The Joe Rogan Experience - #2343 - Joe Pistone

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

Joseph D. Pistone is a retired FBI agent who, under the cover identity Donnie Brasco, infiltrated the Bonanno and Colombo crime families, leading to the conviction of over 100 mafia members. Today, he is a law enforcement consultant specializing in organized crime. Go to https://ExpressVPN.com/ROGAN to get 4 months free! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nice to meet you. My pleasure. You always wear sunglasses. Is that to hide your identity still? Yeah. Actually, it's, it's, I have to see, number one, but where I where I reside now My neighbors have no idea that they're living next to Donnie, Nebraska. So well, you have a very distinct voice. Yeah, I know I Don't ask where you live, but you know What a wild life you've had sir. Well pretty much. Yeah. Yeah never expected to go like that, but it took off. So when you first started working, it was with the FBI, correct? Well, I was with Naval Intelligence for three years, and then I always wanted to be in law enforcement.

And I was working in Philadelphia actually, and you do a lot of work with the FBI because on the government installations, government bases. So I became friendly with some FBI agents. I figured when I finish this tour with NIS, I'm gonna go into law enforcement so I might as well try for the best and the best, you know, the FBI. And so how does that lead to you infiltrating the mob? Well, you know, I didn't infiltrate the mob right from the get-go, you know.

Look, I grew up in Paterson, New Jersey. I grew up in an all-Italian neighborhood. Knew wise guys. Went to high school with sons of wise guys. And when you're in a neighborhood, you know who the wise guys are. You hang out at the... They let you hang out at the social clubs And when you're in a neighborhood, you know who the wise guys are. They let you hang out at the social clubs because you're a neighborhood kid, they know it. So I knew the streets. So when I went into the FBI,

I was street smart, basically, Joe. That's what it comes down to. basically Joe that's what it comes down to you know and my first assignments were bank robberies fugitives gambling cases and I started doing some little undercover work on gambling cases because back then the FBI was big into in the gambling interstate gambling cases. So what was your first undercover work? First was infiltrating a gambling house in Jacksonville, Florida, actually.

That's where I was my first office. What kind of gambling were they doing? Craps. I had a regular casino going. And I felt comfortable around that stuff because I grew up regular casino going. And, you know, I felt comfortable around that stuff because I grew up with that stuff. You know, I grew up, like I say, in the neighborhood, crap games, card games.

It wasn't anything new to me. And being around gangsters was not, like, intimidating because I wasn't around gangsters growing up. So I didn't have any problem, you know, getting into these games and identifying the major players and who was running them and that's basically what it was. So when you do this did you have to testify in court with these guys? Yeah, later on after the case goes down. But most of these guys plead guilty so you never go to trial because you know it

wasn't where they were facing you know 15-20 years you know. They might get a year or two years and then you know get some time knocked off their sentences. So most of it they plead and so you never have to appear in a court. So, but was there an issue with you being discovered and then getting found out and worrying about your safety afterwards? Well, not too much with these cases. No, not too much with those cases. And then I worked a lot of stolen art, buying, you know, buying stolen art, buying stocks and bonds, swag, stuff like that.

So how many years did you do stuff like that before you started being undercover in the mob? Let's see, probably four or five years yeah, yeah So you slowly sort of got acclimated with being undercover you do a bunch of cases and then how do they approach you? well what happened was is that I'm working out in New York the New York office of the FBI and there's a There's a big case case in Tampa, Florida. They have a case going on guys that were stealing automobiles, high-priced automobiles.

In other words, you go to them and you say, hey, I want a Cadillac. Okay, what color you want, all right? What model you want. And then they'd go out and hook it. So they had, they grabbed one of the guys and they flipped him. And they grabbed his son and they said,

hey look, you know, you help us and we'll cut your son a break. He said, okay. So he said, look, we want to put an undercover agent in with this crew. They operated all up and down the East Coast, from Baltimore all the way down to Florida. And the guy that was running it was what we call a half-assed wise guy out of Baltimore. So he says, all right, so he introduced me to this guy as a car thief. But before he introduced me, I said,

look, I gotta know how to steal cars. He introduced me. I said, look, I got to know how to steal cars. So he gave me about a week's lesson on how to steal cars, how to hook cars. They're hot wire. This is like what year was this? This was in 19, let's see, 1970, maybe 73, 74. So you essentially just pop in the ignition. Pop in the ignition. Crossing wires. Crossing wires.

And some cars had alarm systems, told me how to get under the car, disarm the alarm system, how to use a slim jim to get in the door, and then how to pop the ignition. And once I learned, you know, I figured I could do that, then he introduced me and I got in with this crew. There was a crew about, he was running like five or six guys. And I did that for a year and a half. Stole cars, stole the tractor trailers. I knew how to drive tractor trailers

because I did that in college. During the summertime, I drove a tractor trailer during the summer. So you take the cars, load them on a tractor trailer? No, we just stole the cars and I bring them to you. But I mean, we stole rigs too. Oh,, I see because we were dealing with companies too. Got it You know these guys that own some some trucking companies they So you have to trust this guy though to get you inside

Right, you have to trust this guy to not fuck this up and say hey, this is a car thief Exactly. Messi, Holland, Kane and more are all taking part. And you can catch every moment live on Dazon from the opening match in Miami's Hard Rock Stadium on June 14th to the finale at MetLife Stadium in New York City on July 13th. And good news for any Canadian listeners out there, it's on Canadian time zones. Don't miss out. Sign up for free at dazone.com slash FIFA. That's d-a-z-n dot com slash FIFA.

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be hair-raising. Well it is because you know the guy's an informant and he's already in trouble. He's in trouble but he was in his basic reason for getting me in was he wanted to get his son out of trouble. So, you know, we had him by the short hairs there that, hey, you know, if this goes good, your son is free. We're gonna cut your son free. So that's what happened. So I did that for a year and a half.

And I get back to New York. They make the arrest. I went to trial in that case, but that case was in Florida. And a funny story on that case is, if you want to hear it. We had hooked one, hooked a Mercedes and delivered to this guy and go to his house and he wasn't home but his wife was there. So I said, hey, you know, I'm delivering this car for your husband and she says, oh, okay. Give her the keys and because he had already paid and So me and the other guy we leave fast forward now to court

I'm going I'm sitting in the Outside the court getting ready to testify and there's this lady She looked familiar it was two ladies and So she walks up to me she says Aren't you Donnie I said yeah She said You delivered a car to my house, right? I said yeah Said we know my husband's on trial now. I said, yeah, I know.

I'm going in to testify. She says, after he goes to jail, you wanna go to dinner? Dirty lady. I said, no thanks. She might poison you. Yeah. So I get back to New York and I had a real great supervisor up there. She hot I Can't remember Joe so long ago. I would have remembered that part if she was I would have remembered

So I get back to New York and I had a real good supervisor named Guy Berada It was an Italian guy from the Bronx, good street agent, and he was a supervisor to the truck hijacking squad. And back in the day, they were hijacking, and all these hijackings were orchestrated by the mob, the mafia, and they were probably doing, you know, eight to ten hijackings a day, which was big-time money because they were pharmaceuticals, high-value food items like lobsters, coffee, you know, you're talking about the 40-some foot trailer, so you're talking a lot of money. But they were all run by the mob so

he I get back to New York I get to New York and he says hey I'm thinking about doing this undercover operation see if you know we can get something going with these is a these truck hijackers so the idea was, you know, nobody had ever infiltrated the mob before. You know, actually the mafia, mafia. Had some informants in with them, but nobody had actually gotten in. So the idea was, let's try to hit the fences. Fences are the guys that sell the swag and sell the goods. So you need to have a profession.

I mean, nobody's going to do anything with you without a profession, and it has to be one that's attractive to them. And plus in the government, if you're going to go undercover, your profession can't be one of violence. So who's not violent? Jewel thief. So I figure, okay, I'll go in as a jewel thief. Well, if you're gonna go in as a jewel thief, what do you have to know?

You gotta know diamonds and precious gems, right? All right, so I went to school. I went to diamond school, diamond and precious gem school. Oh, so you have to be able to identify, you have to use a lens. Well, that's how you're gonna get caught, right? Right, right, right. Is if you get into a conversation,

you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Right, right. How long is the school for? I went, I think, for for a couple months until I got, you know, where I was comfortable. Now, taking another step further, if you're a jewel thief, what else do you have to know? You got to know how to get in places. Right. So pick locks. I had to learn how to pick locks. Right. What else you got to know? Crack safes? You gotta know about safes. You gotta know about alarm systems.

So I had my guys, when I say my guys, our guys, our tech guys, school me on lockpicking, different types of safes and alarm systems. So all that took a few months before I felt comfortable, you know. And then I went out and on this operation we didn't do anything with contacts. In other words, everything I did, I did under Donnie Brasco. I rented an apartment I Bought a car Utilities, you know phones everything everything as a as a citizen in Quotes Donnie Brasco, they get you a social security number and the whole deal social security everything but You know, I don't want to get into how they do that. But you know, I don't want to get into

how they do that, but you know, nothing could be, at that time, they couldn't they couldn't uncover anything. So once I got my apartment, I bought a car, had all that set up, and again, you have to know the mafia. You have to know New York City. You don't just walk into a place and say, hey, I'm a jewel thief. Doesn't work that way. You gotta get seen.

You gotta be around. So I moved out of my residence. Of course, my family wasn't in New York anyway, but I had to move into my apartment. And we had certain bars and restaurants that we knew these fences and wise guys hung out in. And the idea was just go in, get my face seen, that we knew these fences and wise guys hung out in. And the idea was just go in, get my face seen, and hopefully get into conversation with somebody.

How do you go and get your face seen? You just show up by yourself? Just show up. Is that suspicious though, a guy shows up by himself, not from the neighborhood? No, well that's the thing, because I couldn't say, hey, I'm from Brooklyn, I'm from Manhattan, I'm from the Bronx,

because these guys have the contacts everywhere. So it was up to me, if I got into conversation with anybody, my story was, and then again, you have to know your enemy, okay? And the enemy was the mafia. So you have to know about the mafia. You have to know if you do get into conversation with these guys and they're trying to check you out, what's your backstory, where you're from.

