Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - The Untold Story Behind The Sopranos | FBI Agent Seamus McElearney

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

FBI Agent Seamus McElearney recounts how his early undercover work with a key informant inside the real-life crime family behind The Sopranos ultimately helped dismantle the organization, turning a dangerous case into a career-defining breakthrough.⁣ ⁣ Check out Seamus's book here - https://a.co/d/09NptR2k⁣ ⁣ Do you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://www.insidetruecrimepodcast.com/apply-to-be-a-guest⁣ ⁣ F*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean 15% off with the code COX15 at theperfectjean.nyc/COX15 #theperfectjeanpod ⁣ https://theperfectjean.nyc⁣ ⁣ Get 10% sitewide for a limited time. Just visit https://GhostBed.com/cox and use code COX at checkout. ⁣ ⁣ Send me an email here: [e-mail]⁣ ⁣ Do you extra clips and behind the scenes content?⁣ Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime ⁣ ⁣ Check out my Dark Docs YouTube channel here -⁣ https://www.youtube.com/@DarkDocsMatthewCox⁣ ⁣ Follow me on all socials!⁣ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/⁣ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrime⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Do you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopart⁣ ⁣ Listen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox ⁣ ⁣ Check out my true crime books! ⁣ Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCF⁣ Bent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TM⁣ It's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8⁣ Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5G⁣ Devil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438⁣ The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3K⁣ Bailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402⁣ Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1⁣ ⁣ Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!⁣ Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WX⁣ ⁣ If you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:⁣ Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69⁣ Cashapp: $coxcon69⁣ ⁣ CHAPTERS: ⁣ 2:01 - A Rookie Agent Joins the Investigation⁣ 5:22 - Building the Case ⁣ 7:36 - The Takedown⁣ 9:00 - Arresting a Ruthless Mob Soldier⁣ 15:55 - Turning a Target into a Cooperator⁣ 18:14 - The Breakthrough⁣ 23:37 - Inside Confessions & Hidden Truths⁣ 31:35 - Taking Down the Crime Family Leadership⁣ 39:09 - Tragedy Halts the Case & The Trials That Follow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I was assigned to the DeCalbocante family. The Sopranos is based on that family. Yes, it is. There's many similarities between the show and the real family. We'll start with Tony. There's two events that start this case. In January 14th, I believe it was, three individuals decide to rob the World Trade Center,

a bank within the World Trade Center, Bank of America. They actually do rob the bank. However, when they come out of the bank, they take their mask off and they're caught pretty quickly. Two gentlemen are caught that day. The third person fled to New Mexico and was caught within days. The mastermind behind that is a guy named Ralph Garino. Ralph Guarino saw the walls were starting to cave in, and he decides to call a legendary agent named George Hanna. George Hanna was from Brooklyn, a very street, savvy agent, and he decides to make Ralph a proactive witness, what I just explained.

He's going to keep him on the street and make consensual recordings. And that's what we do. We keep Ralph on the street from January of 1998 all the way up until December of 1999. Now, when you have a proactive witness, you never know where he's going to go or who he's going to ingratiate himself into. Where Ralph led us was to the Brooklyn faction of the DeCalvocante family. That's to the series, the Sopranos, is based on that family. Yes, it is. Okay. So the DeCabalcanty's had a Brooklyn faction, a very violent faction that did all the dirty work for the DeKalbicante family. So as I said, I graduate from Quantico in May. This is already going on.

This is already going, like starting to go on. I get assigned just to this surveillance squad, right, during my probationary period, and I'm on the surveillance team. And then in December of that year, December of 1998, which is basically 12 months later, where Ralph is being operated, I get assigned to a squad called C-10. C-10 was responsible at that time for the Bonano family, and also they had now been responsible for this investigation with Ralph. Since that squad had two divisions, the Bonano family and now being responsible for

operating Ralph and the DeCalvo-Canty family, I was assigned to the DeCal-Canty side of it. So I help George, the legendary agent that I mentioned there, basically operate Ralph. It's very... But you're just a rookie. A brand new agent. Yeah. So when you have a proactive witness, the most important thing is keeping him safe, right? We're using a recording device.

I can't say what type of device we used, but it's a device you're trying to hide because if the bad guys find out that Ralph is wearing a device, they're going to kill him. Yeah. So there's a lot of behind the scenes work that you have to do, right? George is trying to keep Ralph safe. He's got to gauge his mental health, make sure that he doesn't crack under pressure. He's got to constantly develop bruises so that the bad guys are going to ingratiate himself to him, such as we would sell untaxed cigarettes. Cigarettes that the FBI had gotten through a load and basically get them back out there.

we would, you know, maybe get a load of TVs that we said were stolen that the FBI maybe had purchased and get them out there. We would gamble that the FBI would control. There was different ruses that we would actually do. So because what? I mean, is he allowed to continue to commit crimes while he's cooperating with the, you know, with the FBI? Or is it like, okay, we're going to put you back out there, but you can't committing crimes because that's, then you're, that's just, that's just silly. Like very quickly, they're going to be like, like, you're not doing it. You're not making any money. You're not, like what's obviously, it would look very odd. Or are you saying, well, go ahead, explain. So crimes under our control, right, between the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office that we are directing Ralph to do, just like some of the examples that we just gave you. So it appears that he's still actively a member of this organization or an association.

And is he like an associate or is he actually like a big guy? He was an associate of the, the Ecalo-Lacanti family. Right. So that's exactly what we're doing. We have to give the appearance that he's still a bad guy because we can't have him working at Starbucks making $9 an hour, right? So we have to do that, right? So that's what we did. We would come up with ruses. We would fence jewelry that we had gotten from the FBI. So they're stolen jewelry, like, jewelry, try to get that out there to show them that we were trying to do that. So there's all these ruses that we would constantly do. But there's a lot of administrative work that you have to do behind that. You could have a consensual recording that was two hours long that could take six hours to listen to because these guys talk in diners, they talk in cars, they talk in clubs. And you're trying to find that nugget of information that you could use for an indictment. So I would be doing that. Nothing is better in court than having a surveillance team take a picture of you and then having a tape as well and then having a live witness talk about it.

So those are the components. we operated Ralph for two years. In those two years, he probably made 300 consensual recordings. And then, as I said, we had thousands of hours. Thousands of hours. And we had a team listening to these tapes trying to transcribe these tapes to give to the attorney's office. In addition to that, we had a surveillance team dedicated to him where we probably had

over a thousand surveillance logs and tons and tons, hundreds of pictures trying to ID these people, where we would constantly. speak to Ralph as to who that person was, running their plates, trying to find out who the car comes back to. So we, in essence, were identifying members of the DeCalvolcanti family. And here you have the New York FBI investigating the Jersey family. And that's how this case starts. The second event that starts this case is nine days later, January 23rd of 1998, is an individual named Joseph Conigliero is killed. Joseph Conigliero was confined. Joseph Conigliaro was confined to a wheelchair. I know you're probably saying that's pretty ruthless that they

killed the guy that was confined to a wheelchair. But he was a decalcanty associate. How he was confined to a wheelchair was back in the 1970s. Him and a decalvocante soldier named James Gallo go to collect loan shark money from a victim. And James Gallo, who is a soldier in the decalcanti family, accidentally shoots Joseph Canigliero and paralyzes him. Okay. No hard feelings between the two. Right. Just the cost of doing business. So that's from the 70s. From the 70s up until his death in 1998, he's paralyzed. His own crew killed him. His own crew killed him because he was ruthless, even though he was confined to a wheelchair. This man used to call people over and shoot them from his own wheelchair and then have his crew basically wrap him up and put them in a tarp and get rid of

him. So in the late 1990s, they were just fed up with him and they wanted to kill him. And the actually did kill him. So those are the two events that start this case. Do they, how do you know he's killed? Do they find the body? Do you? They found the body. And we're going to get into that as this case starts to progress. But those are the two events that start this case. So as I said, we operate Ralph proactively for almost two years up into December of 1999. And that's when we decide we're going to take down the case. The reason we take down the case is because there started to be whispers as to why hasn't Ralph been arrested? He's the mastermind behind that robbery that I had mentioned had started the case. Everybody else has been arrested that was part of the robbery. Why hasn't Ralph been arrested?

And then there becomes whispers like, maybe we should kill him that he's a rat. Well, maybe the other guys didn't cooperate. Well, they didn't, but still he was the mastermind. It was pretty odd that he wasn't picked up. And as we're going to get into, during that time period, one of the events that we'll discuss later is there was a lot of paranoia that people were cooperating. So they decide that Ralph might be cooperating and for his safety we have to take down the case. Right. So because of all that evidence that he collected in those two years and as I said, you never know where he's going to take you. We end up arresting 39 people in December of 1999. Now, as we mentioned before, I'm a new agent, right? So I'm on the job now for about

about a year and a half and or about a year, right? So I get tasks, first of all, as a new agent, you're hoping to be on an arrest team. Second of all, when you're a new agent, you probably get tasked to rear security for your own safety. But because of all the hard work I did and all the grunt work I did,

which you're supposed to do as a new agent, that's part of your job, right? You do what you're told. I get tasked to arrest a violent decavalcanti soldier named Anthony Capo from Staten Island, who has had a horrible reputation with law enforcement. Very ruthless guy. Supposed to have killed numerous people. Every interaction with him with law enforcement was extremely hostile. So I was very surprised

that I was going to be the team leader to go arrest him. I feel like somebody else can do this. Right. So I had watched George operate Ralph for two years, always treating him with respect, and I decided that I was going to approach Anthony, regardless of his ruthless reputation, the same way. So I studied Anthony like you would study for a test. I wanted him to know that I knew everything about him. So I formulated up my team. When you go do an arrest,

you basically have to find out who's living in the house to make sure that who's living downstairs that they're not a want for them. So I did all the checks, everything. And that day, I went to go arrest him. When I went to go arrest him, all the planning that I had did went out the window because he wasn't there. Okay.

Knocked on the door, spoke to his wife. His wife told me that he was at his mom's house. So, as I said, all the planning out the window. Is he at the mom's house? Was he? I was going to say. I went to his mom's house and he was at his mom's house. Oh, nice.

Everything that I heard about him about being ruthless, nasty, horrible reputation, what I witnessed between him and his family was totally different. They seem to have this loving relationship amongst themselves. So that threw me for a loop. So when I went to go arrest them and got them dressed and everything. Everybody needs a good pair of jeans. What I like about the perfect gene is that the moment you put them on, they feel like sweatpants. They don't ever pinch or bind up.

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their first order plus free shipping at the perfect gene dot NYC and use promo code Cox 15 for 15% off that's 15% off for new customers at the perfect gene dot NYC with promo code Cox 15 please support our channel and tell them we sent you your khakis get the perfect gene he comes out and he's wearing a Dallas cowboy jacket I'm a Pittsburgh Steeler fan right and the I hate the cowboys. So that's the first thing that turned me off, right? So we started to have a banter about that, which was good. I read him his rights.

So he invoked his right to counsel, his rights remain silent. That's exactly what I wanted him to do. Now there's a couple things that you have to do when you go arrest someone. There's the pedigree information that you have to ask from the U.S. Marshal Service, the forms you have to fill out. So that's his date of birth, his wife's names, children's names, everything. I would ask him questions, and this is the question. when I start at the mind chest, where I would ask him these questions before he could answer,

I would actually answer the question for him, letting him know that I knew everything about him, like his date of birth, 8, 1761, you know, everything like that. His wife's name, his kids' names, his cell phone number, his address, car, plate number, everything. So he's looking at me like, this kid knows a lot more than I think he knows. Yeah, right? That's exactly what I wanted them to do. then at that particular time he was charged with two crimes one crime was the conspiracy to murder charlie majury who was an acting panel boss for the de cavalcanti family another charge was mail fraud which was going to lead to stock fraud so i said to him now again he had invoked his right to counsel and his right to ring silent at that point i can't ask him legally any questions right doesn't stop me from making statements so i told him

I'm going to say a couple of things to you. Do not say anything. Just listen to me. The first thing I said to him was, okay, you wanted to kill Charlie Majori. Your plan was to ring his doorbell and shoot him in the face. The reason that you didn't do that was because there was a cop on the block because he lived on a cul-de-sac. And I said, don't say anything. Just think about that.

Now, that was a hard truth. I got that from a consensual recording. So you got to put yourself in his shoes. Six o'clock in the morning, he doesn't know who the witness is, and I gave him a hard truth. We all know, you don't lie to these guys. You lie to them, you're done, right? That's the first thing I did. Then I talked to him about the mail fraud.

Remember back in the day you could rent a mailbox and it would say sweet? Yeah. And you thought that you had this nice building, and you had a nice, like building off, like an office within a building. Had many suites. Right? So it's a second thing. I said, that was really cute, right? And then I talked to the driver of the car, who was a buddy of mine.

Just let him food for thought. But just let him think about things. So then he's thinking about things. And he says to me, he goes, we knew you were coming. And I'm like, shit. And I started, when you have an arrest, you have to call into the operation center and say that you have your target. And I started to hear a lot of people weren't at their houses.

So they knew we were coming. it ended up and we'll get to this that we had a problem. There was a leak in the Southern District. Oh, okay. It wasn't Ralph. It was an agent. Is this an agent? No, no.

It was a court reporter. An alleged court reporter was feeding information to the mob. Oh, no, no. That's a issue. Yeah, that's a problem. So that's what he says, right? So we established that bond that day, and he hadn't been arrested in a long time. So he didn't know about pretrial and how the process worked.

And, you know, we spent a lot of time together that. that day. I had to meet his stepfather. Another thing was he was a diabetic. So I made sure that I had chocolate and orange juice with me that day in case his blood sugar got low and I didn't want him to pass out in front of me, right? So he saw that. He appreciated that. And I treated him like a human being that day. And he said to me months later, that's the first time law enforcement treated him like a human being. Now, I think I told you before that I, from our side, all I ever heard was that the interaction was hostile. It's a two-way street.

What he was telling me, all his interaction was hostile. So he was giving it to law enforcement. Law enforcement was giving it to him. This is the first time that he said someone treated him with respect. That eventually would play out in a good way for me. So we spent the day together. I had to meet his stepfather again to give money that he had on him. He found out later that I treated his stepfather with respect.

during the bullpen when we had all the defendants together, he was getting a little bit too chatty with me. And I kind of told him, step back a little bit because the other guys are seeing you're being very friendly with me. They're going to get the wrong impression. Right. So he said, thank you because I was trying to look out for him.

Right. So we spent the day together, treated him with respect. I'm new. Just think I'm trying to do. to do my job, but nothing of it. About a week later, a Thursday night, I get a phone call. His lawyer calls me and says that he wants to play ball. I almost fell off my chair.

You didn't expect that? I mean, he's looking at a life sentence. No, no. At this point in time, he's looking at 20 years. What's conspiracy to commit murder for a guy? Oh, but the guy didn't get killed? He got killed. Oh.

So he's looking between 20 to 30 years. right so i'll do it don't give him i'll do it 20 yeah yeah yeah yeah so he decides he wants to cooperate now unbeknownst to me right this no-made member in this family's hundred-year history had ever cooperated before okay he calls lawyer calls i know less is more i'm a brand new agent i don't want to say too much at all i said thank you we're going to to get back to you. I immediately call the assistant. She's a seasoned assistant. She's the one that did the indictment. Assistant U.S. Attorney. Yep. Her name is Maria Barton. She's nervous because what did I say? Because I'm a new agent. I said, I didn't say too much. I said it was going to call you.

Right. So now we start. Let's get a proffer together. Right. So that's what we do. The first step is a proffer where we have Anthony Capo, his attorney, George Hanna, the legendary agent I discussed, Kenny McCabe, a legendary Southern District Investigator, Maria Barton, and myself. And we have a meeting where we have a proffer. And the rules of the proffer is, as long as you do not lie, we cannot use your words against you. That's the big thing. If you lie, and what I mean by that is, if you were to take the stand and lie on the stand, then they can call me to the stand and dispute what you said during that proffer.

Right. But as long as you don't lie, you are protected. Don't do you do most of the proffers usually carve out like if you end up like with the exception of a murder? Like if you if you tell us, oh, I murdered 14 people, then we are going to charge you. No, no. You are protected by the terms of a proffer as long as you do not lie. Right. What is that like queen for a day?

They call it that. That's a slang term queen queen for a day. Okay. Right. Now what you're doing is right. You're proffering in hopes of getting a cooperation. agreement. Right. So we're going to have a proffer. Now, a proffer is a very dicy thing because you're being removed from prison and you're meeting secretly with the government. And the bad guys are

going to question, why are you being removed from prison, right? Do you have a status conference where you put on the bus for a reason? So you can't be half pregnant, right? It's like if you're going to do this, you have to do it 100%. And he was, his lawyer prepped him really, really good. So he comes in and he tells us three things. It tells us there's a leak in the Southern District. He doesn't know who it is, but the information was gotten from Fritzi, Chiavinelli, a Genoese captain who provided the information to the DeCalbicante family, right? I don't want to fast forward, but years later, Fritzie is basically arrested and convicted and sentenced to 10 years. But we'll get to that. Second thing he tells us is that he's the driver in the murder of a guy named Fred Weiss.

Fred Weiss was a businessman from Staten Island who got involved with the Gambino family. So months prior, I'm reading books about organized crime. Here I am listening live to Anthony Capo tell me that John Gotti ordered the murder of Fred Weiss. First of all, Fred Weiss was killed on 9-11, 1989. Horrible day. You all know when you talk about 9-11. The reason he was killed is because he got involved with John Gotti in the waste business. Fred Weiss should not got involved with John Gotti.

John Gotti should not have Fred Weiss. The Fred Weiss murder is probably the most indictedable mob murder ever. At least 15 people have either pled guilty or have been convicted of that murder because it was a race between the Gambino family and the DeCalvocanti family to kill him. The DeKalvo Canties back in the late 1980s were trying to ingratiate themselves to the Gambino family. John Gotti wanted Fred Weiss killed. Fred Weiss was arrested in June of 1989. Fred Weiss made the mistake of changing lawyers. Because he changed lawyers, John Gotti thought he was cooperating.

He was not cooperating. This man was killed out of pure paranoia. Right. So because God he wanted him killed, it became a race between these two families. We have testimony years later of our witnesses discussing that they saw both families doing surveillance. When they say surveillance, meaning trying to get patterns of Fred Weiss, where he lived, where he worked, what time he was leaving those locations. Yeah, he goes to this cafe every day at 10 o'clock. Of doing surveillance, of seeing both families driving by doing surveillance on him.

Right. So horrible, but it's probably the most indignable mob murder ever where at least 15 people have pled guilty or been convicted of this. So that's the second thing he tells us that he's the driver in this murder. Vincent Palermo was the shooter and James Gallo, the same guy that shot Joseph Kinigliero and paralyzed him, was the other shooter. The third thing he does or tells us is that he is the shooter in the John Demado murder. John Demado was the acting boss of the DeCallocanti family in 1991. We'll get into the similarities between the Sopranos and the real-life family, but one of the reasons why John Demado was killed is because his girlfriend comes forward

and tells Anthony Capo that John Demado is taking her to sex clubs in New York City, and he's having sex with men. To each his own, I don't care, but that was one of the reasons that he was killed. And as you know, in the show, it's not okay. Yeah, it's not okay. As Anthony Capo said, you can't have a leader of men trying to do this. Yeah. So, and as you know, in the Sopranos, that's one of the angles in the show, is the gay angle.

I forget the guy's name. He's a short little chubby guy. Right, right. I forget his name. But he is the shooter and that. So those are the three things that he tells us out of the gate. So we have to huddle and decide, is he telling us the truth? What?

Seems like, like, that's a hell of a thing to say if it's not the truth. Right. Well, what you had just said there before, he's gone now from going from 20 to 30 years to exposing himself to a life sentence. Right. I know I always say numbers are better than letters. So now he's exposed to life. So we agree that he's telling us the truth. So that sets a whole bunch of things in motion. The thing that he tells us too is he didn't put John DiMato in his burial spot. He shot him, but he was believed to be buried up in Marlboro, New York, Philomela's recycling plan. Philomella was a decalibaldedie soldier.

So when someone tells you when a body is buried, you have to act upon it very quickly because the bad guys might move it. So a couple of things are put in motion now. We believe that he's telling us the truth. So we're going to have to move Anthony. And then we're going to have to do a search of Philomela's place.

Yeah. Does that, yes, because that puts him in danger, right? He knows there's only so many people people that know where that body is buried. So, okay. Now, again, he didn't put him there, but he knows that that's where he was supposed to be. So when you say he has to be moved, I mean, are you taking him out of, because I'm assuming at this point, he's like in the U.S. Marshal's holdover. So you're taking him out of the Marshall's holdover and you place him in another, is he going in, is this witness, is this witness protection? Or are you just taking him out

completely and saying, hey, we're going to put you in a hotel. We'll just put a couple guys with you. Okay, so the witness security program is run by the U.S. Marshal Service. He is in a federal facility. I think at that point in time, he was in MCC in Lower Manhattan from when I remember. And what we're going to do is we're going to move him to an other local facility. I'm not going to say where. We just move into an other facility. Okay.

So that's what we did really quickly, right? And because we have to assess that he's telling us the truth. And then we're going to go get a search warrant to go to fill. Philomelo's place. So that weekend, I'm working with the assistant to put together the search warrant. And where Philomilla's area was, I had to go to the northern district of New York, was upstate New York. At the same time during this whole thing is, my dad is dying. He had brain cancer. So I'm dealing with a lot personally and also trying to deal with work. Crazy time in my life. How many hours a week are you working on a squad?

like this. Well, to kind of get my mind off my dad as well as probably working six days a week, probably 12 to 14 hour days. Okay. A lot. And you're married? At this time, no. Okay. I was not married. Then you're lucky because no wife's going to put up with that. So we decide he's telling us the truth. We move him. We speak to his family. His family doesn't want to move. came a problem for us. Him and his wife were not getting along that well at that time anyway, but still it creates a problem. We go and we do a search warrant then.

As I said, he didn't put the buyer there. It turns out the area was a very vast area. Also, the wrinkle, too, was that Philomela had changed the area. He rebuilt his facility. So we didn't find the body there when we went to go search. The place was rebuilt and we came up with nothing. We were there for three days, I believe. But again, it was a huge area to actually search.

Right. It's like an acre, two acres? At least. Okay. You know, it's a size of at least two football fields. Yeah. I mean. I've been blessed in my career.

I think I found five, we'd located five victims, you know, throughout my career, which you can talk about as we go on. But yeah, we didn't find a body that time. And I remember the third day when we decided to wrap things up. I went to go see my dad that night. My mom's a very religious person. And me and my brother were going to go home and she told us to stay. And actually my dad had passed that night.

Very, really strange. And, you know, we had the wake a couple of days later. And I'm at the wake. And Anthony Capo called me at the wake. Very strange to offer his condolences. And meanwhile, a couple of days later, I'm actually looking for a body that he had put there. So that was really strange. So anyway, to kind of fast forward, so he's the first made guy to flip in that family.

Now, as we said, we proffer him, right? We're going to continue to do that in hopes of getting a cooperation agreement. So I have to debrief him his 30 years of criminal history. This guy did a lot in those 30 years. Home invasions, which is a despicable crime, right? That's when you go into someone's house, you tie them up and you steal everything within their house. And these guys did a lot of types of ruses, too, where they would dress up as cops, postal service to try to get into the house, horrible stuff.

So we start to do that, January, February, March of 1999 now, of 2000 now, right? And who comes forward? Vincent Palermo, who is the acting boss. Now, Anthony Capo reported to Vincent Palermo, soldier reporting to the boss. the reason that happened was because Anthony was so hard to control. So now Vincent Palermo comes forward and he wants to cooperate. So now we have a soldier. Wow, the dominoes are falling.

The dominoes are starting to fall. We have Anthony Capo first made member to ever cooperate. And now Vincent Palermo, acting boss of the DeCalvo Canty family wants to cooperate. And now we have to do the same thing. Bring him into proffer and we start to do the same process there. In April, the next month, we go arrest a guy named Victor di Kiera. Victor is an associate in the family. He was part of the conspiracy to murder, Charlie Majori, as well.

So he lived in Long Beach, New York. So I go arrest him. And when I go arrest him, we arrest him on the conspiracy of murder Charlie Maggiore. Now, he also was the driver in the John Demado murder. That's the murder that Anthony Capo shot John. When WestJet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion, inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel.

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A special four-part event, streaming April 10th on Hulu on Disney Plus. The motto, he was the driver. During that murder, Victor basically told Anthony Capo shoot him again. So when I went to go arrest Victor, I told me you're being a charge with the conspiracy and murder to Charlie Majorie, but you got bigger problems. I said, you basically told someone to shoot him again, and his face just went white. He knows he has a problem. Before we got back to 26 federal plaza, he was on board.

So now we have Ralph that starred the case, an associate, Anthony Capo, soldier, Vincent Palermo, acting boss, and now Victor. So now we have four. We do the same thing with Victor. We proffer to a cooperation agreement. So in June of 2000, I'm done proffering Anthony Capo, and he pleads guilty. I think it was June 4th of 2000. Remember I told you Anthony was a charge with two crimes?

When he pleads guilty, he ends up pleading guilty to two murders, 11 murder conspiracies, extortions every crime you can actually think of. And he's exposed to a life sentence. But he's been cooperating and giving you a ton of stuff. Yes. But until he's sentenced, you don't know what you're going to get. Right. We do the same thing with Vinny and we do the same thing with Victor.

I think Victor pled in August and I know Vinny played in October. So we take all their information and we want to have an indictment. And I think it's October. October of 2000, October 19th of 2000, we have the hierarchy indictment where we're going to arrest the leadership of the DeKalbocante family. Now, again, keep in mind, this is the New York FBI taking down the Jersey family. So in October 19th of 2000, we arrest the official boss, John Riggie, who's in jail, the consigliari, Steve Battagley, who I go arrest myself.

We have captains and soldiers, a very significant arrest. I think we arrest like 13 people all together, like the leadership of the family. We also arrest a soldier, an associate named Frankie the Beast Scarabino. Why that's important? Because Frankie the Beast comes forward and he wants to cooperate. So we have another associate. What's important about him is the information that he's going to tell us. Things got real, really, really quickly.

No one knows why? because he tells us that he's got the contract to kill Anthony Capo, to kill Anthony Capo's wife, his kids, and to hurt law enforcement, to kill law enforcement. Now, they said this got real really quickly because I'm the one that flipped Anthony Capo. Right. So they wanted to go back to their old Sicilian ways of hurting law enforcement, which has been off the table forever.

It doesn't, yeah. The only time that they... It brings so much heat on them. It's not worth it. The only time that they ever took action was when they shot Kieti's sister in the 90s. That's the only time that they ever did that. But they wanted to go back to their old Sicilian ways of doing this. This contract came from a decalibacante captain named Frank Polizzi.

He was arrested that day as well, thank God. And thankfully, Frank Scarabino had a moral compass where his line was where he told us was killing kids. He wasn't going to act upon that. And you can just tell by his name, Frankie the Beast, that this guy was a capable person and was good with his hands. I still speak to him today, by the way. But he came forward and he decided that he wanted to cooperate. And now we have him. So he comes on board.

And thankfully, that doesn't happen. You can just imagine me having to go up to Anthony Capo in a prison and tell him that there was a contract on him and his family. I didn't know because we were scattered so scarcely at this. this time and I would be remiss to mention this. Remember I mentioned that half the squad was working on the banana family? Well, they were rocking and rolling at that point in time too. They were starting to dismantle the banana family at that time. And one of the reasons why I wrote the book, Flipping Capo,

how the FBI dismantled the real Sopranos is because this squad, C-10, such a unique squad, we were dismantling two families at the same time. And we got great press for years, but the press never put it together. it was the same squad. Okay. So because we were so scattered, I had to go up to speak to Anthony and myself. And I didn't know how he was going to react. And all my interaction with Anthony was very good, you know, very calm, but I never saw

that real switch of him flip. And it was a very emotional day when I had to go tell him. And I didn't know how he was going to react. And, you know, you can just picture him. He's defenseless. I'm his only source to the outside world. so he's leaning on me to protect his family. So we immediately went to go speak to his family again,

his wife, kids, who were younger, and again, she refused to move. I was like, this is a real threat because not only were we getting it from Frank Scarabino, we were very close to the Italian authorities in Italy, and they were intercepting these words on their wiretaps. They were getting information. So this was legitimate.

This was real. But she wouldn't move. she eventually ended up moving from one into Staten Island to the other, which is pointless. Right. And thankfully, she never got hurt. But she really put us in a, he put me in a tough light of trying to protect her. But thankfully, Frank Scarabino came forward and decided not to act upon this. And the threat never came to fruition.

Thankfully. So as I said, he decides to cooperate. And then about six or seven weeks later, we have a guy named Tommy de Torre come forward. Now, Tommy DeTorra was originally arrested in December of 1999 on charges and got bail. But Tommy de Torre was part of the Joseph Conigliere murder. He was part of his crew that wanted him dead. Tommy de Torre is seeing all these people cooperate because word starts to travel quickly

when people are not in jail. We had to move Vinny. We moved Vinny to a safe house where we had to protect him 24. seven. Can't say where that was. But that took a lot of the Bureau's resources where it was around the clock where you had an acting boss at a safe house and an isolated area where we had to protect them around the clock. We had to move Victor to the witness security program too. There's a whole process to get into the program, a polygraph, a background, everything like that. And then this guy, Tommy DeToror, is looking at everybody cooperate and he decides he wants to cooperate. And he's out on bail. And we

decide, let's try to get him together with all the people who participated in the murder of Joseph Canigliero and give him a recording device and see if they bite. Right. And we, we probably get one of the best consensual recordings the Bureau ever has, where we get all these guys together and they discussed the murder. So we have on tape, remember I said Joseph Conigliero was paralyzed? Well, he had his car hooked up that he could actually drive it. So the shooter was Marty Lewis. So we have Marty Lewis on tape saying that I shot Joseph Canigliero. His nickname was Joe Pitts. Shot him six times in his car.

And I got out of his car and Joe Pitts drove away, got to the stop sign and put his blinker on and drove away. We have this all on tape. This is priceless for trial when we hit play. He stops at a guy named Joseph Brytson's house, who was actually part of the murder conspiracy as well. and beeps his horn and Joseph Ritzen's upstairs, thinking that the guy is now dead and has to come downstairs and get in the car with Joe Pitts and drives to the hospital with him. So I would have loved to been a fly on the wall at Joseph Britson's house

where he thinks Joe Pitts is dead, and Joe Pitts arrives at his house and beeps the horn, and he has to come downstairs from the second floor to get in the car with him after he's been shot and drive to the hospital. one of the things that we go on on tape that we didn't know was when they went to the hospital Joseph Britson called his cousin who was an NYPD detective go to the hospital and the cousin came and cleaned out the case shells from the car so that just put his cousin in the soup yeah so that's a great consensual recording

what do we do now with all this information you have more indictments right So we have more indictments in April of 2001. More indictments in May. We arrest the cop. He gets arrested. And then in August of 2001, we arrest Fritzi G. Vanelli for the leak. So those are all the indictments we have. Then in September of 2001, 9-11, 9-11, everything comes to a screeching halt, where all our

investigations go on hold for several months, dedicated to protecting the country, doing leads there had some crazy stories related to that personally i had a friend who got married a month to the day beforehand and he worked for a financial company called your was it was eurobrokers i believe and he passed away that day oh he was in one of the towers in one of the towers and he was only married a month to that day he got married on august 11 so he was killed a month later actually i was able to find his vehicle that he drove in that day and find personal belongings and I was able to give it to his wife, very, very sad. But that was just a crazy time. We lost an agent that day into the tower. There was an agent who had just retired, who is the head of World Trade Center

Security, who was there for about a month, and he died that day too. So just really horrible day. and just so surreal too. I do remember that night, you know, we all had to gather together, and then they sent us home and just driving on the parkway that there was no, there was no one there. And then come back that night

and people cheering you as you went into the pit. And I remember seeing them, like the fireman that day just dazed and confused. And there was a boarder's bookstore, and the glass was shattered, right? but the top of the glass was still sheared and these firemen were underneath it. If that glass had dropped, they would have cut their heads off. They were so dazed and confused.

I ran to them and told them, you guys got to move, but they were just so out of it. You know what I mean? But if that glass had fallen, their heads would have been just chopped off. It's really bad times. But as I said, we worked out for a couple of months and then we finally got back to, you know, trying to work the cases. And then that starts the trials, right? So I think the first trial was in December of 2002. I started a year of trials for me where I had no life whatsoever.

When you're on trial, I think the big difference between the state and the feds is that the agents sit at the table as opposed to the state when they don't. And what happens is you have to prep for trial, right? So there's trial prep. You've got to determine who you're going to use as a witness for trial. You could be at trial during the day. Then you have trial prep at night. So it's constant. It's 24-7.

Anthony did a great job. As I said, it was a year of trials. We had the Joe Pitts trial. Then we had a trial in May. Then we had another trial in October. So how long are these trials? Well, the longest one I had was two months. So, and the Joe Pitts trial was about three or four weeks.

I didn't sit at the trial. table for that one but I had the witness for that one. I set at the table for the other two and then we had another trial. We had a there was a blackout then too back in 2003 where Anthony Caput was actually on the stand when the blackout happened. First of all we thought the lights just went off in the courthouse but then it was was the east coast. A crazy story there too is I thought okay I might get some free time because there was a blackout and I could get home early I went to go get my car and I looked at the parking attendant because I had parked on an outside lot. I looked at the attendant. He looked at me. I gave him my ticket. And then he looked up. He had parked my car on a lift.

Oh, yeah. So I was screwed. So I had to stay at 26 federal plaza that night. And I'll just say the confines of 26 federal plaza were not that great. There was a lot of creatures in the walls at night. So I didn't sleep a lick that night. 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. They've spent decades perfecting how to build a bed that's comfortable, durable, and designed to actually help you rest. Every ghost bed mattress features premier materials, proven cooling technology, and their exclusive

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the makers of the coolest bed in the world. Some exclusions apply. See site for details. I didn't want a rat fall on me. He was trying to sleep. So it was a crazy time. But we, I think all in all, Anthony testified for me seven times. Anthony Rotundo, he actually decided to cooperate as well. So he was a captain. So I think we had seven people cooperate in a two-year time period.

He testified seven times as well. All in all, I think we had 71 defendant. that were convicted, 11 homicide solved, and seven trials. And that doesn't even include the times that Anthony was prepped for trial, where people decided to plead guilty as opposed to going to trial. What happened with Ralph? What did he end up getting? Because he came in first.

He knew he was probably going to be indicted soon, but he came in first and worked for two years. Right. But so Ralph, he never had to testify at all. Okay. His tapes stood for themselves and they ended up getting time served. Now, the thing that's interesting, right? And I don't know how your situation had played out,

but you never want to rush to get sentenced, right? What a lot of guys want to do is they want to get bail and then they want to remain out on bail and prove to the judge that you're rehabilitated and then get sentenced. such as Anthony Rotundo. I think Anthony did probably about four or five years in jail, and then he was out on bail for probably 10 years, and then he got sentenced.

Yeah, you're going to get more on a 5K1 of a reduction because you're able to walk in front of the judge and, you know, this information led to this and this and that you could absolutely prove, as opposed to you go to jail and the U.S. attorney sends a letter in saying, oh, he deserves this because of it. Like they could downplay it.

If you're standing there in front of the judge and you can say, I got, this is what happened. The judge is more likely to say, yeah, I'm going to do this guy a solid. He clearly helped, you know, he clearly helped with 14 different arrests and indictments and hundreds of years of. Yeah. And that's the thing. It's like the magic word you want to hear is time served, right?

Oh, yeah. And it's like what happens is Ralph starts it. So he gets credit for everybody else that comes behind him. So if you're on the train first, everybody else that follows, you're going to get credit. So he got time served and he got credit for everybody else, Anthony Capone, all those seven people behind him. So just great stuff. But that's what you want. You want to have a voluminous 5K1 letter and then show that, okay, you did some time, then you got out of bail and you didn't get into any trouble at all.

and then when you go in front of the judge, judge says time served. So what's interesting too is since that time period and we're at what, almost 25 years, no other made member has cooperated in that family sense. It didn't sound like you left much of a family athlete to cooperate anyway.

It doesn't sound like many people skated. Yeah, they tried to rebuild, but I don't think they have recovered since then. I mean? But yeah, as I said at the end of the day, 71 defendants convicted of seven trials that we did and you know they just did a great job you you had mentioned that you had found is it this case you had found a body and uh baseman or is that no that's not this case you know and where we ended how this kind of ends too is related to the banana

family just at the end of this case we there was related to the banana family there was three captains in 1981. They had an internal war. And during that time period, they killed them and buried them in Ozone Park. And back then, one of the three victims, their hand had popped up. And kids found that body. And unbeknownst to everybody else, there was two other bodies there. So, as I said, that side of the squad was doing a great job.

they were really dismantling that family. We had gotten information. I think it was in September of 2004, I believe, when this case was starting to wrap up. And we did a dig over there because we had gotten information. And we were out there for 28 days. That's a long time, especially when you have forces trying to breathe down your neck about or be finding something, finding something. A lot of press constantly planes.

choppers looking at you, constant press, and we were actually able to find the two other the bodies that were killed and put there during that time. So those are the first two that I found, right, with not just me, but the team that we had. I forget their name's Phil. It was Lucky and Trinch a chair, I think, was the other guy, those village captains that were put there. I feel like nobody named Lucky ends up in a shine of grace. Yeah, I know, right? But it was difficult because the weather was bad. And we would, it was like swamp land. So it would rain and you would keep digging and it was a vast type of area too. And every time that you would dig and it would rain, all the mud would push it back in. So we were out there for 28 days. And I said, thank God we

knew the leadership of the office back then because they would never allow you to be out there for that long because it cost a lot of money to have the resources out there. But that was the first two bodies that I found. And that was just as this case started to wrap up. Is there a specific individual that Tony Sopranos character is based on, or is it a composite? Sometimes they do a composite. Okay. So there's many similarities between the show and the real family. Okay.

We'll start with Tony, right? So Tony has a strip club. Vincent Palermo, who cooperated with the government, acting boss of the DeKalbacanti family, go figure, has a strip club in Queens. It was called Wiggles. Wasn't the Bada being? No. So even though the show depicts the strip club in New Jersey.

Jersey. Ironically, Vincent has a strip club in Queens. So that's the first thing. Second of all, the show, the first season, the real boss dies of stomach cancer, right, in the show. I think it was Jackie Appreel was his name, was like the character. In real life, Jake Amari, the boss of the Decalval Conti family, the acting boss of Decalval Canty family, dies of stomach cancer in June of 1997. Okay. ironic right throughout the show they talk about unions right you constantly see the unions where they're sitting on chairs outside the the job sites uh the no no they call them no is it so there's no there's a no show job right where you don't have to go to the job right there's a no work job

where you you you go and you don't have to do work right in real life the decalbacanties that was their bread and butter they controlled two unions they controlled local 394 which was the labor union and they actually started a union called Local 1030, which was the asbestos union. They actually created a school. Anthony Capo had testified that he went to the school and he testified during one of our trials that he wouldn't even know asbestos if he was sitting on it. He had a license and he didn't even know asbestos if he was sitting, he was sitting on it. So that's pretty funny.

But those are two unions that they actually controlled and they made a lot of money from that. Now, they're supposed to be low profile. And John Riggi, the official boss, was low profile. But his successors weren't. They built these big houses. And as we just said there, there's all sorts of scams that they did, right? There's bid rigging, right? Also, back in the day, there was a thing called shaping up.

What that meant was that you would actually have to go down to the union hall and wait in line to get a job. DeKalmocampalcanties didn't have to do that. So you would show up at 6 o'clock in the morning and wait online to get a job. DeKal Vacantis just went to the job whenever they had wanted to get a job. All right. So those are two things that they did, right? There's also in the show there is the stock angle, right? Where in real life, there was a guy named Philip Abramo, a DeKalbacante captain.

He was known as the Wizard of Wall Street. All the other families went to him because he was so smart and so successful. They have that in the show. Yeah, it's funny because I remember the stock thing and I remember things. And that's, you know, doing a pump and dump scheme, like, that's pretty sophisticated. You know, that's more sophisticated than I typically think of as the mob. But he was in the show. He used to short stocks all the time.

We actually had charges in our indictments related to stock fraud, where we charged him with that. He was very, very smart, man. They had the stocks. They had the gang, as we discussed before, where John DeMotto was actually killed because he was bringing his girlfriend to sex clubs in New York City. We all know in the show they have the same thing. So there's many similar things between real life and actually the show. The only thing I think which would not happen is I don't think a mob boss would be going to a shrink to the Volge's secrets. I don't think that would actually happen.

Right. But that was also a big thing was that he was constantly concerned about that. Right. This is unheard of. Nobody can ever find out about that. Right. It's funny you say that I asked chat GPT, like what are 10 questions to ask about this? And it said, one of the questions is, would a real mob boss go to therapy to, you know, reveal?

Yeah. Secrets or disgust. Yeah. I don't think that she would be around long if he did. Yeah. Yeah. At one point, she actually goes like, I think she's like, I had to go on the lamb. He's like, Tony's like, on the lamb.

Like, what are you doing? Like, what are you watching TV shows? Like on the land? How do you know what that means? But go ahead. What are, if any, like some major differences that maybe the show kind of pumped up that never really happened or exaggerated if there's any? Well, I think, as you just said, they wouldn't go to a shrink to actually discuss that type of business. That's the main thing.

Another similar thing that they had is the meat market. Now, I can't say the name of the meat market, but there is a meat market in New Jersey that they would go to all the time. And just go sit out and, yeah. You know, there also was a club that they went to. It was called the Ribeiro club. That was for members only. Like, I could not go into that. Right.

I do remember we had prosecutors from Italy that came over that wanted to go see the area. Right. So me and my partner had to go bring them to that area. Now, again, I couldn't bring them into the Ribeiro club, but I brought them across the street to a cafe that they had. And I'm not a big coffee drinker to begin with, but I did bring him in there. And it was like E.F. Hutton when I walked in there, it's like everybody just stopped and looked at us. Like, I'm an Irish American. So, of course, I stood out. But we drank a really quick cup of coffee and got out of there as quick as we possibly could.

But, yeah, it was like E.F. Hutton, as soon as I walked in, everyone just stopped and looked us. We were not welcomed. You keep mentioning the Italian prosecutors. Is there a component that of the, because look, to me, I, you know, in my mind is that these are Italian immigrants that came over in the whatever, 1900s, you know, late 1800s, whatever. And they formed, you know, the mob or the mafia, different families. And, you know, this is kind of this internal thing that's, that's running, this kind of

kind of subculture, but it wasn't really until the Sopranos where they were dealing with factions of the mafia in Italy, where they're sending them cars or weapons are going back and forth. Things are, they're working with them. And I remember watching the show thinking, I doubt that they even know anybody in Italy anymore. You know, after this long, I would think there would be a complete separation and there would be no real, you know, international.

dealings with another faction of the of the mafia, but they would do it. I thought, ah, it's good TV, but you keep mentioning prosecutors. Like, is this a real thing? There's two things. A, the DeKalvocanti family originated from Ribera, Italy. The second thing is, the FBI and the Italian authorities have a very good working relationship, and that's based upon when Judge Falcone was killed back in the 1990s. And so we've established a great relationship with that.

them and every May the FBI does go over to Italy to pay homage to the judge that was killed. So we have a great relationship with them and we remain contact with them. So that's why it's an open communication with them. So this, Judge Falcone is a famous judge in Italy that actually kind of signed warrants and rounded up a massive amount of mobsters and then put on a massive trial of all the mops. I mean, they were locked up in cages. Like they're in the courtroom, this massive courtroom. They're locked up in cages and they run a whole trial.

And in the middle of the trial or maybe after the trial, or maybe it was before the trial, I don't know. But while this is happening, he was the only one with the guts to do this in Italy. And they put a hit out on him. And they actually, he's like driving. They actually plant bombs in a section of the interstate where he's, driving through because he's got protection he can't they can't get to him and they said you know what

let's blow up the entire interstate while he's on it so as he's driving they hit the button and it just blows up and it kills him and it was like you know like he's the only guy that had the guts to do this and then they kill him which made it only worse for them right because now now it aligned everybody who had any sympathy for the mafia in italy at all they said oh no we're done like you killed him and a bunch of other people and he's just following the law and trying to break up this organization that's that's plaguing our society. But yeah, Falcone, I read a book about a guy who was an FBI agent that went undercover and he took the name Falcone in honor of Judge Falcone.

And so whenever he would be introduced, they'd say, oh, you're no relation to he go, of course not, of course not, you know. And who's that? Who, that? Like who, like who is the agent? I don't know. but the book was like becoming Tony Falcone or Anthony Falcone. I remember the name of the book.

Making Jack Falcone, an undercover FBI agent, takes down a mafia family. Who was the FBI agent? Joaquin Jack Garcia. Yeah, Jack Garcia. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I read that book in prison. Oh, really?

That was a great book. He's a great guy. Yeah. And he explained that. That's the only reason I kind of know that. He's Cuban. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Yeah. And I thought, I feel like, and I could be wrong about this, but I feel like it was like they pulled him out at the last minute. They were going to make, there was a possibility or maybe they were, it was a done deal where they were actually going to like make him a maid member. And then for some reason, they just pulled him out at the last minute. Great book, though. But he talks about all the things of all the things that he had to learn so that he didn't look odd. Like there were little tiny odd things. And you would never guess he's an agent.

He's a big guy. Yeah, yeah. Really big guy. But they talk about how he basically had like a crash course from a bunch of guys that had had cooperated. And they explained like how they hold their money. They would go and they actually would, it was like a, you actually go to the supermarket and where they would have like broccoli. You pull the thick rubber bands off the broccoli. And that's what you use to wrap your.

money and you always have like the one or like the 50, the largest bill on the outside, whatever was. There was all these little things that they were like, look, if you don't do it like this, they're going to know. And he was like, are you serious? Like, why can I keep it in my billfold? Absolutely not. We would never do that.

So, yeah, great book, though. So anyway, so there's not like this organization stretches or spans the Atlantic. It's just, okay, this is just, you guys are kind of working to. together to kind of hone your skills and show homage to. So the main character in the series, he's based off a real person? Or is it kind of like a mixture of both? It's a mixture, but I would portray him as Vincent Palermo. Okay.

Because of the strip club, because of the business angle, because Vinny had lots of the businesses, that's what he had. Right. Yeah, they've got, you know, and it shows how they're into like the waste, management and like Tony, Tony's got, he's got like an office that he never goes to. And then one day he starts showing up and the guy that's running the whole thing is like, what's going on? Like what? He's like, I'm trying to keep a low profile.

I need my lawyer kind of tells. I need to start coming here. But he didn't do anything. I think he ends up starting to like bang one of the fucking chicks that's there or something. You know, he's always cheating on his wife. He's always got a mistress that's causing problems. Yes. And his, he's in the sopranos, he's got like a nephew, I want to say, is it Christopher?

Christopher. Christopher, who's got a girlfriend that he's with all the time. She ends up cooperating. And they end up having to kill her. And I mean, it's a horrific, horrific episode. Yeah. You got to watch it. Colby, I'm so, I'm so, listen, I get more and more, you know, I was so impressed with this guy for so long.

Now, you're so disappointed. Like, you know, sometimes. It's like, you know, you've never seen the Supreme. You have to. Sopranos got to watch. He has to watch the movie, Goodfellas. Goodfellas, the Sopran. Even another great one, which just came on Netflix, by the way, it's free.

