Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - The Largest FBI Mafia Takedown in History

Episode Date: May 24, 2026

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Not available in all states. I spearhead the largest mob FBI arrest ever, where we arrest 127 people that day. I've been with the FBI for about six years, just finished the DeCallocanti case. DeCalbocanties is based upon the real Sopranos. After doing this case, the FBI, the leadership from the New York office approached me to go down and run the Colombo squad. First, I was like, I would only have six years on the job. I thought I was way too new to actually be a supervisor of a squad. I was going from a squad, which was C-10, which we all got along, down to a squad, which had

eight supervisors in eight years. So I was really not jumping at trying to go down there to do that. Again, as I said, I thought I was just too young to be a supervisor. I thought I still had a lot to learn, even though I was exposed to a lot at a young age. So I went down there, and I told them two things. I said, the squad needs stability, and I'm not a yes person. So be careful what you wish for. So I went down there and actually acted as a supervisor for about a year and a half before I became the official supervisor in June of 2006.

Can I interrupt real quick? Sure. Why had they had eight supervisors in eight years? Like what is the issue? So that squad, it was called C-38. They were kind of known as the red-headed stepchild where supervisors were just come and go. There was no stability at all. Their squad had really had no direct.

at that particular point in time. So, as I said, I really was not jumping at the chance to be the supervisor there. So I went down there and was tasked to be in the supervisor. I was basically all and told to go down there. Okay. So I acted for about a year and a half and then became the official supervisor in June of 2006. At that point in time, there was a lot of shows out, right? There was NCIS, and I had to kind of change the strategy.

So at the Decalibacanti case, we had a lot of historical witnesses. When I mean a historical witnesses was you would put a witness on the stand and they would basically just give testimony to information that they had. That was no longer the case here. Juries would no longer just believe that. So I had to change the strategy where I wanted more proactive witnesses, witnesses who would go on the street and make consensual recordings. That's the best type of evidence that you can actually have. have a live recording with bad guys admitting their crimes on tape. Also, the Colombo family at that particular time,

I kind of had to figure out a strategy on how to attack them. So what I did was I said, let's attack them financially and also the violence. So I wanted to develop proactive witnesses to kind of target them financially because they were very powerful within the construction field. And then they were also known to be very violent. So that's what we did. We were going to develop proactive witnesses. The first witness we developed was a guy named Guy Vittato because at that particular time,

the squad really didn't have a lot that was going on, a lot of investigation. So we had to build up our informant base. So Guy Vatado was a witness that we had gotten from the DEA. The DEA did not want to use him. So we decided we were going to use him. And we targeted him on the eastern end of Long Island. And we were able to get him into a crew we did not know about, led by a captain. named Mike Rubino, which we did not know.

Can I ask you, how did they end up getting this? How did they, you said DEA? Yes, with DA. I think they had him on some drug charges. Okay. But they didn't want to operate him proactively. So it was an opportunity for us to use him, which we did. And we operated him for about, I'd say about two years.

And in that two-year time period, we probably had to make about 300 tapes. So how that case came down, though, is a very unique situation happened where he had a recording device. And what happened was these young kids decided to rob a Colombo Social Club. And they actually went into the Columbus Social Club one night. And they had had masks on and everything. And they robbed the Columbus Social Club and they let a round go. They had a shotgun and they let a round go through the roof.

And they robbed the Columbus Social Club. The next day, these clowns actually butt-dialed one of the Colombo guys that they robbed. So there was an open line. You cannot make this up. And they were saying on that line, we put that f-back guy on the floor and he was, you know, he was like yelling and crying, blah, blah, blah, and they were making fun of him. That guy had an open line because they butt-dialed him. He then called the kids down to the Columbus Social Club.

and these kids went to the social club the next day after they had but dialed him, unbeknownst to them that he had heard the conversation. So there was a connection. These guys, the kids already, they knew who the kids were. They just didn't realize they were the ones that robbed him. The kids didn't realize that they knew that they were the ones that. Exactly. So the kids willingly went back to the social club after robbing it, and the Colombo guys knew

who they were. So they went back to the social club. And our witness happened to be in the social club when the kids came back. And our witness was a pretty decent-sized guy. The Colombo guys who got robbed were going to kill these kids. They basically had guns in their mouth. They were actually going to kill them that day. Our guy, who was a decent-sized guy, stepped in and basically used an asp,

which he wasn't supposed to have like a baton. And he tuned the kids up pretty good. He shouldn't have done that, but actually he saved their lives. It beats them getting a bullet in the mouth. Exactly. So, and that's the way that I had looked at it too. So because of that, right? And I, you know, what happens is we are, when you have a proactive witness, you do allow him

to do some certain criminal acts, which were authorized by the government, but we can allow violence. So as a result of that, we have to take down the case. Okay. Now, this is in, I believe, September of 2007. Is it, what do they call that? Public authority is when? It's authorized illegal activity.

Okay. And it's, you know, it's in coordination with the attorney's office. This case was out of the Eastern District of New York. In New York, there's two districts down on the lower end of New York, the eastern and the Southern District. This one was out of the Eastern District. So because of the violence that was involved, we have to end the case. We have to take our witness off the street. Why?

Because we're not allowed to allow our witness to participate in any violence. at all. But you didn't know that was going to happen in that moment. He had no choice. Like it was that. Exactly. He had no choice. But in, you know, we have talks with the government, with the attorneys that are involved

and they decide that's it. We can't, we cannot facilitate violence. We cannot allow that to continue to happen. As a result, we have to take down the case. So this is in September of 2007. Wait. So if he'd step back and said, hey, you guys do whatever you're going to do and those guys had executed, like that would have been, but you see what?

We still would have to take down the case. because we would have to arrest those guys for murder. But that's what happened. So personally, what was happening at this time, my brother was getting married. So I remember this distinctly. It was a Friday night my brother got married. And I had to give the best man speech. And I was trying to convince the attorney's office,

can't we wait until Monday to execute the arrest? And because of the timing, they said, no, we have to arrest. We have to affect the arrest Saturday morning. So here I am at my brother's wedding, giving the best man speech, had people over from overseas that attended the wedding, staying up to 4 o'clock in the morning, basically got an hour's sleep and then how to get up and then go affect the arrest to arrest these guys. If you sleep hot at night, you know how disruptive that can be. When you're not resting well, everything else feels harder. Your focus, your mood, even your recovery. Ghostbed is here to help you fix that.

