The Jordan Harbinger Show - 634: Joe Barone | Living in Dread Between the Mob and the Feds Part One

Episode Date: March 8, 2022

Joe Barone was born into a life of crime from both sides of his family, became the longest-running mafia informant in the history of the FBI when his father was killed, and now lives in hiding from people in both camps who want him dead or behind bars. [This is part one of a two-part episode. Make sure to catch part two later this week!] What We Discuss with Joe Barone: What it was like being born into -- and growing up in -- a crime family, and how Joe was swayed into the life in spite of aspiring to become a postman. The real glue that ties mob families together has nothing to do with honor or unity. How his father's murder was used to turn Joe into an FBI informant for 18 years. What it was like for Joe to live a double life among mobsters -- keeping his cool while fearing for his life -- during those 18 years as an informant. How much does it cost to hire mafia "assistance" in intimidating or eliminating a personal archnemesis? And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/634 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Miss our two-parter with Sammy “The Bull” Gravano, former second-in-command of the Gambino organized-crime family? Start catching up with episode 587: Sammy “The Bull” Gravano | Mafia Underboss Part One here! 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 next on the Jordan Harbinger Show. Basically in Sicily, it was a small little island, so we used to get taken over all the times, and that's how the mafia used to start. It was taken over by the French people, came in, Spain, different people. It was a protection thing. They protected each other. They stood together for something.

Well, later on, as it went on, and when they didn't get invaded no more, then they started saying, well, we'll protect you, and we're going to get something for it? The facade is that they're together. They're not together. It's greed. It's always about the power and the money,

And that's it. I lived it, so I know. Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills are the world's most fascinating people. We have in-depth conversations with scientists and entrepreneurs, spies and psychologists, even the occasional mafia, enforcer, rocket scientist, or astronaut. And each episode turns our guest's wisdom into practical advice that you can use to build a deeper understanding of how the world works and become a better critical thinker. If you're new to the show or you're looking for a handy way to tell your friends about it,

I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes organized by topic to help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. That's topics like persuasion and influence, disinformation and cyber warfare, abnormal psychology, and more. Just visit Jordan Harbinger.com slash start or take a look in your Spotify app to get started. Today on the show, a man who is a ghost. He came out of nowhere. Well, he came out of hiding, kind of, to do this one. Joe Barone was essentially born into the mafia, and after they killed his father, he turned FBI

informant. But he's not just any informant. He's the longest-running mafia informant in the history of the FBI by far. For nearly two decades, Joe lived a dangerous life with one foot in both worlds, and as a result, he's now in hiding from people who would like to see him dead. Today, we dive into the story of how Joe's mafia career began, what he did for the FBI along the way, and why now he's living every single day looking over his shoulder. I'm actually a bit glad we couldn't do this one in person, not because I don't want to meet my guests, but because being

around someone like this is literally dangerous. I tried to send him to a studio, and I don't even know what area he lives in. They wouldn't tell me. I tried to mail him a microphone, and let's just say they found another way to get a microphone instead of giving out an address. So this is kind of the real deal. I've never really experienced anything like this before, and that for me, of course, was extra interesting, and I think this conversation is quite fascinating as well. So here we go with Joe Barone. How did you find me? Because y'all emailed me out of the blue. I mean, I thought it was a prank at first. I'm not sure about how that was all found. It was through a friend of mine. And then I looked at a couple of the things that you've done. And I was like, wow, I like them.

I'll take it. Flattery works with me. Okay. Okay. But why reach out to anyone? You know, I know I don't want to spoil anything and we'll get to this in a minute, but you're in hiding right now. So why suddenly be like, I want to go on a podcast and let everyone know what's going on there? It's really not all of a sudden. I've been trying to sue the government for what they did to me for since I got out of prison. It's just about me trying to, I guess you could say I'm like an FBI whistleblower. I want to just kind of tell the truth, at least from the way and what happened to me about what the FBI or what they really are. Okay. And we'll get to what happened in a bit here, but, you know, we'll tease him with that one. Okay.

You were born into a mob family, right? That's correct. On both sides. On both sides. Okay. So your mom was a mob daughter then, I guess that's how that works, right? Actually, no, believe it or not, I'll tell you my mother's side of it first this way, because it's a little bit more complicated. I guess you heard of Al Capone. I guess I have, yeah. I think if you haven't, that's a you problem at this point, right? He's a very well-known guy. So anyway, most of my family came from Italy, as you could well imagine. Sure. But they moved to a part of Pennsylvania when they first came here. My grandmother's sister's husband's brother was involved with Al Capone.

Oh, wow. So if he can follow me that. Yeah, we actually have pictures of them. It's a bit of the, yeah. That's why I wanted to tell you this first because Salati, that's a little bit more difficult. Sure. Well, anyway, he was doing the bootleg in back in those days with the alcohol prohibition, all of that stuff. but one day they killed him.

So his brother, which is my grandmother's sister's husband, used to be a barber in a barbershop. They came to him and they said they want the money. So he didn't really know anything about it. He wasn't involved in that. He goes, I don't know anything about it. And they said, look, we're going to come here tomorrow and you better have the money.

