| In | Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
|---|---|
| Years active | 1900s (decade)–present |
| Territory | Chicago metropolitan area, northwest Indiana, Milwaukee to the west coast, Vancouver, British Columbia, Western Canada |
| Ethnicity | Italian, Italian-American, made men and other ethnicities as associates. |
| Membership | 50–200 made members[1] and roughly 1,700 associates |
| Criminal activities | Racketeering, gun running, bribery, conspiracy, contract killing, arson, burglary, coercion, robbery, larceny, skimming, hijacking, loansharking, drug trafficking, fencing, fraud, money laundering, murder, illegal gambling, assault, battery, extortion, threats, chop shops, prostitution. |
| Allies | Five Families, Scarfo crime family, Outlaws[2] |
| Rivals | In the early years, the North Side Mob and the Genna Brothers, and now any criminal entity in Chicago that rivals it for power. |
The Chicago Outfit, also known as the Chicago Syndicate or Chicago Mob and sometimes shortened to simply the Outfit, is a crime syndicate based in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Dating back to the 1910s, it is part of the American Mafia; however, the Chicago Outfit is distinct from the "Five Families" of New York City.
The Outfit in the city of Chicago has no true monopoly on traditional organized crime. It competes for turf, for business, with many other organizations, including the current "Russian Mafia". The Outfit's control reportedly reaches throughout the western United States to places as far away as Los Angeles, California and parts of Florida. The Chicago Outfit is also known to have large control over neighboring states including Iowa, Wisconsin and other areas of the Midwest. It also has or had satellite families, or crime families that answer to or are under Outfit control. These include: the Iowa family, Las Vegas crew(s), the Los Angeles family, the Nebraska family, and the San Diego crew from LA.[3]
To this day, the Outfit bears the influence of its best-known leader, Al Capone. In fact for decades after Capone had left the scene, the Outfit was known as "the Capone Gang" or "the Capones" to outsiders. The Outfit's membership is moderately estimated to be between 50–200 "made" members comprising a core group with more than 1,000 associates.[1]
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Since its founding, the Chicago Outfit has been operating in order to keep and expand its status and profit throughout the Chicago area, among others. During the Prohibition era, its leader, Al Capone, competed with other gangsters like George "Bugs" Moran for the bootlegging business and was involved in other rivalries. Because of this, there appears to have been a business and personal rivalry between the Northside (North Side Mob) and Southside Chicago gangs, of which Al Capone headed the southern and George Moran, the northern.
There also appeared to have been cultural differences between the two sides, since the Northsiders were more Irish-American and the SouthSiders were more Italian-American. This conflict led to numerous crimes, such as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and numerous drive-by shootings resulting in the death of George Moran's associates and others on both sides. The Tommy gun was a trademark weapon in these. In the early 1940s, a handful of top Outfit leaders went to prison because they were found to be extorting Hollywood by controlling the unions that comprise Hollywood's movie industry, and the manipulation and misuse of the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund. There were also allegations that The Outfit was involved in strong-arm tactics and voter fraud at polling places, under Salvatore Giancana in the 1960 presidential election. Along with the voting allegations, The Outfit was involved in a Central Intelligence Agency-Mafia collusion during Castro's overthrow of the Cuban government. In exchange for its help, the Outfit was to be given access to its former casinos if it helped overthrow Fidel Castro in (Operation Mongoose or Operation Family Jewels). Having failed in that endeavor, and facing increasing indictments under the administration of President John F. Kennedy (JFK), the Outfit is the subject of conspiracy theories regarding the JFK assassination, and that of JFK's brother Robert Kennedy. The Outfit controlled casinos in Las Vegas and "skimmed" millions of dollars over the course of several decades. Most recently, top mob figures have been found guilty of crimes dating back to as early as the mid 1960s. It has been rumored that the $2 million skimmed from the casinos in the Court case of 1986 and portrayed in the blockbuster movie "Casino", was used to build the Old Neighborhood Italian American Club, the founder of which was Angelo J. LaPietra "The Hook".
The early years of organized crime in Chicago in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were marked by the division of various street gangs controlling the South Side and North Side as well as the Black Hand organizations of Little Italy.
Giacomo Colosimo ("James," "Big Jim") centralized control in the early 20th century. Colosimo was born in Calabria, Italy, in 1877, emigrating to Chicago in 1895, where he established himself as a criminal. By 1909 he was successful enough that he was encroaching on the criminal activity of the Black Hand organization.
His expanding organization required the procurement of extra muscle. This came in the form of Colosimo's nephew Giovanni Torrio ("Johnny the Fox") from New York. In 1919, Torrio brought in Al Capone, thus providing Capone's entrance to Chicago. In time, Colosimo and Torrio had a falling out over Torrio's insistence that they expand into rum-running, which Colosimo staunchly opposed. In 1920, Colosimo was killed by Frankie Yale allegedly on Torrio's orders, ending the argument.
Torrio brought together different parts of Chicago criminal activity, with a lasting effect on Chicago in general, and Chicago crime in particular.
Severely injured in an assassination attempt by the North Side Mob in January 1925, the shaken Torrio returned to Italy and handed over control of the business to Capone. Capone was notorious during Prohibition for his control of the Chicago underworld and his bitter rivalries with gangsters such as George "Bugs" Moran and Earl "Hymie" Weiss. Raking in vast amounts of money (some estimates were that between 1925 and 1930 Capone was making $100 million a year), the Chicago kingpin was largely immune to prosecution because of witness intimidation and the bribing of city officials. The Chicago Outfit under Al Capone's leadership was certainly one of the most dangerous gangs in the world. In the 1930s, Al Capone and his successor, Frank Nitti, developed the Outfit rapidly in all the surrounding areas.
One of the prime areas of interest was in Canada, the main source of alcohol which the Outfit was smuggling into the States. This illicit alcohol was then distributed to all the "titty bars" (brothels) of Chicago. During prohibition, this was one of the greatest sources of income for the Outfit. The Outfit, as established by Capone, functioned on relationships with a high degree of trust between the gangsters and the "boss of bosses".
The Boss controlled the heads of various divisions of the outfit through a system of informants placed throughout the various levels of the organization. Anyone who betrayed the honor of the organization was executed. Among the most active representatives of the Al Capone Outfit were “Happy Memories” DeLuca (assets in Illinois and Wisconsin), Bob Calandra (Ontario), Vince DeLuca, Tom Ciampelletti (Montreal) and Frank Nitti, who acted as intermediary between Al Capone, the Boss, and the other gangsters. Frankie La Porte and Ross Prio out of Chicago Heights, carried some heavy weight with Capone organizing his gang into an empire. Frankie La Porte, being Sicilian and having the ability to work in confidence with New York gangsters Joe Bonanno and Charles "Lucky" Luciano, who were also Sicilian, is believed to have been Capone's connection to the Commission.
While Al Capone was in charge of the Chicago Outfit it has been reported that some members of organization would take the train from Chicago to Wabash County, Illinois and stay at a remote hotel called the Grand Rapids Hotel on the Wabash River next to the Grand Rapids Dam. The hotel was only in existence for nine years but many residents of the area remember seeing men who claimed to be from the Chicago Outfit at the Grand Rapids Hotel. Suspiciously, the Grand Rapids Hotel was burned down by a man with one leg who dropped a blowtorch.[4]
After Capone was jailed for tax evasion, his hand-picked successor, Frank Nitti, a former barber and small-time jewel thief, only nominally assumed power. In truth, power was seized by Nitti's underboss, Paul Ricca, who was acknowledged as "boss" by the leaders of the growing National Crime Syndicate. Ricca would rule the Outfit, either in name or in fact, for the next 42 years.
Over the next decade, The Outfit moved into labor racketeering, gambling, and loan sharking. Geographically, this was the period when Outfit muscle extended its tendrils to Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin, Kansas City, and especially to Hollywood and other California cities, where The Outfit's extortion of labor unions gave it leverage over the motion picture industry.
