Eliot Ness Biography

Eliot Ness

Leader of the “Untouchables”, Eliot Ness is remembered as the fearless lawman who helped bring down Al Capone in Chicago. Starting in 1929 he was a special agent for the U.S. Department of Justice in charge of the Prohibition Bureau in Chicago. After recruiting a force of unbribable agents, the “Untouchables”, Ness raided Capone's breweries and speakeasies and helped collect the evidence that put Capone away on tax evasion charges in 1931. Ness also served with the Department of the Treasury (1933–35), as Director of Public Safety in Cleveland (1935–41), and during World War II as Director of the Division of Social Protection of the Federal Security Agency in Washington, D.C. (1941–45). Ness died of a heart attack on May 5, 1957. Ness's actions in Chicago are portrayed in the movie The Untouchables , (1987) starring Kevin Costner as Eliot Ness.