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Shipping is fast and free. Most orders arrive in two to five days. Ghostbed has great prices to begin with, up to 50% off comparable brands. And inside true crime listeners can get an extra 10% off site-wide for a limited time. Just go to ghostbed.com slash Cox and use promo code Cox. at checkout. That's ghostbed.com slash Cox promo code Cox. Upgrade your sleep with Ghostbed, the makers of the coolest bed in the world. Some exclusions apply. See site for details. So that was the first case that we had to kind of jumpstart the squad. And then that kind of spiraled. And the fact is we wanted to develop

more proactive witnesses to kind of get the Colombo squad going. We started to do that more and more. The second, if I remember correctly, the second witness that we developed was a guy named Anthony Bacill. Anthony Bacill was a banana associate who got convicted at trial and then decided to cooperate after trial. Even though he was a banana associate, he actually had more Columbo information than he did banana information. So we started to use his information to develop an indictment. So we still had Guy Fittato's information that we didn't use all for an indictment. We had to take him off the street because of the violence, but we didn't use all his information that he had gathered from the consensual recordings,

Anthony Baciel, and then we also developed a guy named Dave Gordon, who we proactively kept him on the street, too. So we used three of their information, and then we get to June of 2008. In June of 2008, we basically arrest the acting boss, a bunch of captains, and a bunch of soldiers. From there, that summer, we're waiting to see if anyone is going to, to cooperate. And lo and behold, which surprised us, a Colombo soldier comes forward. His name is Joseph Capitello. His nickname was Joe Caves. In September 2008, he decides to cooperate.

We were very surprised that he was going to cooperate. So we start that process of where you come in and you have the proffer. And I remember during the proffer, you have the attorneys there. I was there as a supervisor. We have an agent named John Fallon and Scott Curtis. He comes in and he proffers and the first thing that he tells us is that there are three murder victims buried in the Long Island. So obviously we almost fall out of our seat. The way he describes it is that they're buried right next to each other. So the layman, you and myself would think they're right next to each other. And he tells us they're out in Long Island. We immediately have to act upon that because if the bad guys find out that he's cooperating,

they might try to move the murder victims. The murder victims were a guy named Carmine Gargano, Richard Greaves, and the Colombo underboss, William Coutulo, who was killed in 1999. So we immediately have to gather our troops and go out to the east end of Long Island, Farmingdale, Long Island,

and try to find the bodies. We take Joseph Campitello out there to show us, and as I just said, during the meeting, he said they were right next to each other. when we took them out to Long Island, they were 1.1 miles apart. One was next to a train to the train tracks. One was next to a building that had been rebuilt, and one was next to a field. So when we immediately get our evidence response team and we travel out there,

the press was pretty quick because they had noticed that Joseph Compitielo, we had moved him, was not in the Bureau of Prison System. So that became in the news very, very quickly. And then we have our evidence response team. And I believe we were out there for 14 days. So we're trying to find the bodies and we're not having any luck at all. So one of the sites was in a field. That's where Bill Kutula was supposed to be found.

We had our evidence response team dig there. And I think one of my agents might have passed a comment to them that they should dig deeper. And they basically dug us an Olympic-sized pool and we couldn't find anything there. One of the other sites was where Carmine Gargano was supposed to be buried, and they had built a new building there. And quite possibly when they built the building, they could have excavated and moved the body then. I understand the victim's family wanted us to destroy the building, but we couldn't do that. What we did find, we thought we had found something at one point where we did find a blue tarp, and we thought maybe the body was in the blue tarp, but it ended up being a dog, fortunately. Well, so at this point, are you thinking this guy's full of it?

Like, that's not great credibility, and that's a lot of money. 20 agents and excavation machines, and, you know, that's $100,000 to try and dig up a body that's not there. Yep. So we're digging up the train tracks. It's like a lot of money is being spent, and I'm getting a lot of pressure each day from my bosses, a lot of presses out there. Helicopters are out there, you know, refining anything. So, as I just said, we went to the Wild Bill site where we thought Wild Build was, and they dug us an Olympic-sized pool, and then they deemed that site closed. So they closed that site after digging us an Olympic-sized pool.

And then they're at the other two sites. And yes, each day is passing. I'm trying to keep the morale up amongst the agents, you know, just to keep everyone's spirits up. But internally, I'm feeling the same way as you just said. So then one of the agents on my squad, Vincent Degasino, who lived out there, he said to me, do you mind if we get some shovels ourselves? And I said, sure, we're not doing anything. We're just sitting around looking at the evidence response team doing digging.

So he got some shovels and we went back to the Wild Bill site ourselves, agents on my squad from C-38. And I had two new agents who were just assisting us as probation agents just going through a cycle because we need some help on our squad. So we basically decide to start digging. So we pick one spot and we start digging. Negative, nothing there. And then another agent decides, let's dig over here.

We start digging. And next thing you know, we see white stuff. And what the Colombo's used to do is they would kill you, bury you, and that put lime on top of the body. Right. And what Lyme does is it kills the size. but preserves the body. Right.

Now, we had known from our witnesses that they had shot while Bill in the back of the head, put him in a tarp, hog tied him, and brought him out to Long Island. So we started digging, and sure enough, we found some of the white stuff. And next thing you know, we dug a little further, and we saw a shoe and a foot. They hog tied him and put him head down. So we were like, oh my God, this is unreal, just pure luck. And I always say hard work leads to good luck. So we're not professionals, right?

So as soon as we saw the foot, we actually stopped. Of course, we were very excited and happy. And then I decided, yeah, you guys stay here. Let me get in a car. I'll go over to the evidence response team, get them since they're the professionals. and what happens when you start a dig and you find something, it goes all night. You have to protect the site.

