OPEN LETTER/ Come to the dialogue and listen to me speak, otherwise I will cut off your scholarships, you will rot in prison. Please!

 Kliko këtu për të tjera
Voxpress:

How Al Capone turned the infamous Alcatraz prison into an oasis

2025-07-25 15:04:03Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA ROLAND QAFOKU
How Al Capone turned the infamous Alcatraz prison into an oasis
Al Capone

Today, Alcatraz prison in San Francisco, USA, no longer "works".

It's just a museum and its old fame is not for the methods the guards used on the convicts. For two years in a row, the biggest gangster of all time in the US and the whole world was sheltered there.

We're talking about Al Capone. It's a cell guarded like the days when the businessman with a pistol under his arm served his sentence there, with walls bare from humidity, but even in those few square meters he swam in luxury. There was a double bed, a desk, a candlestick, an armchair, a mirror and a radio.

A radio? It was the 1930s and in the US it was really rare to have a radio. But Al Capone not only had one, he kept it in his cell. And like the "good prisoner" that he was, he invited even the guards who were tempted by that talking closet into his cell and they listened to music, news and shows together.

What else? If you go there, you first learn how difficult that prison was. But this did not work for Al Capone, who knew how to do tricks. Imagine, the prison was an island with an area more or less the same as the prison, it had the shape of a castle and the closest distance from the ocean shore was 2.2 kilometers. There was nothing safer. But again, this did not apply to Al Capone. He knew how to fix the situation. For the entire time he was in that prison, his family members all settled in a hotel on the ocean shore. All the gang members also lived there at that time and this proximity meant that he not only continued his activity and business, but also that the prison did not seem like a prison to him. The data is that Al Capone had people visiting him almost every day. And do you know why the guards and the administration behaved well towards him.

He was the best model of the prison. Not just in behavior, not just in communication and non-participation in quarrels and fights. As long as he was behind bars, Al Capone opposed any organization of rebellion in prison or escape attempts. Then, besides hanging a sign of gratitude around his neck, what else could the prison leaders do? So, that Big Al, the terror of Chicago, the author of so many murders, whiskey smuggling, gangster actions and other and other things like this, was released one fine day with the motivation "for good behavior in prison."

The terrifying Alcatraz prison

A prison like that. Today the US can call it the safest but also the craziest. Built and opened in 1934, it had only 21 years of life. It was built in the form of a castle on an island and had an unquestionable security. Not only because of the distance from the water and the castle, but also because no one would attempt to jump into the water, exactly where the sharks had their home. The only case of escape was recorded a year before it was closed where three prisoners escaped, but no sign of them was found after jumping into the water. It seems that the sharks were better guards than those who stayed on land.

Who was Al Capone? How did he become the boss of all the mafia groups in Chicago and all of America?

Newspaper hero? Brilliant businessman? Merciless killer? Devoted family man? Born on January 17, 1899 in Brooklyn, New York, Alphonse Gabriel Capone was all of these things and none of them. A man of contradictions, he was a product of his time, his talent, and his instincts. He was in many ways a perfect storm, unable to exist alone in the place he lived.

How the Italian immigrant's son became a gangster

And who could be more? He came from the family of Gabriel Caponi from southern Italy. So, he had all the "opportunities" to reach the top of the mafia dome. His father landed on the shores of Ellis Island in New York at the beginning of the last century to continue his life in Brooklyn. It was in this neighborhood that Alphonse was born. And a mistake in the registration caused the surname Caponi to be written Capone and to remain for life. But, his exploits remained for life as well. Only 10 years old he committed his first action. He beat his teacher and was expelled from school. The new station of life was the street and he was with entire groups of boys who occupied the streets. And only at the age of 16 he had charges such as beatings, robbery and theft on his back. But he "had nowhere to put his head" and so he said goodbye to New York to say "thank you for finding me" to Chicago. There he would not only start a new life, but would establish an empire, a criminal business that, when he managed it in a building near the city center, was named Caponeville. Whiskey flowed freely in the drunkest city in the world, while robberies, fines, prostitution and affairs were its "sectors". And while the FBI only in a few years marked him on its list among the 25 most incriminated names in the USA. But Al Capone retaliated against the decision of the "Federals" by opening free canteens for the poor to eat soup. However, this mafia camouflage did not last long. A document was enough and he was arrested. But not for the charges of serious crimes that he had a head for, but for tax evasion. Yes, yes. You read that correctly. Al Capone was arrested for tax evasion. Only for this criminal offense was there strong evidence. And before the jury he gave that famous speech, addressing the prosecutors and judges with the monumental words: You are my clients! And that speech was a burial for everyone.

Al Capone's wealth

He reached his peak when the calculations said: Al Capone earns $100,000 a week. There was no more, better, prettier, or richer than that. But that's not all. A lavish mansion, an armored Cadillac weighing 7 tons, a team of bodyguards, but above all, the leader of the whiskey market in all of Chicago, made him indisputably the most famous and richest. Proving the famous saying that behind a fabulous fortune, there is an equally fabulous criminal act. And Al Capone lived in his time. He was its product. A kind of state within a state. Suffice it to say that his four-wheeled beast that slid down the road named "Al's Cadillac" was second in security only to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. When it was confiscated, it was the CIA that used his vehicle. And the importance of that car was even more apparent when, at an auction on November 20, 1971, Al's Cadillac was sold for $37 million. Rub your eyes! A whopping $37 million.

Death from syphilis
The syphilis disease that had affected the "untouchable" Al was actually diagnosed in Alcatraz prison. But he lived for many more years. It was a moment before he died that he even gave up business. Just a year before he died, he left everything to his gang that he led with such "success", but also to his family. The disease tired him out a lot until on January 25, 1947, he suffered a stroke that took his life. His wish was fulfilled when the tombstone was written: My Jessus Mercy. No American, yesterday or today, can connect Al Capone with religious faith, much less with the mercy that he asked Jessus for in the afterlife. After all, this was Al Capone.

*Taken from Roland Qafoku 's Facebook page

Galeria fotografike (
)


Në përputhje me standarded JTI

Video

SHIKO KANALIN NE YOUTUBE
×