III. It was a long way for Capone to join the bootlegging industry, and to gain the power he did. From a young age, Alphonse Capone started engaging in illegal activities. He only went to school until he was about 13 years old and dropped out of sixth grade after hitting his teacher. He then joined a famous gang owned by Johnny Torrio, the same man who later employed him in Chicago. The gang was known as the Five Points Gang They committed petty crimes such as stealing, but nothing as serious as what Capone eventually did. He worked in Brooklyn with Yale until he moved to Chicago at Torrio’s request. When Torrio was finally caught, Capone as his protégé inherited the whole mafia in Chicago and became the most powerful and feared man of the
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When the new mayor of Chicago, William Dever, came into office, it became significantly harder for Capone and Torrio to run their operations. Dever captured Torrio. Understanding what he had to do, Capone quickly moved his operations to a smaller town near Chicago: Cicero. His brothers, Ralph and Frank Capone, infiltrated the Cicero police department quickly gaining high positions. Threatening people, bribing, and tampering with the votes, Al Capone became the head of Cicero town’s council. His other brother, Vincenzo Capone, became a high-ranking prohibition’s officer after changing his name to Richard Hart, but he was soon arrested for manslaughter. Capone had even the judges corrupted. He said, “Sure, and some of our best judges use my stuff."[His response after being asked whether he was a bootlegger].” In this quotation, Capone is saying that even people of a high-ranking political position enjoy the access to the alcohol that he is providing. Capone loved this because, although he wasn’t directly corrupting the judges himself, the judges were still drinking. As a result, he knew that they would be biased towards him. This is just an example of his political corruptions. He also bribed officers and judges to have them ignore his illegal activities. Al Capone used many other methods to avoid capture by the police. The most important one was the way he handled his own money. He always laundered money through cash-based industries and used a number of different aliases. As a result, no one was able to pin any illegal money on him. He never wrote checks and never used bank accounts, so the police could not track his
When the new mayor of Chicago, William Dever, came into office, it became significantly harder for Capone and Torrio to run their operations. Dever captured Torrio. Understanding what he had to do, Capone quickly moved his operations to a smaller town near Chicago: Cicero. His brothers, Ralph and Frank Capone, infiltrated the Cicero police department quickly gaining high positions. Threatening people, bribing, and tampering with the votes, Al Capone became the head of Cicero town’s council. His other brother, Vincenzo Capone, became a high-ranking prohibition’s officer after changing his name to Richard Hart, but he was soon arrested for manslaughter. Capone had even the judges corrupted. He said, “Sure, and some of our best judges use my stuff."[His response after being asked whether he was a bootlegger].” In this quotation, Capone is saying that even people of a high-ranking political position enjoy the access to the alcohol that he is providing. Capone loved this because, although he wasn’t directly corrupting the judges himself, the judges were still drinking. As a result, he knew that they would be biased towards him. This is just an example of his political corruptions. He also bribed officers and judges to have them ignore his illegal activities. Al Capone used many other methods to avoid capture by the police. The most important one was the way he handled his own money. He always laundered money through cash-based industries and used a number of different aliases. As a result, no one was able to pin any illegal money on him. He never wrote checks and never used bank accounts, so the police could not track his