I remember going back over there, and the team leader for that site was Kate Kelly, and I saw her at the other site, and I basically pulled up, and I put my window down, and I told her, Kate, get in the car. And she's like, what? So she got in the back seat of the car,

and she got back to the car. It's like, Kate, we effing got him. She's like, what are you talking about? I was like, we found him. So she couldn't believe it. drove back over there. I had to then tell my bosses, of course, I had to reach out to the murder victim's family and tell them, I think we found your dad. Right. You know, not 100% sure yet, but based upon what we're hearing so far, I think we found him. So we actually did ID him

through his teeth because he had veneers. So we actually identified him through the dentist. We did an autopsy that was an experience itself when you go to the Emmy's office and you do an autopsy. They were playing Frank Sinatra. I'll never forget that. That was kind of strange to say the least. But we did ID him there. Then the two other sites came up negative. We didn't find Richie Reeves next to the train tracks or Carmine Gargano next to the building that was actually built again.

Yeah, but the one body's credit credit. credibility that he was telling the truth. So what happened to Carmine Gargano, though, was he was killed in a garage in Brooklyn, and they buried him in the garage. And then they decided a couple of days later, this is not a good idea. And they dug him up and they brought him out to Long Island and they buried him there. So we started thinking, why don't we go back to the garage and just see maybe you might be able to find something there. And he was killed. I believe. And he was killed. I believe. even 1994. So about a couple of weeks later, we go back to the garage.

And again, it's just my team from my squad. We had a photographer with us, but ERT was not with us. The evidence response team did not join us for this. So we go to the area where we think he is, and it's very hard to find a body. There could be a body buried in this office here, and it's very hard to find. So we start digging. And lo and behold, we hit the white stuff again. Really?

And we actually found pieces, unfortunately, of Carmine Gargano, and we were able to tie that to DNA from his family and confirm that was him. So your, okay, so your witness still is credible because they just didn't move all of them. 100% credible. Right. So based upon that, now we're able to have more indict. So we were able to charge more people that December. And then that starts another spiral effect of cooperation, where we had another captain decided to cooperate. And that just starts to spiral.

Yeah, yeah. Where now we're going where we have a case where our squad was stale, so we're starting to really steamroll ahead. And that's in 2008 into 2009. We start to develop more witnesses that are proactive. And it's probably the first time where we're arresting acting bosses of the Colombo family, but we have proactive witnesses on the street. So every time we arrest an acting boss, we have a proactive witness on the street, we know who they're going to put up next.

Right. So we're kind of one step ahead of them, which was, unbelievable. What plus every, you take down a boss, the chatter has to be insane from these, these guys that are mic'd up that are making, like they could walk. Did you hear about what's, oh my God. I mean, who knows the information that that stirs up? Yeah, it was, it was unreal.

And he doesn't have to spark the information. It's just going to be going. And what happened was the Colombo family, what they did was, which was unique, is they actually went outside their normal course of business where they selected and, an acting boss from Boston, this guy Ralph DeLeo, and they chose him to be the acting boss. And we actually knew that ahead of time. And then he ended up getting arrested as well, where we helped the Boston FBI office. So it was just an amazing feat where we were constantly just ahead of them.

And then we developed a proactive witness named Tommy McLaughlin, where he had just gotten out of jail. But we knew he was part of an other murder. I think he had done 16 years in jail, and he gets out of jail, and we know he's part of another murder. We're going to charge him again. So we approach him, and we get him to cooperate, to proactively cooperate. Yeah, that's he's, he's, how does that go?

Like, he's like, he just did 16. He just doesn't want to go back. He doesn't want to go back again. He's done. So he decides to cooperate, and we get him and his, the brother-in-law to cooperate as well to practically cooperate. So you usually don't have two people cooperating at the same time that know they're cooperating. So this was an unusual circumstance where we have them both cooperating at the same time where they both know they're cooperating.

Even to back up, when we talk about Guy Fattato there, when I mentioned him the first guy to cooperate, a very unusual thing about cooperation too is, right, is when someone decides to proactively cooperate, you don't know the relationship they have with their wife. You don't know if they tell their wife or not. And just I know I'm going back and forth, but I just want to go back to that for a minute. I had mentioned I had my brother's wedding. I forgot to mention that Guy Fittato had a nightclub.

That was his business. So when you have a nightclub, you're out until three or four o'clock in the morning. We didn't tell Guy Fattato when his cooperation was going to be over. We just basically, you grab him in it. you're told it's up, it's over. And because of the back and forth we had with the district going to say when this was going to end, it was a last-minute decision.

So basically when we decided this, it was Friday into Saturday morning. We pulled Guy Fattado probably about 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning the same day that we were going to have the arrest that morning. So two agents, their job was to get Guy Fattato at the nightclub and say, the gig is up. cooperation is over, we're moving you. So can you just imagine getting him at the nightclub at three or four o'clock after he just had a long night of work, getting him going to his house, his wife didn't know he was cooperating. So you can just imagine that conversation at three or four o'clock in the morning. Guess what? These two guys are with the FBI. I've been cooperating with the government for the last couple of years. Pack a bag. Pack a bag. Get the kids ready. We're leaving.

So not the most pleasant conversation you want to have that particular time. But she did, and they left, and we had to relocate them temporarily to another house for the time being for their safety. So I just would be remiss if I did not bring that up. Right. So again, fast forward. The guy got out of jail. He just done 16 years. His brother-in-law also cooperates.

So they're both cooperating. We're both using their tapes. Again, during this whole entire process, if I remember correctly, I was the supervisor from December 2004 up until June of 2013. During that time frame, I think the agents made 1,800 recordings in about a 7.5 year time period, which is unheard of. They were so amazing that they were actually, we created our own electronic surveillance unit within the FBI. And what I mean by that is you would have devices, right? And you have to download those devices so that you could listen to the recordings. Usually what happens is you bring it to a unit.

They would download the device and give the device back to you. Because we had so many witnesses and we were down. We were such trying to turn things over so quickly. We had to do it ourselves. And we were becoming creative ourselves where we were speaking to companies to figure out what devices we could create. So we were, our squad was so, they were such ahead of the game. It was amazing to see. So we developed these two witnesses as well.

And I think probably, we probably had about eight or nine witnesses during this whole timeframe. We also had, as I said, we were attacking them from the construction angle. We had a witness out there probably for about six or seven years. He made over 800 recordings. So it's just amazing stuff. So we're using all their information. and that's going to bring us up until January of 2011, where I spearhead the largest mob FBI arrest ever,

where we arrest 127 people that day, across all states and internationally as well in Italy. The arrest was so big that there's a fort in Brooklyn called Fort Hamilton. We had to take over the fort. When you arrest 127 people, that's about a thousand law enforcement personnel as well. well. So we had to take over the fort that day. It's a huge fort there. And we arrested 127 people that day. So it was all over the news, like just an amazing day. What do they usually do? Doesn't they usually go to like a high school and take over the gymnasium or something, and march all into something like that? I've never used a high school, but this was like this was like a fort.

