Birmingham letter opening the Atlanta contraband inquiry (16 June 1933)

Part 04 of the FBI Vault’s Capone file, scans 3 and 4. The Bureau’s cover sheet for the part reads “Alphonse Capone, Bufile numbers: 62-28933”. This letter, on U.S. Bureau of Investigation letterhead, 201 Liberty National Life Building, Birmingham, Alabama, dated June 16, 1933, is addressed to the Director and stamped 62-28933-1, received 20 June 1933. The file’s case title, as it appears later in the part, is “Alphonse Capone, with aliases, et al; Conspiracy to Receive and Send Contraband Out of the United States Penitentiary, Atlanta, Georgia.”

The letter reports that the office has received a memorandum from Special Agent Chapman Fletcher at Atlanta stating that a person at the United States Penitentiary at Atlanta, whose name and title are redacted, “handed him a copy of a letter purporting to have been written by Al Capone, three copies of which are attached hereto for your information in the premises.” Most of the rest of the first page is blacked out under FOIA. On scan 4, as far as the OCR can be read, the writer notes that several of the persons mentioned in the letter are government officials and asks for instructions before Birmingham opens an investigation, suggesting that matters in the letter be checked against the penitentiary’s records and that the Chicago office be asked to help.

A later Bureau memorandum in the same part (scans 32 to 36, 11 October 1933) dates the Birmingham letter to 16 June, the consultation with the Bureau of Prisons to 23 June and Birmingham’s authority to proceed to 27 June 1933. The inquiry ran through Parts 04 and 05 and, as far as those parts show, developed no evidence that supported the allegations. The first page was read from the page image stored here.