the Areopagus. An acquittal was pronounced very rarely; generally, the highest council spoke in favor of using one punishment - death.
The execution of sentences was entrusted to the "Murder Corporation". Executioners for these purposes were supplied by gangs from different regions USA. The most successful were people from a gang called the Brooklyn Union.
Becoming a leader organized crime in Chicago, Al Capone gives orders to eliminate his opponents in the gangster environment - both real and potential. To protect himself, Al Capone ordered a personal Cadillac weighing 3.5 tons. The car had powerful armor, bulletproof glass and a removable rear window for shooting at pursuers.
Al Capone waged war against his former benefactor, Frank Aiello, and his brothers. The Aiello family maintained an entire army of hired killers, but Al Capone's boys turned out to be more agile in this battle of octopuses. Frank Aiello and several of his brothers and nephews were killed. The surviving members of the Aiello clan hired a brilliant professional killer, 22-year-old Giuseppe Gianta, nicknamed Jumping Toad, and also bribed two people from Al Capone's entourage - Albert Anselmi and John Scalise.
“The trio, of course, would have completed the task,” the journalists write, “if the suspicious Al Capone had not beaten his own in front of everyone.” faithful assistant, Frank Rio, not without his consent, of course. The trick was a success, and Janta, without hesitation, offered Rio his help, believing that he would want to take revenge for the insult. Frank Rio haggled for a long time about the price of his betrayal, and then went straight to the boss and told him everything.
Capone, in a rage, literally crushed the Havana cigar, which at that moment was in his hands, with his thick ringed fingers. And, of course, it didn’t stop there. As the head of the largest criminal community, he invited, through the mediation of Rio, all three to a large Sicilian reception as especially honored guests. Lunch was to take place in a separate room of the chic Auberge de Gammond restaurant. Capone, who never hesitated to spend money, watched with disgust as the guests gorged themselves on delicacies prepared especially for the farewell dinner. Raising his glass of red wine, Al Capone made another toast:
Long life to you, Giuseppe, to you, Albert, and to you too, John... And success to you in your endeavors.
The guests chorused:
And success in your endeavors...
Due to the abundance of food and wine, many began to take off their jackets and unfasten their belts. They sang the old songs of their native land. By midnight, the sated guests put down their plates. There was excitement at the end of the table where Capone was sitting. The owner again raised his glass and made another toast in honor of the trio sitting nearby, but instead of drinking, he threw the contents of the glass in their faces, smashed the glass on the floor and yelled:
Bastards, I will make you vomit what you swallowed here, because you betrayed the friend who feeds you...
With a swiftness surprising for a man of his size, he rushed at them. Frank Rio and Jack McGorn have already pointed their weapons at the traitors. Frank walked around them from behind, wrapped them in rope and tied them to the backs of chairs. He then forced all three of them to turn towards Capone. Those present remembered this scene for a long time.
Al Capone had a baseball bat in his hands. The first blow hit Scalise's collarbone. As the bat dropped, the madness of the Chicago Satan increased. Foam appeared on his thick lips, he moaned with excitement, while those subjected to a barbaric beating screamed and begged for mercy.
They were not spared..."
On the orders of Al Capone, the famous massacre took place on St. Valentine's Day. In January 1929, Bugs Moran's (real name George Miller) gang stole Al Capone's trucks and blew up several bars he owned. Capone's main gunman, Jack McGorn, nicknamed Machine Gun, was ambushed and barely escaped alive. This forced Capone to liquidate the Moran gang.
On February 14, 1929, one of Capone's men called Moran and said that he had stolen a truckload of contraband liquor. Moran ordered the truck to be driven into the garage, which served as a secret warehouse for alcohol. When Moran's gangsters gathered to receive the cargo, a car drove up to the garage, from which four people got out - two of them in police uniforms. The imaginary policemen ordered Moran's men to stand facing the wall, took out machine guns and opened fire. So six gangsters were shot, and another died from his wounds in the hospital, having managed to declare before his death: “Nobody shot at me.” Moran was late for the meeting and survived.
Capone himself, of course, had a strong alibi on the day of the massacre.
Capone's "Empire" brought him $60 million a year, but he also spent a lot. On horse racing alone he lost up to a million a year. His homes in Florida and Chicago were guarded around the clock, and armed bodyguards accompanied the boss everywhere. He had his own secret entrance to Chicago hotels - first to the modest Metropole, where 50 rooms were reserved for his retinue, and then to the luxurious Lexington. Capone's Irish wife May, whom he married at a young age, was usually in honorable exile. He kept a bunch of mistresses and selected more and more girls from his brothels.
