How Much Money Would Al Capone Be Worth Today?

Long before Al Pacino introduced you to his little friend, the name "Scarface" referred to Public Enemy No. 1, Al Capone. A cutthroat with a cut face, Scarface saw homicide as a perfectly valid part of making a living. In his mind, "killing a man in defense of your business" was akin to "the law of self-defense ... a little broader than the law books look at it." He also had a broader definition of "defense" that included tying three men to a chair and beating them to death with a baseball bat. He was so heartless that he had a group of rival gangsters shot to death on Valentine's Day, when everyone is supposed to have a heart. How much of a financial killing did Al Capone he make from his "business?" Let's find out.

During Prohibition, Capone lowered people's inhibitions as a bootlegger. And because crime pays handsomely when you do ugly things, he turned a profit by twisting arms as an extortionist. He combined his blunt thuggery with a knack for shady financial transactions. Per the BBC, to mask the illegality of his profits he put his money into cash-only laundry mats, giving rise to the term "money laundering." But an infinite rinse cycle couldn't have cleaned all the dirty money he was dealing with. As professor Douglas O. Linder explains, "By 1928, Capone's syndicate was grossing an estimated $105,000,000 a year." When he finally stood trial for tax evasion his organization tried to bribe prospective jurors by "passing out $1,000 bills" in addition to handing out prize fight tickets, offering lucrative jobs, and threatening violence. 

Al Capone was loaded to say the least. To say the most, he may have had a net worth of $30 million in 1929, and Biography provided an even higher estimate of $100 million. According to The Dollar Times, $30 million in 1929 would equal almost $440,760,000 in 2019 while $100 million would amount to about $1.47 billion.