So we had to use the entire place because it was just so big. A fort like like a military base for? The military base. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember, you know, the AG showed up that day for a press conference, and they're trying to get me to go with the press conference. But I was trying to secure cooperation of a Colombo captain that day,

where we had him on the fence. So I told my boss is I'm not going to make the press conference because I was in the backseat of a car trying to get a Colombo captain to actually try to cooperate. So I was late to the press conference, but it was worth it because we got this guy to actually try to cooperate with us. Can we talk about that conversation or a conversation between one of these guys? Like, how does that actually unfold? So with the wives, it's like when you have a witness, right, you really have to observe and analyze them.

Like what type of family relationship do they have, right? You know, you have a witness who's fallen around on his wife, you know, you have to kind of judge that and kind of see, can you trust the wife, right? So that's what you have to analyze and kind of observe to see, can you tell the wife or not? And you kind of get a feel for that. And then you judge if you can tell the wife or not, you know what I mean? So it's a case-by-case basis, right? And it's a judgment call that you actually have.

Does the guy, does the witness, does he ever, like, does he, do you take his into consideration? Yeah, yes. It's going to be like I have my wife talks. Like, I'm not going to tell her anything. She'll tell her sister. Exactly. Yep. So it's a case by case basis.

And, you know, because it can get you hurt, right? You know, and a woman scorn is a bad thing. So it's something you have to think about. I can't tell you how many guys we've had it come in here where the guys, it's almost, I hate to say that because that's what these guys say. It's like, it's always a woman. It's not. But, I mean, there's multiple times where some guys just, you know, everything was going. fine and he he cheated on his wife or his girlfriend and his girlfriend got pissed and called the cops it

was just like you you were going for three years doing this making $50,000 a month and you like you can even like rewind further we wouldn't be having this conversation if you didn't screw up so of course right so that's that's the main thing right yeah of course you know no you're still not that she it's you didn't help yourself right exactly so yeah so you have to like look at that to see how you're going to operate things and if there's kids involved. And like when you like you have to try to do the best too, right? When you have a cooperation with family, you have to think about the kids. That's why from our perspective, you're trying to get the kids into a school. You know, you're always trying to make up stories to make their transition as easy as possible

because it is about the kids, right? You want to make sure they're not scarred for life. You're trying to get them into a new sixth grade or another fifth grade or something. You want to make sure their transition is as easy as it possibly can. So that's, that's tough, you know. And then, you know, one of the things I was talking about before about Joe Caves and how we had all those digs, one of the big pieces of information that he gave us was the murder of a cop. So there was a cop that the Colombo family killed. And it was a guy named Ralph Doles and they killed him in 1997. The reason Ralph Doles was killed was because he unfortunately got involved with a woman that he shouldn't have. He married a lady who was known as the Black Widow,

where in her entire life she was involved with mob guys. And the last mob guy she was involved was a high-ranking member of the Colombo family. And unfortunately, she was divorced from him. And had a, went full circle, or I should say she went 180 and decided to get married to a guy who was in law enforcement. And ultimately, he got killed because of that. So we solved that murder. And the family is such a nice family, too. This guy got killed for nothing.

Before he just said, all they knew before was he just disappeared one day. Yeah, he got, well, they actually, they killed him and I left him on the street. Oh, okay. Yeah. He was killed in 1997, I believe. Okay. I thought he was one of, like, a body that he doesn't found. They left them out in the street, unfortunately.

So when you get like one of these guys, you know, where they're on the fence, they're thinking about cooperating. Like, well, what is that conversation? Like, can you think of? You're going back and forth. You want to show them that they can get a second chance, right? That this is a way out for them. They're taught their entire life to hate law enforcement, right? Right.

I understand. It depends on which type of area you're going to grow up in. So you want to show. them that they can trust you you want to be as open as you can with them you want to show them that the charges that they are facing you want to show them that someone else could cooperate in the next room like what stops them from talking before you're going to talk you want to tell them to get on the train before the train leaves and it's just banter back and forth like they're going to have a lot of questions about how the process works because they don't know right and that's that's

the whole thing they have to be careful what type of lawyer they pick because there's a lot of lot of mob lawyers out there that are going to divulge that they might be cooperating. Right. So it's a very cat and mouse type of game. But from my perspective, I always just try to be as honest and straightforward as possible. There's many guys that I speak to that don't cooperate. No hard feelings. It's not a personal at all.

And that's something that I used to always tell the agents, too. Don't try to be a tough guy if you're not, because these guys are going to size you up right away, you know, just be who you are. And the other thing I used to tell them, too, is you're not going to have a badge forever. One day, that badge is going to have to be turned in. So treat people like a human being. And that's the way that I would want to be treated if I was arrested. Right. So Jim DiOrio was a FBI agent. I don't know if he was in New York. I think he might have been in New York. Anyway, he's funny. He said, like, he had arrested some guy and sent him to prison. He's like 15 years. Like, he did, he did like, whatever, 12, 13 years.

or something. And he said, I was sitting in a deli somewhere. And he said, I'm eating with a, you know, a couple of guys and we're sitting there eating. And I look up and all he said, all of a sudden I hear, DiOrio, said, I look up. And he's like, hey, it's me, Vinny. You know, whatever. And he's like, he said, I'm like, hey, man, what's up? How you doing? He's like, I sent this guy to prison for 15 years. You know what I'm saying? He's like, what's going on? He's like, I got just got out like six months ago. I'm staying with my sister. You know, he's like, he's like, hey, man, that's great. Good. He's like, I was like, he's like, I was thinking, this guy hates my guts. Right. He said, but, you know, it's, it, he said, you know, you go to, he went to prison.