My background was I was an orphan. Okay? And I moved between Florida and California. Why an orphan? Because then I wouldn't have to produce a mother and a father. Because again, if I was lucky enough to get in, they'd say, well, where are your parents at? I couldn't have any siblings that I knew of. Right. I couldn't have been married, so I couldn't have an ex-wife or anything, because I would have had to produce somebody.

Right. So, my backstory was I was an orphan. To back it up, we found an orphanage that had burnt down and all the records were destroyed so they couldn't they couldn't check that. I mean these are all things that that if you're going to send somebody into an undercover operation that is deep cover and remember I had no informant bringing me in. This had to be a cold entree. So I hung around maybe five, six months. That's all I did. And that's another thing too.

It's a seven day a week job. Because if they see you Monday to Friday, and then they don't see you Saturday and Sunday, where the hell are you Saturday and Sunday? Right. So it's seven days a week. It was seven days a week. Did you have a family at the time?

I did, yeah. Wow. But they lived, they lived across country at the time. That would be crazy difficult for them. Very difficult. It was, it was, yeah. So. So you just kinda just hang around restaurants, bars?

Yeah, and my only conversation with anybody was is what I'll have to drink and what I'll have to eat. And I'm not a drinker, I never was a drinker. So, and you know, for young undercovers, you don't have to be a drinker and you don't have to do shit that you know, that you think gangsters do. My extent of drinking, and it still is, is a half a bottle of beer and maybe a glass of red wine.

That's it. And I never went outside those boundaries because that's me. I didn't do it. So I used to go to this one place and actually this place wasn't too far from my apartment up in Yorkville. And wise guys would come in there, I don't remember if it was Wednesdays or Thursdays. I don't remember with their girlfriends for dinner and I Always would sit at the bar, you know Never talked to the bartender other than What do you want? What do you want to eat? What do you want to drink? So one night I go in there there and the wise guys are there, one of the girlfriends, but there's one guy missing.

But the girl that he was always with was there. So, I'm at the bar and I guess she gets up, she goes to the ladies' room, she comes by and she says hello. And I just she gets up, she goes to the ladies room, she comes by and she says hello. And I just said hello. Now again, knowing your enemy, know how they operate. So the first thing I do is I call a bartender over, right? Now I know his name, but I don't call him by his name because I was never introduced to him.

So I just said, sir, would you, you know, I said, I wanna go on record. That's a mob term. I wanna go on record. I didn't ask that young lady to stop and say hello. And he just nods and that's it. Well, fast forward, this happens like three or four different times.

And they're in there, she's in there, he's not there. About the fourth time, the same thing, she would come over and I would call him over. So finally he says, hey, he said, if you want to talk to her, go ahead. Her boyfriend went bye bye. He didn't go to Disneyland, Joe. Right, he got whacked.

They whacked him. So I said, no, I don't have any interest. So now what does this guy know? He knows that I'm a street guy, right? So now he comes over to me and now we start talking. Talking about baseball, talking about how screwed up New York City is at the time. And finally he says, hey, my name is Charlie. I said, my name is Donnie.

Now that's another thing. These guys don't introduce themselves like normal people. Like, hey, my name is Joe Rogan. or hey, my name is Donnie Brasco. It's nickname or first name. So that's another notch with him that this kid knows something. So a couple of weeks maybe go by, and then one night he says, hey, you like to gamble. I said, sure, why not? He said, when I bang up here,

I'm gonna go to an all night game. He said, you wanna come? I said, yeah. So we close up the joint with him and takes me to a game. And obviously it's run by the wise guys. You know, they got a whole casino set up. And doesn't introduce me to anybody, but I'm okay because I'm with him. All right. So now this is a couple more weeks maybe.

So now I figured, and he don't ask me what I do, and I don't say anything about jewelry. But now I figured now I gotta try to set the hook. So I come in one night and I got a pack of the diamonds. So I put them on a bar and I said, hey Charlie, I need X amount of money for this envelope. I don't tell him what's in it. I just said I need X amount of money.

But I give him a street price where he can make, you know, make money himself. So he takes it, says okay, puts it under the bar. A couple weeks go by, I don't ask him about it, he don't ask me, but you know, I'm still hanging around with him. He comes in one night, puts an envelope on the bar, and he said, Donnie, somebody left this for you. I said, okay. I put it in my sport coat pocket. Get back to my apartment and there's the money in it. So now what does he know?

He knows I'm a thief, because I'm giving him diamonds. I'm not asking him at Tiffany prices. Now we get to the game, and he introduces me as Don the jeweler. So he introduces me to this Colombo guy. The guy's name was Jilly. So Jilly said, hey, you know, Don, where you from? I said, well, you know, I hung around in, hung around Summit, Florida,

hung around, you know, California. I said, you know, I just move around a lot. He said, well, why don't you come out to my place on Mount Brooklyn? And I said, yeah, okay. So I come out to my place? I'm out in Brooklyn. And I said, yeah, okay. So I go out there and I go out to his club and he has a store, you know, all swag. And so he was at the Clumbos.

So I start hanging out there with the Clumbos and I got in with him, I got in with his crew, did some stuff with them you know because you got to do something otherwise right if you ain't producing if you ain't producing you ain't worth it you know like what kind of what's the first thing you have to do with them well they had they did they did some hijacking and, you know, unloaded some trucks for him and different things. So that went on with the Columbus

and I was getting good information with these guys. That went on for a couple months. Finally I get to the club one day and there's two guys there that I didn't know so he introduces them to me as Frankie and Patsy. He said Donnie you know Frankie Patsy? Okay. As it turns out they just got out of the can they were part of Julie's crew One of the guys was a made guy made guys the guy that's been officially inducted in into a particular mafia family and These guys were with the Columbus one

I think Patsy was a made guy and Frankie Frankie was an associate All right, but they just gone out of the can. So they're looking to set up scores because, you know, they've been away for a few years. So, Julie tells him, you know, hey, Donnie's, you know, Donnie's a good thief and he knows, he knows, he knows alarms, he knows locks, he knows safes. So they had a couple scores lined up. So we go out, I case this place, and I tell him, hey, I can't bypass that alarm. Because if you say you can do everything, nobody can do everything, no matter how good you are.

So I said, nah, I can't defeat that alarm. Okay. A few days later, they got another one set up, and it's a safe. We go in, I said, you gotta blow this safe. You'll wake up the whole neighborhood. Okay, so now this pisses them off. So, a couple days later I get to the club

and Julie, she says, Donnie, let's take a walk and talk. I said, okay. So we walk and we're talking. That's what a walk and talk is. You're walking on the street and you're talking because they don't think the FBI or anybody can hear you. I said, what's the matter, Julie? He said, well, he said, you know,

I told Frankie and Fancy what a great thief you are and they're pissed off because, you know, Patsy's pissed off because you turned down, you turned down the two scores. I said, well, what do you want me to tell you, Jillian? I couldn't bypass the alarm, honestly, I don't want to blow a safe that, you know, you gotta blow, blow, blow. So, he said, well, they want to have a sit down.

I said, okay, so, we go back in the club and then they have a back room. So we're going to back room sit down they lock the door and Patsy pulls out a 38, lays it on the table, and said, Donnie, if you don't convince me that you're as good a thief as Julie says you are, the only way you're going out of this room is rolled up in that rug. Oh boy. Oh boy, so it's crazy what goes through your head.

So I look at the rug, I said to myself, I hope it's fucking Persian. If I'm gonna go out of here, I might as well go out in the $50,000 rug. So we're in there and where you from Donnie? Now you know in these situations you want to be on the offense. You don't want to be on a defense. But I can't really disrespect him because he's a made guy and you know if you know anything about the mob you can't disrespect the made guy in front of other people. So I said hey look you know I'm an orphan, I'm not from here, I travel the country, you know.

Well, tell us some people that you stole with. I said, no disrespect, but I'm not giving you any names of people that I stole with. I said, why would I do that? Why would I give up anybody that I did scores with, right? So this goes on and on and on. So this goes on and on and on. After about four hours finally Julie says, hey, Donnie's been with us for months now

we know what he can do. It's over. It's over. I said okay. Now I got a problem. The problem is they just called me out so in their world I can't go shake their hand because it's wise and Donnie pissed off all right my only recourse here is some kind of physical recourse. But I can't do I can't do anything to Patsy because he's the made guy. I can't touch him. And that's that's one of the rules of the mafia.

You don't lay your hands on the made guy. It'll get you killed. It'll get you killed. So. The only guy can hit is Frankie. He's not a big guy. So we get up, start to walk out, and I call cock Frankie. Oh Jesus. But that's the only thing that's going to save me because otherwise it's why isn't Donnie pissed off, right? So now I'm in a Frankie questioning you too. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but he's not a made guy, right?

So he's fair game boy. So I hit him he goes down Now Patsy jumping. I mean he's he's punching a hell out but I can't Can't hit him back. I can't hit him back. I can just protect myself. But I figured, well, you hit me once, I hit Frankie twice. So it went on. So then finally they broke it up. But now I know I can't stay around here.

I can't stay with these guys because, you know, you can't get into an altercation with me guys and have it come out. So after we're, everything's settled down, I'd say to Jilly, Jilly, let's take a walk and talk. So we do. And we get outside, I said, Jilly, look, no disrespect to you.

