Mob FilesPublic-domain archive of American organized crime
Letter of 20 June 1928 on United States Senate Committee on Commerce letterhead asking J. Edgar Hoover for the Bureau's record on Al Capone, from the FBI Vault, Part 01
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Senate 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.

Date
1928-06-20
Kind
case-file
Source
FBI Records: The Vault
Retrieved
2026-10-12
Rights
A record of the Federal Bureau of Investigation released under FOIA. A work of the United States government, public domain under 17 U.S.C. § 105. The letter itself is on the letterhead of the United States Senate Committee on Commerce.

Part 01 of the FBI Vault’s Capone file, scan 3. The Bureau’s cover sheet for the part lists Bufile numbers 62-20034, 62-24153 and 62-27268. This letter is the first serial of the first of them: it is stamped 62-20034-1, received by the Bureau of Investigation on June 21, 1928, and recorded and indexed on June 22, 1928.

The letter is typed on the letterhead of the United States Senate, Committee on Commerce, dated June 20, 1928, and addressed to “Mr. J. Edgar Hoover, Director, Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice.” It reads in full: “If in order for you to furnish, I would be glad to have resume of any record on file concerning Al Capone – recently known as the Chicago Gangster. Capone is now residing at Miami or Miami Beach, Florida.” It is signed by hand. The signature appears to read “Duncan U. Fletcher”, and the committee’s printed list of members includes Duncan U. Fletcher of Florida. This archive gives the reading of the signature as uncertain.

The research record for this page read the date as June 30 from the OCR. The page image, re-opened for this page on 12 October 2026 and stored here, shows June 20, 1928, which agrees with the Bureau’s receipt stamp of June 21. The Bureau’s answer, if any, is not among the legible pages of the part. The rest of Part 01 concerns a 1930 inquiry into tribute on juice grapes in Chicago.

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