He just decided I'm not going to fuck up anymore. I'm not going to come anymore. I'm going to get out of myself cars or I'm going to do something. And, you know, and he just, he said, it's funny because he, he said, he said, he said, I've done that. I've seen several people that I've, I've sent to prison. And he said, you know, but he said the same thing. He's like, but I'm always very polite to everybody and nice to him. I treat him with respect. And he said, if you do that, then you don't have to worry that much about somebody getting out and doing something. Yeah, it's like, I've always been, if I got you, I got you. If I don't, I don't. If I know you did it, and I don't got you. I don't got you. Right. That's just the way it is. It's like I remember, I went into a prison once

and I did a search warrant on someone's cell. And his cellmate, right, who did not provide the information for the search warrant is someone that I had arrested and I was cordial to. And when he saw me, he's like, hey, Seamus, how are you? And I'm like, shut the F up. He's going to think that you're the one that gave me the information. Right. But it was just like, like, he didn't cooperate at all. He didn't provide information for the search warrant, nothing.

But he was like just friendly because I treated him with respect. I just treat him like, because that's what the way that I think of it is, if I was arrested, it's a horrible feeling, right? You know, you got to do it your family, everything else. The last thing you want is someone chirping in your ear, just busting your stones. Yeah. So, but that was funny conversation. because I'm like, stop being nice to me because this guy's got to think that you're quite the information.

And it's just the way that I've always treated people. It's like the way that I look at it is it's not up for me to judge. You'll be judged at an other date. Is it the Wiley Coyote, Colby has no idea what I'm talking about. Wiley Coyote and is it Sam, the sheepdog? Remember, they're like at each other the whole time and then they would, then the end of the day would come and they both clock out. How's it going, Sam? How are you doing?

Oh, yeah. Going home to the family. Oh, good for you. Next morning, they'd be like, hey, how are you doing? They walk in, they clock in and boom, they'd immediately be at it again, you know, chasing each other. And that's what always makes me think of. So, sorry.

What else? So then we were talking, we had the big arrest then, right? So then the Bureau decides they're going to reduce the resources towards organized crime. And because we had this big arrest. And I think I mentioned earlier, I came from C-10. That was the squad that had the Bananos and the Cavalcanti family. And I was on the Colombo squad now. So because of my history with the Bananos, they decide they're going to roll C-10 into C-38.

So now I have the Bonanos, the Colombo's, plus the Jersey family. And we reduce the resources. Then I start to work them. And we continue to make cases again. this point in time, we have a proactive witness from the Banana family, a guy named Gasper Valenti. Now, Gasper Valenti, if you have ever watched the movie Goodfellers, he is the only guy who wasn't killed that was part of the Lentza heist. Okay. So he was actually in on the heist. The reason that he wasn't killed is because he was cousins with Vincent a Sarah. So the real

story is Jimmy Burke was outside with Vincent Asarro in a van. Gasper Belente was one of the people that was inside doing the heist. Now, he wasn't killed because he was cousins with Vincent Ocerro

and because Vincent O'Sara was a maid guy with the Banana family. They took the money from him, but they didn't kill him. Everybody else as you saw in the movie was killed. Yeah. Jimmy Burke. The people started wanting their cut And he starts slowly killing it.

It was easier for him to just kill everybody off than it was. Excise. Well, it was this more cost effective. So Gaspar Valenti cooperated with the FBI. So the guys that actually steal the money for you, you just start whacking them all. Yeah. And that guy, he didn't they recently try somebody? So what happens is Gasper Valenti decides to cooperate with the FBI.

One of the main reasons he decided to cooperate was because Vincent Ocerro tortured him. When you listen to the recordings, he became a proactive witness. Okay. And he made recordings against Vincent Ocerro. And when you listen to recordings, it's pretty bad. He treated him really, really bad, even though he was his cousin. So he decides to cooperate. And some of the information that he has is that, A, he was part of the Lathansa Heist, excuse me.

And also, he has information related to a murder. This murder took place in 1969, where Jimmy Burke and Vincent Ossarro killed this guy, Paul Katz. and because they thought he was cooperating with the police. Was he? I don't know. Oh, okay. So they killed him in 1969. And for some reason, they thought it was a good idea to bury him in Jimmy Burke's basement.

And they buried him there. And if you remember, Jimmy Burke goes to jail in the 80s for the Boston point shaving scandal. Okay. So when he's in jail in the 80s, he gets paranoid that the internal affairs, from NYPD is going to start talking to cops that he had on the payroll in the late 60s. So he wants the body moved. So he... Because the cops might know that he's buried?

They might start talking that this guy's dead and that they might have some information. Okay. So they decide he's got the murder victim has to be moved. So they enlist Gasper Valenti and Vincent Ossarro's son to actually move the body. It's horrible. How long is his body? And at that point, it's probably been there for probably at least 12 years or so. So they move the body.

But they're not professionals. So this is one of the nuggets that Vince Gaspar Valenti has to provide to the FBI. So again, now we're talking after this big arrest, 2011, and now operating or directing the supervision of Gasper Valenti under my supervision when I have the banana family now. Can I ask you a question real quick? how are you bearing a, like, do you have to jack up the, are these basements have no, are they dirt basements? Or are they, because to me, you've got a concrete slab for a basement. You got to cut that shit up.

So we're not there yet, but we're proactive. This is something that we're going to do. Okay. You know what I mean. And what's interesting is when I was with the Decaval Canty squad on C-10, and we mentioned that there was a threat against law enforcement. And that was very real, right? know, in the senses I was, there's threats against FBI all the time. But when it's personally against you, you get a little concerned and it kind of changed

how I drove and always, what I tell people all the time is just be aware of your surroundings, even to the current job that I have. You know, so you would change how you, how you drive. You're always trying to look around you and things like that. But we had so many proactive witnesses over this eight and a half year time period that there's actually recordings that they had where they would talk about me. Right. And that was, I guess, nice to hear that they thought I was a decent guy that I treated them with respect.

So that fear factor went down, knowing that I've always treated them with respect. So fast-forwarding, we're getting ready now to use Gasper Valenti's information. And one of the last acts that I did as a supervisor, because, and I'll get into this in a minute, is in June of 2013. The FBI had a policy where you can only be a supervisor for seven years. So I acted for a year and a half, 18 months, and then I was a supervisor, official supervisor for seven years. So my last official act was in June of 2013, where we were going to do a search warrant in Jimmy Burke's basement. And as you just said, that basement floor had been redone numerous times. So we used our evidence response team to actually dig up the basement.

