Bootlegging

The illegal manufacture, transport, or sale of alcoholic beverages in violation of a law restricting or prohibiting their production or sale, most famously documented in the United States during the nationwide Prohibition era from 1920 to 1933 under the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act, during which bootlegging became a major source of revenue for organized crime figures such as Al Capone. Bootlegging remains a documented offense today in jurisdictions that impose a high alcohol excise tax or maintain a partial or full alcohol prohibition, including a number of dry counties within the United States and countries with religiously or legally grounded alcohol restrictions, where illicit alcohol production is also documented as carrying a significant public-health risk from unregulated or contaminated home-distilled spirits.