During the Wall Street crash and economic crisis, Al Capone was one of the first to establish soup kitchens for the unemployed to gain public favor. He was one of the first to put the matter of bribing the press on a grand scale. His consultant public relations- Chicago Tribune reporter Jack Lingle - organized almost weekly articles praising Al Capone. Officially, Lingle received $65 a week at the newspaper, but his secret salary was $60,000 a year. Lingle was shot and killed on June 9, 1930, on the eve of a meeting with FBI agents looking for dirt on Capone.
During the 14 years of Al Capone's reign, there were 700 mob murders in Chicago; of these, 400 were ordered by Capone himself. 17 professional killers were formally charged, but it was rare that gangsters were put behind bars.
In the 1930s, when Edward Hoover headed the FBI, American justice developed new methods of fighting the mafia. Since it was extremely difficult to prove the involvement of mafiosi in murders, they were sent to prison on charges of lesser crimes. So, in 1929, Al Capone was convicted of carrying a weapon without permission; he spent 10 months in prison. However, even while in prison, he received whoever he wanted and freely used the telephone, running his empire around the clock.
For the second time, the boss of bosses received a sentence for non-payment of taxes in the amount of 388 thousand dollars. Al Capone's lawyers tried to bargain with the judge, but he was adamant. Then they took on the jury, but on the day of the hearing the judge replaced the jury with others. On October 22, 1931, the jury returned a guilty verdict, which allowed the judge to sentence the gangster to 11 years in prison.
While in local prison, Al Capone continued to lead his men, but when he was transferred to a federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia, this became impossible. And in 1934, Al Capone was completely shut off, sending him to the famous prison on Alcatraz Island. This meant the end of the king of gangsters' career.
In prison, Al Capone kept himself apart from others, but when he was stripped of his privileges and forced to work as a janitor, prisoners began calling him “the boss with the mop.” One day, when he refused to take part in a prison strike, someone stabbed him in the back with a pair of scissors.
Al Capone's memory began to change; his health deteriorated. A medical examination revealed that he had late stage syphilis. In 1939, Al Capone was partially paralyzed and was released early.
The last years of his life he lived in his home in Florida. Al Capone died on January 25, 1947 from a heart attack and pneumonia. Before his death, as befits a Catholic, he managed to receive Holy Communion. It is not known whether he spoke in his dying confession about the hundreds of people killed on his orders, and about the forty whom he killed with his own hand.
Al Capone was buried in the Mont Olivets cemetery in Chicago, but so many tourists came to his grave that the family was forced to move the gangster’s ashes to another cemetery.
The name of this man remains forever on the pages of history. This is a thief and criminal who lived in Chicago in the 1920-1930s of the last century, where he conducted his main activities. Al Capone is known only as “Scarface,” he is associated with any mention of a criminal gang, and stories are made about him in Hollywood. In this article we will try to figure out what the famous gangster is remembered for.
An ordinary child... or not?
It is difficult to say why a person chooses one path or another, especially if nothing portends anything bad. However, we can talk about this for a long time, but it is better to immediately turn to the story of Al Capone. The biography of this person is not distinguished by any special facts, in particular during his growing up period. He was born in Naples in 1899. Immediately after this, the entire family of little Alfonso Gabriel, including his hairdresser father and the other eight brothers and sisters, moved to America in search of a better life.
In Brooklyn, they first of all solved the main problem - where to get money for food. No one spoke about education; the poor had nothing left to do. last place on the list of essentials. There was no good work, I had to take on hard physical labor, which was at least somehow paid, but did not promise bright prospects. Therefore, Al Capone once and for all abandoned the idea of getting an education. It is noteworthy that, having become a representative of organized crime in America, he last days remained illiterate.
Finding yourself
Without expecting help from anyone, young Alfonso was left to his own devices. Before becoming a gang member and starting patrolling the streets of Brooklyn, which had become his hometown, Al Capone tried several professions - he served as an assistant in a pharmacy, a candy store and a bowling alley. He admitted to himself that he was attracted night life, and also billiards, which was gaining popularity in the country. In this game, he was ready to defeat every opponent, this strengthened his persistent character and desire to go to the end, to trample the enemy. Al Capone, whose biography confirms many facts from the youth of the future gangster, was, for example, obese, which at one time allowed him to work as a bouncer in a bar. Researchers recall a sad story that occurred during the period when Capone showed interest in the sister of local gangster Frank Galluccio. During a street fight, he, using a knife, forever left a mark not only on Capone’s cheek, but also in history, since it was after this incident that Alfonso received his famous nickname.
