Alphonse Gabriel Capone, sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit from 1925 to 1931. His seven-year reign as a crime boss ended when he went to prison at the age of 33.
Eliot Ness was an American Prohibition agent known for his efforts to bring down Al Capone while enforcing Prohibition in Chicago. He was leader of a team of law enforcement agents nicknamed The Untouchables, handpicked for their incorruptibility. The release of his memoir The Untouchables, months after his death, launched several screen portrayals establishing a posthumous fame for Ness as an incorruptible crime fighter.
The Untouchables is an American crime drama produced by Desilu Productions that ran from 1959 to 1963 on the ABC television network. Based on the memoir of the same name by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, it fictionalizes the experiences of Ness as a Prohibition agent fighting crime in Chicago in the 1930s with the help of a special team of agents handpicked for their courage, moral character and incorruptibility, nicknamed the Untouchables. The book was later made into a celebrated film in 1987 and a second, less-successful TV series in 1993.
John Donato Torrio was an Italian-born American mobster who helped build the Chicago Outfit in the 1920s later inherited by his protégé Al Capone. Torrio proposed a National Crime Syndicate in the 1930s and later became an adviser to Lucky Luciano and his Luciano crime family.
The Bureau of Prohibition was the United States federal law enforcement agency formed to enforce the National Prohibition Act of 1919, commonly known as the Volstead Act, which enforced the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution regarding the prohibition of the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. When it was first established in 1920, it was a unit of the Bureau of Internal Revenue. On April 1, 1927, it became an independent entity within the Department of the Treasury, changing its name from the Prohibition Unit to the Bureau of Prohibition. In 1930, it became part of the Department of Justice. By 1933, with the repeal of Prohibition imminent, it was briefly absorbed into the FBI, or "Bureau of Investigation" as it was then called, and became the Bureau's "Alcohol Beverage Unit," though, for practical purposes it continued to operate as a separate agency. Very shortly after that, once repeal became a reality, and the only federal laws regarding alcoholic beverages being their taxation, it was switched back to Treasury, where it was renamed the Alcohol Tax Unit.
Edward Joseph O'Hare, a.k.a. "Easy Eddie", was a lawyer in St. Louis and later in Chicago, where he began working with Al Capone, and later helped federal prosecutors convict Capone of tax evasion. In 1939, a week before Capone was released from Alcatraz, O'Hare was shot to death while driving. He was the father of Medal of Honor recipient Butch O'Hare, for whom O'Hare International Airport is named.
Chicago, Illinois, has a long history of organized crime and was famously home to the American mafia figure Al Capone. This article contains a list of major events related to organized crime.
The Untouchables is a 1987 American crime film directed by Brian De Palma, produced by Art Linson, and written by David Mamet. It stars Kevin Costner, Charles Martin Smith, Andy García, Robert De Niro and Sean Connery, in the third collaboration between De Palma and De Niro, following 1968's Greetings and 1970's Hi, Mom!. Set in Chicago in 1930, the film follows Eliot Ness (Costner) as he forms the Untouchables team to bring Al Capone to justice during Prohibition.
The Untouchables is an autobiographical memoir by Eliot Ness co-written with Oscar Fraley, published in 1957. The book deals with the experiences of Ness, who was a federal agent in the Bureau of Prohibition, as he fought crime in Chicago in the late 1920s and early 1930s with the help of a special team of agents handpicked for their incorruptibility, nicknamed The Untouchables.
Murray Humphreys, was a Chicago mobster of Welsh descent who was the chief political fixer and labor racketeer, beginning during the Chicago Outfit during Prohibition. Considered to be a ruthless but also well-dressed, socially refined, and clever man, Humphreys believed in killing only as a last resort. He was known to place far greater trust in the bribability of lawmen, seemingly respectable businessmen, labor union leaders, and public officials. A favorite maxim of Humphreys' was: "The difference between guilt and innocence in any court is who gets to the judge first with the most". But perhaps the statement that best summed up Humphreys' philosophy of life was: "Any time you become weak, you might as well die". Al Capone once said of Humphreys, "Anybody can use a gun, but 'The Hump' uses his head. He can shoot if he has to, but he likes to negotiate with cash when he can. I like that in a man."
