American gangster
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Also known as: Francesco Raffele Nitto, The Enforcer
Written and fact-checked by
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Quick Facts
- Original name:
- Francesco Raffele Nitto
- Byname:
- The Enforcer
- Died:
- March 19, 1943, North Riverside, Ill., U.S.
Frank Nitti (born 1896?, Naples, Italy—died March 19, 1943, North Riverside, Ill., U.S.) was an American gangster in Chicago who was Al Capone’s chief enforcer and inherited Capone’s criminal empire when Capone went to prison in 1931.
Starting as a barber, Nitti became a fence for stolen goods and about 1920 joined Capone’s gang. He was sent to prison for 18 months after pleading guilty in 1930 to income-tax evasion, but thereafter he nominally headed the syndicate that controlled Chicago’s gambling, prostitution, and other rackets. In March 1943 he and eight others (including Paul “the Waiter” Ricca) were indicted for trying to extort $1,000,000 from four motion-picture companies (Loew’s, Paramount, Twentieth Century–Fox, and Warner Brothers) under threat of “union trouble.” Just hours before the New York federal grand jury handed down the indictment, Nitti shot himself as he wandered, drunken, along a railroad track in a Chicago suburb.
This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.
