Frankie Yale
Yale was John
Torrio's partner in the Five Points Gang in Brooklyn and had killed
a dozen men before his twenty first birthday. When Torrio left for Chicago,
Yale took over all of the gang's rackets in New York. While Al
Capone was working for Frank Yale, he began to draw the attention of
New York's Finest and Yale got in touch with Torrio so Capone could move
to Chicago to work with the outfit there.
The association of these three amigos did not end here though.
Yale's killing expertise was called upon on a number of occasions. Yale
was useful to the Chicago Mob because he was an unknown in the city and
could easily appear and disappear in order to murder the Outfit's marked
men.
Yale was used in the Dion
O'Banion hit ordered by John Torrio.
Yale and two others shot O'Banion in his flower shop.
In 1928, Capone, who now led the Chicago Mob, and Yale began to
loose faith in each other. Capone had been using Yale as a conduit for
illegal booze shipments from Long Island and these shipments began to run
into trouble. More and more of the trucks and boats loaded with booze were
being hijacked. Capone sensed a double cross and sent one of his men to
spy on Yale. The spy, Jim De Amato, was discovered and shot dead on a Brooklyn
street. But before his death, De Amato had already confirmed Capone's suspicions.
Yale was hijacking Capone's shipments and then selling the booze back to
him. On top of this, Yale was trying to acquire interests in Chicago against
Capone's wishes. Capone gave the order to have Yale whacked.
On July 1st, 1928, Yale was driving along 44th Street in Brooklyn
when a black sedan forced him into the curb. The occupants of the sedan
riddled Yale's car with bullets from .45 caliber pistols and Thompson sub-machine
guns. Some of the weapons were recovered at the crime scene and the Thompson
submachine gun was traced to a dealer in Chicago. This was the first time
the Tommy gun was used for a hit in New York.