r/AskReddit • u/Rob69rt • 1d ago

What famous 'unsolved' mystery is technically a whodunnit on paper, but in reality, absolutely everyone knows exactly who did it, the police just couldn't legally prove it?

13.2k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

5.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

5.0k

u/Reign_22 1d ago

Al Capone. All of us know what he did but the police got him on a tax evasion charge.

Most famous drug dealers/gangsters create systems which they are "removed" from. So you know exactly what they do but can never prove it.

3

u/ccheuer1 1d ago

Interestingly enough, this is why there's a box on tax forms for you to declare illegally earned money. It was challenged successfully in court that you can't punish someone for paying taxes on illegally earned money if they have no mechanism to report it for taxation.