VANISHED MILLIONS

Evening Star, Issue 26087, 29 April 1947, Page 9

VANISHED MILLIONS

CAPONE'S RACKETEER WEALTH

A 1 Capone, once a multi-millionaire racketeer, died, according to his lawyer, a “ poor man.” What is the mystery of his vanished wealth ? • When I set out to find the truth about Capone’s fortune I joined a long line of lawyers, gangsters, tax collectors, and traders—all on a similar mission, writes a New York correspondent. Capone’s lawyer, Abraham Teitelhaum, said: “ So far as I know, A 1 left no will and no money. His house was mortgaged, and he. had been supported by members of his family in recent years. He still owed the Government money when he died.” So far, inquiries in Miami, where Capone died; in Chicago, where he reigned as king of the underworld, 1921-1930; in Washintgon. l headquarters of the Treasury officials who landed him in gaol; and in. Los Angeles, home of his lawyer, have borne out Mr Teitelbaum’s statement. No trace of the wealth of America’s former Public Enemy No. 1 has been found. Tn 1939, when Capone completed his prison term at Atlanta and Alcrataz, and a session as a mental patient, tax authorities estimated that he had £1,000,000 “salted away.” He was sajd to have had a personal fortune of £5.000,000 some years earlier. During the last years of his life he lived in his 25-roomed Miami home, on which Frank Harmon, a Chicago night club operator, holds an £8,750 mortgage. This house was built in 1922 for just under £4,000. Improvements were later made, and the house is now assessed at £9,500, plus £1,500 for the furniture. But in the present inflated property market at Miami it might, fetch £20,000. BULLET-PROOF WAISTCOATS. A white building, with a 100 ft frontage, it is high-walled all round. The man whose syndicate of crime brought death, to 500 enemies and friends liked seclusion in his declining years. In the grounds are a private boat house and a swimming pool. But for all the outward show of wealth, Capone ran this mansion with two servants. At the height of his power he also maintained a retreat at Mercer, Wisconsin, now owned by his brother Ralph. r l’his was at the time when Capone had a penchant for £6O suits

(with bullet-proof waistcoats) and £7 shirts; when he drove for safety’s sake in a seven-ton bullet-proof car, with a vanguard and rearguard of hired gunmen in other cars; when his takings in vice and crime climbed to the £20,000,000 a year mark. He kept accounts for income tax, but failure to declare large slices of income brought him foul of the Internal Revenue Department. The tax collectors estimated the Capone syndicate’s income for 1927 at £15,000,000 . from beer; £6,000,000 from gambling and dog racing; and £4,000,000 from vice, dance halls, road houses,, and associated rackets. , The foundation of Capone’s fortune lay in the illicit liquor trade of the Prohibition era. Federal officials asserted that between 1924 and 1929 Capone cheated the United States Government of £250,000 income tax, and it was for this that he received-his 11-year sentence. Though, while he lived at Miami, he made no show of wealth and apparently took no further part in his former rackets, he. was reported to be receiving a “sleeping pai-tner’s retainer” from the syndicate he once ran.