IRS Tackles Capone: Crime Pays With Taxes
Frank J. Wilson targeted Al Capone’s lavish spending to prove his hidden income after a Supreme Court closed the illegal earnings loophole. Capone’s own lawyer inadvertently handed prosecutors a letter admitting $100,000 in taxable revenue for 1928 and 1929 during settlement talks. This direct confession secured an eleven-year prison sentence and nearly $300,000 in fines, finally dismantling the kingpin’s empire through tax law rather than Prohibition violations.
May 4, 1932
94 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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