I said, but I can't come around here anymore. I said, because you know how it's gonna end. He said, yeah, Donnie, I realize that. He said, but no real feelings between you and me. I said, okay. So at the card game, I was introduced to a Bonanno guy by the name of Tony Mirror. I had never done anything with him,

but I was introduced to him. So I go back with Charlie to the card games, and I start siding up to this Mirror, to the card games and I start signing up to this mirror who was a complete psycho case, a complete fucking psycho case, which I find out later on. He's a big broly guy and he says, you know, why don't you come downtown? I said, yeah, okay. So he was from Little Italy, and that's where he hung out. He had a bus stop luncheonette down in Little Italy, but he was psycho. So I started hanging out with him at my first Bonanno guide

that brings me around. So we're out one night and he was shaking down nightclubs and I was helping him when I say helping I was with them, you know shake down owners and at nightclubs and stuff so It's about three or four in the morning one morning and we go to a diner for breakfast and The eggs come out cold So he starts berating the waitress. And there's a, you know, we were with other wise guys and stuff. So I said, Tony, I said, you know, I said, she's only doing her job. I said, why are you taking it out on her? You

know, she's here four o'clock in the morning waitressing so he tore the shit out of me he tore into me in front of everybody but I really can't go back at him but I have to let him know that you know I'm not I'm not a pushover and you know so the next day now this guy as I as I had gotten to know him I had seen him in action and so the next day I thought I said Tony and nobody else is around so it's it's my word on his I said don't ever talk to me like that again in front of people I said because I'll fucking stab you I said you won't even know what's coming. I said, don't ever embarrass me like that.

And call me those names in front of other people. And he was like, so, but he introduced me to, kept introducing me to other Bonanos. And then he introduced me. So even after that? Yeah, after that. So after that, did you get his respect by saying you needed to have him? I don't think people realize how disgusting the data collection industry really is. Experts say that data brokers already have an estimated 1,000 data points on every person

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four free months by scanning the QR code on screen or by clicking the link in the description. Yeah oh yeah yeah yeah because he knew that you know he knew that I was in Bush in them I mean mean, he just beat me down in front of other people. I mean, not physically, but just calling me. And because I was standing up for this waitress, but that was him. So he introduces me to a guy by the name of Lefty Rogerio, another made guy in the Bonannos from downtown,

Knickerbocker Village. They all lived in Knickerbocker Village. And he introduces me to Lefty. So now, Mirrorhead had just gotten out of the can. Now they send him back. So he goes back to the can. He was a big money maker for the Bonanos in DOPE. He was a big narcotics guy for the Bon of Mike Sibela. And once I got, once Ruggerio got to know me a little better, he brings brings me to Mike Sabella, who's the captain of the crew. And he said to Mike, I'm going on record that Donnie's with me, and that's what you do. When you're a made guy, you have an associate, you go to your captain, and you go on the record. So now nobody else can fuck with you. Nobody else could take you.

Mirror never did that, even though I spent a lot of time with Mirror. He never went to his captain and said, I'm going on record that Donnie's with me. So I get to know, I get to know Rogerio pretty good, start doing stuff with... So all told, how much time are you undercover now now this is probably going over a year yeah over a year now yeah yeah no you were reporting to anybody during this time do you have to go back to the FBI? Once I stepped out of the office, I never went back to the office. I had, what you have is a contact agent, Joe,

and that's somebody that you, if you have a problem, you call them, and he helps you solve it. So you're totally on your own. You're on your own. Wow. I had no surveillance because, you know, you're in New York City. Right. You're working seven days a week. had no surveillance because you're in New York City. You're working seven days a week.

My day would go from maybe 11 o'clock in the morning to maybe three, four o'clock the next morning. Seven days a week. So your only lifeline is the phone to your contact agent. Yeah. Wow. And so I'm doing a lot of stuff like that. I'm gaining all kinds of intelligence though.

Identifying made guys, identifying guys in other families that are made. Are you writing this stuff down or do you just keep it all in your head? No in your head and what I do is that I would regurgitate it Over the telephone to my contact guy and he would reduce it to paper yeah, because like You know these guys would come to my apartment I couldn't take the shot of, you know, and I didn't wear a wire with these guys. You know, very seldom did I have a wire on.

Most of my recordings are on the telephone. I wore a wire a couple times when I knew I was gonna get a contract to kill people. And when I knew I was gonna get a contract to kill people. And when I had the feeling that I was gonna be told about hits, and what I did was I had a mini cassette recorder that I bought at, what's that, Radio Shack. Radio Shack.

Oh wow. You know, and I just put it in my, I just put it in my I just put it in my Sport compadre, you gotta be really worried about getting caught with that. Yeah, but at least you know Nobody's tapping you know because what if Once you get in with these guys When you meet him for the day they all hug each other and they kiss each other on both cheeks You know if they kiss you on the lips, then you're done. You know that that's the last fucking day you're gonna be there

So yeah, so I didn't make I didn't make many body recordings because you're always and They're very touchy feely guys, you know,? I mean, I was with Mirror one time, and he said, hey, pull over, Donnie, I pull over. He tears my car, the dashboard, apart. Now, if you saw the movie, they had Lefty do that, but in real life that was Tony Mirror. I mean, so I couldn't have my car wires. Right.

Does he suspect in you or suspect in somebody else when he's tearing your dash apart? Well, I'm new. Well, right. Nobody could go to anybody and say that they knew Donnie. Well, I'm new, you know. Nobody could go to anybody and say that they knew Donnie. So that's how they check you out, you know, because they had no other way of checking me out, really.

So I'm hanging with Rogerio, doing stuff with him. And now we come to a point where I'm really in with the Bonanos. I mean, they're starting to talk, they would talk business with me there, you know. And they felt comfortable with me because, again, reverting back to my early years growing up, you know, hanging out at the social clubs in the neighborhood, you know, I knew that if you don't have any interest in in the conversation walk away from it and That's what I did with these guys is

If they started to talk about something I would get up and walk away Because it puts in their mind You know Down he's not really interested in you know what I'm saying It's not, he doesn't want to get into our real business. So that made them trust me more. That made them trust me. You knew the protocol. Yeah, I knew, you're right, I knew the protocol, exactly.

So now what happens is that the FBI had an operation Now what happens is that the FBI had an operation going in Milwaukee, undercover operation, against the Milwaukee family, right? It's a balustrary family who's connected to Chicago. Now this will give you a little hint how the mob works. So they're not really going anywhere. They had a vending machine company set up. And the undercover was an undercover, actually, that I knew, which is because I had a rule. If I didn't know you, I don't care if you're an FBI agent or not,

I'm not introducing you. I'm not vouching for you. Because I don't know if you're any fucking good or not. You know? So they reach out to me and they say, hey, we got an operation going in Milwaukee. Yeah? And this is what it is we got a

vendor machine company we got we got trucks we got we got a warehouse we got machines but we're not getting anywhere you know the undercover who's the undercover? Ty Cobb. That was his, yeah, that was the agent's real name. I said, Ty's the undercover. They said, yeah. I said, okay, now you can, now I'll listen to you. Because I know Ty and I had done undercover work in Chicago together. I said, okay.

So, I'm talking, you know, I said, well, tell Ty to call me, I wanna talk to Ty. So he tells me what's going on. He said, you know, I'm going to all these bars and restaurants and they won't take my machines because the mob, it's all the mob's machines. I said, all right. So I said, well, what's the plan?

Well, maybe you can bring the Bonanos out here and we can get a sit down with the balustraries. I said, well, let me see. balustraries. I said, well, let me see. So we were in Jerrio one day and I just I dropped a, hey, left, you know, I got a call the other day from a guy that I that I used to steal artwork with down in Baltimore and he's out in Milwaukee. He said, what the fuck's he doing in Milwaukee? I says, he's got a vending machine company and he wants me to come out and help him.

He says, is he crazy? He said, they'll blow him up out there. He says, he can't do a vending machine business out there. That's the mob. I said, well, he doesn't know anything about the mob. And we drop it. A couple days later, I says, they left this guy, call me again, he needs help.

He said, Donnie, what do you think? He said, you can't just go out there. And then he looks at me, he says, this guy got any money? I said, I don't know, let me ask him. I said, I'll call him tonight and find out if he's got any money. So, I called Ty, he was going by the name of Tony. And I said, hey Tony.

He said, I said, Lefty wants to know if you got any money. He said, all right, tell him I got 200,000 in the bank. And you know, I got a warehouse full of machines, I got everything set up. That's okay. So I go back to Lefty, I said, Lefty, he's got, he told me he's got 200,000 in the bank and he's got this big warehouse set up.

He says, all right. He said, let me talk to Mike. Now Mike Sabella's the captain, right? So Mike said, all right. He said, you and Lefty go out there, just sit down with him and make sure that he has what he says he has. Don't tell anybody you're going.

I said, okay. So, the first thing is call Tony and tell him to send us airplane tickets. Because you know, wise guys, they're not spending their own money. So the bureau, you know, Tony gets his two plane tickets, me and Lefty fly out there. And he takes us to the warehouse and he's, you know,

they got the whole operation going on. And Lefty said, okay, so we go back, report back to Mike. And he said, okay, he says, now here's the story. Tony's been with the Bonanos for 10 years. He's been one, he's been an associate of ours for 10 years. Because that's what he has to tell Chicago and Milwaukee because if they just say Donnie just met this guy they're gonna say well he's not

with you you didn't claim him so we'll take the whole business right so here's the way it works now we go to our consigliere, the consigliere to Bonanno's. Right? Got my name of Bobby Badhart. You know why they call them Bobby Badhart? Because he had a bad heart. Bad heart? Easy, right? So he goes and Bobby Badhart now has of course Chicago, right? And tells Chicago that hey, we got a guy that's been with us for 10 years. He settled now in Milwaukee. He's been in Milwaukee for a couple years, and he wants to go into the business, and he has machines and everything,

and we'd like to have a sit down with Ballastrary, the boss of Milwaukee. Okay. Chicago now calls Ballastrary's consigliere, and relates the whole story to him. So now we've got to wait and see if he wants to have the sit down. A week or so goes by, Chicago calls back and says, okay, he'll have a meet with you guys. Who's coming out? Well, it'll be Lefty Ruggerio and Donnie Brasco.

