From the 18th Amendment to a Criminal Cartel: The Rise of Prohibition’s Bootlegging Empire

This episode dives into how the 1920 ban on alcohol unleashed a $2‑billion bootleg economy, creating supply chains and political connections that fed Chicago’s Outfit, New York’s Five Families, and other organized‑crime groups across the country. It examines smuggling routes from Windsor to Detroit, rum‑running out of Jersey and Boston, key figures like Arnold Rothstein, Johnny Torrio, and Al Capone, and how law‑enforcement struggled to keep up before Prohibition finally ended in 1933. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices