The Chicago Outfit during the Prohibition years was led by Francesco Raffaele Nitto, popularly called Frank ‘Enforcer’ Nitti. He is known to have become the Outfit’s leader after Al Capone after the Prohibition period. Frank had created a dreadful Mafia organization in the city, but was regarded to be just a boss in name. For avoiding prison time, he had killed himself.
His early life
It was on 27th January 1886 that Nitti was born in Angri, Salerno, Italy. Rosina and Luigi Nitto were his parents and some historians are of the opinion that he could probably be Capone’s cousin. His father died when he was two years old, after which his mother got remarried to Dolendo Francesco. The family moved to New York when Nitti was just seven years old and got settled in Brooklyn.
After 7th grade, Nitti dropped from school and worked as pinsetter in bowling alley, as barber, factory worker. At the age of 14, he left home because of a bad relationship with his stepfather. Through his barbershop, he began to fence stolen jewelry and soon befriended brothers of Capone and Navy Street Boys, their gang.
His life as a Mafia
It was in 1919 during the beginning of the Prohibition that he had name a name under Capone as Chicago Mafioso. He had arrived in 1913 in Chicago and established a barbershop, which served as criminal activity front and to make proper connections with the Chicago underworld figures like the boss of North Side Gang, Dean O’Banion.
In Dallas, he married Rose Levitt in 1917, after which he joined the crime syndicate on moving to Galveston, Texas. In 1918, he duped two Galveston mobsters and fled to Chicago to continue his criminal activities there.
His activities had caught the attention of Giovanni Torrie and Capone. The fencing ring and jewel theft by Nitti is what had impressed them, however, what they were interested was a part of the alcohol smuggling operation. Over time, Nitti boasted of a properly established smuggler network that was able to bring in Canadian whisky into the city from across the border, therefore, making him invaluable to Torrie and Capone. Although he started as Capone’s bodyguard, he soon rose among the ranks. Nitti’s fortunes rose under Capone’s regime. Divorcing Rose, he married a Mafia doctor’s daughter named Anna Ronga.
Nitin later was imprisoned for 18 months for avoiding tax payment. On 19th March 1943, Nitti shot himself and got buried in Hillside’s Mount Carmel Cemetery, Illinois.