Now Lefty's a made guy, so you know. So they say, okay, come on out, check into this hotel and wait for a phone call. All right, so me Mia left to fly out. Check into this hotel and we waited about three or four days. Just hanging around the hotel. We can't go anywhere because we can't miss the phone call. So we get the phone call. We said, okay, come to Snuggs restaurant. Such and such a day, such and such a time.

It's Ballesteri's restaurant, he owns a hotel. And it's a restaurant in his hotel. So me, Lefty, and Tony, the other undercover, we go there. And now if you know the mob, Joe, you don't get to sit down with a boss. Unless you're another boss. You know what I mean? Guys, made guys that are just made guys in other families

don't get to sit down with a boss. These made guys that are just made guys in other families don't get to sit down with a boss. So now who's there is Balestriori the boss, his under boss, his consigliere and his two sons who are both lawyers. So we have a big spread. Why do you want to be here? Well, you know, Tony's been with us. Now, Lefty's doing all the talking because he's the main guy.

Tony's been with us for ten years. You know, him and Donnie, they did a lot of art theft together and stuff. They've both been with us. And Tony thought he could get the business going with the machines and stuff. with the machines and stuff. So after this whole dinner, probably about five or six hours, I said, okay, we'll get back to you.

All right. So a couple days later, they called, why don't you have dinner at my house? I thought the boss is inviting us to dinner at his house, it doesn't happen. If you know the world of the mafia. Gives us the address, me, Lefty and Tony. And Lefty's like, you gotta know wise guys, right?

Lefty's like, we're going to the dinner at a mob boss's house, at his house. He's like, you know, I mean, we know it's a big deal, but to a wise guy, it's a big fucking deal too. So we go to his house, and he's right on the lake. He has a big table, you know, like you see in the movies. And got the maids serving us and he's okay. He said, we'll go in partners, we'll be 50-50 partners.

Tony does all the work, you know, we'll tell you where to go to put your machines in, they'll take your machines. So now, what do we just do? We just married two mafia families together, Bonanos and the Balustrraris through Chicago. First, marrying two mafia families to do business together, right? Being left to go back to New York, everything's going good. Tony's meeting with the sons, because that's who, he said, you meet me with my sons, all right? After a few months, nothing. They stopped meeting with him.

Don't know why. They won't take his calls, nothing. So, I tell, I said, Lefty, they don't, they're not responding. What do you mean they're not responding? I said, they're not taking these calls anymore. He said, well, what do you do? Try to, you know, I said, don't, I said, Lefty, this guy's not like that. Make a long story short, Tony had been a cop in the city outside of Milwaukee after he got out of the

Marine Corps before he went into the Bureau, and somehow they found out there was a leak somewhere but they don't they don't tell we find this out later that this is how they they don't tell this to lefty which saved my ass because I I vouch for Tony. Right. Right. So we're trying to get in touch with Chicago. Chicago's not, you know, Chicago say, we don't know why they stopped. You know, we don't have any idea. So that goes out now. I got that hanging on me. Right?

Yeah. So Lefty sends me to Milwaukee, go find out, go search for this guy and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I come up with a story. Left. I found this car. It's in the parking lot. I mean, it's in the parking lot of the airport. Then when I went back, it was gone.

So I go, and they said, though, the cops towed it, you know, and it's all bullshit of course, but I gotta cover, you know, what happened to this guy. So now we gotta go tell Mike Sebel, our captain, because you know, our money source dried up. So we go sit down with Mike, this is hard to believe, but, and he's ripping, right? You know, my punishment was? What?

I couldn't go to the Christmas party. That's it? That's it. I mean, he was ripped, but he banned me from the Christmas party because you introduced him to the cop well, he didn't know he was a cop because Right because you know the operation just shut down and sort of the money stopped wasn't coming in anymore Right and they don't tell you why no So I said well, that's the best that could happen, I don't go to the Christmas party.

You know, because each crew has, you know, they have their own party and shit. I'm saying to myself, my God, this is what I'm doing. So they don't suspect you at all? No. How do they not suspect you? How do they not question you? Well, I had been with them so many, I had been with them now, you know, Joe, over two years now.

Right. And, you know, so, but I'm always on edge because I don't know, why aren't the balustraries telling Rogerio, unless they were too embarrassed. You know what I mean? I don't know. To this day. After we found out, yeah, to this day, I have no idea why they didn't tell him. And what ever happened to Tony?

Oh, we just shut the operation down. They just shut it down. So, I'm going on again. We're going on. Nice cup. Want it? You can have it. No, thank you.

I got some swag coming for you. All right. Yeah, yeah. Well, I got swag too. You can have one of them JRE cups. But I mean, I got a lot of Donnie Brasco swag that I'm going to mail to you. All right, cool. It was supposed to be at the hotel It never made it so but this has to be hair-raising

It is because now I'm like and and left he said, you know now he's He's grilling me again about my relationship with with Tony, right? Yeah, but I got to stick to the story, you know so with Tony, but I gotta stick to the story. So I kinda squared things around with him because I, you know, and Mike. So now what happens is that at the time, and Mike. So now what happens is that at the time, Carmen Galenti was the boss of the Bonanos, all right? And they killed Galenti. They whack him, all right? Because there's kind of a beef within the family and one side didn't like Galenthe, so they whack him.

Mike Sibelov now was associated with Galenthe, so they tell Mike, Mike, either step down or we're going to whack you too. So he gives up his captainship and just becomes a regular soldier again, right? So, one of the originators, when I say originators, instigators, whatever, is a guy by the name of Sonny Black Napolitano. He was out in Brooklyn. So they put me in, remember we were with Mike Sibela,

so they put me and Lefty now with, under Sonny Black, they make Sonny Black becomes a captain. They put me and Lefty under Sonny Black out in Brooklyn. So that's who we report to every day. And you have to check in with your captain every day. So every day Mia Lefty would report out to the motion lounge. It's on Gramer and Wither Street in Brooklyn. Because Sonny's our new captain. So, and again, you know, the intelligence information I'm gathering is like,

no other than anybody else can get because you know informants are going to give you all this stuff and I'm meeting different people again I'm meeting people from different families through these guys so I'm rocking out there in in Brooklyn under sunny black and I get another call And what the Headquarters wants to talk to you about what? Well, we got another cover operation going in Tampa, Florida Yeah We want to see if you can bring your Bonanos in. I says, hey, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait, wait, wait.

I just went through to say Milwaukee. Well, supervisor wants to talk to you. I knew the supervisor, supervisor's to talk to you. I knew the supervisor. The supervisor's a good guy. So I called him, I said, Tony, what's up? He said, we got a nightclub. And it's pretty good, but we can't get into Santo Tropicante.

And maybe you can do the same thing you did in Milwaukee. I said, I don't know, man. I said, if I do it, number one, who's the undercovers? Because they had two undercovers running a nightclub. And they said, well, one of them is an agent by the name of Sal Mary, Steve. I said, okay, I know Steve, I did undercover work with him too.

I said, I got no problem with Steve. And they gave me the other guy. And the other guy I knew but I didn't I never Worked with him. I said but as long as Steve is is involved I'll see what I can do but I Don't know how long it's gonna take so you got to just let me think about this Alright, because I don't want to come up

You know, I'm not coming up with a story, hey, I got a call from a guy that I used to fucking thief with. Right, right, right. So I figure, okay, after a while, okay, here's what we'll do. We used to go to Miami a lot. When I say we, I'm talking about me, Lefty, the wise guys.

We'd fly to Miami for a long weekend. We had a hotel down there that put us on the arm, right? Give us the sweets and stuff and stay for the weekend. So I says, okay, here's what we'll do. The next time we go to Miami, right, you guys go down there. And whenever we go to a restaurant, I'll let you know what restaurant we're going to go to and you guys just happen to be in a restaurant and you Steve Salmary who was going by Chico I said Chico just happens to notice me and comes over to the table and hey Donnie how you been so it's like a bump, right? It's not like So that's what we did

So we're out at this restaurant and We set that deal up and Chico comes over and Donnie hey, I haven't seen you in years. How you doing? Oh good. What are you doing down here? Well, we got a nightclub You got a nightclub. You got a nightclub where? It's outside of Tampa, up in Tampa, Florida. No kidding. How long you been down there? I don't know, three, four years, you know. What are you doing? Nothing. It's a nice club. Why don't you come by? Now that, you know, again, you're talking about a nightclub and, you know, so everything is dollar signs. So, I said, left, you wanna take a ride up one day? He said, yeah.

So when they leave, he says, you know these guys? I said, well, I know Chico. I said, I don't know the other guy. I said, but you know Chico he was a good he was a good thief, you know, I Said I haven't seen him in a while. I haven't seen him in like maybe five years, but He's always was you know, he's always a good thief So

So I should just take a ride up So we take a ride up. So we take a ride up and it's a nice nightclub. It's on like five acres. They got tennis courts. We hang out. Lot of business, you know. It was open from, I don't know, nine o'clock, it was open all night.

So he said, nice place. He said, we have to tell Sonny about it when we go back to Brooklyn. Okay. So we go back to Brooklyn and tell Sonny about it. Now you know, now I'm like in my fourth year with these guys. So we go back to Brooklyn and tell Sonny, left it, hey we ran into one of Donnie's old friends, boy, they got a nice club there. Oh yeah? Well, maybe we'll go down to see it.

So we go down and they see a lot of potential, but now they can't operate anything illegal because Santo Traficante owns Florida. So now we got to go through the same routine. All right. The Consigliere has to call Traficante's guy and say hey we got you know one of our guys has a club down there who hasn't been with us for, you know, Chico hasn't been, had to be with the Bonanos again for five, six years. Excuse me. So we go through that same routine and finally, you know, this takes a while. It's not like overnight. So we go through the routine and he says, okay, his guy says, all right, Santo will meet you at such a hotel on such a day

Get to meet another fucking boss of a Florida Me and Sonny meet him We actually oh no the first time we met him was at a restaurant in Right outside of Tampa, the Greek fishing village, I've drawn a blank, but at any rate, we meet him in a restaurant, and actually it was Pappas' restaurant, that was the name of it. And Sonny had never met him before, but you know, he'd go through all the nice of these and Sonny tells him, you know, we got a nightclub and we want to start running gambling out of it, you know.

