The Untouchables were special agents, also known as "dry agents," of the U.S. Bureau of Prohibition led by Eliot Ness, who, from 1930 to 1932, worked to end Al Capone's illegal activities by aggressively enforcing Prohibition laws against his organization. Legendary for being fearless and incorruptible, they earned the nickname "The Untouchables" after several agents refused large bribes from members of the Chicago Outfit.[1]:311–331,349–365,390–394,398–399,492–496
Due to its significant success and enduring legacy, the unit has subsequently had a lasting impact on the techniques and methods of modern organized crime law enforcement units.[2]
History
Shortly after taking office in 1929, Herbert Hoover, the 31st President of the United States, gave Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon and Attorney General William D. Mitchell a plan for attacking large bootlegging gangs with small teams of Prohibition agents working under special United States attorneys. Neither Mellon nor Mitchell moved to implement Hoover's plan until attorney Frank J. Loesch of the Chicago Crime Commission approached the president in March 1930, asking his help in bringing down Al Capone. Hoover, facing the political fallout of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, instructed his administration to make the Capone case a priority.[1]:195–196,239–241
At that time, Capone was already under investigation by agents from the Treasury's Bureau of Internal Revenue. In 1929, an investigation led by U.S. attorney George E. Q. Johnson into a Chicago Heights bootlegging gang allied with the Capone mob had uncovered financial records suggesting members of the Chicago Outfit could be found guilty of evading federal income tax. Agents of the Treasury Department's Intelligence Unit, serving under Elmer Irey, used this evidence to convict Capone's brother Ralph of tax fraud in April 1930, but they lacked sufficient evidence to charge Capone when Loesch met with Hoover. In June 1930, Special Agent Frank J. Wilson was placed in charge of this investigation.[1]:158–172,205–207,247–250,262–263,265–269
In late 1930, Attorney General Mitchell, impatient with Johnson's lack of progress on the Capone case, decided to implement President Hoover's idea for sending a small squad of Prohibition agents to break up the Capone gang. Johnson selected twenty-seven-year-old Eliot Ness, a special agent with the Prohibition Bureau who had played key roles on the Chicago Heights case and an investigation into Ralph Capone's bootlegging operations, to head this elite squad.[1]:126–135,158–172,235–239,259–265,311–314
Malachi Harney was the Director of the BOI's Northwest District, including all of Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska.[3] Harney oversaw the operations of Eliot Ness and the other Untouchables and Dry Agents at Treasury out of the Chicago Prohibition Office.[4]
Operating out of Room 308 of the Transportation Building at 608 S. Dearborn Street, in what is now Chicago's Printer's Row neighborhood, the Untouchables planned their activities to stop Capone.[5] Ness was ordered to lead raids against the Outfit's illegal breweries and distilleries, depriving Capone of the income he needed to pay the corrupting graft that was his greatest protection against prosecution, while also gathering evidence that could be used to prosecute Capone and his associates for conspiracy to violate the Volstead Act. Ness selected several agents, most from outside Chicago, whom he believed to be trustworthy, before beginning an extensive wire-tapping operation to gather information for the raids.[1]:313–329
The squad located several Capone breweries and distilleries in and around Chicago and began raiding them in March 1931. Within six months, Ness's agents had destroyed bootlegging operations worth an estimated $500,000 (the equivalent of $10million in 2023 dollars)[6] and representing an additional $2 million in lost income for Capone (equivalent to around $40million in 2023).[6] Their efforts reportedly inflicted significant financial damage on Capone and his organization while Frank Wilson and the Intelligence Unit worked to build their tax evasion case.[1]:349–365,412–414,419–421
Failed attempts by members of the Capone mob to bribe or intimidate Ness and his agents inspired Charles Schwarz of the Chicago Daily News to begin calling them "untouchables," a term Schwarz borrowed from newspaper stories about the untouchables of India. George Johnson adopted the nickname and promoted it to the press, establishing it as the squad's unofficial title.[1]:364–365,391
In June 1931, Capone was indicted first for income tax evasion and then for five thousand counts of conspiracy to violate the Volstead Act, the latter based on evidence gathered by Ness and his Untouchables. Capone pled guilty to all charges after George Johnson agreed to recommend a 2+1⁄2-year sentence. But Federal Judge James H. Wilkerson refused to accept Johnson's agreement and, once Capone changed his pleas, brought the tax case to trial. Although Capone would never be prosecuted on the Prohibition charges, that indictment formed the basis of a tax suit brought by the federal government following Capone's conviction for income tax evasion.[1]:385–390,395–412,417–419,495–496
Ness and the Untouchables continued to attack the Outfit's beer and liquor empire during and after Capone's trial, their efforts resulting in estimated lost income in excess of $9 million. In recognition of this work, Ness was promoted to Chief Investigator of the Prohibition Bureau for Chicago in 1932. By that point, the Untouchables had essentially been disbanded, though Ness would continue to lead raids against Outfit breweries and distilleries until the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.[1]:412–414,417–421,441–443,463–464,473–474,483–485,492–493,508–514
Members
