The FBI and the American Gangster, 1924-1938 MAFIOSOS AMERICANOS.

The “war to end all wars” was over, but a new one was just beginning—on the
streets of America.
It wasn’t much of a fight, really—at least at the start.
On the one side was a rising tide of professional criminals, made richer and bolder by Prohibition,
which had turned the nation “dry” in 1920. In one big city alone—Chicago—an estimated
1,300 gangs had spread like a deadly virus by the mid-1920s.
There was no easy cure. With wallets bursting from bootlegging
profits, gangs outfitted themselves with “Tommy” guns
and operated with impunity by paying off politicians and police
alike. Rival gangs led by the powerful Al “Scarface” Capone
and the hot-headed George “Bugs” Moran turned the city streets
into a virtual war zone with their gangland clashes. By 1926,
more than 12,000 murders were taking place every year across
America.

Law Caught Up with Al Capone

Al-capone

In the “Roaring Twenties,” he ruled an empire of crime in the
Windy City: gambling, prostitution, bootlegging, bribery,
narcotics trafficking, robbery, protection rackets, and murder.
And it seemed that law enforcement couldn’t touch him.
The early Bureau would have been happy to join the fight to
take Capone down. But it needed a federal crime to hang its case
on—and the evidence to back it up.
In those days, racketeering laws weren’t what they are today.
Even when it was widely rumored that Capone had ordered the
brutal murders of seven gangland rivals in the infamous “St.
Valentine’s Day Massacre,” the Bureau couldn’t get involved.
Why? The killings weren’t a federal
offense.
Then, in 1929, the Bureau got a break.
On February 27, Capone was subpoenaed at his winter home
near Miami, Florida, to appear as a witness before a federal
grand jury in Chicago on March 12 for a case involving a violation
of prohibition laws.
Capone said he couldn’t make it. His excuse? He claimed he’d
been laid up with broncho-pneumonia for six weeks and was in
no shape to travel. And he had the doctor’s note to “prove it.”
That’s when the Bureau got involved. Asked by the U.S. Attorney
in Chicago to find out whether Capone was on the level,
agents went to Florida and quickly found that Capone’s story
didn’t hold water. When he was supposedly bedridden, Capone
was out and about—going to the racetracks, taking
trips to the Bahamas, even being questioned
by local prosecutors. And by all accounts, his
health was just fine.
On March 27, 1929, Capone was cited for
contempt of court in Chicago and arrested in
Florida. He was released on bond, but from then
on, it was downhill for the notorious gangster.
Less than two months later, Capone was arrested
in Philadelphia by local police for carrying
concealed weapons and was sent to jail for a
year. When he was released in 1931, Capone was
tried and convicted for the original contempt of

court charge. A federal judge sentenced him to six
months in prison. His air of invincibility was fast
slipping away.
In the meantime, federal Treasury agents had been
gathering evidence that Capone had failed to pay his
income taxes. Capone was convicted, and on October
24, 1931, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
When he finally got out of Alcatraz, Capone was too
sick to carry on his life of crime. He died in 1947.

In the end, it took a team of federal, state, and local
authorities—and a lot of grit and persistence—to end
Capone’s reign as underworld boss.

“Machine Gun”Kelly and theLegend of theG-Men

Before 1934, “G-Man” was underworld slang for any
and all government agents. In fact, the detectives in
J. Edgar Hoover’s Bureau of Investigation were so
little known that they were often confused with Secret
Service or Prohibition Bureau agents. By 1935, though,
only one kind of government employee was known by
that name, the special agents of the Bureau.
How this change came about is
not entirely clear, but September
26, 1933, played a central role
in the apocryphal origins of this
change.

On that day, Bureau of Investigation
agents and Tennessee
police officers arrested gangster
George “Machine Gun” Kelly.
He was a “wanted fugitive” for
good reason. Two months earlier
Kelly had kidnapped oil magnate
Charles Urschel and held
him for $200,000 in ransom.
After Urschel was released, the
Bureau coordinated a multi-state
investigation, drawing investigative
information from its own
field offices as well as from other police sources, as
it identified and then tracked the notorious gangster
across the country.
On September 26, “Machine Gun” Kelly was found
hiding in a decrepit Memphis residence. Some early
press reports said that a tired, perhaps hung-over Kelly
stumbled out of his bed mumbling something like “I
was expecting you.” Another version of the event held
that Kelly emerged from his room, hands-up, crying
“Don’t shoot G-Men, don’t shoot.” Either way, Kelly
was arrested without violence.
The rest is history. The more colorful version sparked
the popular imagination and “G-Men” became synonymous
with the special agents of the FBI.