Personality formation
Alfonso began training with weapons, especially knife fighting. The famous "Gang of Five Guns" noted Al Capone's good abilities and encouraged him to join their ranks. More than one and a half thousand people were engaged in robberies and racketeering, and their leader, Johnny Torrio, hired the young man as his personal assistant. Alfonso called this man father and teacher. Later, it was he who taught him dangerous tricks, which a few years later the gangster Al Capone began to actively use, rising higher and higher on the criminal ladder.
Personal life is not a hindrance to your career
In 1918, he married May Coughlin, an Irishwoman who was two years older than him. The couple has a son, Albert. Torrio is forced to move to Chicago, a quieter area where no one knew him. Capone himself was a suspect in the murder, but the court was unable to convict him because the witness lost his memory and physical evidence disappeared right from the judge’s office. Al Capone, whose photo was already hanging in police stations, quarreled with a representative of a rival crime clan and took his life in a street fight. A real raid was announced on him. Fleeing, he asks Torrio for help, and he, in turn, invites his entire family to his place.
Conquest of Chicago
The new city greeted the gangster neutrally. No one could have imagined that it would soon become Capone’s hometown, where his most terrible crimes would take place. Al Capone's life was gaining momentum - patron Johnny Torrio hired him as a bouncer in his tavern establishment. The nightclub was visited by iconic people, so the presence of a personal security guard affected the well-being of Torrio himself. So, in the basements of the establishment, on Johnny’s orders, reprisals were carried out against people he disliked, whose bodies were carried out through the back entrance. Capone did most of the menial work with his own hands.
When Torrio began to lose ground, it became clear who would take his place. Soon his successor was proclaimed the Don of the Chicago underworld. The peak of Al Capone's empire came at a time when every second official, including the police, judges and deputies, received not only a salary from him, but also personal instructions on how and what to do. In other words, the gangster became the first face of the city, a scarred face who was so feared that they did not dare to contradict him.
Al Capone's revenge was terrible. He did not like betrayal and any action that was not agreed with him. One day, a civil servant amended a bill without his approval. As a result, many of his colleagues and even ordinary passers-by watched the scene when Capone burst into his office and grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and literally beat him in front of everyone.
The other side of “success”
The title of “King of Chicago” also had negative sides, which the gangster knew about. Capone remained the enemy and number one target of many rival gangs. He was shot several times, his family was threatened, and they tried to poison him at the club. However, the ability to recognize enemies and their future actions made it possible not only to remain a leader, but also to get ahead of rivals and get them out of your way.
One of the most terrible massacres committed by Capone is associated with Valentine's Day. Ten of the gangster's best assistants disguised themselves as police officers and staged a raid on his main enemies, who were secretly plotting the destruction of Capone.
Fall of the Empire
Many wanted to catch the criminal, but it was extremely difficult to do so using his own methods. Surrounding himself with constant security, Al did not allow strangers to approach him. There was only one thing left to do - develop new plan, which would not arouse suspicion.
The country's tax police introduced their agent, Eddie O'Hairy, into Capone's group, where he remained for a long time. During this period, Eddie collected information regarding the gangster's profits and the real turnover of his empire. This allowed him to be charged with tax evasion. He was put behind bars for 11 years. The property turned out to be registered to dummies, which made it possible to keep his stolen fortune in the hands of his wife, son and family.
Last Resort in Alcatraz
Al Capone spent five years in the famous prison for the most dangerous criminals. He turned into a helpless patient. When the case was reheard, he was declared insane and his family was ordered to take him into their care. The assistants who remained loyal to him tried to revive the empire, but with his condition it was not possible to do this. Eddie O'Hairy was shot and killed in his own car. It was an act of revenge.
Capone died in 1947. His body was brought from Florida to Chicago. The funeral ceremony was held closed. As Capone himself bequeathed, he was buried under a gravestone. According to some sources, his grave had to be moved later due to the influx of numerous tourists.
Chicago remembers him as a ruthless mobster. During the 14 years of government, about 700 murders were committed in the city, most of which were carried out by his personal order.
Famous Al Capone Quotes
During his long gangster activity, he gained popularity throughout the city where he ruled. Biographers will find a lot of interesting information and secrets that he hid for several years. This man was remembered not only as an angry killer who dealt with his enemies very cruelly.
