The Jordan Harbinger Show - 393: Joaquin "Jack" Garcia | Undercover in the Mafia Part Two

Episode Date: August 20, 2020

Joaquin "Jack" Garcia is the former undercover FBI agent who infiltrated the Gambino crime family of Cosa Nostra in New York for nearly three years, resulting in the arrest and conviction of 35 mobsters -- as revealed in his book Making Jack Falcone: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia Family. This is part two of a two-part episode; listen to part one here! What We Discuss with Joaquin "Jack" Garcia: How Jack got a mob boss to carry around a mobile phone that was bugged by the FBI. What Jack did to avoid violating his FBI oath without arousing suspicion while undercover. How much weight Jack gained during three years of hanging out with gangsters in the best Italian restaurants New York has to offer. What Jack misses most about being in the mafia. The biggest organized crime threats to the United States today. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/393 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Coming up on the Jordan Harbinger show. I understand why the mob is romanticized by Hollywood. I mean, if you look at all the criminal organizations, okay, MS-13, the Crips, the Bloods, and all of that, the mafia is really the only group that's been able to infiltrate our society in places like labor unions, police departments, judges, all of those things. That's a tremendous power that they have. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people. If you're new to the show, we have

in-depth conversations with people at the top of their game, astronauts, entrepreneurs, spies, psychologists, even the occasional mafioso, and each show turns our guest's wisdom into practical advice you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better critical thinker. Today, this is part two with Joaquin, Jack Garcia. This guy, man, undercover in the mafia, got so deep in the organization, took down dozens of gangsters. If you haven't heard part one yet, go back and listen to that. That's the episode right before this. You're going to need that for context.

I'm not going to belabor the point. This is a great episode. That's why we cut it into two parts. And if you're wondering how I managed to get all these folks like this on the show, it's all about that network, those people skills just like Jack Garcia used to take down the mob. I'm teaching you a little bit how to do that for free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course.

less beating up gangsters and more sort of networking for personal and career, but you get the idea. Most of the guests on the show subscribe to the course in the newsletter. Come check it out. It's Jordan Harbinger.com slash course, and that's free. Now, let's go with part two from Jack Garcia. You mentioned kicking money up, and also I know you gave your boss a cell phone. That was bugged. You would think a mafia boss would not accept a cell phone from anybody ever.

What the hell was that all about? How is you like, oh, thanks. This seems legit. You can't go to Verizon store? No, actually, they can't go in a price store. First of all, Greg De Palma was on parole. He got out of jail for the scores. I don't know if you ever heard of the Scores strip club,

very famous celebrity. I've heard of it. You know, only from the news, I'll never admit. Of course. Yeah. So you read the articles too, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

I just read the articles. But anyway, he was on parole for that charge, and sometimes they can't. have these things, you know? So I came along with the informants, hey, you know what? I'll get you a phone. Don't worry about it. It's clean. It's another person's name. Well, that was like great. See, Greg De Palma was such a great target for the FBI because he loved to talk and we love to listen. So it gave us that love and respect. And he was like all of school in a certain way. He was a kind of guy who really believed about what Cozenostro is all about, but he had a big mouth.

He really thought that he would be safe to talk and say and do whatever you wanted and the hell with the FBI. But that was his downfall, but it was good for us because of the fact that we got him. He took the phone, happy as could be with it, changed it a couple of times for him, and every time he picked it up, we were there. I found it interesting that since you guys can't settle mafia disputes in court, there's no written contracts, you have to do these sit downs and adjudicate problems in between skippers or whatever. So you're, like, you think mafia is like all this one unified front, but it

turns out, mafia guys are stealing from each other all the time. They're causing problems all the time. They're getting fights all the time. And they got to have these sit downs and adjudicate everything all the time. Seems like never-ending drama. Yes, that's all it is. It's drama. I drove Greg to Palmer. You don't know how many times we had sit-down. I had to take them here. They have sit downs because a bookmaker, there's unwritten rule that there's so many feet that they could operate between the next bookmaking place. And if you violate that, that's a sit down. You've got sit downs where guys stole, tracked the trailers, let's say, of fur coats or electronics. And then they come, wait a minute, that's our truck, our guy.

That was what we were going to steal. So then you have a sit down where you say, okay, but you can't have the truck. back because we sold it. So then they say, well, how much did you sell it for? Let's say, well, he sold it for 100,000. Right. But in reality, it wasn't 100,000 they sold it for 150,000. So they're lying to each other. Then they'll say, okay, sold it for 100,000. So I'll take 50. You take 50. So you see, there's always side dealing each other. They're always trying to make money. They do sometimes work together in different families, especially in the industry in New York where they have, let's say for instance, you're on record as a construction

company, then I may need some drywall guys, I may need some marble guys, and you don't have them, some other fam, and you work it out somehow to do that. But it's one of those doggy dog, they're always lying to one another. As you remember the beginning of the book, the beating in Bloomingdale's. He couldn't put his hand on the guy, but yet he hit him with a candlestick called her. That's a no-no in the mom. You can't put your hands on a made guy. And he did. He cracked his head. And what did it Greg De Palmer say? He said, listen, I says, you got to go on record with this, Robert. You need to talk to the boss why you did this. But don't worry about it. I said, this guy files a complaint. He said, he's got to go through me because I'm his captain. So I'll

take care of that. But you still need to say that. And I'll back you up in anything you say. So it's all the deceit and lies all the time. So this guy got beat up at a Bloomingdale's, which was, what, too public? Or he was just a guy that should have been untouchable for violence because he was too high up? Well, no, the guy was a very successful loan shark and bookmaker. But what happened was he was assigned to the crew of Greg DePalmer. He was a made guy. But he was not reporting.

