How The FBI Used 'Intel' Against Organized Crime

The FBI website offers a three-part series on how they used intel against organized crime.

Seventy-five years ago this December, one Special Agent B.E. Sackett penned a short article for Bureau employees on what he called "organized crime conditions in Chicago."

By 1932, organized crime in the U.S.—though a shadow of what it is today—had started to get its legs. Al Capone, who with the help of the Bureau had just landed in federal prison, had built an empire of crime in the Windy City that would continue to morph and grow. An extensive underground of hoodlums, racketeers, and gangsters had emerged in response to Prohibition and was thriving. Hundreds of rackets that used threats of violence to force businesses to ante up a percentage of their profits for "protection" existed throughout Chicago and other cities. In New York, "Lucky" Luciano had risen to power in the Mafia and was beginning to shape it into the structured, secret society of criminals that we know today.

A "valuable weapon" against these criminal rings, Agent Sackett thoughtfully stated in his article, was "accurate information"—details on the key players, their interlocking connections, their tactics and capabilities.

You can read the rest of part one via the below link:

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2007/june/intelmob_062207

You can also read part two and three via the below links:

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2007/august/mobintel2_080907

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2008/march/pistone031308