Although Frankie Yale was a New York mobster, his associations with John Torrio and Al Capone cause me to mention him on this web site. 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. Whilst 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 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.

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.