Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti

Frank Nitti was born Francesco Nitto in Angri, near Salerno, in 1886, and came to the United States as a child. He worked as a barber in Brooklyn before moving to Chicago, where he became a fence for stolen goods and then a trusted man in the Torrio organisation.

His nickname is misleading. Nitti was not the Outfit's principal killer; he ran its liquor distribution, and the press attached the name to him because it suited the story they were telling. He was frequently described in newspapers as Capone's cousin, a claim that has never been firmly established.

Front man

When Capone went to prison in 1932, Nitti became the public head of the organisation. The substance of the decisions increasingly belonged to Paul Ricca, who had neither Nitti's visibility nor his taste for it.

In December 1932 two Chicago police detectives shot Nitti in his office. He survived. Both officers were later charged in connection with the shooting.

March 1943

Federal prosecutors indicted the Outfit's leadership over a scheme to extort the Hollywood studios through the stagehands' union. Nitti, who had been claustrophobic since his earlier prison term, faced the certainty of another sentence. On 19 March 1943, the day before he was due to appear before the grand jury, he walked onto a railway line in North Riverside, Illinois, and shot himself.