Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm editor Kandice Gibson, joined today by Josh Curious like
Speaker 1: a cat Clark. How's it going, Josh, It's going pretty well.
Speaker 1: Pretty well? How about you? I'm doing great? Um. You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny. This exchange of pleasantries has brought to mind
Speaker 1: one of histories most notorious criminals. You and I were
Speaker 1: talking about him this morning, ever coffee al capound scarface.
Speaker 1: Gotta love him. The weird thing is, you know, he's
Speaker 1: become this larger than life figure. He was running around
Speaker 1: the twenties, you know, Chicago and all sorts of other
Speaker 1: cities under his thumb. But when you're starting to dig
Speaker 1: into the guy, it turns out like he needs no exaggeration.
Speaker 1: He really lived this enormous life, like he really was
Speaker 1: public Enemy number one in Chicago. In one year, he
Speaker 1: made lots of lots of money, right, I've seen amounts
Speaker 1: of money. Seven he groaged one hundred million dollars and
Speaker 1: today that's equivalent to about one point two billions. So
Speaker 1: he's like Warren Buffett with the Tommy gun or something. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Pretty much. You know. The weird thing is he started
Speaker 1: out as a bouncer in a bar in Chicago for
Speaker 1: his boss, Johnny Torrio, right, and he moved his way
Speaker 1: up to enforce her and an enforcer somebody that you
Speaker 1: don't want to see when you owe Johnny Torrio money.
Speaker 1: But the thing is is to be an enforcer, all
Speaker 1: you have to do is have some muscle, you don't
Speaker 1: need much intellect, and a willingness to break someone's legs
Speaker 1: should the occasion arise. Yeah, but he was really smart too. Um.
Speaker 1: When Johnny Torrio essentially retired, he was able to use
Speaker 1: his while to climb to the top. Yeah. He consolidated
Speaker 1: Chicago's underworld. So my question is he was this great
Speaker 1: gangster who committed all these brutal crimes and made all
Speaker 1: this money. Why was it that they could only pin
Speaker 1: tax evasion on him? I mean, is that even right?
Speaker 1: Was there something else that I'm missing? Is that fact
Speaker 1: or fiction? No, that's fact And it's funny because this
Speaker 1: is not an expression we would use in today's society
Speaker 1: at all. But the Treasury Department actually was quoted as
Speaker 1: saying that al Capone had a natural Italian secretiveness about him.
Speaker 1: And Candice just made air quotes. Indeed, and at the
Speaker 1: height of his I guess killing spree and all of
Speaker 1: his crazy activity, one year there was sixty four people
Speaker 1: murdered under his rule, and in previous years other gang
Speaker 1: activity murders resulted only to like sixteen the year before
Speaker 1: he consolidated powers six And he was bribing people all
Speaker 1: across the city, police, politicians, prosecutors. He had everyone under
Speaker 1: some just like you were saying. And he was so
Speaker 1: careful about what he did. When the St. Valentine's Day
Speaker 1: massacre occurred and some rival gangs gang members were slain,
Speaker 1: he was not only far removed at his beat outs
Speaker 1: in Florida, he had a doctor's note saying that he
Speaker 1: was on bed rest. Please excuse Mr Capone. He didn't
Speaker 1: murder anybody today, Rent. Yeah, he's not good participating in
Speaker 1: jim So anyway, after all this, essentially he was supposed
Speaker 1: to up in court to be questioned about the massacre
Speaker 1: and he didn't show up. So he's hold in contempt
Speaker 1: and I got the FBI involved. So the FBI and
Speaker 1: the Treasury Department started building a paper trail uh to
Speaker 1: see what Capone had been up to and Essentially, they
Speaker 1: found out that he hadn't been paying any taxes on
Speaker 1: any of that enormous amount of money that he had earned. Sure,
Speaker 1: which probably wasn't a big surprise for him. No, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: I mean, the guy never even had a bank account
Speaker 1: in his life, and he only endorsed one check in
Speaker 1: his lifetime. But um, they held him in contempt of
Speaker 1: the court. And also they got him for tax evasion.
Speaker 1: So he was supposed to serve ten years in federal prison,
Speaker 1: one year in Chicago. I understand when he got out
Speaker 1: he had contracted syphilis, right, and I think his doctor
Speaker 1: wrote that by the time he died he had the
Speaker 1: intellect of a twelve year old child, a very filthy,
Speaker 1: rich twelve year old. He probably still could have been
Speaker 1: a bouncer in a bar by that. Anyway. If you
Speaker 1: want to learn even more about al Capone, read why
Speaker 1: was tax evasion the only thing penned on? Said al
Speaker 1: Capone on How stuff Works. For more on this and
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