WBEZ | Al Capone

Cartel kingpin Chicago's new Public Enemy No. 1

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 09:50:00 -0600

A drug kingpin in Mexico who has never set foot in Chicago has been named the city's new Public Enemy No. 1 — the same notorious label assigned to Al Capone at the height of the Prohibition-era gang wars.

The Chicago Crime Commission considers Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman even more menacing than Capone because he's the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, which supplies most of the narcotics sold in the city.

"What Al Capone was to beer and whiskey during Prohibition, Guzman is to narcotics," said Art Bilek, the commission's executive vice president. "Of the two, Guzman is by far the greater threat. ... And he has more power and financial capability than Capone ever dreamed of."

The commission — a non-government body that tracks city crime trends — designated Capone Public Enemy No. 1 in 1930. It has declared other outlaws public enemies, but Capone was the only one deemed No. 1.

Until now.

Guzman is thought to be holed up in a mountain hideaway in western Mexico, but he ought to be treated as a local Chicago crime boss for the havoc his cartel creates in the nation's third-largest city, said Jack Riley, of the Drug Enforcement Administration, which joined the commission in affixing the title to Guzman.

The point of singling out Guzman was to inspire more public support for going after him, Bilek said.

"Ninety-nine percent of the people in the United States have never heard of this man," he said. "Concerted action ... must be taken now against Guzman before he establishes a bigger network and a bigger empire in the United States."

Capone based his bootlegging and other criminal enterprises in Chicago during Prohibition, when it was illegal to make or sell alcohol in the U.S. He eventually went to prison for income tax evasion, but he gained the greatest notoriety for the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre that left seven rivals dead.

Yet Riley says Guzman — whose nickname means "shorty" in Spanish — is more ruthless than Capone, whose nickname was "Scarface."

"If I was to put those two guys in a ring, El Chapo would eat that guy (Capone) alive," Riley told The Associated Press in a recent interview at his office, pointing at pictures of the men.

Riley described Chicago as one of Sinaloa's most important cities, not only as a final destination for drugs but as a hub to distribute them across the U.S.

"This is where Guzman turns his drugs into money," he said.

Mexican cartels that ship drugs to Chicago are rarely directly linked to slayings. But Bilek said Thursday that cartel-led trafficking is an underlying cause of territorial battles between street gangs that are blamed for rising homicide rates.

"He virtually has his fingerprints on the guns that are killing the children of this city," Bilek told a news conference.

Guzman, who has been on the run since escaping from a Mexican prison in a laundry cart in 2001, is one of the world's most dangerous and most wanted fugitives. He's also one of the richest: Forbes magazine has estimated his fortune at $1 billion.

Now in his mid-50s, Guzman has been indicted on federal trafficking charges in Chicago and, if he is ever captured alive, U.S. officials want him extradited here to face trial. The U.S. government has offered a $5 million reward for his capture.

"His time is coming," Riley said. "I can't wait for that day."

It was only a coincidence, Bilek said Thursday, that the announcement naming Guzman Public Enemy No. 1 came on the anniversary of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, which raised public pressure to capture Capone.

Within two years of being designated Public Enemy No. 1 in 1930, Capone had been captured, convicted and imprisoned.

With the same label now attached to Guzman, Bilek said, "we hope the same thing will happen to him."

The other Capone

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 06:00:00 -0600

In 1930, the Chicago attorney and reformer Frank J. Loesch and his organized crime watchdog group, the Chicago Crime Commission, issued the first-ever list of so-called “Public Enemies.” Three years later, Loesch said of the list:

I had the operating director of the Chicago Crime Commission bring before me a list of the outstanding hoodlums, known murderers — murderers which you and I know but can’t prove — and there were about 100 of them, and out of this list I selected 28 men. I put Al Capone at the head and his brother next. . . .

Al Capone, the infamous head of the Chicago Outfit, was Public Enemy #1. His brother, Ralph Capone, was Public Enemy #3.

This other Capone — Al’s older brother — earned the nickname “Bottles” by running soft drink bottling plants for the Outfit during Prohibition. After Al was convicted of tax evasion and sent to prison in 1931, Ralph was accused of, well, trying to get the gang back together. He too was hounded by the federal government on accusations of tax eviction, and he served time for the crime shortly after Al did.

Despite having once been described as the Outfit’s “elder statesman,” Ralph Capone was never as deeply enmeshed as his brother. Still, with a reputation like Ralph’s, it’s not hard to see why Deirdre Marie Capone felt haunted by her family’s legacy. Her father, Ralph Jr., was Bottles’ only son. According to Deirdre’s website, her father committed suicide just before her 11^th birthday, “due to the burden of the Capone name.”

“It destroyed my father,” she later said.

