The day Al Capone went to prison – level 3

04-05-1932

Al Capone was an American gangster and businessman who controlled a big part of Chicago during the Prohibition era.

He had under his thumb the police, politicians, lawyers, journalists, and also judges. He intimidated those who couldn’t be bought. Those who couldn’t be intimidated died.

Al Capone built his main business on alcohol smuggling. He was always able to secure a good alibi, and potential witnesses mysteriously began to lose memory.

However, the federal authorities found a way how to get him to prison. They hired a spy whose goal was to find out something illegal in Al Capone’s activities. In the end, he was successful.

The spy gathered evidence of 22 cases when Al Capone didn’t pay taxes. The judge didn’t let Al Capone bribe him this time. Al Capone was sentenced to 11 years in prison. It wasn’t for murder but for tax evasion.

On May 4, 1932, he was imprisoned in Atlanta. From there, he continued to run his gang and receive visitors.

After some time, he was taken to Alcatraz. There he became the most guarded prisoner, and he was completely isolated from the outside world.

Difficult words: prohibition (when people can’t make and sell alcohol; a time when something is not allowed), under his thumb (when someone has other people in his control), intimidate (to scare people so much that they do what you want), smuggle (to take something illegally to another country), alibi (something that shows that you couldn’t commit a crime), spy (a secret agent), gather (to collect), bribe (to illegally give somebody money to get something from them), sentence (to send to prison), evasion (when you don’t pay what you should pay, when you don’t do what you should do), Alcatraz (a famous prison in the USA).

What was the nature of the evidence that the federal authorities gathered against Al Capone?

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