So what does that mean when you're not reporting? You're not giving envelopes. In other words, you're making this money and you're putting the money in your pocket, and that's not the way the mob works. You're supposed to give money to your captain. Your captain kicks a little to the administration, and that's how it works, because that's how you operate under this umbrella of the Gambino Crime family. So he was fed up that this guy was dodging,

and he did a better investigation of the, better than the FBI, because he had intelligence when this guy was going to show up at Bloomingdale, and that he would go to the cafeteria with his girlfriend while his girlfriend shop. So sure enough, on President's Day in Bloomingdale's at 6.30 in the afternoon, when that place is almost packed, sure enough, it's myself, Gambino Captain Greg DePalmer, and Gambino soldier Robert Vicaro standing there, and then comes Peti Vichini or Peti Chops. he comes through with his gumad, with his girlfriend. Now, he sees us, I'm telling you, you should have seen him.

It was like deer in the headlight. Greg says, I want to talk to you. So he tells his girl that goes shopping. He's sitting there and he's here. Next thing you know, he's telling him, you're supposed to be reporting. Where have you been? He says, I can't report. I'm being watched.

He goes, you're being watched. What do you think we are? We're not being watched too. You're no different than us. That's the nature of the beast. We can watch. You're supposed to come in. Do you understand me? You are under my crew. I need you to come in. You better come in tomorrow. Words were exchanged. The soldier that I was with goes up to him goes, keep your mouth shut. He said, you got a big mouth. He goes, yeah, who are you? He says, yeah, who are you? He's never mind who I am. Keep your mouth shut. The soldier grabs a Costa Boda candlestick that says, it looks, it feels like a dumbbell bell, grabs it and hits him over the head. You hear like a melon pop. Blood is squishing.

all over. He drops down the wall, leaving a trail of blood, lands down. The guy's got little birds going around his head. And I go to him because he goes to hit him again. And I grabbed it. I go, Robert, what are you doing? This is, look at all these people here with the kids. Come on. We've got to get out of here. We're on camera. So he throws the coastal boda down. We're walking off and Greg says, the guy starts to get up like faint. He goes, what did you do that for? You know, why did you hit? So he goes, you know why. And then the guy grabs on the table setting a knife as he was going to stab him. I took that off him. And meanwhile, my coat was a leather coat was soaked in blood. This guy's through, but as we're going down the escalator, they're F-dish.

And I never knew the effort could be used so different ways, you know, as this. And what I'm going to do to you and your mother and everything else, we're going down, the securities rushing up. The old man says, hey, some guy just fell down the escalator. He's going to sue you assholes. And meanwhile, so I get in the car and we're driving back. Now, that's when Greg De Palma says to him, you're not to put your hands on him. You know that. You can't put your hand on a made guy.

He called it a friend of ours. You can't put your friend of ours. You know, because you've got to go on wrecked with this and I'll handle it. This guy, he told him to show up. The guy had not shown up for a year or two years. The next day, I'm with Greg De Palmer and Robert, comes the guy walking around looking like Yankee doodle dandy with the little, you know, head thing on him and gives him an envelope. He lives Greg DePromber the envelope.

And I said, hey, Greg, what happened? He goes, finally the guy came up. He said, I told him, we better show up every week. Never did he file a complaint with the boss, but he got hit really hard. And he's lucky that I was there because otherwise, P.D. Chops will not be here today. Well, I mean, where is he now? He's in prison, right? I assume this guy? No, P.D. Chops, first of all, we never even knew who P.D. Chop was. The case, we identified all these guys that were unknown to us. PD Chops had like 15 bookmaking arrest, but we never had him in the chart of the FBI.

Now he's in the chart. You know, we got him on the chart. But what happened is we couldn't. file a charge because he really was a victim in the assault, and he didn't want to press charges, right? So he's out there waiting to be collared another day. These guys are real pieces of work. You write about there's a guy whose son, I guess, he tried to kill himself in prison, and he became comatose, you know, never to come out of this coma. So he's in a nursing home. And this mafia boss, he's holding all his meetings in the room with the son's comatose body. Why do that? Why do that? That is so weird. Well, Jordan, that's the guy I was with. That was Greg De Palma.

Greg DePalma, son, his name was Craig with a C. He was also a made guy. He was made in John Gotti, Jr.'s crew, and he was proposed by John Gotti, Sr., okay? What happened is, you remember the scores case. It was a case in Atlanta, Georgia, where all the Knicks and professional athletes were going, I think it was called Solid Gold, another strip club. But anyway, Craig DePalma and them were locked up for this conspiracy of shaking down the clubs, extortion, et cetera. Well, we find out by we, I'm talking about the mob, they find out that Craig DePalmer decided to cooperate and went before the grand jury. Greg De Palma, while he's in jail along with Craig, his son, arranges it with the corrupt guards to meet,

at which time he shames him and tells him, how dare you do this, you better not, don't not only be embarrassing our family, but the other family, which is the Gambino crime family. Well, the next day, they found the kid hanging. He was in a vegetative state. So when I was out there with Greg, the kid was still in a hospital and prison hospital. Greg De Palma requested a compassionate release, and his kid was released and put in a nursing home,

which Greg told the nursing director that there will be no mob activity, because Greg DePalmer was a very recognized guy in the community, because he used to own the Westchester Premier Theater where Frank Sinatra played, Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, the Hussu back in the 1970s. In fact, you probably remember the famous photograph of Dean Martin.

His arm is around Greg De Palma and there's Carlo Gambino, Paul Castellano, all these mobsters that were taken. So anyway, so what happened, he promises to this guy that it would be no mob activity. The next day, we had all of our meetings

there. It was mob central. All the mob guys would meet there. Greg would be with his son. I thought at first that'd be one of those fake, you know, phony, that guy is not really sick. But may God rest his soul, I mean, he was in a vegetative coma

and Greg had him comfortable in a private room. His wife blamed him because he put him into life. And she felt that that's the reason for it. But Greg De Palma was there every day. And I would go there to pick up Greg at the nursing home. So, yes, you were in shock that that happened,

but that's the mafia life. But Greg on the street did everything that he could to call that a line. He said, no, my son never cooperated. And people that were arrested knew that he cooperated because in discovery, they got the information. So he says, no, no, what happened is he was killed by those lousy marshals. That's the story he was putting out there. But, But in reality, his son did cooperate. His son is dead too. He's passed on, as well as Greg De Palma has passed on. I know that this sounds super violent and there's all these fights and people getting hit,

