Untouchables (law enforcement)

Neither Mellon nor Mitchell moved to implement Hoover's plan until attorney Frank J. Loesch of the Chicago Crime Commission approached the president in March 1930, asking his help in bringing down Al Capone.

Johnson selected twenty-seven-year-old Eliot Ness, a special agent with the Prohibition Bureau who had played key roles on the Chicago Heights case and an investigation into Ralph Capone's bootlegging operations, to head this elite squad.

[4] Operating out of Room 308 of the Transportation Building at 608 S. Dearborn Street, in what is now Chicago's Printer's Row neighborhood, the Untouchables planned their activities to stop Capone.

[6] Their efforts reportedly inflicted significant financial damage on Capone and his organization while Frank Wilson and the Intelligence Unit worked to build their tax evasion case.

[1]: 364–365, 391 In June 1931, Capone was indicted first for income tax evasion and then for five thousand counts of conspiracy to violate the Volstead Act, the latter based on evidence gathered by Ness and his Untouchables.

But Federal Judge James H. Wilkerson refused to accept Johnson's agreement and, once Capone changed his pleas, brought the tax case to trial.

[1]: 385–390, 395–412, 417–419, 495–496 Ness and the Untouchables continued to attack the Outfit's beer and liquor empire during and after Capone's trial, their efforts resulting in estimated lost income in excess of $9 million.