By Michael Kosnar, NBC News Producer
For a crime buff who grew up in Chicago, the story we aired last night on NBC Nightly News was too good to pass up.
It's the tale of how the Internal Revenue Service, not the FBI or Elliot Ness, brought down legendary mob boss Al Capone.
After nearly 80 years of secrecy, this is the first look at documents which reveal how IRS agents built their case in order to convict Capone of income tax evasion.
As NBC News correspondent Pete Williams reported, "The documents contain the candid
assessments of the agents assigned to the case, who faced the daunting prospect of bringing down the king of the Chicago mobs, a task at which many had failed."
"A team of IRS investigators, dispatched from Washington at the direct urging of President Herbert Hoover, discovered just how difficult this case would be," Williams reported.
Our story began with a simple phone conversation.
"For the first time in 77 years, Al Capone's investigative file will be available to the public," the spokesperson from the Internal Revenue Service told me. "Are you interested?"
Was I interested? Again, for a journalist who reads indictments, search warrants and police reports for fun, a chance to poke around in the secret files of America's best known gangster was a dream come true.
I've even sat in Capone's prison cell at Alcatraz with all the other tourists.
From Gotti to Gambino, Castellano to Capone, I've followed mafia lore through books, movies and television, just like everyone else.
But to literally get my hands on the documents that helped put away Public Enemy Number One, or "Scarface" as Capone was known, gave me a personal glimpse into the 1930s and the IRS team that put away this ruthless killer.
A little family secret:
And there was one other thing in the back of my mind as I approached this assignment: A little family secret of my own that has been passed on through the years.
They say every family has an interesting skeleton in the closet; it appears mine may be a connection to Al Capone.
One of Capone's "inner council" Jack (Jake) "Greasy Thumb" Guzik, is apparently part of my family tree.
That's right, relatives say that I share the same bloodline as Capone's business manager,
himself convicted for not paying taxes on millions of dollars of illegal income.
In order to view the Capone files, we entered the original IRS headquarters vault, built in 1929 and still used today.
There they were, several boxes of typewritten reports, mug shots and ledger sheets detailing the bootlegging, brothel and gambling operations of the Chicago Outfit. All of it nearly 80 years old.
And in one of those boxes, the mug shot of "Greasy Thumb" Guzik right on top. Capone's
"bagman" and my ancestor lives in the dusty old files of the IRS.
On page 7 of a confidential report prepared by the Intelligence Unit of the IRS on July 8, 1931, Guzik is described as "chief lieutenant and business manager" for Capone. The report goes on to describe illegal deals worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, all handled by
Guzik for the mob.
"Greasy Thumb" Guzik spent five years in federal prison, not for his role in orchestrating
notorious crimes like the St. Valentine's Day massacre, but, just like Capone, on charges of tax evasion.
After his release from prison, Guzik reportedly picked up where he left off by handling the Chicago mob's finances into the 1950s.
Upon his release, Capone headed off to his getaway home on an island off the Florida coast.
While he was not exactly a pillar of the family, it was still intriguing to learn details of the life of "Greasy Thumb" and his partner, Capone.
I had come face to face, in a way, with a part of Chicago history as well as my own.
