An American gangster, Al Capone led a crime syndicate dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor and other illegal activities during the Prohibition Era. Born in Brooklyn, New York on January 17, 1899 to Italian immigrants, Capone quit school after the sixth grade and began to associate with a notorious street gang. He was quickly accepted as a member of the group led by Johnny Torrio, and became friends with another gang member by the name of Lucky Luciano.

About 1920, at Johnny Torrio's invitation, Capone joined him in Chicago where he had become an influential lieutenant with his uncle, Giacomo "Big Jim" Colosimo, a major crime boss and pimp. The mob group was also involved in legitimate businesses and cultivated influence with receptive public officials, labor unions and employees' associations. However, by 1920, Torrio and Colosimo clashed because Colismo resisted getting into the lucrative alcohol distribution business during Prohibition.
 

Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone, aka: Scarface (1899-1947)

Torrio had his uncle killed and took over the operation, making Capone his right hand man. Heavily involved in illegal brewing, distilling and distribution of beer and liquor, which were viewed as "growth industries," Torrio took full advantage of the opportunities.

In 1925, Capone became boss when Torrio, seriously wounded in an assassination attempt, surrendered control and retired to Brooklyn. Capone had built a fearsome reputation in the ruthless gang rivalries of the period, struggling to acquire and retain "racketeering rights" to several areas of Chicago. That reputation grew as rival gangs were eliminated or nullified, and the suburb of Cicero became, in effect, a fiefdom of the Capone mob, which became known as the Chicago Outfit.

Perhaps the St. Valentine's Day Massacre on February 14, 1929, might be regarded as the culminating violence of the Chicago gang era, as seven members or associates of the "Bugs" Moran mob were machine-gunned down against a garage wall by rivals posing as police. The massacre was generally ascribed to the Chicago Outfit, although Capone himself was in Florida at the time.

The investigative jurisdiction of the FBI during the 1920s and early 1930s was more limited than it is today, and the gang warfare and depredations of the period were not within the Bureau's investigative authority. Instead, their crimes fell under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF).

The FBI; however, got involved when Al Capone was reluctant to appear before a Federal Grand Jury on March 12, 1929, in response to a subpoena. On March 11th, his lawyers formally filed for postponement of his appearance, submitting a physician's affidavit dated March 5th, which attested that Capone, in Miami, had been suffering from bronchial pneumonia, had been confined to bed, and that it would be dangerous to his health to travel to Chicago. His appearance date before the grand jury was re-set for March 20.

On request of the U.S. Attorney's Office, the FBI obtained statements to the effect that Capone had attended race tracks in the Miami area, that he had made a trip to the Bahamas, and that he had been interviewed at the office of the Dade County Solicitor, where he had appeared in good health.