He made a number of statements, the most striking of which are presented below:
Lover of bloody massacres
After the events of St. Valentine's Day, when Capone's gang riddled almost all of his enemies, he began to deal with them more practically. He didn't want this to be a pure revenge killing, he wanted his enemies (especially traitors) to see his anger and realize their mistakes before they died.
History tells another carnage, when Capone learned of a secret plot against him, but decided to remain diplomatic until the end. He himself did not hesitate to spend money if he had to show the scope of the generosity of the head of the criminal community. One day he gave a Sicilian reception for his “friends.” Al Capone (the phrases he said that evening were well remembered by the guests), with a glass in his hand, made a toast with the following content: “Long life to you, Giuseppe, to you, Albert, and to you too, John... And success to you in your endeavors.” .
And after some time he looked with contempt at them, gorging themselves on delicacies at his expense. Rising, he muttered through his teeth: “I will make you vomit what you swallowed here, because you betrayed the friend who feeds you...”.
The servants, still distinguished by their devotion, tied the enemies, who did not understand anything, with a rope to chairs. Further events unfolded with amazing speed, especially for a man of similar build as Al Capone (photo confirmation of this). Picking up a baseball bat that happened to be nearby, he struck them with fatal blows. According to the stories of the guests present, anger literally spilled out of his mouth, and he himself groaned with excitement, anticipating reprisals against those who asked for mercy.
Al Capone quotes are not limited to the examples above. This event gives rise to one of the most famous gangster sayings: “Feed and drink your enemy before you kill him.”
The phenomenon of crime in cinema
The image of the most famous mafioso is often used in art. Yes, he can be found in computer games Nocturne and “Chicago, 1932”, as well as in the musical direction, where his name is mentioned in the songs of the groups Paper Lace, Queen, Bad Balance and Mr. Credo.
The greatest use of the image of a notorious gangster is manifested in cinema. Al Capone, the 1959 film that became the first black-and-white biopic, told the story of a gangster's rise into the Chicago criminal underworld. Rod Steiger performed main role. The 1967 film “The St. Valentine's Day Massacre” restores the famous bloody events. In 1975, a new biographical adaptation entitled “Capone” was released. Ben Gazzara appeared as a gangster, and Sylvester Stallone played one of his first roles.
Cinema knows other examples of films dedicated to Al Capone. The 2002 film “Al Capone's Boys” tells the story of three Englishmen who came to America. They have no choice but to adapt to criminal showdowns and underground betting. Soon they are moving closer and closer to the main mafioso of the city... The image of Capone was played by actor Julian Litman. Other examples of gangster paintings include:
- “Nitty Gangster” (1988).
- “Gangsters” (1991).
- “Dillinger and Capone” (1995).
- “Handsome Nelson” (1996).
- “Underground Empire” (TV series, 2010).
Robert De Niro most vividly recreated the image of the criminal on screen. Al Capone became the main antagonist in the 1987 film. “The Untouchables” tells about the confrontation between American FBI agents and a gangster’s empire. Events take place in the 1930s. The story involves Eliot Ness, a Treasury Department agent who helped expose and indict Capone. He also wrote an autobiographical book, which partially formed the basis of the film. In “The Untouchables” he was played by Kevin Costner, for whom this role is one of the best in the initial career of an actor.
Name: Al Capone (Alfonso Gabriel Capone)
Age: 48 years old
Height: 170
Activity: gangster, Chicago mafia boss
Family status: was married
Al Capone: biography
Most often, people are interested in the personalities of historical figures who could become an example of behavior, or who created something useful for the country, for art, for science, for future life. But there is whole line personalities who became famous not for creativity, but for crimes, but are no less interesting to the public. One of the most famous criminals in the history of mankind is considered to be Alfonso Gabriel Capone, who is usually called by his diminutive name - Al Capone. Let's see what this gangster became famous for.
Famous Italian mafia boss | Airbnb He is considered one of the founding fathers of organized crime in the United States during the era of Prohibition and the Great Depression, the author of the money laundering system and the concept of “racketeering.” But most of all, the name Capone went down in history in connection with a sensational series of murders called the “Valentine’s Day Massacre.” Al Capone's biography is directly related to his ancestors, more precisely to the Italian family. It was from Italy that Gabriel and Teresa Capone emigrated and settled in the New York suburb of Williamsburg. And it is with the Italian mafia that their son will be associated all his life.