As an adult, Deirdre kept her family history secret from everyone but her husband. Not even her four children knew who their great-granduncle was. “I hid for so long who I was. It was very difficult for me to tell anybody,” she said, especially growing up on Chicago’s South Side.

But Deirdre came out as a Capone last year with the publication of her family memoir, Uncle Al Capone. Now, she’s fond of saying that her great-uncle, Al, was a mobster, yes, but not a monster. And she proudly wears her family’s name at events like the Chicago History Museum’s celebration of the repeal of Prohibition earlier this week.

In the audio above, Deirdre recounts her decision to face her family past.

Dynamic Range showcases hidden gems unearthed from Chicago Amplified’s vast archive of public events and appears on weekends. Deirdre Capone spoke at an event presented by the Chicago History Museum earlier this month. Click here to hear the event in its entirety.

The Hotel Sherman Treaty

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 12:15:00 -0500

The war has been getting out of hand. So Don Corleone calls for a summit meeting. All the gang chiefs sit down together and hammer out a truce.

It's a famous scene from "The Godfather." But it really did happen--here in Chicago, on October 21, 1926.

Prohibition was the law of the land then, and the gangs of Chicago were supplying bootleg booze to thirsty citizens. In the fall of 1924, Warfare had erupted when the two biggest mobs began squabbling over territorial rights. This was another of those North Side vs. South Side conflicts--Dion's O'Banion's mostly-Irish Cub fans against Johnny Torrio's mostly-Italian Sox fans.

(Okay, I don't know which baseball teams the boys followed, but you get the idea.)

Anyway, the South Siders struck first, assassinating O'Banion in his florist shop. Naturally, the North Siders retaliated. Then, the South Siders re-retaliated. And so on, and so on.

By October 1926, Chicago had gotten a national reputation for gang mayhem. The South Side outfit was now being run by Al Capone. He realized all the outside attention could wreck business. The U.S. Senate had begun nosing around, conducting an investigation of the Prohibition law and its effects.

So Capone enlisted the aid of Maxie Eisen, a labor leader with wide contacts. Eisen arranged a general conference at the Hotel Sherman. All the gangs sent representatives, and the list reads like a Who's Who of the Chicago underworld--Capone, Bugs Moran, Klondyke O'Donnell, Schemer Drucci, to name a few.

Nobody tried to keep the meeting secret. The newspapers published reports on the conference, and a police detective attended as a neutral observer. The general tone was set by Maxie Eisen, who told the delegates: "Let's give each other a break. We're a bunch of saps, killing each other this way and giving the cops a laugh."

The result was the Hotel Sherman Treaty. Chicago gangs officially renounced violence as a matter of policy. All standing feuds were called off. The head of each gang would be responsible for disciplining his own people. Each gang would operate only within its designated territory.

The gangland truce lasted for less than a year. But then, have the diplomats of nations done much better in negotiating peace?

Gangster Capone’s gun up for auction

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 14:36:00 -0500

A handgun once owned by notorious gangster Al Capone is going up for sale in London this week.

Christie's auction house says the Colt .38 revolver is expected to garner between 50,000 and 70,000 pounds. (Or, between $80,899 and $113,258.)

Christie’s said Monday the gun is being sold by a private collector. The gun was manufactured in 1929, the year of Chicago's St. Valentine's Day Massacre, when seven people were slain during clashes between Capone's gang and a rival gang led by mobster Bugs Moran.

The pistol will be sold along with an original letter from Madeleine Capone Morichetti, the widow of Capone's brother Ralph, confirming the gun "previously belonged to and was only used by Al Capone while he was alive."

The gun will go under the hammer on Wednesday.

Al Capone signature up for auction

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 15:22:00 -0600

When Geraldo Rivera went in search of buried treasure underneath Chicago’s Lexington Hotel what he found was, of course, nothing. But the former headquarters of Chicago’s most famous resident are back in the headlines. Or rather, on the block.

RR Auction in New Hampshire will offer for sale a rare signature from Capone, on letterhead from the gangster’s castle Wednesday. Bobby Livingston of RR Auction joined Eight Forty-Eight to explore the paper trail.

Music Button: Johnny Gregory and his Orchestra, "Echo Four-Two", from the CD Crime Jazz (Rhino)

Author Jonathan Eig on how the feds 'got Caponed'

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 15:51:00 -0600

Like a shot of fine whiskey, the story of Al Capone's rise and fall runs through the veins of most Chicagoans. A recent book takes a different look at the legendary tale of how the government got their man.

It's called Get Capone: The Secret Plot that Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster.

We talked with Jonathan Eig, the book’s author and native Chicagoan, says the book resulted from new material. It belonged to the man who locked Capone up for tax evasion.

Tuesday evening Jonathan Eig talks about Chicago’s most famous gangster at an event hosted by the Society of Midland Authors. It’s at 6 p.m. at the Cliff Dwellers Club on Michigan Ave.