but it sounds like the Albanians did a lot of the killing and violence. Like they were kind of like the enforcement arm of this. It wasn't just the made guys or the associates doing this stuff. Yeah, the Albanians were really bad guys. That's how this case began. What happened is it was a strip club in the Bronx that at one time was, owned by the Gambino crime family, they went in there shaking it down. They demanded protection money. They demanded all of this. Otherwise, things were going to happen. Well, one day, just before I got in,

they went in there and started not only making these demands, started slapping people around, breaking bottles, punching everybody in the way. Next thing, you know, there's a fight. A gun goes off in the air, and people scattered. The cops come. And now, things. Think about what that does for a business that walks on the gray line like a strip club. Strip clubs can't afford having the reputation that people are going there with the Black American Express card to get some lap dance. And the possibility could be that not only they're going to get beat up, that they may get killed. So it hurts their business horribly. And also they have a fear that if you operate in a place that the cops are constantly being called in,

there's that nuisance law that they could shut them down. So the next day, a Gambino soldier walks in the door, you know, wearing his nice suit, finger, manicure fingernails, the whole bit. And he says, hey, we heard you had a problem. We can make this problem go away. But you got to pay us $5,000 a week. You pay us that money. We'll make sure these Albanians are gone.

That's when I came in. Okay, they brought me in and I paid the mob. guy the five grand to keep the Albanians out and they never came back. Later on we found out that this is your textbook extortion. You know, you create a situation or a problem and you then offer a solution. So one hand is working with the other. The problem with the Albanians, they were just so ruthless that then they started believing and actually taking down and beaten up clubs and taken over at clubs because they saw the weakness in the mob. They saw the weakness that they had to be contacted. So what happened, there was a major almost disaster that took place in the

highway for the Albanians and the Gambino crime families got together. And one of the Albanians took a rifle and it was a shotgun aimed at the gas tanks to blow it up. And the boss of the family said, listen, what you took is yours, but you're not taking no more. It's over. This is your little run. It's over. We'll just go. And thank God there was not a mob war, so to speak, between the Gambinos and the Albanians. Now, when the case was going on, the guys were being investigated, the Albanians, and they wound up all getting jail time, a guy by the name of Alex Duraj or something, winds up getting arrested. And when they got arrested, made all the papers, the old man told me, he goes,

Jackie, you see these guys? These guys are in a better place being arrested. I go, well, what do you mean? He goes, because they were marked for death. The Lucchese family was going to whack them. So they're lucky that they're in jail. That is what the Albanians are. So the Albanians were very violent, very tough family,

and guys who, you know, violence is what governs the mob. It's all about fear. That's all it comes down to. They have total disregard these guys to go to jail. Well, you're going to give one of these guys five years? They laugh at you. Five years for them is working out, meeting other mobsters, planning all kinds of scams. So when they get out, they go out there and make money.

They don't operate the same with you and I would. Like, for instance, if we do something wrong, there are consequences. and, you know, your whole life is just, they don't care. They're like, okay, you know, that's part of doing business. I got to do jail time and I got to do violence. You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Joaquin, Jack Garcia. We'll be right back. And now back to Jack Garcia on the Jordan Harbinger Show.

I know you can't, as an undercover, you can't assault or hurt anyone. So when you're at Bloomingdale's, you can't, like, go and give this guy a kick while he's down on the ground as well, just to sort of prove what's going on. I wonder the, did they tell you, hey, you know, you need to go down the street and take care of this bookie, slap them around a little bit? Like, are they telling you to do that stuff? And you're just like, ah, I can. I got to take my mom to the beauty shop. Like, what are you getting around that?

Well, it's funny you said that because one of the things the old man said to me, Greg De Palma, was like, hey, why don't you take a couple of licks at this guy? And I said, why would it take licks of this guy? This guy's down, bleeding through the head. I said, he's down. We got to get out of there. So, yes, there were times even when he said, go over there and go talk to this guy. Now, I went over there to talk to this guy, and I'm driving, I'm going, oh, geez, what's going to happen now?

I've got to talk to this guy. Well, luckily, the guy wasn't there, right? Because if I would have said, no, I'm sure if the guy wasn't there. But if he was there, I had it all planned that I was going to talk to him and said, listen, don't make me come back here, right? We're going to do this and that, and hopefully that would have worked. But the guy was not there, and then the old man said, don't worry about it. The guy called me up. He heard you were there and everything is okay. Now, you're not supposed to, and you shouldn't. I mean, let's come down to it. Okay. First of all, this is a case. Okay. I'm not going to compromise my oath. I'm not going to become like them for the virtual of enhancing a case. Because if I did that, then I should not be working undercover. Put in an informant to do that if you want to. But we, Even in the informant has to play by our rules.

So you have to be very careful to do that and not compromise that. Don't put yourself in harm's way. I've dealt with major dopers, dopers, okay? Not one of them said to me, use coke. But when I was working the street level stuff, they would say, hey, come on, do a hit. I would say, what are you crazy? Look at my size. I do that.

My heart's going to blow up. You know, always have excuses. Never get put yourself of guys you hear they went to the basement. What are you doing in the basement? You should be outside. You should be in a public place. You don't want to go into the lions then because things could happen, things that could compromise your safety and things that could wind up killing you.

My thing was I avoided it. I saw lots of slapping, kicking, and all of that. There was violence all the time. Greg the bomb was always smacking some guy and all that. But, hey, you know what? Personally, I guess my size was intimidating enough or fearful enough. But if I had to slap people around or some people who are talking about slap somebody, shoot somebody, what are you crazy for a stupid case? I'm going to do that?

What is that going to do for me? Just like when I was working dope, people would say, oh, you know, once you go over there, they got all the big mother load in there. You should have gone in there. And I said, yeah, I'm going to go to a place that I have no control of. No one's around me. I may not come out alive. And then the next day, after I'm killed, the next day the dope is still going to be sold in New York. I'm not going to stop the drug.

