Capone
For the most part, it behooved a bootlegger to remain incognito, unrecognized in his profession other than by his customers. Not so for Al Capone. The syndicate which he built and which operated under his iron hand throughout most of Prohibition was one of the largest in the country. At one time he had over 1,000 employees, in Chicago of course, but also in Detroit, New York, St. Louis, and on the French islands below Newfoundland.
By the late 1920s, Capone’s syndicates were making, according to the Chicago Crime Commission, about $60 million annually. The violence associated with Prohibition is indelibly linked in the public mind to Capone, but he was involved in many other illegal rackets as well, including prostitution, narcotics, gambling, extortion, arson, hijackings, murder, and many others.
Capone built his criminal empire on bootlegging, and he paid his workers well, though he also disciplined them harshly. Still, though he never announced that he was a bootlegger, he did tell reporters that he “gave the public what the public wants.” The bootleggers that worked for him were under his thumb, and he gradually eliminated virtually all of his competition.