So he says, okay, I'll meet you. I'll come up and look at it. I'll meet you. So I don't know if we met him the next week or the next couple weeks, we meet him again. Now this time it's in a hotel room. He comes to Sonny's hotel room and sets everything up, right?

Forms the marriage. Again, that's the second time we married two fucking mafia families together. So, he said, all right, he said, you wanna do a casino night? Yeah. He said, I'm gonna send my two guys up. Okay.

Couple days later, two guys come up from Miami. Card sharks. I sat in the hotel with these room guys, Joe, and they were marking all the decks of cards. I could not, after they get done, I had no idea how they marked these cards. They were for blackjack and stuff, right? We had craps tables, the dice were fixed. I mean, it was like, everything was, you know, so we set the club up and we're advertising casino night for the veterans of foreign war. We even had a certificate and everything, right? We're paying off somebody in the Sheriff's Department to protect us. Well, we got the game going and doing pretty good, doing pretty good.

And the place is jammed. So what happens is that all of a sudden, I'm knocking the door. One of the doorman's lines. He comes to me, he said, Donnie, there's a bunch of sheriff's deputies outside. Whoa! So right away I get on the phone. I can't get our contact in the

Sheriff's Department. He's not answering his phone. And then we had just paid him that day. So I said, all right, clear all the money off the table so we get all the money off the tables and put chips back on the tables. So I let them in. Because we had the certificate, we had everything. And what we had done was every so often we collect the money and we stash it in the furnace room. Right?

There was a lot of money stashed. What we had was an old time one arm bandit. The thing had to be 100 years old. Nobody ever put money in it, it was just there. So they come in and they don't see any money. So they come in and they don't see any money. One of the deputies puts a, I don't know, nickel, dime, pulls a handle, what do you think happens? He fucking wins.

You're running a gambling operation. Said nobody's ever played that thing, right? Well, they wrecked the joint. They wrecked it. We all get arrested. Why did he get arrested? Because I don't understand. It was a gambling charge.

Right. They arrest us. Oh, because, but why? Because of the one-armed bandit. Because they won and they said that that was gambling. Oh. Nobody even knew there was any money in it or anything. It was just there as a decoration.

Oh, boy. You know, it was an antique. So they just used it as an excuse? Yeah, just used as an excuse because we were the mafia guineas from New York. Right. That's what we were. So they throw us in a can.

Just for the one-armed bandit? Yeah. They never find the money? We didn't, but somebody did. Oh boy. Somebody did. How much money? It was over 30 grand that I know that was stashed.

So they swiped that? Oh, I don't know. Somebody did. Probably. Somebody did. Yeah. So we had Traficante's lawyer. He gave us a, I don't know who it was, so we called the lawyer and he gets us out of

the can the next day. And now I'm in another fucking bind because now we got busted and we did, you know, we were paying the guy off. And what happened to the guy you paid off? He committed suicide later on. Oh, how convenient. Yeah, yeah. Did he really commit suicide?

Yeah, he did. Really? When he got his subpoena. Oh, he knew they were coming for him. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah so that that kind of screwed that thing up and But you know, I you know Sonny knew that But you know, Sonny knew that we were paying the guy off and everything, so you know, it was just a... Hazards of doing business. Hazards of doing business as a mob, you know. But when we got back to the club, like I say,

the statue was gone with the money. Somebody took it. And so we go back to New York, and again now, there's another beef in the Bonanno family, because after they whack Galenti, they make Rusty Rustelli the boss of the family, but Rusty's in a can, he's in a can. So Sonny Black is running the family along with another capo.

And then there's a Sicilian faction of the Bonanno family. And they're running their faction. Alright. Now there's a faction of three capos that are against Rusty Rustelli and they're against Sonny and the other capos. So now there's more friction in the Bonannos. So in order to solve this they they call a sit-down. Sonny Black, the guys on his side, the capos on his side, call a sit down for the other three capos to straighten this out.

Well, the deal is, when these other three capos get to the sit down, they're gonna whack them. They're gonna whack them. So, I was supposed to be in on that, but they cut me out at the last minute. I was supposed to be in on the hit, but they cut me out at the last minute. And then I was supposed to be on the clean up crew,

but they cut me out at the last minute. Why'd they cut you out? I don't know, I don't know. Because I wasn't told until after. So they whack these three guys, and the next day Sonny calls me into the club, and he said, Bruno never showed up. That was the fourth guy that would,

one of the capos in Delicato, his son, was supposed to come. And he didn't show. So he gave me the contract to kill him. So he said, we think he's in Florida. So he sends me to Florida to look for him. But we said, we think he's in Florida, so he sends me to Florida to look for him, but he wasn't down there. And the deal was that if I did find him, I'd call the FBI and they would snatch him and we'd stage a hit. Or if they found him, you know, we'd do the reverse. They They stage a hit, but we never found them.

So now, all this time I never carried a gun. I never carried a gun in this whole operation. Really? Yeah. Was that unusual? No, because these guys don't carry guns on a daily basis. The mob, you know, mafia guys. They don't?

No, no, because they're always getting rousted by the cops. Got it guys they don't know no because they're always getting rousted by the cops got it all right the only time they carry a piece is when they're gonna go go do some work right you know so did you see guys get killed no I don't believe you so sneaky as no one ever in my life, so we we Let's move on. Yeah, let's move on we Baby lose my train of thought No, so We're in the club so I get the contract for Bruno, but obviously I can't find them bureau can't find them

Did anybody ever find him? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what happens is we're in a club one day in the motion lounge and Sonny gets a phone call and he says, hey Donnie, I think Bruno's at such a place, but it was bad info. So I was asked, well what would you do if he was there? I said, I hate to say it, but Bruno probably was a dead man. And, well, how could you say that?

Well, because when you're given a contract, it's your responsibility that guy gets killed. And if you refuse the contract... You get killed. You're gonna get whacked. So would you have had to do it? If you found him? I could have given it to one of the other guys that do it, but it's my responsibility. And my whole, look, my mindset in undercover is I'm not dying for a gangster. Right.

I'll die for a citizen. I'll take a beating for a citizen, but not for a gangster. He's gonna get whacked either way. He's gonna go either way. Right. So I'll take my shot with the government. Right.

A lot of people can't deal with that, Right. It's, you know, it's not, it's not, you know, a lot of people can't deal with that, but. I get it. You know. So. That's the job. That's the job. You know, I mean, look, I'm there to put you in jail.

I'm not there to get you killed. I'm not there to kill you. I'm there to arrest you and try to, you killed, I'm not there to kill you, I'm there to arrest you and try to, you know, hopefully send you to jail. But I'm not gonna die for you. Right. I'm not putting, you know. So it's a situation where your back is against the wall.

Exactly. Got it. So, but I, but you know, that didn't happen. Did they ever find him? Yeah, yeah, they found him. They found him actually, I don't know if it was a year or so later, I'm not too sure. But he eventually got arrested.

He was a coke. He used coke. Sloppy. Yeah. So now with the war going on, the Bureau decides that, well, we got to we got to shut the operation down. So those hits took place on May 5. So and prior to that, I had a sit down with Sonny Black. And he said,

Donnie said, thenie, he said, the books on the mafia are opening up in December. He said, and I already proposed you for membership into the Bonanno family, so you're gonna get inducted into the family in December. He said, so, I congratulated him, thanked him and kissed him on both cheeks, you know So you're gonna be a made guy yeah, I was gonna be a main guy Yeah, how attractive is that life when you're in it? Oh forget it must be so much fun. Yeah Start a problem, right? So no

Waking up every day to think it's today, the day I go to jail or today I get whacked. No, I didn't, Joe, I didn't find it that fucking attractive. Believe me. I mean, it's all right, they flash the cash, you know. You walk into a restaurant, they know who you are. You know, you get the, you get the, you are. You get the VIP treatment. You get the VIP treatment.

You don't order off the menu. You know. Yeah. So there's perks. There's those perks, but you know. Too scary. I didn't want to wake up every day saying, do I go to jail or do I get whacked today? That's their mindset.

Right. It's crazy. It is crazy. It's crazy. But I've talked to guys in that life and they love it. Yeah. That's what's crazy about it. Yeah. I know guys that became informants and they wish they could go back. I say, you know, no, I wouldn't want to, you know.

But that is a problem with guys who do undercover work, right? Yeah, some of them fall in love with it. They fall in love with the undercover aspect. And I think the reason that I was successful in all my cases and that I'm still 98% sane is, I didn't fall in love with it. And I grew up on the streets. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I grew up in that environment and I was never attracted to it as a kid.

in that environment and I was never attracted to it as a kid. Right. You know? Right. Did you ever run the risk of running into someone that you knew who knew you as Joe Pistone? Yeah, did you see the movie? I did but I don't remember. In the airport?

Oh, that's right. With the lawyer? Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah. That's what really happened. Yeah, yeah. How did that go down? Well, I saw, you know, we saw, made eye contact

and you know, I just clocked them. Oh, wow. And Sonny says, Donnie, why'd you do that? I said, Sonny, you guys, you're looking at my prick. What do you want me to do? Oh. You know. It's none of your guys just looking at my prick. What do you want me to do?

But no, I never got attracted to the life other than as a job. And I think another reason too, Joe, where a lot of undercovers go wrong is they think they have to act like gangsters. They change their personalities right and you can't be a In a daytime and be at night, right? I never changed my personality, right, you know and

And a lot of undercovers are extroverts And I'm the exception to that rule when I'm really an introvert. So you didn't need the attention. I didn't need the attention. You didn't thrive on it. I don't, you know, and I never changed my values.