The Secret Six was a name given to six influential businessmen in Chicago who organized the business community against Al Capone.
Elmer Lincoln Irey was a Postal Inspector, United States Treasury Department official and the first Chief of the Internal Revenue Service Intelligence Unit, that would later become Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI). Irey led the investigative unit during the federal tax evasion prosecution of Chicago mobster Al Capone.
The Untouchables is an American crime drama series that aired for two seasons in syndication, from January 1993 to May 1994. The series portrayed work of the real life Untouchables federal investigative squad in Prohibition-era Chicago and its efforts against Al Capone's attempts to profit from the market in bootleg liquor.
The North Side Gang, also known as the North Side Mob, was an Irish-American criminal organization within Chicago during the Prohibition era from the early 1920s to the mid-1930s. It was the principal rival of the South Side Gang, also known as the Chicago Outfit, the crime syndicate of Italian-Americans Johnny Torrio and Al Capone.
Mabel Walker Willebrandt, popularly known to her contemporaries as the First Lady of Law, was a U.S. Assistant Attorney General from 1921 to 1929, handling cases concerning violations of the Volstead Act, federal taxation, and the Bureau of Federal Prisons during the Prohibition era. For enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment, the prohibition against the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, she also earned herself a nickname “Prohibition Portia”.
Frank John Wilson was best known as the Chief of the United States Secret Service and a former agent of the Treasury Department's Bureau of Internal Revenue, later known as the Internal Revenue Service. Wilson most notably contributed in the prosecution of Chicago mobster Al Capone in 1931, and as a federal representative in the Lindbergh kidnapping case.
Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) is the United States federal law enforcement agency responsible for investigating potential criminal violations of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code and related financial crimes, such as money laundering, currency transaction violations, tax-related identity theft fraud and terrorist financing that adversely affect tax administration. While other federal agencies also have investigative jurisdiction for money laundering and some Bank Secrecy Act violations, IRS-CI is the only federal agency that can investigate potential criminal violations of the Internal Revenue Code, in a manner intended to foster confidence in the tax system and deter violations of tax law. Criminal Investigation is a division of the Internal Revenue Service, which in turn is a bureau within the United States Department of the Treasury.
William Jennings Gardner was an American football player, coach, and law-enforcement agent. While working as a Prohibition agent in Chicago, Illinois, Gardner served with Eliot Ness's "Untouchables," a group of hand-picked federal agents who, from 1930 to 1932, sought to put an end to Al Capone's illegal empire. Although Gardner was only involved with the group for a short period of time, he would be prominently mentioned in Ness's memoir of the investigation, The Untouchables, and inspire a recurring character in the 1959 television series based upon that book.
Alexander Jamie was an American federal agent of the Bureau of Investigation and eventually became the head of the Chicago field office. In 1928, he transferred to the Bureau of Prohibition becoming the Chief Investigator with the Chicago office of that Bureau. At the same time he was also working as the Chief Criminal Investigator for The Secret Six, a group of businessmen banded together to fight organized crime in Chicago. Alexander was the brother-in-law to Eliot Ness, who worked under him in the Prohibition Bureau, and who formed and led a famous team of Prohibition Agents, dubbed "The Untouchables" by the media, known for their efforts in bringing down Al Capone.
The Scarface Mob is an American feature film directed by Phil Karlson and starring Robert Stack. It consists of the pilot episodes for the TV series The Untouchables (1959) that originally screened as a two-part installment of Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse on April 20 and 27 1959. The episodes were cut together and released theatrically as a stand-alone feature outside America in 1959 and inside the US in 1962.
