My Secret Confessions From The Grave: Al Capone I am perhaps the best known gangster of all time and by far the most powerful mob boss of my era. My mob dominated the Chicago area from 1925 until 1931, when I was imprisoned for income tax evasion. This was the only crime the courts could prove against me because I was so good. I was born somewhere in Brooklyn on January 17, 1899 but nobody really knows for sure and that is how I am going to keep it. I grew up in a tough neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y. I attended school through the sixth grade and got too sick of it. I received my nickname Sc