It's on Netflix. We probably have Netflix anyway. Is casino. Mm-hmm. They just, casinos are great. And casino's great because there are great correlations where, like, that's a real character. That's a real character. These guys got murdered in the, you know, cornfield.

I don't know if it was exactly. I think they actually killed them somewhere else and they buried him. But it's a very similar style murder. Like when you watch it, you're like, oh, this is horrible. It's a horrific. It's probably that really may be one of the most horrific murder scenes probably I've ever seen because these guys are just begging. We talked about it on an episode, and I had to blur.

I couldn't even really put it in. Oh, yeah, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where they've already got the holes dug. Or do they dig them afterwards? I don't know. But they're in the middle of a cornerfield, and then they just beat these guys to death with baseball bats.

It's horrible. But it's a real, that's a real thing. These are real guys. And the guy that is, the character is a real person that, you also, it's great because they show what problems these guys are. You know, like these are not. you know, like businessmen that happen to be, their business happens to be, you know, crime-related. Like, these guys have mental problems.

These guys are, have anger management issues beyond belief. And they, they, yeah, it's, it's insanity. But yeah, so, yeah, there's some great mob movies out there that, you know, the, the Godfather movies. I watched the first one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, the, the more realistic ones are like the Sopranos.

Um, Goodfellas and, uh, casino. I was love, uh, in, in Goodfellas, they, they bring, they bring the guy to the Tampa Zoo. They call it the Tampa Zoo, which is, it wasn't even the Tampa Zoo there. It's called the Laurie Park Zoo. But now I think they call the Tampa Zoo. Uh, but yeah, they take them and they, they're going to throw him over into the lions. And they're like, this guy flipped out.

Like, I mean, they must really feed people to the lions down there. And they were holding them by. his legs and he's freaking out. But it's funny too because that's how they all get busted. Like he calls his sister and his sister happens to be like a secretary for the FBI and she blows

the whole thing. That's how he ends up getting arrested towards the end of the movie. Did we ever cover I know we talked about it real briefly the court reporter how like how they found out that the FBI was coming that day?

You just had mentioned it. It was a reason. We don't have too much information because we can talk about it here a little bit. So what happens is they disclose that we have a leak, right, and that they got the information from a Genevice captain named Fritzi G. Vanelli. Right. But we don't know who's providing the information to him. So we can only arrest him. Right. Where we allege that it's someone within the Southern District.

we think it's a court reporter and we think it's a female we just don't have the evidence to charge her oh and he doesn't cooperate he doesn't cooperate so he is another trial that we have and he goes to trial and we actually end up convicting him and he gets sentenced to 10 years but he does not cooperate he was a longstanding member of that family but we don't have enough information to actually charge the court reporter who we believe it is because we never had direct our witnesses never had direct interaction with that person we just had direct and our witnesses just had direct in interaction with fritzie so who who is uh you'll probably know exactly was it the guy they call him the chin he walked around in a robe for a decade so that's the same family and he was

the boss of that family so vincent the chin gigante right so one of his under bosses i think was, and I want to say his name, his last name was like limb or lamb or something. I was, he was my, he was in the cell directly across from me. Oh, really? And, you know, these guys, they come to prison and they, you know, they, it's funny. I always say that prism is the great equalizer, right?

Like, it doesn't matter if you're a billionaire or you're completely broke. You can still only spend so much every month. You still live, you're still in a cell across. across the walkway from a crackhead, you know? And he was, so he was there. And he was only there for maybe a year, year and a half. And then he was, he got released. So what had happened was he'd ended up taking a plea.

And he took a plea and he owned a ton of stocks. and the FBI made him sell everything he had for some reason he couldn't be owner, owner of a, I forget what it was, but he sold a bunch of stuff. So he sells a bunch of stuff and he said like, and he goes, thank God they had me sell it. It's like I ended up having to sell it at the high end and then the stock market had crashed practically or dropped. He said it'd save me a couple million dollars. But he ended up first, I forget what he, the first case was that he played guilty for like five

years. And just as it was wrapping up, they re-indicted him for like tax evasion. And then he got another four years or something. And he was just like, it was just killing him. But he ended up getting moved to the low. He was a cross for me for maybe a year or so. And what these guys do is they just put money on other people's books. Right. They just find somebody else who's broke in the unit and say, look, here's what I'll do. I'll put, you know, do you call your family? Do you this? They'll make a deal with guys like, hey, if you don't call, I call nobody. Okay, well, then I'll put $500 a month on your book, books. You know, you get to, you'll buy $360 worth of commissary every month and I'll pay, you get 180, I get 180 or whatever. They give 50 bucks worth themselves. Of course,

these guys are thrilled and they get money for the phone, they put money on the phone and then, but I get to use your phone because you don't call anybody anyway. And they're thrilled. And they'll do that with three different guys. Like, they'll be on the phone. all day long and you're like how is this happening? Because you can typically only you're basically you're basically you get about 300 minutes a month which means you can make about a 10 minute phone call but basically it breaks up to about 10 minutes a day. Now you could get on the phone and call all day long but you're out within two days you're out of minutes and and really you have to wait like typically an hour between calls and every institution is different. So he would do this

but he also, listen, he has somebody cleaning his room, making his bed, doing all of his laundry. I mean, he was living like as good as you could live. He lived. Much older guy, probably in his late 60s. And he was funny because he just liked me for some reason, you know. I guess he had talked to a few other people and they were like, oh, he did a real estate, this, and here's what he did. And then one day he asked me, I understand you do. And listen, what's great about these guys, too, is that, you know, you see the kind of the stereotypical Italians in the movies.

And you think, wow, they're probably not like that. They're exactly like that. They do the whole, I told fucking Vinnie, you meet me at the table at 11 o'clock. You better fuck him me. And you're like, this is a joke. You almost can't take them serious when they first start talking. You're like, come on. Seriously.

you're, this is a joke, right? And then they would all get together. So they would, sometimes there'd be like eight or nine of them, and they're all old guys. They'd get together and get my, I say old guys. They were in their 60s and 70s when I was in my 40s. And, but they would get together. And then they would be thick as thieves for two months. And then suddenly you'd notice there'd be two different groups of them. These four guys no longer talk to these five guys. Really? With some, and these are all different, they're different families, but when in prison, they're, they're all together because they're all kind of, you know, they're all mafia.

But then sometimes they'd have an issue. Some of these guys' sons wouldn't talk to each other. Like, you're in the same prison. You're in the same unit. You don't talk to your son. Fuck that fucking piece of gub. And you're like, because he's just said something. Yeah, some stupid.

And they don't talk to each other for four years. They're like, you ever talk to the guy in four years? And you're in prison. You're in prison. And he's your son. And he's in the same unit because, you know. Makes no sense. But they were, the one.

One guy was hilarious, and he had told me a story one time that – and you've heard me tell this story, right? That this is the – he's an older guy. He said one – he said, never been arrested. He said, no, he said, I've only been arrested one time. And I was like, what? He said, one time. He said, and he said, I – he was at somebody's girlfriend, somebody's house.

His wife calls because one day the state police encircled the house. and they're telling him to come outside, and his wife comes out, and he's like, he's not here. And so she calls somebody, and they call him, whatever case may be, and he's told, hey, you know, she's like, he calls,

and yeah, they're surrounded. They're outside there. He got a bullhorn. They're telling us to come outside. And so he calls his lawyer. Lawyer calls the state police, says he'll turn himself in tomorrow morning. They go in the next morning.

He gets arrested, processed, released the same day. And what it, and I said, He said, yeah, he said, but they ended up dropping the charges. And I said, what happened? He said, well, you know, he said, I own a construction company. You know, of course. And I'm like, okay, he said, and one of the supervisors at the construction company had lent money to somebody.

He has nothing to do with me. Okay. He said, well, he ends up going to that guy and he's telling the guy, like, you got to give me the money. And the guy, he's not coming up with the money. He's got to be he's got a bad, he's gambling. and whatever. Okay.

So it sounds to me like you're running, one of your guys is running a long sharking operation out of your construction company. And so he ends up saying, he tries to collect a few times. And this guy, the guy who owes the $20,000 or $50,000, I don't know how much it was,

but he owes the money, he can't come up with the money, he gets scared. And so he goes to the local police and says, look, I owe $30,000. I can't pay. These guys are going to kill me. They're going to hurt me.