Like I mentioned before, I'm not a drinker. I never was a drinker. I worked in bars as bartender, you know, during my college years when I got out. And I wasn't gonna become a drinker just because I, just because I was working undercover. You know, I mean, I had guys say, Donnie, you never finish a beer because I can't. I only can drink half a bottle of beer.

That's all I can drink. Probably lucky. Probably. Yeah. Or, you know, you never have more than one glass of wine. That's all I can ingest is one glass of wine. That's all I can ingest, is one glass. And see, too many undercovers think, oh, all bad guys are drinkers, all bad, you know.

Donnie, I never do drugs. The coke is a real problem with guys who go undercover, right? Yeah. Because they have to do it with everybody. Well, you know, look. Or they think they do. They think they do.

I mean, I was in a nightclub in Miami, and the guy offers me Coke, and I slapped his hand. You know, fucking Coke is all over the place. And I said, don't ever offer me that shit. I said, I make money off of that. I don't put that stuff in my body. I go to the gym every day. Why would I do that stuff in my body. I go to the gym every day. Why would I do that shit?

I said to me it's a money maker. See, but too many young undercovers think, oh, you know, I gotta drink. You know, I gotta do this, I gotta do that. I gotta act tough. You don't have to. All you do is you have to be yourself. That's all. That way you don't have to ever change it up.

That's exactly right. You never have to change it. You never get caught. You never get caught. And you don't have to act tough. You don't have to talk tough. You just got to back up what you say. And that's it. Never say anything that you can't back up. And that was always my motto. You know, I never promised anything that I couldn't do. I never let anybody back me against a wall. You know?

And I never got into anybody's face to make myself look tough. Right. You know, I mean, and that's where a lot of young undercovers go wrong, that they think, you know, they watch too much television. To be honest with you. The only time I screwed up, I'll tell you, we're in Miami, right?

And I'm in another undercover's car. So it might have been Chico's, I don't remember. So there's the three bad guys, you know, and he had his car wired up. So we're and it said 22 naked dancing girls an expert on female nipples. That's just simple math. But what I'm saying is, you know... So somebody remembered you saying that? Well, it was on the tape on the tape on the tape So they were trying to use that against yeah, that was you know my it was my character was you know?

was questioned But you know it goes back to what I say Is that I would not normally say that right you know what I mean right right right? Is that I would not normally say that right? You know what I mean, right? It was just a dumb statement, but it's always gonna come back to bite you in the ass So yeah, you just got caught up in it. Yeah. Yeah So what happened when they open up the books? Well, they closed the case down

So I got him that I got him to to postpone it to July because we had one more meeting with Traffic Candy set up. So I got them to postpone it until after that meeting, but I couldn't get them to wait until after I got inducted into the family. They wouldn't wait. So they closed the operation July 27th. Yeah. Yeah. And six years undercover, seven years of testifying. But I was lucky enough that after that case I did undercover work overseas. I did

undercover work for Scotland Yard. Oh really? Yeah. What'd you do over there? I have one case. And so they had two Scotland Yard detectives who I knew. I did a lot of work with their undercover unit. And so they were into the Chinese triads and there's stuff I can't disclose but they were manufacturing credit cards and I won't say which

companies and you can bang them out for like 50,000 before they were discovered. Because they had the numbers. Yeah, I knew a guy who did that. Yeah, they had the legit numbers. Yeah, that was back when they had like the carbons, right? Yeah, so Scotland Yard was trying to get to the location in another country, right, where they were actually, everything was going down. So they were meeting with the number two triad in London.

So they said, hey, look, our guy from New York, mafia guy from New York who's the money man wants to have it sit down with you. He says, okay. So I fly over to London and I knew this guy from New York, I had done other stuff with them. So they introduced me to the supervisor of the serious crime squad. He was the guy that was running this case. So I would break his chops, you know, you can't, they don't carry guns or anything, you know, even the undercovers don't, they don't carry guns. They don't carry guns. So I'm sitting down with them.

And I said, I got my gun, but I didn't bring any bullets. You got any bullets? The guy goes ape shit. You can't carry. I said, calm down. I'm just breaking your chops. So then he says to me, what are you wearing to this meeting? I said, I'm wearing slacks, sport coat, and a shirt. So then he says to me, what are you wearing to this meeting?

I said, I'm wearing slacks, sport coat, and a shirt. He said, no, no, you gotta wear a suit. I said, why do I have to wear a suit? He said, because all these triad guys wear suits all the time. I said, what's that got to do with me? He said, no, no, you gotta wear a suit. I said, well, I don't have a suit.

I said, I'm telling you, I got slacks, a sport coat, dress shirts, that's what I'm wearing. So he turns to the undercover guy from Scotland Yard and he turns around, opens his his safe pulls out money says go buy him a suit as you're gonna buy me a suit he said yeah I said what do I do with the suit when I'm done with it did you keep it I said all right so me and Graham, we go, I buy two suits, one for me and one for Graham. Right? So we go to the meeting and I'm wearing his suit. So there's me,

the two Scotland yard guy on the cover guys, and the triad. So now before we go to the meeting, the supervisor's telling me, look, you can't insult this guy, you gotta be nice to him because he's the number two guy. So I said, hey look, I said, I don't tell you how to run your serious crime squad, don't tell me how to work undercover. I said, whatever you need, I'll get. I said, but don't tell me how to do it. So he's all

nervous. So we're in a resort. They rented a suite, big suite in a resort and they're next door. So they got the suite where we are, they got it wired audio video, right? So we go in and we're sitting there and we get through all the niceties with the triad. So the guy keeps fucking interrupting me. So finally he says, hey Chin, I said, why do your sentences always start in the fucking middle of mine? And he looks at me and you can hear the dead silence, right? Then he says, oh Mr. Joe, I was going by Joe Marino at the time. He said, oh, Mr. Joe, I Apologize, I'm sorry. I'm sorry Graham tells me he says when you said that he thought the supervisor was gonna have a heart attack

He just blew it he just blew it it it's over He just blew it. It's over. After that, the guy gave us everything. The location of the factory, the whole McGill. Do you feel like you had to do that to have his respect? Of course. I mean, I'm a mob guy. What do I know about the Triads? Right.

You know what I mean? So, if I would've let him kept stepping on me, he's gonna... That'd have been out of character. Yeah. You know, so, right. No, so yeah That had to be fucking scary. Yeah, well the triads are you know scary? Yeah, they are they are And he was the number two and I give these guys credit I mean he got to the number two guy, but they couldn't get you know, right so but What a life. Yeah, how do you stay calm in these situations I made Joe I just say who I am you know I get that's a seeing in me and you know you You go at it when you have to.

And if you don't, you know. If you don't, it probably seems off. Yeah. Yeah. So. But that's gotta be just fucking nerve-racking. I, you know, it is. Because what's nerve-racking is you always have to be on

Right, you know you can never be off. You never relax. No, I mean and I mean Not many guys could say That they had sit-downs with two mafia bosses of different families, right? I used to stay at Sonny Black's apartment with him in Brooklyn, and this guy was running the Bonanno family. He was one of the top capitals in the Bonanno family.

But Sonny, I don't know how many hits he had. Now, all these guys I dealt with, don't forget, all these guys had hits under their belt. These weren't novice guys. They all had 5, 6, 10, 15 hits under their belt. I got into a fight one time in a bar with Tony Mira. I mean, me and him against three guys. And I mean, he grabbed a beer bottle, broken on the bar,

and just boom, raked the guy's face, you know. Now there's another guy, you know, I always bring this up to young undercovers, is that this was probably the meanest guy I ever fucking met. I mean, flat out mean. You know, these other guys were mean, you know, because they kill people, but I mean, he was just a mean guy. The other guys, the other gangsters didn't like him. I Never saw him. I never saw him over indulge in any in any liquor never never And and he would stab you as soon as look at you and

After an incident I told you when I had to go around with him, I always made sure I was an arm's length away from him. What was his name? Tony Mira. Oh, okay. Yeah. Now, after it was over and they found out who I was, they killed Mira. His own nephew killed him, actually. Wow.

Because he introduced me to all the Bonanos. Wow. Yeah. Lefty was on his way to get killed, but the FBI picked it up on the wiretap, so they snatched him, you know, surveillance team snatched him off the street. They killed Sonny Black. Sonny Black got killed. Yeah, he got killed. Yeah. So all the people that had let you in? Yeah, yeah. Tell you how Sonny Black got killed.

You talk about a gangster, right? When it came out that I was an undercover, you know, undercover, in in the beginning the mob didn't believe I was an FBI undercover agent. They thought the FBI had kidnapped me and was trying to turn me because we picked it up on the wiretaps and informants. But once their lawyers told them, hey, he really is an undercover agent. So, Sonny Black gets a call, you gotta go to a sit down. So he walks into the motion lounge.

He had a diamond ring, takes off his diamond ring. All right. Takes his money out of his pocket. Takes all his keys except his car keys. Puts them on the counter. Says to the bartender, I just got called to a sit down, I'm probably not coming back.

Is that a gangster? Wow. Calls his girlfriend. And this is how we found this out, calls his girlfriend and tells her the same thing. So what happens is that after they find his body and everything, his girlfriend calls the FBI.

And she says, I'd like to have a meeting with Donnie Brasco. And they said, why? She says, I'd like to have a meeting with Donnie Brasco. And I said, why? I said, because I got something to tell him that Sonny Black, she called him Sonny, she didn't call him Sonny Black. She said that Sonny wanted me to give him a message. They said said okay. So they fly her down to D.C.

And myself and the agents, the other agents, go out to a restaurant and she said, Sonny wanted me to tell you, this is what happened. She said this is what happened. He got called to a sit-down and he goes into the motion lounge gives his ring, his money, his car keys to the bartender and tells the bartender you, I got called to sit down and I'm probably not coming back. And then he calls me and he says her name and he said, if I don't come back, he said, I want you to get in touch with Donnie and tell him I loved him. Whoa.