Neither am I going to stop the mopsis from doing it. So don't put yourselves as an undercover in harm's way because, you know, then you're no different than them. Yeah, that completely makes sense. I mean, you must have had some close calls. I know you had a heart monitor that almost gave you a heart attack. Want to tell us about that? That was a great story. What happened is being in the union, we all got coverage.

So the old man takes me and two other guys, and he says, look, we got to get physical. Of course, when they go to the doctor, they go to mob doctors that they know, and these are guys that you don't wait. There's no sitting there's no sitting in's a waiting room. He just walk right in, hey, is he in? And they walk in. So I said, we go in and he says, hey, he tells the doctor, hey, give him a checkup, you know. So I'm doing the checkup, and they find out to have atrial fibrillation.

Now, the FBI never knew that or the FBI never had me figured that out. Well, most of it was that I was never really taking the physicals like I was supposed to. But anyway, now I'm going, like, what does that- You got to get that mafia health care plan, not that shady FBI health care plan. Exactly, that Obamacare plan, you know. So anyway, what happened was I'm sitting there and I'm going, oh, my God, atrial fibrillation, what does that mean? He says, well, I'm going to send you for some test.

Now I'm coming out of here. He goes, listen, I'm going to put a Holter monitor on you. Now, Haltam monitor are those little suck on things that you put on when you do an EKG. Yeah, like, electrodes. All over my body. Electroes. Yeah. And then he gives you like a little cassette player because this was old school.

Cassette player, he goes, now listen, you write down a piece of paper every activity you do. If you go walking, you put walking. If you're laying down, if you're going to take a nap, if you're going to go to the bathroom, whatever, just write it down for 24 hours. I want you here tomorrow. So I said, all right. So I plugs me in and I go. Now, Great Department is there.

But meanwhile, Great Department says, I got to get back to the other place. So he leads with the other guys to the diner where he wanted me to meet him. Now, I'm worried. I'm saying to myself, Atro Fibb, my wife's going to go crazy. You know, she's going to say, end this case. I can't. I've gone too far.

So I'm like a little, you know, out there. So I go to the diner to meet Greg. We're all sitting around with typical eating like we're going to the chair. you know, food all over the place. And Greg De Palma all of a sudden hits the table and he says, we got a problem. So everybody's going, what do you mean? He goes, we got a problem among us. He says, we got information somebody's wearing a wire.

And we got a rat among us. And everybody's going, rat. Well, who's the rat? You know, we'll kill the guy. Who is this guy? So he starts walking around and he's going, yeah, we're going to get this son of a bit. And he goes to my shirt and he rips it. and there are all these electrodes on me.

So I'm doing my best Jackie Gleason, Humana, Humana, Humana, Humana, Humana, Humana, you know? Like, are you kidding me? So then he goes, Greg, you know, and he goes, yeah, you're the fucking rat, right? And I go, Greg, what are you talking about? I said, I'm not a rat.

So he goes, yeah, and then all of a sudden I see him smile. And he goes, ha, ha, ha, I had you, Jackie boy. He goes, I had you. He goes, yeah, and then he tells the story, you know. Meanwhile, I'm putting this shirt back on. next day I go to the doctor, right? I got everything signed there. He plugs the hole to monitor in.

He sees a spike that went right through the roof. That's when I was declared dead at that moment, you know? Yeah. And I'm telling you, that was the wildest thing. And then, of course, then I went for a physical exam. My thing was to the roof, but it put me in a hard place. I talked to the case agent and I said, listen, you can't tell these people that I got this issue of the bureau. They'll pull me on this.

I'm getting medical care. I'm being worked on. I'll deal with this. If you go on record with this, we are doomed. You know, they did what they had to do, but I had this medical care. In fact, I went through so many tests with that that when I moved to Connecticut,

I had to find a new cardiologist. So here I am with a stack of records like this from heart treatment, and now I got to go under Jack Falcone, how am I going to go to a regular doctor and say, hey, Doc, how are you doing? My name is Jack Garcia, but I go by Jack Falcone. Here's my previous record.

So he'll have me do all those tests again. I didn't want to go through all those tests. So I had to have an agent come in, explain the situation, and the guy said, all right, well, look at Jack Falcone, and you are the one and the same. So I'm going to myself, oh, God, could you imagine? I had to go through it. But that happened in real life.

I was Jack Falcone all the time. I lived it at my own apartment. I was worried about the hard thing because of, you know, the fact that it could impact my health. I still worry about it, you know. But I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want to give them an excuse to yank me. And, you know, here I am today, knock on wood. Yeah. I mean, did you ever think, like, were you gaining weight eating at all those nice restaurants all the time?

Absolutely. I ate so much. I'm telling you, I had the greatest foods in the world, the greatest. I'm telling you, I had the best. What happened even to tell you a funny story, when I was in trial, we were testifying, right? Here comes Greg De Palmer doing the old mafia bit in a wheelchair, unshaven, a little blankie. He's got the not only the nose thing, but the full face mask. And he's got two attendants, and he looks so feeble, which is called the mafia flu.

All these old timers, you see them on TV. it looks like they're all coming around in wheelchairs, right? Yeah. So we're playing tape after tape after tape. And every tape we're eating. We're in a restaurant, right? It just stops and he goes, Agent Garcia. He says, why is it every tape?

First of all, you guys have no manners, no social graces. You guys are eating, talking with your mouthful, F-dish, F-dab, mother this, and see this. You know, he goes, I've never seen or ever heard that. He goes, oh, you eat, how much weight did you gain? He said, oh, I gained about 80 pounds, Your Honor. He goes, 80 pounds. He said, oh, my God, I could see why, man, every tape. So anyway, in the gallery that was close because I was working other undercover cases,

so my testimony was being piped into another room where all the reporters were. So they're hearing this exchange. I go home for the day. I wake up in the morning, read the newspaper, front cover, fat fellas, eat their way to New York. another headline. He was almost one of the wide guys. And then he says,

the one Svelte agent gained over 80 pounds. I looked up and I said, what the heck does Velt mean? I had to look that up. I never been called Svelte in my life. So these guys thought that I was like a little guy

and I blew up, but I was a big guy who blew up even more. So, yes. So to answer your question, you ate the best foods it was delicious. I'm telling you, the meals were great.

