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FOIA cover sheet of Part 01 of the FBI Vault's Al Capone file, printed "Alphonse Capone, Part 1 of 11" with Bufile numbers 62-20034, 62-24153 and 62-27268 — Open the full imageGIF, 1000 × 1273 px, 0.1 MB

FBI Vault file on Alphonse Capone

The FBI Vault's release of the Bureau file on Alphonse Gabriel Capone, in 36 parts, with the Bureau's own summary of the investigation.

Date: 1899/1947
Kind: case-file
Source: FBI Records: The Vault
Retrieved: 2026-10-11
Rights: A work of the United States government, prepared by federal officers or employees as part of their official duties. Public domain in the United States. 17 U.S.C. § 105.

The Vault lists this file in 36 parts, from Part 01 through Part 36 (Final), plus an images section. The Vault’s own summary identifies the subject as Alphonse Gabriel “Al” Capone (1899–1947), describes him as a Chicago gangster of the 1920s and early 1930s, and says the Bureau of Investigation joined the Bureau of Prohibition and other agencies in the investigation. It states that he was sentenced to prison for tax evasion in 1931, paroled in 1939, and that he died in Florida in 1947.

This page does not re-summarize the scanned parts. The file is the record. Those dates and that sentence are the Vault’s, and they are cited here as the Vault states them.

itemAl Capone mug shot, 1934 (front)Front identification photograph published by the FBI as Al Capone's 1934 mug shot. A copy is stored with this archive.itemNational Archives list of former Alcatraz inmates: Capone, register 85The National Archives at San Francisco lists Alphonse Capone, called Scarface on the list, among former inmates of the U.S. Penitentiary, Alcatraz, register number 85.

itemChicago report on tribute collected from juice-grape buyers (22 September 1930)A Bureau of Investigation report from Chicago records complaints that racketeers taxed every railcar of juice grapes sold at Chicago tracks: in 1929 for a gangster said to represent the Aiello-Moran gang, and in 1930, according to a witness, for a collector appointed by 'the Al Capone gang'.

itemSenate committee letter asking the Bureau for its record on Al Capone (20 June 1928)The earliest dated item in the FBI's Capone file: a letter on United States Senate Committee on Commerce letterhead asking J. Edgar Hoover for a résumé of any record on 'Al Capone — recently known as the Chicago Gangster', then living at Miami or Miami Beach.

itemBirmingham letter opening the Atlanta contraband inquiry (16 June 1933)The first serial of Bufile 62-28933: the Bureau's Birmingham office forwards copies of a letter said to have been written by Capone in the Atlanta penitentiary and asks for instructions, opening the 1933–36 contraband inquiry.

itemBirmingham report on the manuscript 'The Biography of Al Capone's Life in the Atlanta Penitentiary' (March 1936)After about three months' work at the Atlanta penitentiary, a Bureau agent reviewed a typed manuscript about Capone's prison life and found its specific accusations few and indefinite; the Birmingham office saw nothing in it to advance the contraband case.itemPress clippings on the August 1934 transfer from Atlanta to Alcatraz, filed in the FBI Capone filePart 06 of the Vault file is a run of wire-service and newspaper clippings, mostly of 20–24 August 1934, on the guarded rail transfer of Capone and other Atlanta prisoners to Alcatraz. They are listed here as a pointer and are not reproduced.

itemChicago Crime Commission request for Bureau records on twenty-eight Chicago gangsters (1930)Letters from the Chicago Crime Commission, filed in the FBI's Capone file under Bufile 32-15941, sending the Bureau a list of twenty-eight Chicago gangsters headed by Al Capone, and the Commission's replies after the Bureau said it needed fingerprints or police numbers.

itemChicago memorandum listing members of former and present Chicago gangs (July 1936)A Chicago FBI memorandum for the file records a list of members of Chicago gangs by territory, 'Capone Gang (South Side)' first, obtained on 22 July 1936 from the Cook County coroner's firearms expert, with the dead marked by an asterisk.

itemFBI Laboratory memorandum matching the Capone 'Biography' typescript to the 'F. Barrett' letters (1 June 1936)The FBI Laboratory finds that the 244-page typed 'Biography of Al Capone's Life in Atlanta Penitentiary' and two 1935 letters signed 'F. Barrett' offering it to a magazine were typed on the same Royal typewriter with Elite type.

itemFBI report on the 23 June 1936 assault on Capone at Alcatraz (serial 62-39128-45)A San Francisco FBI report states that inmate James C. Lucas stabbed Capone in the back with a blade of barber shears at Alcatraz on 23 June 1936, that the wound was superficial, and that the U.S. Attorney declined prosecution as a prison administrative matter.

itemLos Angeles letter of 26 October 1939 on an agent's interview of Capone at Terminal IslandThe FBI's Los Angeles Special Agent in Charge reports an hour-long interview of Capone at Terminal Island on 25 October 1939. The agent wrote that Capone was in high spirits but kept losing the thread, which he took as a sign that Capone's mind did not function normally.

itemSan Francisco letter: reports that Capone is paralyzed are false; transfer to Terminal Island (17 January 1939)The FBI's San Francisco office reports from a confidential source that newspaper stories of Capone being paralyzed were false, and that on his transfer from Alcatraz to Terminal Island he was in very good spirits.

itemChicago letter on possible consequences of Capone's release (6 December 1939)Asked to watch for any attempt on the lives of Al or Ralph Capone, the FBI's Chicago office relays a reporter's view that the syndicate had moved from gunmen to 'muscle' methods and that no concerted comeback was likely without Capone's own leadership.