Gangster with a good-natured face | Noticias Terra Alfonso was born in last year XIX century and became the first of nine children of his father and mother. WITH early years His highly excitable character was evident. Today, as a preschooler, the boy would have found himself among the patients of a psychiatrist and probably would not have ended up in the criminal sphere, but during Al Capone’s childhood no one thought about such things. Therefore, Alfonso’s aggression followed him like a train. From the first grades, he loudly and violently swore with classmates and teachers, and in the sixth grade he even tried to beat up the teacher right in class. Soon after this, the teenager drops out of school and joins a local gang, which will later become part of the famous New York gang "Five Points".
Photo by Alfonso Capone | Zing News Young people were mainly involved in extortion and illegal gambling. To cover his real occupation, the guy worked as a bouncer at the Harvard Inn club, and also acted as a professional billiards player. Al Capone was not very tall, only 170 centimeters, but he was always very large and gave the effect of a thug. By the way, it was in the billiard room that the fight that “gave” Al Capone a scar on his face took place. He made an unambiguous remark to one of the girls, and she turned out to be either the sister or the wife of a criminal who was also present in the hall.
A stabbing began, and Alfonso received his famous scar on his cheek. It is curious that the future head of the mafia was always ashamed of such a banal story, so he made up alternative version: The scar is supposedly the result of participation in heroic battles during the First World War. In fact, Capone not only did not fight, but did not serve in the army at all. By the age of 18, Alfonso Capone was suspected by the city police of numerous crimes, including two murders. Therefore, the young man decided to seek his fortune in another metropolis and moved from New York to Chicago.
Mafia career
At the new place, “Great Al,” as his friends called him, took up pimping in one of the run-of-the-mill brothels. Among the Chicago gangsters of the 30s, this was considered almost the most humiliating occupation, but Capone managed to make an incredible profitable business. He turned it from an ordinary brothel into a four-story bar, “The Four Deuces,” where a beer hall, a betting shop, a casino and the brothel itself were located on floors. Initially a cheap hot spot, it quickly turned into an enterprise generating $35 million a year. In today's money, this would be approximately 420 million per annum.
Capone started as a pimp and rose to leadership of the mafia | BuGazete Therefore, it is not surprising that by the age of 26 Al Capone became the owner of the entire criminal empire, after the previous head of the mafia, John Torrio, also called "The Fox" or "Papa Johnny", resigned his powers. First of all, the newly minted Criminal authority introduced such a previously unknown concept as racketeering. That is, he offered honest entrepreneurs to pay him a bribe, and a very considerable one, and for this he provided them with protection from other gangs, and sometimes from the police.
At the head of the Italian mafia | Free Keyword If businessmen refused, then their establishment, and often they themselves, were in danger of death. The mafia also began to exploit prostitution, introduced a fraudulent scheme, which many years later became known as “money laundering,” and “bought” police officers and even high-ranking politicians with bribes, which was previously unimaginable. By the way, the invention of the money laundering scheme is also attributed to Alfonso Capone.
Capone invented a money laundering scheme | Chrontime The point is that it personal business was directly related to the smuggling of alcoholic beverages, which were prohibited in those years in the United States. It was necessary to legitimize the profit, and for this purpose the mafia opened a network of laundries. Prices for services were set so low that the number of clients could not be counted. Accordingly, laundries officially showed the gigantic profits they actually received from the sale of alcohol. In fact, because of the laundry, the scheme was called “money laundering,” although this term was first used only decades after the death of Al Capone.
home distinguishing feature Al Capone's mafia - non-stop criminal showdowns, usually ending in the death of one of the bandits. During the first five years of Capone’s “reign”, over five thousand far from ordinary gangsters died in shootouts. Alfonso completely exterminated the Irish, Russian and Mexican gangs in Chicago, getting rid of competition. It was his idea to replace the usual Italian gangsters pistols to machine guns, and then to light machine guns.
It was Capone who armed his men light machine guns| OutGun Also, with his approval, explosive devices were used, connected to the car’s starter, which destroyed the car with the driver and passengers after turning on the ignition. A series of gangster murders received widespread famous name"Valentine's Day Massacre." It began precisely on February 14, 1929, in a garage in which one of the gangs kept a whiskey warehouse. Capone's armed men burst in there in police uniforms, and the competitors, who decided that they had become victims of justice, meekly lined up against the wall to be arrested, but were shot on the spot.