What we did, though, which was kind of very risky, is Vincent Sassar. was still out on the street. And we kept our witness, Gasper Valente, out on the street when we were going to execute the search warrant, meaning I wanted Gaspar Valente to try to get a conversation of Vincent Ocerro while we were digging. Just try to get some more evidence on tape. So we started digging in the basement. We kept them out the first day. We were able to get a recording which we could use for trial. And when we were digging, our evidence response team, they kind of knocked out the water main pipe for the neighborhood, which kind of created a problem for me since I'm the commander on site. The lady upstairs was pregnant. So I had to make sure

she had water, make sure she was okay. And then, as I said, there was no water in the neighborhood. So I had to call the number two guy, the number two guy from DEP to come down. It's funny. Actually, went to the same high school as me, which we found out later. And he was able to kind of quickly repair the damage that had been done. What was interesting was when there's no water, you can't use the bathroom. So we had to go up to Liberty Avenue underneath the train tracks to go to a diner upstairs, up the road, you go to the bathroom. So I went up there with a couple of agents, had our ray jackets on. And sure enough, I'm on one side of the street underneath the train tracks, and I look across the street. There was a banana body shop there. And sure enough,

who's there? Vincent Assero. Vince O'Sarro. Vincent was probably close to 80 at the time, but in good shape. And, you know, his hormones were folded. He's looking across the street. And I look over and I'm like, oh, my God, that's Vincent Ocero. And I'm with about three or four guys from my squad. I'm like, we got to say something. And they think I'm crazy to begin with.

And I'm like, we can't see anything. I was like, yeah, we can. So I said, we're going to go to the bathroom. We're going to cross over and just follow my lead. So we go over, go to the bathroom, cross over the train, train. Alex are coming down. And now he knows where we are and what we're doing. And I say, hi, Vinnie, because he knows who I am. How are you feeling? And I'm like, you know, just trying to have a conversation with him. It's like, we're just down the block working. He knows exactly where,

what we're doing. Have a cordial conversation back and forth. And at the end of the conversation, I just tap them on the shoulder. And I say, see you soon. Yeah. And that was it. So that was June. So then we go back. We actually do find pieces and we're able to tie that to DNA. We got DNA from Paul Katz's son, who was probably in his 60s at that point, and we're able to confirm it was his father. So that was in June of 2013. That was my last official act as a supervisor. And I'll talk about stepping down after.

But in January of 2014, we go in. when we arrest Vincent Ocero. Knock on his door, and I told him, told you, I see you soon. So he got a big kick out of that, and he was laughing everything. And when we took him back to 26 Federal Plaza, a bunch of other guys were arrested that day because we're talking about the Lathonsa heist. Of course, the media was there. And he would go around to his other guys that were arrested saying that.

A couple of first words, guys said he would come back to arrest me and hear him. and here he is. So we had a big joke about that. But he actually got locked up that day. That was January of 2014. And just talking about, as I said, stepping up or stepping down. So as I said, the Bureau had a policy then

where you had to be a supervisor for seven years and then you had to make a decision. So at that point, you would either step up, meaning you would have to go to Washington for two years and then they could send you wherever they wanted to or you could step down to work a case again, start to work like a case again. So the Bureau, I said I was not going to step up because I had gotten married then and decided I was not going to go down to D.C. because I didn't want to move and my wife was not going

to move. Sorry. Does that affect your pay? Well, that's the thing I can get into in a sense is as a supervisor. The next title up would be assistant special agent in charge. And it's called an ASAC. And there's no pay difference at all. Absolutely none.

Okay. Zero. Absolutely zero. So I thought myself, why would I do that? Why would I move down to D.C.? Yeah, uproot my entire life? Yeah. And then for no financial incentive at all, I was like, I did not need the title.

So I wanted to challenge myself and go work. work cases again. And that's what I did. At that point in time, they had a big problem in Mount Vernon where they had these young gangs, these young kids were killing each other. They couldn't get anyone to cooperate at all. And I decided, okay, let me go up there and see if I can get these kids to cooperate. I used RICO. It was the first time they used RICO against young gangs. And I was able to go up there, not just me again. It was the teams that I had, I had two partners up there. And it was able to used them. Eddie Murphy and his guy, Kevin O'Donnell, and we were able to get together and basically take down these two gangs that were basically killing each other. Eddie Murphy is also a

comedian. Yeah. Colby, when you said Eddie Murphy, Colby went, that sounds familiar. So, okay, but back to the Latonza heist, some, recently there was recently meaning fucking five or six years or something like that. They actually prosecuted a bunch of guys. So what was that? Okay. So Vinnie Ossero gets locked up in January 2014. I'm no longer the supervisor as I had moved on to work violent gangs, right?

So I'm not part of that now, but they do have a trial. And they actually, he does beat the trial. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, he does beat the trial. And after the trial is over, he goes out and he starts making some jokes saying that there's a body buried here in a trunk. So what does happen, though, he subsequently gets re-arrested because he did an arson. Okay. And he goes back to jail.

And I think during COVID, he got released early and unfortunately subsequently he just passed away, I think. But he did beat that trial. I don't know how he beat it. Well, I have my ideas on how he beat it. I'd rather not say. I think that most of those guys are dead anyway. Like who's testifying again? I'm saying?

I guess it's further away you are from. Right. Sometimes funny, sometimes I think the further away you get the more people are willing to cooperate. And then sometimes the further away you get, the less evidence there is or people that are still around that are willing to. Sometimes it's a back and forth. I've noticed. I mean, I don't know.

So, yeah, he beat that case and then he was re-arrested again for an arson that he did. I think he pled guilty to that. I don't think there was another trial. I think he pled guilty to that. I'm not too sure. But I know he did go back to jail. And then he got let out early because of COVID. And I think he recently passed away in the last two years or so.

So then I worked the gangs for a couple of years. And then I was getting close to retirement. And I was like, if I stay working violent gangs, I'll be working as a security guard. So I was like, let me go back to my roots. My roots was auditing and banking. That's what I first started my career. I was like, let me go to a white collar squad. And that's what I did.

