Born Francesco Raffaele Nitto in Campania, Italy, Frank Nitti grew up in Brooklyn’s Navy Street after his family emigrated, quit school in the seventh grade, and learned crime as a system after being dragged back to Galveston for stealing from his own partners. This deep dive strips away the Hollywood myth to reveal a cautious administrator who transformed the Chicago Outfit.

From bootlegging logistics under Al Capone to labor and Hollywood extortion through Willie Bioff, Nitti insulated himself from violence, drew an 18-month tax sentence while Capone got 11 years, and ultimately took his own life on train tracks in 1943 rather than face prison again.

• Why the rumor that Nitti and Capone were cousins is false, though their families lived blocks apart
• How his Campania roots let him negotiate with insular Sicilian factions Capone could not reach
• The 1932 office shooting by detective Harry Lang and its links to Mayor Anton Cermak
• The Hollywood studio extortion scheme that collapsed when Bioff became an informant
• How claustrophobia from Leavenworth and rumors of stomach cancer shaped his final days