Notes about everything in the world Similar shocking murders were repeated several more times. No direct evidence was found for these episodes of Capone, so he, like all his charges, escaped punishment. In fact, the police did not punish anyone at all for those mass shootings, which Once again proves how high in law enforcement agencies Al Capone's hand climbed up. However, it was the Valentine's Day Massacre that led to Alfonso being closely monitored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. FBI officers, not seeing the possibility of arresting him for banditry, nevertheless found another clue to catch one of the most legendary gangsters of the 20th century - they turned to the Internal Revenue Service.
Personal life
Since adolescence, moving in criminal circles, Al Capone's personal life was inextricably linked with ladies of easy virtue. By the age of 16, the young man had several sexually transmitted diseases, including syphilis, which he tried to treat, but soon abandoned the matter. Later, such disregard for health would affect Al Capone’s son. Alfonso married at the age of 19. Al Capone's wife, Irish saleswoman and ardent Catholic May Josephine Coughlin, gave birth to his only son, Albert Francis, whom the family called Sonny, a month before the wedding.
Alfonso's wedding May Capone| Gazeta.ua It is curious that due to Capone’s minority, he could not walk down the aisle without the consent of his parents, so his father Gabriel wrote written permission to official services. As for his son, Albert Francis Capone, he was significantly affected by his father's carefree behavior. The boy was born with congenital syphilis and a serious complication on the brain; he underwent a number of operations in infancy, was able to survive, but was almost deaf.
With son Alfred Francis "Sonny" Capone | Infomedia It is noteworthy that only once in his life Albert tried to feel like a criminal and stole some trinket from a store, but he was immediately arrested by the police. Capone Jr. was sentenced to two years probation, and he did not break the law again for the rest of his life. At an already mature age, Albert changed his famous surname to Brown, got married and gave birth to four daughters. So Alfonso Capone still has biological descendants.
Prison and death
As mentioned above, the police either could not or did not want to catch the head of the Italian mafia for criminal acts. And since even FBI specialists could not prove Capone’s involvement in most of the crimes, the authorities found another loophole: they accused Alfonso of evading income taxes. In the fall of 1931, the mafia boss was sentenced to 11 years and a huge fine. So that Capone could not lead his subordinates from prison, he was placed in a correctional facility in Atlanta, and later in an isolated prison on Alcatraz Island.
Photos at Alcatraz Prison | Alcatraz History The gangster served only seven of the 11 years, but they were enough for Alfonso to completely lose his health and be released, having completely lost his criminal influence. In prison, his chronic syphilis entered the final stage of destruction of the body, although Al Capone died for a different reason. At the end of January he suffered a stroke, three days later doctors additionally diagnosed pneumonia, and on January 25, 1947, Alfonso Capone died of cardiac arrest in his country house in Florida.
Alfonso Capone's grave | Pressa.tv The mafia boss was buried in Chicago, but due to the huge flow of tourists, which actually turned into a pilgrimage, his body was reburied in Mount Carmel Cemetery in Illinois. In history, the name Capone remained as the personification of organized crime, but had a certain aura of gangster romance, which is very often used in cinema. Several dozen people have played Al Capone in films and television series. famous actors, including legendary Hollywood stars And .
The personality of Al Capone is also interesting to collectors. They even sell weapons that belonged to him at auctions. For example, in January 2017, Capone’s Smith & Wesson 32-caliber revolver, which the mafioso carried even while playing golf, became the main highlight of American auctions.
Alfonso Gabriel "Big Al" Capone(Italian Alphonso Gabriel "Great Al" Capone; January 17 - January 25) is an American gangster active in the 1920s and 1930s in Chicago. Under cover furniture business was involved in bootlegging, gambling and pimping. Bright representative US organized crime, which originated and exists there under the influence of the Italian mafia. Often referred to in popular culture by the nickname "Scarface" Scarface) .
early years
Influence on popular culture
Computer games
- Al Capone is the leader of the zombie production line in the third episode of Nocturne. The created zombies then become bandits.
- In May 1998, 1C and Snowball Interactive released the game Chicago, 1932: Don Capone in Russia - a real-time strategy game from the Byte Enchanters studio.
- Al Capone appears in episode 5 of Mob Enforcer (in Russian version"I, Gangster"), published in 2004 by ValuSoft.
Music
- Al Capone is mentioned in the song "The Night Chicago Died" by the American band Paper Lace.
- Al Capone is mentioned in the British rock band Queen's song "Stone Cold Crazy" from the album Sheer Heart Attack.
- In 2007, the rap group Bad Balance released the album “Legends of Gangsters,” one of the tracks of which is dedicated to Al Capone.
