Mob Adjacent

​Any serious member of the Mafia who has earned their notoriety has a nickname. These are usually given to them by other members of their branch of the Mafia and are based on their personalities, a particular crime, an injury received or their personal history. Here are the nicknames of some of the most notorious members of The Chicago Outfit and how they earned their names.

​Al Capone is probably the most famous boss in American Mafia history. He was christened with the Scarface component of his name because he was scarred when he worked on the door of a nightclub. When he insulted a woman, her brother slashed Capone across the face with a knife.

​Another well-known boss of The Chicago Outfit was Paul ‘The Waiter’ Ricca. He was given this nickname as he had worked as a waiter when he first fled to America from Italy via Cuba. The restaurant was the venue for many Mafia meetings. 

​Tony Accardo was the boss of The Chicago Outfit between 1947 and 1957, alongside Paul Ricca. It was the newspapers that gave him the name ‘Big Tuna’ after he was photographed with his catch following a fishing expedition. He was also known as ‘Joe Batters’.

​Not only was LaPietra an important member of the Chicago mob, he was also the founder of the Old Neighborhood Italian American Club. He was christened ‘The Hook’ because he reportedly tortured his victims by hanging them from a meat hook.

​John DiFronzo is the current leader of The Chicago Outfit. The story goes that he lost part of his nose when he jumped through a window during a burglary in 1949, thus landing himself with the name ‘No Nose’. Apparently, it was the police that returned the severed section of his nose to him and his nose was restored almost to its former glory. 

Al Capone is one of the most notorious mobsters of all time. Despite his fame as the boss of The Chicago Outfit, there are many facts about this man that few people know. Here are some interesting and surprising facts about this gangster.

1. Although he was best-known as the boss of The Chicago Outfit, he was born in Brooklyn, New York, on 17th January 1899. It was there he began his criminal career.
   
   
2. His Mafia nickname was Al ‘Scarface’ Capone. However, he hated this reference to his scar, so very few people called him this to his face.
   
   
3. In 1918, Capone married an Irish-Catholic girl called Mary Coughlin. She had given birth just 18 days before the wedding. Capone was only 19 at the time, so his parents had to sign to give him permission to marry.
   
   
4. Al and Mary only had one child, Albert Francis ‘Sonny’ Capone.
   
   
5. Johnny Torrio was Al Capone’s mentor is the gangster world and taught him everything he knew about racketeering. When Torrio was almost shot dead in 1925, he retired and Al Capone became the boss of The Chicago Outfit.
   
   
6. Capone’s criminal and business activities were varied and widespread. They included gambling houses, restaurants, speakeasies, breweries, brothels, distilleries and racetracks.
   
   
7. Although Capone is known for his criminal activities, he also had a kind and generous side. Not only did he give food and fuel to the poor in the winter months, he also opened one of the first soup kitchens in the Great Depression.
   
   
8. Committed many crimes, including murder. He got away with many of these due to a good relationship with the local law and government figures. However, it was the Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929 that was his undoing. Seven of his rivals were killed in the shooting and this brought his to the attention of the federal government.
   
   
9. In 1931, Capone was charged with 22 counts of tax evasion and approximately 5,000 counts of violating the Prohibition laws.
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10. Al Capone was sentenced to 11 years in Alcatraz where he was prisoner number 85. He was paroled due to ill health in 1939 but did not die until 1947 at the age of 48 following a stroke and a heart attack. 

When people think of gangster’s molls, they often picture glamorous women. Other stereotypical assumptions are that the molls were dutiful housewives who looked after the family and turned a blind eye to the activities of their husband’s. However, the gun molls of the 1930s played a very active role in the criminal activities of the Mafia and disproved all the stereotypes associated with them.
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Media attention first focused on the gun Molls of the Public Enemy gangs. However, the inner-city molls often remained behind the scenes because crime figures in major cities, such as Chicago and New York were rarely photographed. There was a spotlight on the women in the Midwest Crime Wave throughout 1933 and 1934. The wife of Machine Gun Kelly, Kathryn Kelly, attracted a lot of attention during her Federal kidnapping case.
Bonnie Parker also gained notoriety as the moll of Clyde Barrow. Photographs of her smiling while cradling her boyfriend’s cigars and guns made front page headlines. Most molls played it differently to Parker and Kelly, though, as they believed their value lay in saying behind the scenes and keeping a low profile.

In 1933, the mobsters’ female associates became of great importance to the FBI and other officials. They interrogated them and used the same level of brutality they would with male criminals. The Kansas City Massacre in June of this year is what prompted the FBI to investigate the women. They were often held for up to two weeks, deprived of sleep, starved and beaten.

Throughout the 1930s, the gun molls were worker bees for their partners and far from the stereotypes often attached to the women in the mafia. They rented apartments for hideouts, packed ammunition, opened safety deposit boxes to stash loot, bought getaway cars and often worked as a go-between.

Beth Green was one of the most famous women in the Mafia during this decade. She was the common-law wife of Eddie Green. The FBI’s interest in her extended beyond her role as a gun moll to her business acumen and intelligence. Unlike other women who were coaxed to provide information, Beth Green negotiated with the FBI.

There was one significant difference between the molls of the Public Enemy gangs and those in the Chicago Outfit or the New York Mafia families. The women in the Public Enemy gangs usually survived. However, those who were involved with syndicate mobsters were often strangled or shot after their interrogation from the FBI. Those who were not murdered by their associates or lovers would often flee in fear of their lives.

This shows that the lives of the gun molls in the 1930s were very different to the picture painted in the movies. They worked hard, were very involved in the criminal activities and often lived in fear of interrogation followed by death. 

Paul Ricca is one of the most notorious members of The Chicago Outfit. Not only was he one of Al Capone’s most important henchmen, he later became the boss of The Outfit himself. Here are 10 facts about this infamous Italian-American figure.