I went to a white collar squad for about two years. Worked fraud cases there, mortgage fraud a little bit, and all sorts of frauds. And then in April 2019, I retired from the FBI after working there for 20, years. And I again, I went to a work at a bank where I was head of security there. I was also head of fraud. I did corporate security as well as fraud. I was there for about four and a half years. And now I'm a head of security for a financial institution. Okay. It's funny. I do keynote speeches for financial institutions like I'll do for, you know, sometimes mortgage companies sometimes it's a cybersecurity company sometimes it's a bank i actually just did one for

cyber security and it was up in uh um Canada uh and it there's only four banks in Canada did you know that no there's only four banks that is there's a thousand banks down here you know like I mean and they uh yeah but they were representatives from all the those banks it was just it was on it was just on cybersecurity which really is ridiculous because i don't know anything about cybersecurity but apparently cybersecurity really just means um uh it's just social engineering you know so i really just kind of talked about social engineering i worked for a bank called signature bank oh yeah yeah i've been so they're still around uh they actually went under oh did they yeah oh well i thought they were still around they they got bought so they were one of the first banks

that had crypto clients. Okay. But it was just like having a checking account. They didn't invest in crypto. They didn't lend crypto or anything like that. So the crypto clients just had their money there. Okay. Yeah.

But they actually, they got bought by New York Community Bank. New York Community Bank, what Flagstar bank too. Okay. So, what, two banks are the same. Flagstar, I think I've... That's a nationwide bank. Yeah, yeah. I think I've heard them before, too.

I think we actually were signed up with them at one point, my mortgage company a long time ago. Any specific, you know, cases where you're talking to these guys and they're like, you know, I'm not going to talk and I'm not this. And then you have a conversation. And the next thing you know, they're like, well, wait a minute, let me think about this. Or, you know, like, I'm very curious to know how those conversations go. Like, because, you know, you sit, it's funny, you'll see these things on,

Of course, these are always gang guys where they have that they're in the interrogation room. I ain't telling you nothing. I ain't this. Fuck that. And then then you're trying to get me killed. You're going to make me a snitch. I can't go to prison as a snitch. And then they cut it again.

And it's like, listen, man, Johnny was there. Timmy. And so. Well, it's funny when we had the gang arrest, right? where I said we could not get anyone to cooperate at all. And there was these two, like, young gangs. When we had the arrest, I guessed a lot of them knew who I was. So they started saying, I only want to speak to famous Seamus,

which is kind of weird. But it helped because that's why I started to gain their trust and kind of show them. And that's probably one of the most prouder moments in the sense is you had these young kids who were in their 20s, kind of getting them to kind of turn their life around and show them, okay, instead of spending the next 20, 30 years in jail,

that they have a second chance, which meant a lot to me. You know what I mean? That's one thing. I'm just trying to know, it's funny is you go to jail, you go to prison. You're sitting in prison for five years,

let's say, and these guys have all these big plans. They're going to do this, they're going to do that. And then, because I've washed them, and I've washed them leave. And then two,

Two years later, I watched him coming right back on another three more years or, listen, I watched this one guy, I shouldn't say he wasn't young. He wasn't young. He was probably in his 40s. And I watched it. He had completed like a 10-year prison senate while I was there. Last couple of years I was there. He leaves.

Comes back on a violation. Leaves. Comes back on a new charge. Gets five years. Completes the charge, leaves. And just as I'm leaving, he comes back on another charge. And I'm thinking, you've, this is your third time, including a violation, you know, really your fourth, I haven't completed my first sentence. You know, I was like, what are you doing?

And, you know, it's just, it's like you're just, what is it, life on the installment plan? You're just in and out, in and out. You're doing a life sentence. You're just, you're barely getting out of prison. And it's always like, no, this time I'm going to do this, this time I'm going to do. And it's probably not until the guys that are always going to. leave that are going to start a, start a music label or start a studio or start a, start a restaurant. Those are the guys, or they're going to be a rapper.

Those are the guys that I always think you're coming back. And they always seem to come back. The guys that are leaving that are like, my brother-in-law is a plumber. And he said, I can come work with him. It's like, that's reasonable. Yep. You know, that's a reasonable. And that doesn't mean you have to be poor because plumber.

plumbers make, you know, plumbers now are making 150,000, you know, electricians are making, there's a guy on TikTok that he's a kid, he's like 24 years old, 23 years old, and he's making $250,000 a year, and he's been doing it for a year, and he's like, like, he's 24. Yep. He's no, is a high school diploma? Yeah, the blue, like the blue collar skills or something that's, uh, oh, they're hiring, for between now. There, you know who is, uh, the Blackwater that, or Black Rock?

I forget the name of the company. Anyway, the big company that's buying up all the real estate, you know, they're opening a school that, and they're bringing in as many people as they can to train electricians because we need, like, we need like another 100,000 or 200,000 electricians in the next five years or something. And we're not even close, close to have being able to fulfill that. And these guys are going to go in there. They're going to do a nine-month course. They're going to do a year internship of some kind, and these kids are going to be making $350,000 a year with a high school diploma and a certificate. And that's doable. Being a lawyer, lawyers don't even make, most lawyers are making, are working for an insurance company making $80,000 a year out of law school.

They're just not making the $300,000 that they think they're making. They're paying the student loans. That's why. Yeah. So, but these, these are kids that can go get a, you can go get a, you can go get a, uh, a, uh, a Votech, a certificate, and be making between 150 to 300,000 a year. That's an amazing job. Like, you talk about a story there.

Like, when I was on the white collar squad, the guy just sloppy stuff, right? You know, he was trying to do, he was trying to get a loan, right? And just sloppy with the checking statements where he tried to alter the checking statements. But like the ending statement, like the date. he screwed up the dates like he took the bottom date which would say like 2004 or like 2020 like or say December 3rd 31st of 2004 he put that up top right as opposed to being the first of the year right like just like stupid stuff yeah I mean so I had fun with him when I went to go talk to him right I was like look how sloppy you were I mean just showing him the statements like you just didn't

think thing through. And it was like for big money. He was trying to get a house. Right. So there was another thing related to the bananas too. So we had the one aspect related to the search. Also during that time period when they had merged the squad. Another thing was the Vincent Bacciano was on trial too. So I had arrested the official boss of the banana family, Joseph Messino, back in 2003, I believe, and he decided to cooperate. So he was like, I think, the first official boss to cooperate with the FBI. And then we were going to use him to actually testify. So even though fast-forwarding eight years later,

his first time he testified was against Vincent Asciano. And it was really something to watch him on the stand because he was like a walking encyclopedia of the Banana Family because he was with the Banana Family for close to 40 to 50 years. So Vincent Asciano ended up being convicted at that trial and it was a death penalty case. So how that works is when you're convicted at trial, then you have a second trial where they decide if you should face the death penalty or not.