It's a beautiful culture. It's a beautiful menus that they have. Their food is great. I still eat Italian food. That's how much I love it. But these guys, they put a hit on you. I mean, right? They, like, this isn't all,

Rose, they put a $250k hit on you, which is, that's a decent amount of money for anybody, I would think, especially somebody who's going to get a tax-free. Well, yes, they did, but realistically, Jordan. Let's look at it this way. And I've always said that even with Joe Pistone, okay, is when you're in the mob, thing that I learned, the boss is the guy, whatever he says it is, right? If the boss said to me, whack Jack Garcia, Jack Falcone, okay, there's no money involved. That's an order.

You kill the guy. And if you're not, let's say, in the family, but you kill me, who do you go to? You go to mob or us and say, hey, guys, I just whack Jack. about going. Where's my $250,000? First of all, they're going to whack you because they know that we're going to, the reign of terror is going to be on leash on the mob. And they don't want the disruption of their money making scheme. So I think a lot of that and all the time you hear about, oh, there's a contract for this, a contract for that. I think the mob is smarter than that. They know the consequences. Yes, could there be a lone wolf, a cowboy who would go out there

and maybe whack me and think he's, hey, look, I whack the guy, and he's going to get whacked. They don't want that heat. It's just too much heat. So that was out there. I was disappointed the way he was handled because that was supposed to have been in prison. And the guy said he was going to execute the contract, but the people and the bureau chose not to work it right. They just chose to polygraph the guy. And what do you think the guy is going to say in a polygraph?

Yeah, I'm going to whack him or no. Of course he's going to lie. So it showed that he lied. You know, now what do you got? I wanted to have somebody going in there with a wire, get this guy to admit that there is a contract and who it is and then charge him for doing that. But they didn't do that. You're not really worried about this anymore. You're not checking your rearview mirror or anything like that these days.

Yeah, I do, Jordan. I still do. You know what it is? It's I don't go poking the tiger in the eye. Yeah. I don't go back to the horn. I don't go to those great restaurants that I used to love to go to. I don't do that because I don't want to do that.

I don't want to, you know, hey, listen, we play a cat and mouse game. We get them, they avoid being gotten by us. That's just something that goes on. There's no need for me. And if I did do that, then that shows me there's something wrong in my mind because I have no business, you know, doing that. But I still look in the review of mirror. I still thinking that, hey, you could be driving down the road,

somebody recognizes you. I remember early on somebody recognized me in the car and went back and fortunately brought back to us for an informant. The guys refused to believe that I was an agent, that I was a drug dealer because I didn't look like an agent. And that was always the big thing for me. It's because of my size and the way I carry myself, if I was ever in a situation where I was going to die, I can't say, hey, guys, listen, I'm a federal agent. You know, you're done if you do this and they may hesitate. But think about it. Who's going to believe I'm a federal agent?

So what's going to happen? I'm going to get wax. So my size worked for me, but it also worked against me. I'm very cautious because, you know, for a while there, you wonder, yes, do I have guns? Of course I have guns. I have dogs. Yes. All of those things, you protect yourself and all that.

But I believe is they respect the work that I did. And they were worthwhile adversaries. You know, that's the game we play. you know you're listening to the jordan harbinger show with our guest wakene jack garcia we'll be right back and now back to jack garcia on the jordan harbinger show i was going to ask you what you miss about the fbi but i'm actually more curious about what you miss about being in the mafia or at least pretending to be in the mafia like the treatment at restaurants okay you can't go back to those restaurants which i'm sure you know is kind of a bummer anything else yeah well you know it's a weird

understand why the mob is romanticized by Hollywood. I mean, if you look at all the criminal organizations, okay, MS-13, the Crips, the Bloods, and all of that, the mafia is really the only group that's been able to infiltrate our society in places like labor unions, police departments, judges, all of those things. That's a tremendous power that they have. But what I miss about it was the guys. I mean, you would go out there. just there was a lot of crazy, wild fun times they would have.

We would go out to these restaurants, five or ten guys with 10, 15 strippers. I mean, picture you with your family, and you got all these strippers with you. And everybody's loud. They're doing the singing, what do you call? Karaoke. Carioki's Frank Sinatra, D.M.R. So there was a lot of laughs in there. I'm not going to, you know, lie about that.

And that's, I guess, what the sanity was for me, the fact that that. And also just their rituals. And it's kind of weird because it's like a bubble, a culture. I remember being at the strip club and they were these hang-ons, guys who were like minions who were say, hey, Jackie Boy, you need to wash your car. Let me go get some gas for your car. I'll clean it up for you if you want. You need a drink. There are guys in that culture who love more than anything to be around a connected guy.

It's that power that they hoodlum complex that it's cold where they being around these mobsters and criminals and outlaws gives them that respect that they saw and fear that they want to say and say, yeah, I know Jackie Boy's guy. I mean, even to this day when I give these presentations out there, I go, everybody comes out at the end and says, hey, I grew up in a town with this guy, you know what, Joey Potts and Fans, you know, Vinny Bag of Donuts. You know, they will ask me these questions. Yeah, I go up. There is something very romanticized with them. So I miss the restaurants I do. And also I miss petties and manis. You know, now I can't go in as a petty and manny.

Are you kidding me? Why not? You can't get a manny petty. It's different with a mom guy. You went to a place that's connected. You sat, smoked a cigar. Life was good. You had a couple of drinks.

Yeah, now you go in a place. Look at this guy. Look at this big Mama Lou. What is she doing here? So, I mean, those are little things that they would do. And of course, cleaning the cars and being out on the town. And they really enjoy that part. And I think they enjoyed because they know their life is short. Yeah.

