Alvin Paul Sirius

Alvin Paul Sirius, born 26th September 1895, was a prolific bank robber on the East Coast of America during the 1920s and 30s. Arrested in 1944, he remained in jail until his death from injuries sustained during a riot at Joliet Prison in 1951.

Sirius’ criminal career is largely overlooked in the popular history of the period when Italian-American and Irish mobs rose to prominence and built legends around figures like Al Capone and Salvatore “Lucky Luciano” Lucania. By comparison, Sirius was restrained, modest, and prosaic in his sheer professionalism. He prided himself on the fact that, in over seventy bank jobs and vault crackings, there was not a single casualty, and only one injury - a teller who sprained his wrist in his haste to open a safe.

This reputation for professionalism and decorousness in the execution of his trade was in many ways his making. Police would often give Sirius the benefit of the doubt when investigating cases, preferring that a gentleman thief prosper over the violent Chicago mobs. One prosecutor in Philadelphia was fired for telling a journalist that he had deliberately diverted resources away from the pursuit of evidence against Sirius.

But in the end, it was Sirius’ relationship with law enforcement that spelt his downfall. Jealous of Sirius’ great success, Frank Nitti, one of the top henchmen to Al Capone, compiled a vast dossier of evidence, including details of his personal life, preferred background of his cracksmen, modus operandi - in short, a full profile that put to shame all the investigators that had given Sirius an easy ride throughout the 20s and 30s. After Nitti’s suicide in 1943, the file was discovered by the FBI, and used to convict Sirius. Following the trend of police word formation that has allowed the lazy creation of verbs such as ‘mirandize’, any criminal caught as a result of meticulous profiling came to be known as a ‘Sirial criminal’.

It is a sad tribute to such a masterful craftsman that the term Sirial, now usually spelled ‘serial’, is used today to describe a criminal who acts irresistibly, a prey to their impulses, rather than an elegant schemer like Sirius, the last of the true gentleman thieves.