John Herbert Dillinger, Jr

 



 (June 22, 1903 – July 22, 1934) was an American gangster and bank-robber in the Depression-era United States. He was charged, but never convicted, with the murder of an East Chicago police officer. Although this was the only kill that is documented to have been by Dillinger's hand, during his bank heists a dozen victims — prison officers, police, federal agents, gangsters and civilians — were killed. His gang robbed two dozen banks and four police stations. Dillinger escaped from jail twice.
In 1933-34, among criminals like Lester Gillis (Baby Face Nelson), Pretty Boy Floyd, and Bonnie and Clyde, Dillinger was the most notorious of all. Media reports were spiced with exaggerated accounts of his bravado and daring. The government demanded federal action and J. Edgar Hoover developed a more sophisticated Federal Bureau of Investigation as a weapon against organized crime and would use Dillinger and his gang as his campaign platform to launch this FBI .^[1]
After evading police in four states for almost a year, Dillinger was wounded and returned to his father's home to recover. He returned to Chicago in July 1934 and met his end at the hands of police and federal agents who were informed of his whereabouts by Ana Cumpanas (the owner of the lodge where Dillinger sought refuge at the time). On July 22, the police and Division of Investigation^[2][3] closed in on the Biograph Theater. Federal agents, led by Melvin Purvis, moved to arrest him as he left the theater. He pulled a weapon and attempted to flee but was shot three times and killed.

Bonnie and Clyde

 

Bonnie Parker (October 1, 1910 – May 23, 1934) and Clyde Barrow (March 24, 1909 – May 23, 1934) were well-known outlaws, robbers and criminals who traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression. Their exploits captured the attention of the American public during the "public enemy era" between 1931 and 1934. Though known today for his dozen-or-so bank robberies, Barrow in fact preferred to rob small stores or rural gas stations. The gang is believed to have killed at least nine police officers and committed several civilian murders. The couple themselves were eventually ambushed and killed in Louisiana by law officers.


Their reputation was cemented in American pop folklore by Arthur Penn's 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde.^[1]
Even during their lifetimes, the couple's depiction in the press was at considerable odds with the hardscrabble reality of their life on the road—particularly in the case of Parker. Though she was present at a hundred or more felonies during her two years as Barrow's companion,^[2] she was not the machine gun-wielding cartoon killer portrayed in the newspapers, newsreels and pulpy detective magazines of the day. Gang member W. D. Jones was unsure whether he had ever seen her fire at officers.^[3][4] Parker's reputation as a cigar-smoking gun moll grew out of a playful snapshot found by police at an abandoned hideout, released to the press, and published nationwide; while she did chain-smoke Camel cigarettes, she was not a cigar smoker.^[5]
Author-historian Jeff Guinn explains that it was the release of these very photos that put the outlaws on the media map and launched their legend: "John Dillinger had matinee-idol good looks and Pretty Boy Floyd had the best possible nickname, but the Joplin photos introduced new criminal superstars with the most titillating trademark of all—illicit sex. Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were young and unmarried. They undoubtedly slept together—after all, the girl smoked cigars.... Without Bonnie, the media outside Texas might have dismissed Clyde as a gun-toting punk, if it ever considered him at all. With her sassy photographs, Bonnie supplied the sex-appeal, the oomph, that allowed the two of them to transcend the small-scale thefts and needless killings that actually comprised their criminal careers.

Baby Face Nelson

 

Lester Joseph Gillis (December 6, 1908^[1] – November 27, 1934), known under the pseudonym George Nelson, was a bank robber and murderer in the 1930s. Gillis was known as Baby Face Nelson, a name given to him due to his youthful appearance and small stature. Usually referred to by criminal associates as "Jimmy",^[2] Nelson partnered with John Dillinger, helping him escape from prison in the famed "wooden pistol" escape, and was later labeled along with the remaining gang members as public enemy number one.
Nelson is responsible for the murder of several people, and has the dubious distinction of having killed more FBI agents in the line of duty than any other single American citizen.^{[citation needed]} Nelson has been the subject of several films. Nelson was shot by FBI agents and died after a shootout often termed "The Battle of Barrington".