They know that any time they can go to jail and all that. And also to it, in fairness with the FBI, FBI has that camarality too. I mean, I still very close with a lot of agents. I maintain the friendship. I love being around them as well. They're a lot of fun, too. I guess with the mob, I'm spending the bureau's money with my guys and spending my money.

Yeah, that makes sense. They look, if I ever come out by you, we'll go get a manny-petti and we'll tell the Vietnamese ladies or whatever to let us smoke cigars and have a couple drinks handy for us. I don't know. They probably loves to do it. We'll just give them a big tip.

That seems to work every time. I mean, you taught me that. Oh, yeah, tips always work. Let me tell you something. You've got a tip. If you don't tip any, you don't know. I'm telling you, I was the biggest tip of it was all the time. People would remember me. I used to go to places and just tip and came back and I was treated like gold.

That's what it was all about, you know? This is a strange one, but do you ever feel bad about throwing some of these guys in prison? I mean, you got like 32 gangsters from your operation. You spent a lot of time with these guys. You had a lot of meals, but they were also bad guys, right? You know what? Yes, you have to keep it in perspective, that this is a job. you're doing. You're an actor. You're going into this thing to be like them and act like them in a lot of ways while at the same time gathering evidence. Now, some of these guys, I'll give you an example, the guy who hit the guy over the head. Now, he's a ruthless killer. But I used to talk to him. He was a commonest guy, talk baseball, football, talk about life. He was a nice guy, but yet he could

go to that dark side. They didn't have the switches that we had. have. So if I kept them in my side, he really was a likable guy, right? Now, I've worked with dirty cops. Those are the guys really get to me because these are the same guys who took the old, these Hollywood cops. I worked the Hollywood cops in Florida. This guy thought he was a gangster. He wanted me to get him straightened out because I was playing the role of a mob captain and actually was going at the same time I was working the mob case and everything that my mob guy was doing, I was replicating it on him. So I became the Greg DePaulma on the guy.

If that makes sense. It does make sense. So straightened out means like he wanted you to help him join the mob. Yeah, no, straightened down what it is. There are certain terms to get made. Straightened down means you got made. You became a button man. You became an amico nostro.

you became a good fellow. In other words, you went through the ceremony. You've proven yourself, now you want to become a straight, you want to be a wise guy, a maid guy. That's what straightened out means. That's the actual ceremony to be straightened out, to be made. So this guy offered me a house that he had upstate New York if I ever wanted to use it for any clandestine meetings with the bosses.

And this guy was a cop, a 17-year veteran, okay? of the Hollywood police upon. And all he loved being around us. So those bothered me because these guys tarnished the badge that we so proudly wear. And you would sit there sometimes and the funniest guy, Jordan, he would have you in stitches. Funniest guy. You ever want to meet a likable guy and you would sit there and go, why the hell are you doing it? Why is that little switch that makes you go into that dark light?

Why is it there? Why does he have? Why even they rob the Vicaro? That's the personality. I would love to study his, you know, talk to a psychologist about you can have what it appears to be a normal person. But then next thing you know, they take it to the next level. You know, where we have restrained, we don't ever want to go there or ever even think

about going there. Right. But these guys just turn like this on you. Sociopaths, man. damaged brains, bad childhood and a damaged brain probably? I did a show about sociopathy. People are wondering, it's Dr. James Fallon. He's a brain scientist and he can show you in your brain if you have the potential to be a psychopath because it's a different type of brain. But if you have a good childhood, maybe you just go skydiving and you gamble a little bit and you forget to call your wife. But if you

have a bad childhood, you burn animals in your backyard and kill people and hit him over the head with a candlestick at a crowded department store. You know, it's a damaged brain that has a bad, abusive, and violent past or life. And it just, the switch is just, once you cross that line, I don't think you can easily undo that damage, you know? Yeah, that is so true, because I've also met the other guys that I hated from the beginning who had no personality, who would just intent on you could either hurt you or steal from you or work out something.

So then, of course, getting back to when you start it as an undercover, you start off and you work your way up. So if I go in there nice and he's nice, everything is nice. But if he wants to kick it up, I'll kick it up with the guy. But I've met those two that are like, hey, this guy needs to be collared right away. This guy, he's a loose cannon. So there are two kinds. The guy, I guess, are more dangerous. So the guys that I got a long way where the guys with that switch like you just mentioned.

outside of that they're normal guys, except when it comes to committing criminal acts. So is the mob dead right now, or is it still going? And what's the biggest organized crime threat to the U.S. right now? That's probably two very separate questions. Yeah, well, you know, I look at it this. The FBI a while back ago changed their investigative priorities. When I was in the Bureau, organized crime and narcotics were up here.

They were in the top. Now they're not even in the top ten. Of course, it's gone into cyber, it's gone into terrorism, it's gone into corruption, and all these other investigations. So what happens? In the FBI in New York alone, where they have the five families, okay, used to have six squads that were devoted to just work in organized crime. One squad worked the Lucchese crime family, the other one the Gambino, the other one the Genovese, the other one the Bonannals, and the other one to Columbus. They worked that family. What now, what they've done for the last years is they consolidated five squads into two.

Okay? Now, what does that mean is, in my opinion, is that these guys are crawling underneath the rocks and still are growing exponentially. And they're going to come by and bite us in the ass. And I'll tell you why, because as long as you have drugs, as long as you have bookmaking, as long as you have loan sharking, as long as you have people who are buying stuff that falls off the back of a truck,

okay, you're going to have the mob. So the mob is out there and no one is following them. Yes, every once in a while you hear of an arrest, everyone. But listen, these guys are big in numbers. They're out there working.

They're morphed themselves into avoiding it. I don't think they're a problem now, but are going to become a problem simply because we are dedicating our resources on other important issues, but the response from the so-called bureau and law enforcement is, hey, they're not as bad as they used to be if there is an issue, we'll address it. But what does that mean? That, okay, so while before there is an issue, they are growing.