- The song "Hotel California" by the rock band Eagles is about the hotel that Al Capone owned.
- In a song by a French pop singer
Alphonse Gabriel Capone, or Al Capone (Italian: Alfonso Capone; January 17, 1899 - January 25, 1947) - famous American gangster, operating in the 1920s and 1930s in the Chicago area. Under the guise of the furniture business, he was involved in bootlegging, gambling and pimping. A prominent representative of US organized crime, which originated and exists there under the influence of the Italian mafia. Also known by the nickname Scarface.
Al Capone was born on January 17, 1899 in Naples, the son of hairdresser Gabriel Capone and his wife Teresa. He was the fourth child in the family (there were nine in total). In search of a better life, the Capone family soon moved to America (Brooklyn).
The Capone family was primarily concerned with their own food, and therefore the education of young Alfonso was essentially left to chance. One of the most legendary gangsters of the 20th century, Capone remained almost completely illiterate until his death.
Young Alfonso very early faced the need to earn his own living: like others his age, he could only apply for hard, low-paid work, devoid of any prospects. By the sixth grade, Alfonso had already become a full member of the gang and, like everyone else, patrolled the streets of his native area.
Capone, a school dropout, tried many different professions for two years, working in a bowling alley, a pharmacy, and even a candy store, but he became more and more attracted to night look life. For example, having become addicted to playing billiards, within a year he won absolutely all the tournaments held in Brooklyn. There was a time when he worked as a bartender and at times as a bouncer. Due to his physical strength and size, Capone enjoyed doing this work in his boss Yale's squalid establishment, the Harvard Inn. It is to this period of his life that historians attribute Capone’s notorious stabbing with bandit and murderer Frank Galluccio. The quarrel occurred over the sister (according to some reports, wife) of Galluccio, who was very interested in the temperamental Capone. Gallucio inflicted a deep wound on Al, slashing his switchblade across Al's right cheek. He had no idea that he was making history by giving his enemy a scar that would mark its owner in the criminal world under the nickname “Scarface.”
At the same time, Capone continued to train diligently with weapons and became an excellent knife fighter, as a result of which he was soon noticed by the legendary gang of Johnny "Papa" Torrio, known as the Five Guns Gang. The most powerful and numerous criminal organization in New York, the Torrio gang consisted of more than one and a half thousand gangsters engaged in robberies, robberies, racketeering and contract killings. It was Torrio, who cast Capone as one of his personal thugs, who taught him especially dangerous tricks that would later allow Alfonso to rise to the very heights of the criminal world. To the end of his life, Capone was grateful to Torrio for the many lessons that really laid the foundation for his meteoric career, and often called Johnny his father and teacher.
On December 18, 1918, Alfonso, who was 19 years old, married 21-year-old Irish girl Mae Coughlin, and a few months later became happy father little Albert Capone. However, at the same time, Torrio's business in New York went very badly and he was forced to transfer most of his operations to the still more or less free Chicago. Capone, meanwhile, was the prime suspect in two cases of premeditated murder, but was released when the prosecution's main witness suddenly lost his memory and physical evidence mysteriously disappeared from the judge's office. Shortly after his release, Capone again got into an argument with one of the street gangsters of a rival organization and in the end simply killed him. Without the help of Torrio, who had already left the city, his chances for another easy release were very slim, and after calling Papa Johnny and describing the current situation, Capone received an invitation to Chicago, quickly packed his few belongings and, together with his wife and son, immediately left New York. ..
Arriving in Chicago, Capone began working as a bartender and bouncer at the Four Deuces, Torrio's new club, where he quickly gained a reputation as the most aggressive bouncer in the city. Overdone patrons often left the club with broken arms and ribs, sometimes with a concussion, and once even with blood poisoning, when Capone lost his temper so much that he bit the poor man’s neck to an artery. Such behavior could not go unnoticed for long, and he soon became a frequent visitor to the nearest police station, but thanks to Torrio's connections with the police, he was invariably released within two or three hours of his arrest. While working for Capone's Four Deuces on behalf of Torrio with bare hands strangled at least twelve people, whose bodies were carried out under the cover of darkness through the basement into a quiet alley behind the club, where Capone always had a stolen fast car waiting for him.
The aging Papa Torrio grew weaker every day, and Capone took on more and more of the responsibilities of the city's true underworld Don. At its height, his underground organization consisted of more than a thousand armed gangsters and more than half the city's police officers. Capone regularly paid personal salaries to senior police officers, prosecutors and district mayors, deputies legislative assemblies and even US congressmen. One day, the mayor of Cicero, a small outskirts of Chicago, took it upon himself to pass a new decree without first coordinating it with Capone. An enraged gangster burst into the city council chamber, dragged the mayor by the lapels of his jacket into the street and beat him half to death in front of the assembled crowd and deputies...