And the jury came back and decided not to proceed with that. But to watch him at that trial testify against him was an amazing thing to say because he was like an encyclopedia. So that was like the two big things related to the banana aspect after. that squad was collapsed and put into my supervision. When specifically did the government decide to start going after, like, I mean, so the FBI decide to start going after the, wasn't it in the 70s or 80s that they?

80s. So let's just talk about that as, okay. So in the mid-80s, the government effectively used the recall tool. right where that's where in new york they had the big case against the bosses rudy juliani effectively used the regal tool then in the 90s that's when sammy decided to cooperate right and he kind of blew that deal or he had a great deal for five years he killed numerous people i think close to 19 people and screwed that up gets re-arrested and does like close to 20 years for for drugs ecstasy yeah yeah so that's in like 1991 then

after him or around the same time period, there's a Lucchese boss, Al Diarco decides to cooperate, right? From 91 up into 1999, Anthony Capo is really the first person to cooperate. And he's the DeCalvocanti soldier that we talk about, the first made member in that family to cooperate. He kind of opens the floodgates where it starts to become the norm for people to cooperate. And from 99, up until, I'd say, 2,000. four or five, we have a floodgates are open where the bananas and the decalibulcanties are cooperating left and right. Then as I say, I get to the Colombo squad and from 2008, that's when their floodgates start to open. So cooperation starts to become the norm. And related to the

Bureau's resources, when I first got to the organized crime branch in 1998, they had about 250 agents strong investigating just in New York, investigating the mob. And, you know, after 2011, we started to reduce the resources. And then as each year passed, less and less resources were dedicated to organize crime. But isn't that because it, because over the past, whatever, 20, 30 years, you'd been so, the Bureau had been so effective at dismantling? The Bureau has done a great job, But I always say the mob has been around for 125 years. They are not going away, right? The mob hated John Gotti because John Gotti was so flashy.

Yeah. You're not supposed to know about the mob. They're supposed to be underneath the covers. They're supposed to be very discreet. That's the way they want them to be, right? You're not supposed to know who built this building or who built that restaurant or who's behind the restaurant. You know, I think in the last probably six or seven months, there was a significant arrest related to gambling, right? I'm not too sure if you followed that arrest or not, but they use very sophisticated techniques.

Like they had x-ray tables. They used x-ray glasses. Very sophisticated stuff. They're not gone. They're just there. If the Bureau doesn't keep the resources on them, they're going to rebuild. The Bureau has done a great job the last 20 years dismantling the mob and really having a significant effect on them.

But you have to keep resources on them. If you don't, they're just going to rebuild. So it's so important to do that. Now it's always the needs of the Bureau. Right now the needs of the Bureau is violent crime. And I get that. But don't take your eye off the mob, because if you do, they're just going to rebuild. So you have brothers and FBI?

Yeah. My brother is a real success story. I can talk about that if you want. Yeah. And what is he do? Is it like white collar? He does white collar now. Okay.

Yeah. So just related to my brother, as I said, my dad passed in December of 1999. My brother was a mechanic. So my brother used to work with my father, and then he joined the bureau in, I think, June or July of 1999, as a mechanic. And then he... Just like working out what, the carpool or what does they give up what they call it? Like the FBI has their own car base, so they have to be service. So he would work on the FBI cars in lower Manhattan.

We had a garage next to 26th Street. And then he became an FBI police officer. where the FBI has their own police force, where they protect our buildings and making sure it's overcoming into our buildings and things like that. Then he did that for a couple of years.

And then he went to a group called SSG, that's our surveillance group, where you would follow people around the city. And when he was there, he actually went to college and got his degree. Now, to be an FBI agent, you have to be in training down in Quantico, Virginia,

between 23 and 37, meaning you have to be down in training at Quantico by your 37th birthday. Right. So when Liam is his name, when he went to SSG, he got his degree from Manhattan College. That's the same area where my parents kind of met him out for from Ireland. He got his degree. And he actually went down to Quantico, Virginia, got selected to go down to Quantico, Virginia, about a month before his 37th birthday.

Liam and Seamus. Very Irish names. Oh, gosh, right? Yep. Yep. Okay. And so, and now he works. What did he get his degree in?

It's a bachelor's. I forget what it was in, though. Okay. But he became an agent in 2009. And he was assigned to the New York office as well. And eventually he got assigned to a white collar squad in Rye. And me and Liam got to work on the same squad together at the end of my career. Okay.

which is not supposed to happen. Because God forbid something were to happen on arrest. So I remember one of my last arrest, he was on an arrest team. I was on arresting. We can't be on the same rest team. People were going to arrest ended up being in the same house. So we ended up being in the same house to arrest two different people.

Everything worked out fine, of course. But yeah, it was great that we actually got to be on the same squad at the end, where we kind of sat right next to each other. People used to joke. If you two don't stop fighting and we're going to call you mom. Who comes up with these rules? Like you can't be, you have to have entered the academy by 37. Like who's coming up with these?

So because the retirement is 57. Right. So you have to do 20 years in the bureau to get your retirement. So that's why you have to be in Quantico, Virginia, by your 37 birthday. Okay. So that as retirement age is 57, which is a very weird. retirement age. Yeah. So it's not arbitrary. It's there's a reason. Who wants to hire you when you're 57? Yeah. So you just came out with a book. We actually kind of went over the book in the

in the previous episode, flipping Capo. Am I saying that right? Capo? Yes. Yes. And it's how the FBI dismantled the real Sopranos. And we talked about the book and the, the crime family that actually the Sopranos is based on in the previous video. So, hey, you guys, I appreciate you watching. Do be a favor. Hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this. Also, if you want to pick up Seamus's book, we're going to leave the Amazon link in the description box.

You can click on that, shoot over, buy the book. If you want to be a guest, we're also going to leave the link to our website. You can go there, go to the Be a Guest page, fill out the form, and we will get back with you as soon as possible. Thank you very much. I really appreciate you guys watching. See ya.