And he was just better than we were. I don't hold anything against him. Wow. Is that a gangster or what? That's a guy that's living that life. Wow. Is that a gangster? That's crazy.

How did that make you feel? Well, it kind of threw me for a loop. I mean, I had a good relationship with him. And like I said, I didn't wanna see anybody get killed. Even Meera, I didn't wanna see him get killed. I mean, although I might have fuckin' done it myself. I mean, the guy was just plain mean. But that's not my job.

My job is to gather evidence, bring it to trial and hopefully convicted. Right. But as Sonny was Sonny, you know. The difference that me and Sonny, we could sit just like we're having this conversation. He wasn't 24 seven gangster. Me and Sonny, we could sit just like we're having this conversation. He wasn't 24-7 gangster. You know what I mean? Yeah.

We'd break chops, we'd break balls. Rogerio was 27, 24-7 gangster. I couldn't, I liked him because he was a great cook. He was, man. Boy, I'll tell you, Joe, he could cook. But you always, there was always something, you know, he was digging for, you know. But like Sonny, look, I'm staying over at the main capo in the family, one of the two main capos in the family's apartment. He'd get up in the morning, I sleep on his

couch, we'd get up in the morning, he'd go, here's a guy that's running a goddamn Bonanno family. He'd go out to get coffee and hard rolls and butter and bring him back and me and him would sit there in our shorts and watch cartoons on television. I tell that to the guys at the FBI and they say, no, I'm telling you. I tell that to the guys at the FBI and they say, no, I'm telling you this is, you know. And then he had a weight bench in his apartment. And back in the day, I used to lift pretty good, you know.

I mean, you can't tell me now, of course I'm old now, but. And I was pretty good at hand wrestling. I mean, arm wrestling, right? And he could never beat me. And he was I was pretty good at hand wrestling I mean arm wrestling right and he could never beat me and he was built like you. I mean he he was built right He's about your size and everything and big arms like you got But he could never beat me, you know, I'm wrestling And I don't know what it was if I you know, so one day says to me Donnie He's I'm gonna beat you today in arm wrestling.

I said, Sonny, you'd never fucking beat me. Why today? I'm gonna beat you. I said, okay. So the day goes on. So then he says, all right, let's go. Right? We're going on.

He spits in my eye. Boom. He says, I told you I beat you. But I mean, that's the kind of guy he was. And I couldn't get peed old at him. But with Lefty, you couldn't joke around like that. You know, but with Lefty, you couldn't joke around like that. Right. You know, I mean, he was something else, man.

He couldn't stand air conditioning. Really? Never. We'd be in the car in Miami. The windows would be up and he'd be smoking English ovals with no air conditioning. And I'm dying. I put the window down. Donnie put that window up. He turned the air conditioning off. He couldn't stand the air conditioning. Why? I don't know.

I don't know. He had cancer, maybe it was, I don't know. Oh, he had cancer at the time while he was smoking with the windows rolled up? Yeah, but he had been cured of that. He had testicle cancer years before. Eventually he died of lung cancer. I mean, he used to smoke English ovals. We'd go in

the hotel room and we'd always have a big suite, so we didn't have different rooms. We'd have a suite with two bedrooms. He'd turn the air off. He'd turn the air off. turn the air off. So, you know, you have to do things to keep your sanity sometimes, right? So, we're down in Miami, so I figured, son of a bitch, I'm gonna get you today, all right? So I said, left, I gotta go to the head. I'm going up to the room. I go up, I take the cover off the air conditioning, I

crank it where you could hang meat in there, right? And I put the cover back on and I put the thing in there so you know if you move the thing back up here. We get upstairs, I mean it was freezing. So we get in that freezing so we get in that room we get in that suite and he's like Donnie turn that air conditioning off so I go over there and I said left I don't know something's wrong I don't know he said call the front desk get maintenance up here so I pick up the phone but I don't I make believe I'm talking I said yeah this is room so-and-so, and our air conditioner's broke, could you send somebody up? But I'm not talking to anybody.

Because I want him to freeze as long as he can freeze. So he's, after a while, did you call that? I said, Left, you saw me, call him again. And I do the same thing. And now he's calling me Joe, every name in the book. It's your fault, you did this, you broke it. I said, Left, I didn't do a thing. I don't know nothing about air conditioning, right? So, finally, after about a half an hour,

I do, now I call and I say, hey, you're air conditioning, so they send somebody up and the guy takes it and, okay, there it is. But he blamed me, but, you know. But that's how you keep your sanity sometimes, you know. God. What is it like to experience all that and then see it in a movie? Like what is it like to see a guy like Johnny Depp play you in a movie?

Oh God, what an experience that was. That has to be so weird. It was, and you know Johnny Depp? Yeah, I know him. I love that boy. He's a great guy. I could cry, I'm telling I mean what he's done for my family Excuse me. It's all right

He's a sweetheart of a guy like genuinely I've hung up I've hung out with him a few times at the comic store Yeah, I know a very very nice guy. I love him. He loved my wife Yeah, he He just flew in in January to have dinner with my whole family and my wife couldn't make the dinner. So the next day, he went and spent almost five hours with her. Yeah. Then she passed away a little while after that. Yeah. He's a great guy.

He really is. I mean, he's genuine. He's genuine. And it's odd. It's odd for a movie star. Yeah. You know I meet movie stars and I always have this wall up because I always feel like okay I'm just gonna talk to some bullshit person. You know what I mean? Like I've met a bunch of them and they're not really there. Yeah exactly, exactly. But when you meet one and they're really there it's amazing.

You know like you realize, they're just human beings Who are in this very unusual position? Yeah, or they're incredibly famous and You know, they're they're famous in a very weird way. They're famous for pretending to be other people Yeah, and acting and films and you know, you know them so well as you know Fucking pirate and whatever. Yeah We met in 96 and so well as you know, a fucking pirate or whatever. Or you. We met in 96 and have stayed friends up until now. And he has stayed friends with my girls, my grandkids,

My girls, my grandkids that he knew since they were, you know. And now as adults. I mean he takes phone calls from my one granddaughter. Yeah. Yeah, he's a genuinely good guy. Before his trial was going on, I had a conversation with him for half an hour on the phone in Hawaii. I was in Hawaii drinking margaritas in a lounge chair. And my friend Doug, Doug Stanhope calls me up, he says, hey, Johnny wants to talk to you.

And me and Johnny were on the phone for like a fucking half an hour. Yeah, I used to keep in contact with him when he was in trial. What a crazy trial. But that trial showed you who he really is, who he really is, and who she really is too. And it just shows you, you know.

I didn't know her. You're lucky. I tell tell you a funny story. Is that, do you know Vanessa? No. This is when, excuse me, well, I mean, I met John, he was first going out with Kate Moss. And they all love my wife. So then he was one day calls me and he says hey I'm gonna be in Joe's Stone Crab. I'm gonna be in Miami. He said meet us at Joe's Stone Crab. I said okay. So me and my wife go down there and there's Johnny, his father.

His father's a great guy. You know his father? No. His father's a great guy too. Really good guy. And I had met his father during the shooting and the movie and everything, right? We hung out so He introduces us to Vanessa, all right, you know, you know she is right his ex who's Vanessa Pepper DC she's the French singer. That's the one who was kids are by yes So Now my wife wouldn't, when she ate, she would not touch anything. She had to eat with a knife and fork, you know, a real the Mardi Gras, right?

Irish. So, you know, you're at Joe Stone Crab, what are you gonna do? You're gonna eat, you know, you gotta break, you gotta touch him. So Vanessa says, Maggie, you don't like, she says, I like him, but I don't like to touch him.

She broke all the claws, everything, took all the meat out. So my wife could eat him. With a fork? With a fork. I'd say only you could do that, you know? Only you could get somebody to, you know? But, uh... How long did you know him before he played you in the movie? I didn't. I didn't.

You didn't know him at all? No. I mean, I... Did you get to meet him before he played you I mean, oh, yeah. Yeah, we met I Guess we met maybe three or four months before we start shooting. Did you want to talk to you? Oh, yeah I like yeah, I spent time with him and What's amazing about him Joe wasn't? He just

It's like a sponge, you know? Like we would just go out, go to dinner, go to lunch, hang out. And the next thing you know, he's talking like me. He has the same rhythms. Every once in a while I clear my throat. He's clearing, he was walking. We were on set one day, and my mother happened to be on set.

And Johnny's walking away, and she's calling me. Wow. Because the way he walked. The way he had that little gimp. Yeah. I mean, he's just amazing, you know? And he doesn't like prod you about stuff. He just absorbs it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. He's something. But I've stayed in touch. I've stayed friends with Chrissy, his sister. I've stayed in the whole family basically. How strange was it to watch the finished product, to watch this version of your life, of your story?

Yeah, it was. It was. Now... For you and your audiences, I just want you to know, in that movie, I never slapped my wife in real life. Ha-ha. Why'd they add that in there? I asked the director. Damn, those motherfuckers. Asked the... Because that wasn't in the script.

Oh, Jesus Christ. I asked the director. I almost went... I went bullshit. Yeah. When I, and you know, it's funny because Johnny used to pick me up every morning to go to work, right? And here's the kind of guy, I'll tell you the kind of guy.

We'd stop at a bodega and he'd run in and get the coffee and hard rolls. I said, no, I'll go in. I mean, to get to just a regular guy. That day was kind of like he wasn't himself on the ride in. And then I saw them rehearsing that scene. I went ballistic, man. I went ballistic. But, you know, you know, you know,

the director's the captain of that ship, you know? They always have to do something like that. They always have to add some bullshit that didn't really happen. It drives me nuts. Yep. So, but what are you gonna do? Yeah. So after the case is closed, what is life like for you? Like, how do you, I mean, you had

to be worried about your life. Yeah, well, what happened is once they found out the commission put a $500,000 contract on me. And the New York office of the FBI went to every boss and told them they better not think of, you know, trying to cash in on that, you know. trying to cash in on that. So, I was working out of Washington at a Quantico and families moved. I think we got like five or six moves since then.

