Al Capone, notorious gangster, indicted for tax evasion

(Originally published by the Daily News on June 13, 1931.)

CHICAGO, June 12. — The Federal Government’s assault on the Al Capone gang came to another climax today with the indictment of Capone himself and sixty-eight of his vassals in what investigators from Washington termed the greatest prohibition conspiracy case ever developed. Five thousand separate offenses are charged in the true bill.

Today’s action by the Federal Grand Jury followed in the wake of the indictment of Capone, the chief “public enemy” on charge of income tax evasion, and added a possibility of two years in the penitentiary and a fine of $10,000 to the maximum of thirty-two years’ imprisonment and a fine of $80,000 to which he is subject if convicted on the income tax charges.

The conspiracy of which Capone and his sixty-eight henchmen are accused covered the period from 1922, when Capone was comparatively a nonentity in the underworld, until the present time.

Put Daily Sale at $75,000.

The indictment is concerned only with the manufacture and transportation of beer, but the magnitude of business is indicated by the allegation of 5,000 offenses.

Agents of the Special Prohibition Unit, who developed the case, estimated that the gross daily receipts of the gang from the sale of beer alone was $75,000.

Besides Capone today’s indictment names Joe Fusco, business manager of the beer department of the syndicate; Bert Delaney, superintendent of manufactures, and Steve Swoboda, veteran brewmaster.

Gang Broke, Agents Say.

Moreover, say the Federal agents, the Capone gang is virtually insolvent, as a result of the high bonds its members have been required to post in the Federal courts and the high cost of replacing brewery equipment seized in raids.

Capone’s $50,000 bond on his income tax indictment was allowed to stand on the conspiracy indictment.