Al Capone and The Secret Service

Al Capone was sen­tenced to a year in Philadelphia’s East­ern State Pen­i­ten­tiary for car­ry­ing a con­cealed weapon in 1929. ¹The Brook­lyn Daily Eagle (May 26, 1929) F15 Two days before his sched­uled release in 1930, he made a tele­phone call from the Pen­i­ten­tiary to the Secret Ser­vice head­quar­ters in New York. Capone request­ed a con­fer­ence with the heads of the New York and Chica­go offices (Agent Straight and Agent Callaghan). ²U.S. Nation­al Archives and Records Admin­is­tra­tion, Record Group 87, Daily Reports of Agents. New York. Vol. 107. (Mar 15, 1930) 

Received a long dis­tance tele­phone call from AL CAPONE, EASTERN PENITENTIARY, Philadel­phia, CAPONE talk­ing with Prin­ci­pal Oper­a­tive CALLAGHAN, arrang­ing for a con­fer­ence in Philadel­phia tomor­row, Sun­day, at the Pen­i­ten­tiary dur­ing the forenoon for Prin­ci­pal Agent CALLAGHAN and self, Agent CALLAGHAN request­ing that I come to Philadelphia.

Alan G Straight. Prin­ci­pal Oper­a­tive. Secret Ser­vice. New York Dis­trict. 15^th March 1930.

The two agents trav­eled to the pen­i­ten­tiary the fol­low­ing day and held a con­fer­ence with Capone. ³U.S. Nation­al Archives and Records Admin­is­tra­tion, Record Group 87, Daily Reports of Agents. New York. Vol. 107. (Mar 16, 1930) 

Left New York with Prin­ci­pal Oper­a­tive CALLAGHAN, and pro­ceed­ed to Philadel­phia, PA., arriv­ing there at 1P.M. Engaged with Prin­ci­pal Oper­a­tive CALLAGHAN in con­fer­ence with the Super­in­ten­dent at the EASTERN PENITENTIARY on mat­ters of inter­est to this office. Prin­ci­pal Oper­a­tive CALLAGHAN will sub­mit a con­fi­den­tial report to you con­cern­ing the results of this conference.

Alan G Straight. Prin­ci­pal Oper­a­tive. Secret Ser­vice. New York Dis­trict. 16^th March 1930.

Capone intro­duced the agents to a new infor­mant based in New York. The Secret Ser­vice agents later met this infor­mant on sev­er­al occa­sions. ⁴U.S. Nation­al Archives and Records Admin­is­tra­tion, Record Group  87, Daily Reports of Agents. New York. Vol. 107 (Mar 19^, 1930); New York. Vol. 110 (May 2, 1930) 

Received a tele­phone call from Infor­mant SAM, intro­duced to me at the EASTERN PENITENTIARY by AL CAPONE in the pres­ence of Prin­ci­pal Oper­a­tive CALLAGHAN, of the Chica­go Office. This infor­mant asked that I con­nect with him tomor­row morn­ing at 11 o’clock out­side, out­side of this office, and prop­er arrange­ments were made for this meeting.

Alan G Straight. Prin­ci­pal Oper­a­tive. Secret Ser­vice. New York Dis­trict . 16^th March 1930. 

The iden­ti­ty of infor­mant ‘Sam’ has not yet been dis­cov­ered. The Secret Ser­vice had sev­er­al infor­mants named ‘Sam’ at the time. One was Sam Kranz, who was described in reports as a ‘dan­ger­ous type of infor­mant’ and a ‘leader of a gang of rack­e­teers who deal in every­thing from dope to pos­ing as fed­er­al agents,’ ⁵ U.S. Nation­al Archives and Records Admin­is­tra­tion, Record Group  87, Daily Reports of Agents. New York. Vol. 107 (Dec 16, 1931) and may have been a col­lec­tor for the Dutch Schultz gang. ⁶ Syra­cuse Her­ald Feb 21 1937. p3 

T.B.C.