The Woman Who Smashed Codes

by Jason Fagone

The department contained no fewer than six separate law enforcement agencies: the Prohibition Bureau, the Narcotics Bureau, customs, the coast guard, the IRS, and the Secret Service. The six agencies had broad authorities to probe financial fraud and most any product or person that moved illegally across a border—guns, liquor, drugs, migrants, counterfeit money. The Treasury detectives were known as “T-men” in the press, as opposed to the “G-men” of the FBI, part of the Justice Department. And although the G-men of the FBI tended to get the glory when famous gangsters went down, thanks to the publicity genius of J. Edgar Hoover, it was the T-men of the Treasury, more often than not, who made the cases. Treasury was the center of the fight against organized crime. It was T-men who eventually nailed Al Capone for tax fraud. It was T-men who caught the kidnappers of the Lindbergh baby.