However, the title of “King of Chicago” also had its downsides for Capone. His family was constantly threatened by anonymous phone calls, he was shot at on the streets, poison was added to clubs: One of Capone's most ardent opponents, the head of the second most important street gang in Chicago, Dion O'Brien, once staged a well-planned attempt on his life, literally riddling several machine guns in the Hawthorne Inn room, where Capone stayed for several days. Finding Capone, who was hiding under a heavy marble table, dead after more than a thousand rounds of ammunition were fired through the window of his room, O'Brien retired to celebrate his victory while climbing out of the rubble With the hotel almost destroyed, Capone was already planning a retaliatory strike.
To carry out the quick and brutal murder of O'Brien, Capone chose two of his best shooters, John Scalizo and Albert Anselmi. However, almost immediately after they destroyed O'Brien, Capone learned of Scalizo and Anselmi's conspiracy with another rival gang, according to which they were supposed to remove Capone himself within the next week. Having invited the shooters to a banquet in honor of the successful work on O'Brien, Capone, with words of congratulations, took out a pre-prepared ornate bat and, in front of the assembled gangsters, killed both of them with it. Now his last enemy was only Bugs Morgan - O's only surviving assistant. Brian, whose murder will subsequently mark the beginning of the collapse of Al Capone's entire empire...
On Valentine's Day, several selected Capone gangsters, dressed in police suits, burst into Morgan's basement and lined up the seven remaining O'Brien bandits along one of the walls. While Morgan's people decided not to resist, mistaking what was happening for another police raid, the gangsters The Capones shot them in cold blood with machine guns, firing more than one and a half thousand rounds. Unfortunately for them, Morgan himself was not in the basement at that moment and with his help, a gigantic scandal about “Bloody Saint Valentine” arose in the city press, forcing the public to change their opinion about bootlegging wars.
The fall of Capone's empire was started by one of his own people, who was responsible for horse and dog racing. Eddie O'Hair, one of the best agents embedded by the US Tax Police in the Chicago underworld, revealed to tax inspectors the place where Capone hid his account books, which reflected the real turnover of Capone's empire.
Having never paid income taxes in his life, Al Capone was arrested in June 1931 on charges of malicious tax evasion and was forced to stand trial in federal court.
The amount of proven non-payment was so small that Capone could have paid it out of his pocket money. little son, however, the prosecution rejected his offer to settle the case out of court for the then gigantic sum of $400,000 and brought the case to an end, as a result of which Capone was sentenced to a maximum fine of $50,000, reimbursement of legal costs in the amount of $30,000 and the maximum term for this type of crime - 11 years in prison.
His property, as well as that of his wife, was confiscated, but most of the loot was recorded in the names of front men and several fictitious corporations, as a result of which almost all of Capone's former wealth, estimated by police experts at $100,000,000, still remained in the hands of his family.
Al Capone spent the first year of his imprisonment in an Atlanta prison, and in 1934 he was transferred to the prison known as “The Rock” on the island of Alcatraz, from where he was released five years later, a practically helpless and doomed patient, who had lost his health as a result of the development of untreated syphilis, which he had contracted. during the carefree years of his youth in New York. As a result of a re-hearing of his case that took place shortly after, Capone was declared insane and placed under his guardianship. own family. At the same time, the Chicago gangsters who remained loyal to him, after many years of searching, finally found Eddie O'Hare, who had changed his name, and brutally killed Capone's longtime enemy in his own car. However, the influence of the aged Capone had completely weakened by this time, and the restoration of the former empire was out of the question. And although his few gangster friends continued to visit their ailing don regularly for several years and tell fictitious stories about the “taking of ten central stores” and “a respectful message from the heads of the crime families of America,” and his former accountant especially for he was keeping a fictitious account of the millions earned in this way, the end of the completely weakened king of Chicago was already close.
In January 1947, Alfonso Capone died as a result of a massive cerebral hemorrhage. His body was transported from Florida to Chicago, where it immediately came under the guard of several dozen gangsters armed with machine guns: even after his death, Capone continued to command the legions of the American underworld. After a private funeral ceremony, the former King of Chicago, at the request of his family, was buried under a modest gravestone, where legendary gangster rests to this day.
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