Edward Donegan was a casual or odd-job laborer in 1919 who became a millionaire within about four months through bootlegging following the implementation of National

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...

of alcohol in the U.S. in January 1920. Through the use of an insider within the

Bureau of Prohibition The Bureau of Prohibition (or Prohibition Unit) was the United States federal law enforcement agency formed to enforce the National Prohibition Act of 1919, commonly known as the Volstead Act, which enforced the 18th Amendment to the United St ...

, he was able to illegally withdraw alcohol from warehouses ostensibly for legal purposes himself and also to sell fraudulent permits to other bootleggers. Donegan’s activities were discovered after he attempted to bribe

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting U.S. federal taxes and administering the Internal Revenue Code, the main body of the federal statutory ta ...

agents who called upon him in connection with another investigation. He was convicted of possessing stolen property and the intent to defraud the United States.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Donegan, Edward Bootleggers 20th-century American criminals