In 1943, the Outfit was caught red-handed shaking down the Hollywood movie industry. Ricca wanted Nitti to take the fall. However, Nitti had found, years earlier while in jail for 18 months (for tax evasion), that he was claustrophobic, and he decided to end his life rather than face more imprisonment for extorting Hollywood. Ricca then became the boss in name as well as in fact, with enforcement chief Tony Accardo as underboss. Around this time, the Outfit began bringing in members of the Forty-Two Gang, a notoriously violent youth gang. Among them were Sam "Momo" Giancana, Sam "Mad Sam" DeStefano, Felix "Milwaukee Phil" Alderisio and Fiore "Fifi" Buccieri.
However, later in 1943, following the "Hollywood Scandal" trial, Ricca was sent to prison for his part in The Outfit plot to control Hollywood. He, along with a number of other mobsters, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Through the "magic" of political connections, the whole group of Outfit mobsters was released after three years, largely due to the efforts of Outfit "fixer" Murray "The Camel" Humphreys. As a condition of his parole, Ricca could not associate with mobsters. Accardo nominally took power as boss, but actually shared power with Ricca, who continued behind the scenes as a senior consultant.
Accardo joined Ricca in semi-retirement in 1957. From then on, Ricca and Accardo allowed several others, such as Giancana, Alderisio, Joey Aiuppa, William "Willie Potatoes" Daddano and Jackie "the Lackey" Cerone to serve as front men over the years, this due to some "heat" that Accardo was originally getting from the IRS, in the 1950s. Most of the front bosses originated from the Forty-Two Gang. However, no major business transactions, and certainly no "hits," took place without Ricca and Accardo's knowledge and approval. By staying behind the scenes, Ricca and Accardo lasted far longer than Capone. Ricca died in 1972, leaving Accardo as the sole power behind the throne.
The Outfit reached the height of its power in the 1960s. With the aid of Meyer Lansky, Accardo used the Teamsters pension fund to engage in massive money laundering through the Outfit's casinos, aided by the likes of Sidney Korshak and Jimmy Hoffa. The 1970s and 1980s were a hard time for the Outfit, as law enforcement continued to penetrate the organization, spurred by poll-watching politicians. Off-track betting reduced bookmaking profits and illicit casinos withered under competition from legitimate casinos. Replacement activities like auto theft and professional sports betting did not replace the lost profits.
Operation PENDORF (codenamed for penetrate Allen Dorfman) and the "Strawman" case ended the Outfit's skimming and control of their Las Vegas casinos. These events are fictionalized in the film Casino.
Operation GAMBAT proved to be a crippling blow to the Outfit's tight grip on the Chicago Political Machine. Pat Marcy, a made man in the Outfit, ran the city's First Ward which represented most of downtown Chicago. With the help of Alderman Fred Roti and Democratic Committeeman John D'Arco Sr., close Outfit associates, Marcy and company controlled the circuit courts from the 1950s until the late 1980s. Together, the First Ward fixed cases involving everything from minor traffic violations to murder. Attorney and First Ward associate, Robert Cooley, was one of the attorneys that represented many mafiosi and associates in which cases were fixed. As a trusted man within the First Ward, Cooley was approached and asked to take out a city police officer. Cooley, who was also an addicted gambler and in debt to certain undesirables, approached the U.S. Justice Department’s Organized Crime Strike Force, declaring he wanted to "destroy Marcy and the First Ward." Cooley was soon in touch with the FBI and began cooperating as a federal informant. Through the years, Cooley kept close with Marcy and the big shots of the First Ward. He wore a wire, recording valuable conversations at the notorious "First Ward Table", located at "Counselor's Row" across the street from Chicago City Hall. The results in Operation Gambat (Gambling Attorney) were convictions of 24 corrupt judges, lawyers and cops.
Accardo died in 1992. In a measure of how successfully he'd managed to stay out of the limelight, he never spent a day in jail (or only spent one day, depending on the source) despite an arrest record dating to 1922. Compared to how organized crime leadership transitions take place in New York City, Chicago's transition from Accardo to the next generation of Outfit bosses has been more of an administrative change than a power struggle.
On April 25, 2005, the U.S. Department of Justice launched Operation Family Secrets,[5] which indicted 14 Outfit members and associates under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel presided over the Family Secrets trial. The federal prosecutors were Mitchell A. Mars, T. Markus Funk, and John Scully. The jury found James Marcello, Joseph Lombardo, Frank Calabrese, Sr., Paul Schiro, and Anthony Doyle guilty of all counts, which included extortion, illegal gambling, tax fraud, loan sharking, and murder (Doyle was not found guilty of murder) on September 10, 2007. Scully retired, and Mars died prior to sentencing (which was handled by Funk). Paul Schiro was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Frank Calabrese, Sr. was sentenced to life in prison on January 28, 2009. On February 2, 2009, Joseph Lombardo was sentenced to life imprisonment. James Marcello also received life imprisonment on February 5, 2009. March 12, 2009, Anthony Doyle received 12 years of prison. Nicholas Calabrese was sentenced to 12 years, 4 months of imprisonment. This lenient sentence was due in part to Calabrese's cooperation with the government. Nick Calabrese turned government witness in the early 2000s (decade) and was the star witness at the Family Secrets trial. Additional punishment was added on April 6, 2009. to the five guilty men, over $24 million in fines and restitutions to be paid. Also, $4.3 million to the relatives of the 14 men murdered by the Outfit. The five would split the restitution cost, but Doyle has to pay the least. Zagel's words, "...I hold Defendants Calabrese, Sr., Marcello, Lombardo, and Schiro jointly and severally liable."[6] Judge Zagel found that Calabrese during the closing argument threatened to kill prosecutor Funk (muttering "You're a fucking dead man" in Funk's direction); Calabrese reportedly was subsequently incarcerated under highly-restrictive measures.
However, during the Family Secrets' trial, it was found that a Deputy U.S. Marshal named John Thomas Ambrose had leaked information on Nicholas Calabrese that led back to the Chicago mob as early as 2002. Ambrose would eventually be put on a Mob Leak trial himself (with Markus Funk returning as the lead prosecutor, assisted by Diane MacArthur) and a jury would find him guilty on April 28, 2009. He was charged with theft of Justice Department property, disclosing confidential information and lying to federal agents who questioned him about the leak. He was however acquitted of two charges of lying to federal agents. The information went to William Guide, a father figure to Ambrose and an officer convicted in the Marquette 10, and then to the mob. This is noteworthy as the first ever breach in the Witness Protection Program. In the end, Ambrose was sentenced to 48 months incarceration, which was almost three times higher than the top of his sentencing guidelines range—Judge Grady found "nothing mitigating" about Ambrose's leaks to the Chicago mob. Also, a restaurant owner in the northwest suburbs was also indicted.
Document's revealed at John Ambrose's trial show that the Justice Department's Family Secrets also intended to indict and convict Alfonso "Pizza Al" Tornabene and John DiFronzo.
In Des Moines, Iowa there is a faction that works under the Chicago Outfit.[7]
In Las Vegas there is a faction that works under the Chicago Outfit.[8]
The outfit also operates in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, doing most of the Milwaukee crime family's rackets
In Los Angeles there is a faction that works under the Chicago Outfit.[9]
In Omaha, Nebraska there is a faction that works under the Chicago Outfit.[10]
In San Diego, California there is a faction that works under the Chicago Outfit.[11]
The Outfit has used other ethnic groups besides Italian Americans as high ranking associates since the family's earliest days. A prime example of this was Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik, who was the top "bagman" and "accountant" for decades until his death. He was Jewish and either Polish or Russian (depending on the source). Others were Murray Humphreys, who was of Welsh descent, and associate Ken Eto (aka Tokyo Joe), who was a Japanese-American. The Outfit also had Michael J. Corbitt, who was a police officer.
The Chicago Outfit has a long history of portrayal in Hollywood as the subject of films and television
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