Who used acid to burn off and change his fingerprints?

The criminal who used acid to burn off and change his fingerprints was John Dillinger. Criminals altering their fingerprints is not something new. In the 1930's, the infamous bank robber John Dillinger poured acid into cuts in his fingertips in an attempt to erase his fingerprints. This action did not in any way help him outsmart law enforcement officials. He was eventually shot and killed by the Chicago, IL Police Department in July 1934.

In 2018 a good number of fingerprint experts say, "Fingerprinting is an old-fashioned identification tool. It may be the first means of identifying somebody, defendants think if they alter their prints they won't get caught. But we as law enforcement authorities now have state-of-the-art facial recognition software to use." Most criminals (almost 96%) are caught when this method is applied.

Major case handprints are also still being used. They are inked impressions of a person's entire hand from the edge of the fingertip down to the palm. So if a person is carving up the center of his fingertips, it still leaves the sides on the hands which are identifiable and can link criminals to any arrest records that they seek to avoid.

Dillinger's attempt to destroy any fingerprint evidence of identity in the end proved totally futile. With him and most others, attempts to alter and obliterate fingerprints does not in anyway eliminate effective police work.