They're going to break my, so they put a wire on him. And then one day this guy, and they watch him for the day and the guy shows up for the money. And he's able to give him a little bit of money or something along those lines. So he doesn't get hurt that day because they can't watch him get hurt. Right. And so, but they get the interaction. And the interaction is that if you don't come up with the money by Friday, or at least the Vig or whatever it is, you know, you're going to get hurt. You're lucky I haven't told Anthony about this yet.

If Anthony knew you'd be dead right now. Something along those lines. well, he's Anthony, whatever his name was. I forget his first name, but if something, lem or lamb or something like that, anyway, so he tells him that. He says, these motherfuckers, they go out and they get it, they get an indictment.

They get an arrest warrant. What, they come to arrest me. They think they got me. They, you know, my wife calls. I turn myself in. Then they're going to do a trial. And he's like, and so, you know, I'm going to go to trial. And he said, and then, you know, just before they end up dropping the, they drop all the charges.

and I went, really? I said, why did they drop the charges? He said, oh, the guy, the witness guy, he had like some kind of accident or something, and he couldn't testify. And I'm like, I'm like, okay. I'm like, well, what kind of accident did he have? And he goes, I don't know. He said, they, I know they found him in like a, in like one of them, you know, one of them

garbage trucks. They found his, him in the, and I go, well, was he a garbage man? No, no. he was not a garbage man. And I went, did he fall in the truck? And, you know, I've talked to him for six months. Now we've had a lot of conversations. And he likes me.

And, you know, he's always like, Cox, try this, try this. He's always making food and platters. They make things. They pass it out. And I'm like, did he fall in? He's like, no, I don't know. I'm not.

I don't know. I said, that seems like a strange accident. Like if he was a garbage man, I could see him having the accident. You know, he was a garbage man. He fell in. He got crushed. I get it. I said, that seems like a strange accident.

He goes, you know, you testify against people. He said, people tend to have accidents. They have accidents. I said, I understand. I said, same way in the banking industry. Bankers are always having accidents that are cooperating. He's like, and that was it. But it didn't.

One day he was on the packout and he left, but he was so funny because these guys would be eating. And at this point, I was reading these Stuart Woods novels. And he's got his main guy is Stone Barrington. They're horrible, but don't read them, you know. But one of the things they always talked about was a restaurant or something called like Elaine's. And it was supposedly, Elaine's is a real restaurant somewhere in New York. Oh, precise.

Okay. So, I'm in, one day I'm walking in the line and we're coming up on the Italians table. And he turns to me and he says, oh, no, no, I'm eating. and they're walking in line. A group of them are walking in line together to get, you know, pizza or whatever we were having that day. And he says, you know, or they'd have spaghetti day. And he's their walk in. And he goes, hey, Cox, Cox.

Is this any good? And I go, I go, just like back in the lanes like that. And they just roar laughing. And I have a buddy named Nico. And he goes, what the fuck are you doing? Don't fuck around. Don't joke. Don't fuck these guys.

Don't I go, I'm just joking. I said, I know him. He's like, you're going to get fucking hurt. What are you doing? Like, they're 70 years old. They're not hurting anybody either. But it was. They were just straight out of central casting.

They were exactly. They behaved. None of them behaved any differently. Oh, and one of the guys that was there, see, I wish to see, if I was Wade, Wade would know. Wade would know these names. One of the guys was there was rumored to have been one of the guys that was with John Gotti when they killed the boss. Like he's one of the guys.

Casano. Yeah. When they killed Castellano had the Russian hat on, ran up. And these guys are tiny, by the way. They're like five, five, six. They're short, little chubby guys. But he was supposedly, everybody would say, you know, when Castellano got, you know, there's like five guys that killed him, four guys.

He's like, you know, he's one of them. Is that true? I don't know. But suppose that was his kind of, you know, what he was supposedly famous for, what ultimately ended up happening. with Anthony. All right. So Anthony, as I said, he testified for me seven times. And then after that year of trials, we rewarded him by trying to give him bail. So he got bail December of 2003, I believe. So he was locked up this whole time? Oh, yeah. Yeah. He did four years in jail. And then he finally

got bail. And he went into the witness security program. As I said, that's called phase two of the program. Phase one, he was in jail. And everyone thinks that, okay, the witness security program, you go into a new life? No, there are certain jails within the states. There are seven facilities within the states. And he was in one of those facilities. I can't say where those facilities are. But that's phase one.

So that's the first part of the witness security program. Then phase two, you have an option. You can either go into the witness security program where you get your new identification, or you can, if you have a common name like John Smith, you just go into phase two of not going into getting new ID, you just go out, you go off on your own. So he decided to go into phase two of getting new ID, and that's what he did. He went into that, they already stayed there for many years. He became a car salesman. I used to say that he could sell steam shit to a blind man, because he had the gift of gab. Right. So he did that. And he always said to me that he wanted

to be a success story for me. And I always just say to him, don't be a success story for me, be a success story for yourself. He went into the witness security program by himself, though. His family did not join him. So as I said, him and his wife were now divorced and his kid stayed with the wife. And he did that for many years. And as I said, you know, a good way to try to get time serve is to stay on bail for many years before you're sentenced. And if I remember correctly, he was going to be sentenced in 2012. And unfortunately, right before he was going to be sentenced, he actually passed away. Oh, okay. Yeah. So he was, he was waked in Staten Island. They brought him back here and I just thought it was the right thing to do.

The marshals had called me and told me when someone is in the witness security program and they called, there's a certain row of numbers that show up that I know someone from the program is calling me. And they called and they told me that he passed away. And then I actually spoke to his mom and I said, would it be all right if I came to the wake? I just thought it was the right thing to do because, you know, we had developed a bond over those years. and I went to the way to pay my respects. I just thought it was the right thing to do. So I met his wife who I didn't see in years

and his mom and his sister and the brother and paid my respects. So I did the right thing. And then like people asked me why did I write the book? And like one of the reasons that I had mentioned there before was like we had a very historic squad, this C-10, where, you know, for probably six or seven years, we were almost in the paper every day.

And the press really never put it together that it was the same squad, you know, where we basically dismantled two families at the same time. And I was approached. I've been very blessed to have a great career. Again, it's never just me. I'm a big proponent of teamwork, great partners, supervisors, mentors. And when I was approached and they heard my story, they basically said this should be two books. This book was supposed to be just a couple of chapters. But when they heard the whole thing, they said it should be two books. This is just the first part. So we'll see if there's a second. part. But more importantly, is I'm not too sure the relationship that Anthony had with his kids,

but hopefully by writing this book that his children actually see that he did do a lot of good. Yes, he did do heinous crimes, and I never condone those crimes whatsoever. The victims, I really do feel bad for them. But hopefully his family and his children actually do see that he did do a lot of good when he did help the government, because he did help dismantle the family. Hey, you guys, I appreciate you watching. Do it be a favor, hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you get notified of videos just like this. Also, if you want to buy Seamus's book, it's called Flipping Capo, and we're going to leave the link, the Amazon link, in the description box. So you can click on the link.

It'll shoot you right there. You can order the book. Soon to be option for a major motion picture. Listen, once again, I really do appreciate you guys watching. If you want to be a guest on the show, go to our link. It will also be in the description box. You can click on it, go there, fill out an application, and we will get back with you as soon as possible. Thank you very much.

See you. Do you love dogs? Of course you do. So join me, Rich Napolitano, and listen to the Doggone History Podcast. When you talk to someone about their dog, you have probably seen the sparkle in their eye, heard the joy in their voice, and felt the love in their heart. People, including me, talk about their dogs like their children, because that is how we see them. They are members of our families, our households, and they give us joy that enriches our lives. We have come to know and love chihuahuas, beagles, and German shepherds, and all the dogs that have been at our side as our best friends.

But they weren't always as we know them today. Dog breeds have evolved over time and taken on a vast diversity of characteristics. Listen to Doggone History, a lighthearted history of dogs, one breed at a time. Available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. and say hi to your dog for me, won't you?