They're recruiting in numbers. They're flying under the radar. So my answer to that is they're still out there. they're just being more cautious, or maybe they're reverting to the principle of organized crime early on, which was a secret criminal society. But make no mistake about it. They're out there working. They still control the bookmaking, the loan sharking, and the extortions and all of those other standards. So that is happening. And I'm sorry, what was the other question? Jordan, I forgot. Yeah, the second part of that, I really should have asked it separately, so it's not your fault.

My other question was, what do you think is the biggest organized crime threat in the U.S. right now? You know, we hear about Chinese gangs, Russian gangs, or even non-ethnic gangs. Drug cartels, I guess, is probably the most obvious. Yeah, great question. I don't think there's any gangs. I don't think it's the blood, crips, and all of that. My personal opinion, what I think the problems that we're having, I would be internal terrorist group, white supremacists, the TFA, all of these groups.

but worse than them, I think, are countries. Now, if you recall reading my book, I write about a chapter called Royal Charm. You have to deal with China. China has been robbing intellectual property for how many years. They're still doing it. Okay? They're a strong power. That's a nation that really has a lot of power.

And because of that, I think we should be more worried about countries like Russia, countries like China. those are the superpowers to come in. These are the little groups that we have, MSR 13, even Antifa. You could squash them like a bug if you really wanted to. But those other things, Fester, I mean, when I was working Royal Charm case, we used to bring tractor trailers full of cigarette, tractor trailers full of counterfeit goods. They were even involved in medication that was counterfeit. One quick instance, and I write in my book,

before we set up a wedding in order to bring all these guys from China to come in, the main undercover agent and a female agent were going to get married, and I was the best man. And on the way, widow, supposedly before they got arrested, we told them they were going to a bachelor party. They were in the back popping Viagra pills. So I turned around and said, what are you doing? He goes, I'm taking a pill, Viagra.

I says, is that made here or is that one of yours? He goes, what are you crazy? I'm using the real thing. They don't even use their stuff. The guy used to smoke cigarettes. We used to buy a container full of cigarette. These are 40-foot containers loaded with counterfeit cigarettes that resemble America. They did not even smoke that.

They smoked our cigarette. So what does that tell you that we're ingesting and bringing in? So that to me is the power of the future. But that Royal Charmed case was amazing. They were also involved in supernotes, which are undetectable, fake 100. $100 bills that we had to send to the lab in order to prove that they were fake. So you're dealing with some major criminal group that's operating in all of these countries that are we should worry about.

I know this is a heavy episode in some parts, so I want to end light. But what is the best Italian restaurant that's still around that you just dream about you, wish you could go back there? You know, what's the one where if I'm in New York, you know, I'm under the radar. I can go eat at the mafia restaurant. Where should I go and get the best food? Well, the great thing about New York has so many great Italians, but the best one is Il Molino.

People say Rayos. I'm not a fan of Rayos. But Il Molino downtown is by far the best. But you can't go wrong with any restaurant in New York. Unfortunately, this pandemic is killing us. So all these great restaurants, we hope they come back. Because there's one thing about New York food. It's the best.

any cuisine you want, it's readily available. But Italian restaurant, you go to Little Italy, great places over there. There is, oh my God, I can't even, I can't think of it. But there's a couple of restaurants there, which are unbelievable. Every time I go to Little Italy, I get caught in a tourist trap, one of those crappy ones where the Kalamari's frozen and the service is bad and everything and everything. I've yet to find the gem. So if you remember it, shoot me a message and I'll link it in the show notes.

Because I think every time I've gone to Little Italy, and I live. in New York for five years. Every time I go to Little Italy, I go, why does anyone eat here? The food is always terrible. I always go to the wrong place. Yeah, I think Angelo says, but here's probably why. You got to go in there like a gangster. Here's what you do. Slick your hair back. Put on a nice suit, right? And when you walk in, Jordan, it goes, hey, how are you doing? Now, how you doing? It's a greeting. It's not a question. Nobody gives a shit how you doing. It's how you doing? So you walk in and goes, hey, how are you? You make it sound like you've been there, done that, and got the T-shirt to prove it.

You don't want to walk in there like a tourist return. What are you walking in with a camera? With my backpack on. Your back, your fanny pack. You're in a fanny. Of course they're going to give you. Hey, bring out the frozen stuff for this guy. There's a many gone over here.

Go in there like you own the place. I've been doing it wrong the whole time. Jack, this has been a lot of fun, man. Really, I appreciate your time. And thank you so much. If you think of any other great places we need to go eat at once everything opens up, let me know. but otherwise, I really appreciate this is a lot of fun. I'm going to let you know when this comes out,

and I'm sure we're going to get great feedback. Great. Listen, a pleasure, and thank you so much. All the best to you. Stay safe, you and your family and your staff. Thank you. Of course, I've got a big close for this one, but before I get into that,

here's what you should check out next on the Jordan Harbinger Show. We're creeping up on episode 400 here. I've been podcasting for something like 13 years. I keep thinking about which are my favorite episodes. Here's what you should check out next on the Jordan Harbinger Show. I went to L.A. and needed to get the first job that I could and got hired by this guy who was a pretty demanding boss. I was his personal assistant. He said, I need you to serve drinks at my poker game. So I'm like, okay, great. And I bring my playlist and my cheese plate. And I'm thinking, you know, the players are going to be these overgrown frat boys. But then Ben Affleck walks in the room. Leo DiCaprio and a politician that was very well recognized and heads of studios, heads of bank.

and all of a sudden I had this light bulb moment that poker is my Trojan horse. I just need the control and have power over this game because it has this incredible hold over these people. Why do these guys, with their access to anyone and anything, come to this dingy basement to play this game? What is the most money you've seen someone lose in one night? $100 million. How did the mob get involved? Around Christmas, door open in the sky that I'd never seen before, pushed his way in, stuck a gun in my mouth.

Then he beat the hell out of me and he kind of gave me this speech about how, if I told anyone about this or if I didn't comply, then they would take a trip to Colorado to see my family. Then the feds got involved and the first thing they did was they took all my money. I moved back to L.A. I'd gotten a pretty decent job. Ten days later, I got a call in the middle of the night. This is agent so-and-so from the FBI. You need to come out with your hands up. I walk into my hallway.

