#FBI UNDERCOVER AGENT MOLE 1980S HOW TO#
#FBI UNDERCOVER AGENT MOLE 1980S TRIAL#

President Herbert Hoover entered office in March 1929, a few weeks following the infamous St. Coast Guard, which boarded the mother ship and arrested the astonished bootleggers. Agents posing as bootleggers drove speedboats out to the booze-laden mother ship and, after money changed hands, Malone fired off a flare, signaling the U.S. Malone posed as gangster from Chicago in hiding, with money to invest in illegal booze. Once, Irey enlisted Malone to smash a West Coast version of “Rum Row,” rumrunners selling contraband Canadian liquor from ships off the coast of San Francisco. He posed in everyman roles such as garbage man and shoe shiner.Įlmer Irey, chief of the Intelligence Unit, had worked with undercover agent Malone on Prohibition cases. With law enforcement his career goal, Malone joined the Treasury Department’s Intelligence Unit later known as the “T-Men.” Early on, in the 1920s, Malone appreciated how donning disguises brought him closer to the suspects. His fascinating story began after his service in World War I. I lost.”įrom 1929 to 1931, Malone fed intelligence about Capone that would culminate in the historic conviction of the nation’s most notorious Mob boss. “The only thing that fooled me was your looks,” Capone is said as to have remarked to Malone. In the Chicago courthouse, Malone happened to enter an elevator where Capone stood with his defense lawyers.

#FBI UNDERCOVER AGENT MOLE 1980S TRIAL#

When Capone’s jury trial commenced, and the Treasury Department removed Malone from his undercover job, the agent gained a bit of respect from the embarrassed gang chief himself. Malone remained disguised within Capone’s bootlegging band even for a time after the feds filed tax charges against Capone, Nitti and Capone’s brother, Ralph, in 1931. While Malone kept up the charade, he delivered information that proved incriminating not only for Capone, but for his top enforcer, Frank Nitti (aka Nitto). Blowing his cover would have proved fatal. Despite the danger, Malone kept an iron will. After finessing his way into Capone’s inner circle in 1929, Malone proved invaluable to his superiors in the Treasury Department pursuing a tax evasion case against the Chicago crime boss. With his “black Irish” dark hair and skin, he resembled someone from southern Europe. Malone, whose parents came over from Ireland, grew up in New Jersey and meshed well with its European immigrants, eventually learning to speak Gaelic, Italian, Yiddish and Greek. Michael Malone had all the makings of an undercover agent who would successfully infiltrate Al Capone’s Chicago gang for nearly two years. In the late 1920s, he infiltrated Al Capone’s Chicago Outfit and helped convict the crime boss of tax evasion. Michael Malone Mike Malone worked undercover for the Treasury Department’s Intelligence Unit. Perhaps because of the gravity of the investigations, and the financial resources required, all of these undercover officers worked for agencies of the U.S. This list leaves out many other famous undercover officers, whom we would like to recognize in the future. What follows here is a list of five remarkable individuals whose undercover operations, despite real dangers, resulted in the convictions of leaders and associates of organized crime, over almost a century. It requires an unusual kind of person, able to work under stress, stay focused, pull off the character he or she is playing and be prepared to tell many lies.

#FBI UNDERCOVER AGENT MOLE 1980S HOW TO#

A trained officer knows how to strategize, win the confidence of their targets and get them to reveal what’s needed to build a case to take to trial.

But the rewards can be huge, with wire recordings and eyewitness testimony that can result in arrests and convictions. In law enforcement, working as an undercover officer carries the high risk of discovery by criminal suspects, leading to violence, torture and death. Courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Using the name Donnie Brasco, he infiltrated the New York Mafia and helped produce 200 indictments. Joe Pistone is one of the FBI’s most celebrated undercover agents.

Fbi undercover agent mole 1980s