LET THE
STRATEGY BEGIN
Using
Intel to Stop
the Mob, Part 1
(Special by the
FBI)
06/22/07
 |
|
Chicago gangster Al Capone
|
|
Seventy-five
years ago this
December, one
Special Agent
B.E. Sackett
penned a short
article for
Bureau employees
on what he
called
"organized crime
conditions in
Chicago."
By 1932,
organized crime
in the
U.S.—though a
shadow of what
it is today—had
started to get
its legs. Al
Capone, who with
the help of the
Bureau had just
landed in
federal prison,
had built an
empire of crime
in the Windy
City that would
continue to
morph and grow.
An extensive
underground of
hoodlums,
racketeers, and
gangsters had
emerged in
response to
Prohibition and
was thriving.
Hundreds of
rackets that
used threats of
violence to
force businesses
to ante up a
percentage of
their profits
for "protection"
existed
throughout
Chicago and
other cities. In
New York,
"Lucky" Luciano
had risen to
power in the
Mafia and was
beginning to
shape it into
the structured,
secret society
of criminals
that we know
today.
A "valuable
weapon" against
these criminal
rings, Agent
Sackett
thoughtfully
stated in his
article, was
"accurate
information"—details
on the key
players, their
interlocking
connections,
their tactics
and
capabilities. He
talked about how
Chicago agents
had begun
building this
base of
knowledge,
through
informants and
other contacts
and through an
extensive index
of pictures and
background on
more than "three
hundred of the
notorious
criminals and
members of their
gangs."
He didn't
call it
"intelligence,"
a concept that
was still in its
infancy, but
that's
essentially what
it was. The
approach was
strategic,
thinking about a
criminal network
in larger terms,
gathering
information and
insights to take
out entire
criminal
organizations
and their
support and not
just select
individuals, and
thus preventing
a litany of
future crimes.
This picture of
the underworld
would grow in
the coming years
and yield
significant
results for the
young Bureau and
its partners. We
would begin
puncturing these
networks—exposing
their activities
for all of law
enforcement,
undercutting
their support
structures, and
tracking their
most dangerous
actors and
elements much in
the same way
that we now do
with terrorist
cells plotting
attacks on U.S.
soil.
A few
examples:
-
In August
1933, we
prepared a
detailed
analysis of
organized
criminals
and the
various ways
law
enforcement
had
succeeded in
stopping
them. We
outlined
more than a
hundred
"rackets" in
Chicago that
extorted
money from
electric
sign
companies,
"candy
jobbers,"
dental labs,
and others.
This
analysis
helped paint
a picture of
the threat
for all of
law
enforcement.
-
When John
Dillinger
was on the
run for a
violent
string of
bank
robberies,
we put
pressure on
the many
connections
he and his
gang had to
all levels
of the
underworld—precisely
because we
had mapped
out these
connections.
With the
extensive
cooperation
of many
police
forces, this
allowed us
to track his
movements
and
ultimately
generated
the leads
that led to
his death in
a shootout
outside a
Chicago
theater in
July 1934.
-
We learned
everything
we could
about the
enablers of
organized
crime: money
launderers
and fences,
both
organized
and
freelance,
who helped
criminals
hide their
loot from
the law;
shady
doctors who
performed
backroom
plastic
surgeries to
help
disguise
mobsters and
shyster
lawyers who
helped
shield them
from
justice; and
the
corruption-backed
"spas" and
criminal
safe havens
in places
like Hot
Springs,
Arkansas,
and St.
Paul,
Minnesota,
that
mobsters
used to
rest,
recruit
comrades,
and plan
their next
moves in
relative
safety.
-
Working with
our law
enforcement
partners, we
started
building the
criminal
justice
support
system that
has enabled
a
coordinated,
layered
attack
against both
criminal and
terrorist
networks,
which
includes
national
criminal
records and
crime
stats…cutting
edge
forensic
science
services…and
extensive
training for
law
enforcement
professionals.