itemFBI record of a call reporting Capone's release at Lewisburg (16 November 1939)A telephone-call record in the Director's office: a United Press reporter says the Justice Department has just announced that Capone was released that morning at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, to his relatives.

itemHoover reply stating that Capone died on 25 January 1947 at Palm Island, Miami (15 January 1964)A Bureau form reply to a Memphis writer gives Capone's tax sentence of 24 October 1931, a release from Terminal Island dated 19 January 1939, and his death on 25 January 1947 at Palm Island, Miami. A file note gives the sources for the death.

itemFBI reply on the 'Capone Gang' with a list of alleged members furnished in 1936 (26 August 1983)The FBI's Office of Congressional and Public Affairs answers a Pennsylvania legislative research analyst with summaries, photographs and a list of alleged members of the 'Capone gang' 'per information furnished in 1936', noting that the gang's activities were mostly outside federal jurisdiction.

itemClyde Tolson's reply to James A. Farley about Capone's car and President Roosevelt (25 July 1968)FBI Associate Director Clyde Tolson tells James A. Farley that the FBI has no information on whether President Franklin D. Roosevelt used Al Capone's car, since Capone's tax conviction was outside its jurisdiction, and suggests the Secret Service.

itemJacksonville report on Dr. Phillips's affidavit and Capone's whereabouts (23 March 1929)A Bureau of Investigation report from Jacksonville quotes the Miami doctor's affidavit that Capone had been confined to bed with broncho-pneumonia, and reports witnesses who placed him at the Hialeah race track in the same weeks.

itemDirector's memorandum to Mrs. Willebrandt opening the Capone contempt inquiry (21 March 1929)The Bureau of Investigation's Director tells Assistant Attorney General Mabel Walker Willebrandt that he has ordered a discreet, quick inquiry into whether Al Capone and Dr. Kenneth Phillips could be held in contempt over a Miami doctor's affidavit.

itemChicago letter reporting the 27 March 1929 contempt citation and $5,000 bondThe Bureau's Chicago Special Agent in Charge reports that on 27 March 1929 a contempt citation was had against Capone before a federal judge in Chicago, and that Capone was arraigned the same day and gave a $5,000 bond.

itemTyped copies of the Miami affidavits in the Capone contempt inquiry (March 1929)A numbered set of Dade County affidavits gathered for the 1929 contempt inquiry, including Dr. Samuel D. Light's statement that he treated Capone in early January 1929 and a statement that Capone was questioned for two hours on 14 February 1929.

itemBureau of Prisons Director Bates sends a clipping on Capone to the Bureau (28 February 1931)A one-paragraph memorandum from Sanford Bates, Director of the Bureau of Prisons, passing on a newspaper clipping about Capone and asking whether a small local paper meant it as a joke.

itemChicago letter: Capone sentenced to six months for contempt (27 February 1931)The Bureau's Chicago office reports to the Director that Judge James H. Wilkerson sentenced Capone to six months in the Cook County jail for contempt of court on 27 February 1931, and that Chicago police had arrested him on a vagrancy charge two days earlier.

itemTranscript of Judge Wilkerson's finding in United States v. Capone, contempt (27 February 1931)The court reporter's transcript of Judge James H. Wilkerson's oral opinion finding Capone in contempt over the 1929 doctor's affidavit, with the sentence of six months in the Cook County jail and the colloquy on appeal and bond.

itemChicago letters on Florida witnesses in the contempt case, written during the tax trial (October 1931)Two letters from the Bureau's Chicago Special Agent in Charge, of 6 and 19 October 1931, checking whether the U.S. Attorney had used Florida witnesses the Bureau never interviewed; they were written while Capone was on trial for income-tax offenses.

itemChicago report on alleged privileges for Capone in the Cook County Jail (17 December 1931)A Bureau of Investigation report on an anonymous charge that Capone was running his business from the Cook County Jail while held for the U.S. Marshal after his tax conviction; jail officials denied it and the U.S. Attorney judged further inquiry unwarranted.

itemWarden Aderhold's letter on a newspaper reproduction of Capone's fingerprints (January 1933)The warden of the Atlanta penitentiary tells the Bureau of Prisons that a New York Journal reproduction of Capone's photographs and fingerprints did not come from the prison's copy, and that Capone had asked him for protection against the use of his prison record.

itemBirmingham letter on the postponed Capone habeas corpus hearing (21 October 1932)The Bureau's Birmingham Special Agent in Charge reports that the hearing on Capone's petition for a writ of habeas corpus at Atlanta was postponed to 11 November 1932 and that the U.S. Attorney at Chicago asked for no Bureau action.

itemLetter to Hoover on a rumored Capone escape from Alcatraz, and Hoover's reply (September–October 1935)A Knoxville correspondent, prompted by a 'Dick Tracy' newspaper cartoon, wrote that some people in his town thought Capone might be staging a prison break from Alcatraz; Hoover thanked him for his interest.

itemDirector's memorandum on Capone's transfer to Alcatraz (21 August 1934)Hoover records calls with a Justice Department official and Inspector Clegg in San Francisco after the Attorney General was quoted as saying Capone was not being sent to Alcatraz; the memorandum states that Capone was on the prison train due the next morning.

itemTamm memorandum on Drew Pearson's inquiry about Capone's anticipated death (25 January 1947)Edward A. Tamm tells Hoover that columnist Drew Pearson telephoned for 'color' about the anticipated death of Al Capone, and that he gave Pearson the Bureau's write-up of the 1929–31 contempt case.