When my eyes adjusted to the high beam flashlights, I saw 17 FBI agents, semi-automatic weapons pointed at me. If you want to learn more about building rapport and generating the type of trust that Molly Bloom needed to run her multi-million dollar operation and hear about how it all came to an end, check out episode 120 of the Jordan Harbinger show. I wanted to wrap up the Jack Garcia episode. This guy, he was taking down, there's stuff that we didn't even make it in the show. He was taking down counterfeiters who were printing U.S. currency and running guns in Thailand. and what he did, he alluded to this in the show, he set up a fake wedding to get all the bad guys in one place and arrest them. I mean, this is like, this is like straight out of, I don't even know, it's like a hangover plus some kind of undercover cop movie.

I mean, the stories this guy has in the book are just bananas. Also, I wondered why mafiososos don't ever have facial hair. I've heard that from people that I know who are in the mafia and I thought, oh, it's just kind of a myth. No, it's no facial hair, nothing to hide. Facial hair is supposed to make you look tough. but mafia guys think, oh, we don't need that. It's just all in our image. It's all in our reputation.

I've heard this from Sammy the Bull Gravano before. I was having dinner with him. I know I talk about that a lot because he's one of my favorite sort of funny name drops, if you will, because most people are name dropping these wealthy, famous people. And I, you know, I'm scraping. I got a mafia enforcer. We were at dinner. I saw this big guy with a big handlebar mustache.

And I said, this guy looks like some kind of enforcer. And he goes, no way. No self-respecting maid man would ever have any facial hair at all. You've always got to be impeccably groomed. But you can be as fat as you want. He made sure that I knew that. You can be as fat as you want. And Jack Garcia mentioned that as well.

I thought that was kind of funny. It's like, just so you all know, you can be fat. This was one of those examples of a little thing becoming a big thing if it's done improperly. It's a giveaway. If you've got facial hair, it's like immediately you're not one of us. You're not one of the guys. You're not a friend of ours. And you only get one take, Jack notes.

He said, this isn't the Sopranos. You only get one take. You want a second take. you're probably going to get killed for it. Never use a wallet, having a wallet, or even a current driver's license that's not expired. That's a tell that you're not legit. You're not supposed to drive yourself. And if you do, you don't have a real license. You have an expired license. I don't totally get that, but hey, look, I don't make the rules. In the New York metro area, if it goes up or it comes down, construction or demolition, a wise guy is getting paid. And Sammy the Bull talked about

this. Jack talks about it in his book. That's one of the main ways the mafia makes money is taking union wages and sort of embezzling funds that way. Mobsters would charge union rates for construction, but then just put non-union workers on the job and keep the difference in funds. There's also bid rigging, and there are benefits for working with the mob because you get more jobs from people who are afraid to give the business to somebody who is not connected to the mob. So basically being not mafia connected in construction in New York, I don't even know if you can't. I don't know if you can survive, your business can survive, or if you yourself can survive. I don't know how that works. I learned about that at a dinner, and I've heard a lot of stories about that sort of thing.

So that tends to check out with everybody they've talked to. Also, Jack calls a Cuba Libre, a Mentira, which means lie in Spanish. Because, and I asked him about this, he said, because as long as Castro's around, there's no such thing as a free Cuba. I see what you did there, Jack. Also, a lot of you asked about the drug thing when it comes to mafia. Whenever I have mafia guys, they're always like, ask them about the drug thing that they saw in Godfather.

Mob guys are supposed to avoid dealing in drugs, but truth be told, they really do not care. it's all, oh, we don't deal in drugs, but it's revisionist history. These guys were always into dope smuggling. They don't care. It was about not polluting the city, not polluting the neighborhood. And it started off as, oh, let the African American community do it, and we don't care. And then it just became screwed. It's too lucrative. Let's just not worry about it. Dope dealers and mobsters do have a key difference, though. Dope dealers, they crave anonymity. They don't want anybody to know who they are. And mobsters crave the limelight. They go to the same places. They dress loud. They have girlfriends. They're talking a lot with each.

other, they're always doing stuff they can be found easily, even and especially by surveillance. Just find their friends, find the girls, find the restaurants they go to, easy. So it kind of exists in this time capsule of difficult surveillance, not easy to find and track people. Now I don't know how that type of organized crime survives. It must just be more corruption because you can't really hide this stuff. And the mob dodged a major bullet, given how deep Jack was within the Gambino crime family. He goes into this in the book. He took down something like, 32 gangsters, and he could have taken down the whole thing if they'd left him in, but they were worried about his safety. And now, he's a family man. Jack used to schlep mobsters around, and now he

drives his kid to and from school. Still, though, he doesn't go to New York much, he says. He wants to get into acting, and he's got a lot of experience, I guess, you know, undercover in the mob, where, again, you only need one take. Sopranos had all the time they needed to get a scene right. You only get one take as an undercover, and if you get it wrong, well, you know what happens. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Big thank you to Jack Garcia. His book will be linked in the show notes. If you buy books from any of the guests, do use the links on the website.

Any country you're in, they should work. It helps support the show. Worksheets for this episode in the show notes, transcripts in the show notes. A video of this interview is on our YouTube channel at jordanharbinger.com slash YouTube. We also embed that in the show notes. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram or just hit me on LinkedIn. I'm teaching you how to connect with great people, manage relationships,

using systems and tiny habits dig that well before you get thirsty. And hey, if you want to go undercover, you're going to need these skills. So most of the guests on the show, they subscribe to the course in the newsletter or they've contributed to the course. So come join us. You'll be in smart company. The Jordan Harbinger shows created in association with Podcast One and my amazing team, that is Jen Harbinger, J. Sanderson, Robert Fogart, Ian Baird, Millio Campo, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. Like the mafia, like some stories, like some social engineering, like some undercover stuff, go ahead and share this episode with them. Hopefully you find

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