Because corruption was endemic among law-enforcement officials, Ness searched records of all Prohibition agents to create a reliable team. The initial group, aside from Ness himself, numbered six. Over the course of the investigation, some agents left the squad for various reasons, while others were brought on as manpower shortages within the Prohibition Bureau allowed.[1]:317–331,349–365,417
The primary ten
In June 1931, after Capone pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act, the Prohibition Bureau credited ten agents with building the case against him. These may be considered the core members of the Untouchables:[1]:398–399
Joseph D. Leeson, an expert driver with the specialty of tailing.[1]:318
Lyle B. Chapman, a former Colgate University football player and investigator.[1]:318–319
Samuel Maurice Seager, a former Sing Singdeath row corrections officer.[1]:235–236,317
Warren E. Stutzman, an ex-Pennsylvania police officer.[1]:326–327
Paul W. Robsky, a pilot and daring raider from South Carolina. (He later collaborated with Oscar Fraley, as Ness had on The Untouchables before him, on The Last of the Untouchables, a heavily fictionalized account of the Capone investigation.)[1]:355,608–610
Martin J. Lahart, a close friend of Ness's from Chicago, who had worked with him on previous investigations.[1]:125,163–164,235–239
Bernard V. "Barney" Cloonan, a muscular Irish agent known for his strength and investigative experience.[1]:328
Robert D. Sterling, a longtime Prohibition agent and the eldest of the core ten, who only served on the team for three weeks.[1]:354
Marion A.R. King, a talented undercover agent and the youngest member of the squad.[1]:355–356
Other members
Other agents known to have served with the squad, but who were not named among its primary members, include:
Carl Hambach, the last "Untouchable" prohibition agent to retire. A 38 year veteran who gained the nickname "Mr Alcohol Tax", and was the agent who put Capone onboard the train to Alcatraz Island.[7]
Don L. Kooken, described by Ness as "a former trapper and expert shot". His obituary described him as "the last surviving member of the T-Men Untouchables".[8][9]
William J. Gardner, Native American former athlete and football star at the Carlisle Indian School who was named by Knute Rockne to his personal All-Time All-America Team. A former soldier and lawyer, Gardner was among the first agents Ness selected for the team, but he soon left the squad for personal reasons.[1]:317,319–321,326,328–329
Ulric H. Berard, another member of the initial six who only served with the team for a brief period.[1]:317,325,626
E. A. Moore, a member of the initial six but not a full agent, who left after apparently failing to qualify for civil service.[1]:317,325
Thomas J. Friel, a former Pennsylvania state trooper.[1]:328
Al "Wallpaper" Wolff, a Chicago Prohibition agent who served under Ness after the St.Valentines Day Massacre & was one of the youngest members in the Untouchables. Al was the last living untouchable and died in 1998.[1]:483[10][11][12]
Disputed members
Given the Untouchables' enduring fame, other names have often been attached to the squad in error. These include:
Frank Basile, a former bootlegger who served as Ness's informant and driver after being arrested for bribery. Although Basile assisted Ness during an earlier investigation of a Capone-connected mob in Chicago Heights, he was murdered in December 1928, before the Untouchables were formed.[1]:126–135,162–163
Jim Seeley, a former private investigator once mentioned by Ness as a participant in the investigation, though no contemporary evidence establishing his existence is known to exist.[1]:630
George Steelman and Arnold Grant, mentioned in Oscar Fraley and Paul Robsky's book The Last of the Untouchables as members of the squad who were dismissed for accepting bribes. Ness biographers Max Allan Collins and A. Brad Schwartz identify these as fictional characters possibly inspired by Bernard Cloonan, who was also suspected of corruption.[1]:484–485,647
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 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 with the responsibility of investigating the possession, distribution, consumption, and trafficking of alcohol and alcoholic beverages in the United States of America during the Prohibition era. The enumerated enforcement powers of this organization were vested in the Volstead Act. Federal Prohibition Agents of the Bureau were commonly referred to by members of the public and the press of the day as "Prohis," or "Dry Agents." In the sparsely populated areas of the American west, agents were sometimes called "Prohibition Cowboys." At its peak, the Bureau employed 2,300 dry agents.
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.
Levi Gamble Nutt was the Chief of the Narcotics Division within the Prohibition Unit of the United States Department of the Treasury from 1919 to 1930, prior to the creation of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN). He was a registered pharmacist, and led the Division to the arrest of tens of thousands of drug addicts and dealers in the Prohibition era.
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. 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.
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 a primarily 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 an American lawyer who served as the United States 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 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 film noir crime 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.
Malachi Lawrence Harney was an American federal law enforcement investigator for the United States Department of the Treasury and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the coauthor of several nonfiction books related to law enforcement with John C. Cross. During the Prohibition era, Harney was Eliot Ness's boss at Treasury, responsible for the arrest and capture of Al Capone. Later in his career, Harney was one of the strongest advocates of anti-drug policies in the United States, publishing articles and giving speeches espousing the drug war.
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