You try to back everything. The Bureau was good about that. But you know, what's in the back of your mind is not the legitimate gangster, you know. It's some cowboy that thinks, hey, you know, God, there's not a... Get on their good side. There's not a Nebraska, you know, if I take him out, we're in... Right. Which... and I don't think anybody was gonna pay anybody 500,000.

Probably not. You think the mob is... they don't use their own money for, you know, for squat, so... Yeah. But that's the only thing that you worry about is you know some cowboy you know How long was it before you stopped worrying about that? Well you never really do I mean you know even to this day yeah, yeah, you know Because there's always somebody that thinks they're, you know, they're going to be famous about doing something.

Right. You know that. So, but it was more prevalent back in the, you know, back in the day, you know. As is, most of my guys now are, I don't know any of them that are alive, actually. Did you keep in touch with any of those guys? No, no, no. My whole thing in undercover, Joe, was I never arrested anybody that I worked against.

My whole thing was I did the undercover, you make the arrest, I'll see them in court. I'll see them in court. Yeah, yeah. Funny, you know, you always sit down with the, after the case is over, you sit down with the, after the case is over, you sit down with the profilers and everything, and they say, well, we think this guy will turn, this guy.

Not one of my guys, when I say my guys, ever became an informant. Really? Never. Wow. Never. Wow. One of the prosecutors in Milwaukee, he said, I think we should go talk to Rogerio. I said, are you fucking crazy?

I said, you walk in there and mention my name, he'll go crazy. He said, exactly what happened. Exactly what happened. Yeah, yeah. They, he did 15. He did 15. Never cracked. The only reason they let him out was he had, they found out he had, I don't know if it was gum cancer or whatever, and then he had one lung taken out, and then he had cancer in the other lung, so he had like three or four months to live. So he was such a pain in the ass for the Department of Corrections that they let him out. He died at home.

Yeah. Wow. But he didn't crack. Of course, Sonny, Sonny had a shot. He said, no, none of them, none of them. They tried to turn all of them, huh? Yeah, yeah. They all went to the can.

They all did like 15, 20 years, yeah. Wild. Wild is right. I mean, now. As soon as they put the last click on the handcuffs, they all want to talk. Now. Yeah, now. Yeah. I mean, they all got hits under their belt, but soon as they put those cuffs on them, you know, some of the guys, they'd do their time, but eventually they turned. None of those guys became snitches.

What do you think happened to the culture of the mob where these guys started snitching? They didn't want to do the time. Some of them did time, some of them did seven, eight years. But then I think when they kept getting beat over the head, they figured what good is. You know what? The culture of the mob has changed too. I found near the end, these guys, to the old timers, this was like their life, you know? They were really committed to it.

The younger guys, it's a me generation, just like normal citizens. They want it now. They don't wanna, I mean, I don't know, like the old timers, they could cultivate politicians, they could cultivate law enforcement. These guys today, they can't cultivate politicians and judges like the old timers did.

They can't cultivate politicians and judges like the old timers did. And drugs is a big downfall of the mob because now the guys start, some of them start using it. But it's also, you can't keep secrets anymore. No. It's only secrets when one guy's alive. Yeah, especially with cell phones, internet, surveillance. Surveillance is so easy now. Everything you do is surveilled. Every phone call you make. You're on camera.

All day long. I read somewhere or heard where the average individual is on the camera over 500 times a day, Just walking around wherever you go. Just walking around. And then your phone's listening to everything you say. Everything. And everybody has a phone. Everybody.

Today, and that's what's tough in undercover today, is building your legend because it's hard to do 100% backstopping. Right. With the internet. Also Google Image Search, bam. Put your face up internet. Right, also Google Image Search, bam. Yeah. Put your face up there. Oh, that's that guy.

Exactly. Yeah, instantly. So I don't know. I mean. How much of the mob even exists now? It's still there, but they don't control what they did. They don't control every all label, you know. When I was in it, they controlled everything.

I mean, they controlled unions, they controlled every bit of- Vegas. Vegas, they controlled every bit of commodity that ran. In fact, when I was in it, they still had the skim out of Vegas, and

Belestrary had offered me with Lefty, he had offered me the job of running the skim from there to Kansas City. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's how tight I was with the Badanos that you know that was before the thing went south you know. That's so crazy that you got in that deep. Yeah. Were you the deepest that anybody had ever infiltrated the mob? Yeah. yeah. And everybody else that went in,

they had an informant. I had no informant. You just made your way in slowly. Yeah. Wow. And I wasn't a mark, where I didn't have all this money. Right.

You know what I mean? Right, where they could exploit you. Yeah, right. So, you know Yeah Crazy life Joe. Yeah was when you look back on it now, does it seem real? Must seem insane. Well, you know, sometimes I think I can't believe I did that right? That's what I mean Yeah. Yeah And then other times that you know, I say, as deep as I got, I could have done more. Like how? Well, I mean, if I would have got made.

Right, right, right. Do you wish they had gotten you made? Only because I had spent so much time, I spent six years, you know, and then the cap it off with getting inducted. And not only that, think of the feather in the cap of the FBI. Right, yeah. The mafia inducted one of our own, you know.

I mean, that would have really kicked their ass. Yeah. But, you know? I mean that would have really kicked their ass. Yeah. But, you know. It's funny that you think back and that's the thing that you wish. You know? It's kind of crazy. Yeah, but still in all, I mean, you know, it's like It's the ultimate fuck you. Yeah, right? Yeah. I mean, you fucking... I mean, we pretty much decimated them anyway. Yeah. you know but

It is kind of crazy when you think about the chokehold that the mob had and then it's nothing Nothing moved in this country without them getting a cut of it. Wow, it's crazy. All right. Did that all come about because of Prohibition is that what it all started? Is that when they really got a stranglehold in this country? Yeah, yeah. Isn't that crazy? Pretty much, yeah. Because that's exactly what's happening right now with the cartels.

Yeah. It's the same fucking thing. Yeah. And it's like, we never learn. No. Yeah, it's, history repeats itself, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I think our problem is we don't study our enemy.

Remember what I said before? Anybody I went against, I always knew who they were. I wanted to know your structure. I wanted to know how you treated each other. I wanted to know all the crimes you were involved in. I wanted to know how violent you are and who your violence is against. I wanted to know your history,

how you became what you are as far as a criminal organization. And we don't do that. I mean, I'm talking about as a whole. as a whole, you know. Yeah, you know, I don't want to get into politics, but you know,

you gotta study your enemy, you gotta know your enemy, the art of war, right? Yes. The art of war. And I tell all my, in any undercover classes, you gotta read that book, The Art of War, because it was written thousands of years ago, but it's, it'll serve you today. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of crazy when you think that.

People don't change that much over time. No. Human nature's still the same. Yep. And the same strategies apply. Yep. Yeah. It's nuts. And you know, and like I said before, the only thing that's changed in undercover is building your legend because of the internet. Right. Nothing else has changed. Now it's got to be almost impossible. You ingratiate yourself the same way. Yeah.

You know, you do all that shit the same way. Well, especially if someone had any kind of social media before they got in the bureau. Yeah. Or become a cop. Yeah. I mean everybody's kind of ratted on themselves. Yeah. Yeah. It's nuts. Yeah. But there's other ways they catch people now, obviously. With all the surveillance. Did you make a bunch of notes? No, I just wanted to- Did you make sure you covered everything? I just wanted to

mention my mentioned my my grandkids set me up with an Instagram and they said make sure you betcha the did they run it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I joke forget it. I just about can turn my phone on, to be honest with you. And the real Donnie Brasco. And then a cameo page. You have a cameo page where you send people cameos?

Joe Pistone. You just go into Joe Pistone. Yeah, the real Donnie Brasco. How do you spend your time these days? There it is, the real Donnie Brasco. That's from January, Joe, when he flew in for the dinner. That's great. That's great. Yeah. Yeah, well, I'm kind of, right now, I'm writing, I got another book writing on the Bonanos,

and I spent time with helping out with that Southern California gang conference I mentioned It's really it you know, like I said, I've been with them for 14 years actually been doing it 12 one year COVID and one year I was sick And these guys are these coppers that run it They all do it on their own time There's no administrative, nobody gets paid. Really? Nobody gets paid. They do it all on their own time. And the conference usually gets between seven and eight hundred people at each conference. And like I say, it's held once a year. It's held in San Diego, but it's

the Southern California Gang Conference. And if anybody's interested, you have to be a police officer or in law enforcement, you could be Department of Corrections. Their Their email is scgc.inquiry.gmail.com. Go on and get information about it. Or if they want to attend it, that's how you can sign up. And they have great speakers every year. And yeah, some of my merchandise, you can see I have a shirt here, this is Southern California Gang Conference down in Nebraska. We sell these shirts, I give 100% to the organization. I don't keep any, and the mugs we sell and stuff,

I donate my books, I sign books there, and I give all the money to the organization. I don't take anything either. Because these police officers don't take anything. Their time is donated. So yeah, it's, you know, who's there to help you when your spouse or, you know, one of the other dies in the line of duty.

So, yeah. So you were telling me before the show that all that money gets donated to the spouses of people who were killed in the line of duty. Yes, sir, yeah, yeah, yeah So you were telling me before the show that all that money gets donated to the spouses of people who were killed in the line of duty Yes, sir. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you know that help them get started after that's awesome Yeah, and it's great conference. Like I said, they get between seven to eight hundred Either a police officer or Department of Corrections, you know Anybody that's in law enforcement is eligible to attend it.

And it's a week, it's in San Diego. Well Joe, thank you very much for being here. I really appreciate it. What a crazy life you've had. Thank you, thank you. I'm really excited to get the invite. And my grandkids were, whoa, you're going on Joe Rogan They all love you man. Well tell them I said, thank you

They all love you Thank you for being here. Well my pleasure. It was my pleasure to thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thanks for watching!