We're going to kill you. So the next day, they all got everything together to ready to move. They went to the barbershop, and my uncle, I guess I call him my uncle, he killed him. He shot them. Oh, he killed them instead of them killing him. He was just like, well, I'm moving anyway.

Yeah, basically, if you're going to kill somebody, you don't want to give him advance notice. Yeah. You know, that makes sense. But from an extortion perspective, it's usually a bluff and you just want the money. So you have to kind of balance it. Like, maybe you don't tell them you're going to kill him. Maybe you just say you're going to do something really bad unless they give you the money.

But these were maybe they thought he's a barber. He's not going to do anything. And then he did. Right. Yeah. That's exactly right. So they packed up everything and they moved from Pennsylvania to a town. called Maronick, New York.

Okay. And then from Maronick, New York, they moved to a town where I was born, or Rochelle, New York. Okay. And so my uncle went back into this business,

cutting hair again. Well, 20 years later, somebody came and shot him. Wow, because of the previous beef. But they didn't kill him. They shot him in the finger, and the blood went squirting, but it was all in the papers

that it was because of the old Al Capone days. Wow. 20 years, I mean, that's a long time to wait for a pay. Did they, so they just took for us? ever to find him, I guess. Yeah, because don't forget, too, back in those days,

there weren't like the resources now you get on a computer, you get a private eye, you know, records, there's more things. And don't forget, too, the mafia was a lot stronger back in those days as well. Yeah, that makes sense, right? So now, well, I mean, I guess I don't know anything much about it now, but it seems like, yeah, you can't really just Google somebody and be like, aha, there's a guy with the same barbershop and the same name. He's got a business license and new Rochelle now.

Let's go have a look. They just have to wait until someone's like, you know, remember that story about those guys? There's a guy who's working here into Rochelle and he kind of looks like maybe he just said he just moved here a few years ago. I mean, how do you even find someone back then? I guess you probably don't know the answer to that either. I mean, that's tough. No, but that's why it took so long. But that goes to show you how long they could hold a grudge.

Yeah. Yeah, that's scary. I had felt bad for my, his name was Joe too, believe it or not, and we'd call him Giuseppe. But he used to walk the streets. he started getting Alzheimer's and I used to walk up to him and I say, Hey, Uncle Joe, how are you? He got scared because he thought they were still coming to get him. Oh, that's terrible.

Yeah, that's terrible. Because he assumed, because he didn't recognize you. No. So he thought, oh, it's them threatening me by, oh, that's too bad. Yeah, that's terrible. But on the other hand, he didn't die by getting shot. So they shot his finger off and they were like, we scared him, that's the end? Or they just, that's weird.

I guess with the blood they just wanted to, they shot him quick and ran. Yeah. It was in the newspapers in the Sheld, I guess, the Times or whatever it was back in the newspapers back then. It seems weird to spend 20 years finding someone, shoot their finger off and be like, well, my work here is done. That's what's the point of that? If you go back and you look at a lot of mob hits, a lot of them were really, they were messed up. Yeah, sloppy. Sometimes they couldn't even shoot straight.

I guess because when you want to do it to spur at a moment, I mean, look how many times it took to shoot Joe Gallo. There was another guy called, from the Luke Hasey crime family, they called him Gas Pipe. they didn't even shoot him and kill him. Like, he ducked under the car, he got out, he ran away. I mean, it's like poorly planned. Not that I'm complaining. I mean, I'm not trying to, I'm not voting for anybody to get murdered, but it just seems like, like, I've never done it.

But it can't be that hard when you've got a whole team of people and you're getting the jump on somebody to, like, get a couple shots in or, like, block their escape route or something like that. I guess, I don't know. I don't know what I'm talking about, but it seems like there's a lot of sloppy mob hits. Well, I mean, the Paul Castanelano went down pretty smooth. Yeah. Or if you're going to kill your best friend, it's pretty easy because, you know, he don't think you're going to shoot him.

Right. Yeah, you put a couple of whiskeys in him and invite him over to your house and then he falls asleep and that's the end of that. Yeah. Yeah, that's the way it always happens. It's always your best friend that's going to come and get you because they know they can get you easily that way, you know? Oh, that's such a terrible. Yeah, I was talking with Sammy the Bull a couple months ago and he was saying it's horrible because you have to kill everyone that you love because you're the one they pick to go after those people because they'll let you into the house when it's only them. alone and then have a bunch of wine and let you stay really late until everyone goes to sleep. So they pick you for that and he's like, it's awful for that reason. Of course. That's how one of the kids in the Bath Avenue in Brooklyn, he pushed Anthony Spiro and then his own friends had to go there and kill him.

It's a lot harder when you know they're coming for you and then you're ready for it. It's almost like, you know, how they tell you a woman who's more prone to be raped if she doesn't how to defend herself. So you take precautions, you know, and some girls take martial arts or, They try to carry mace with them and hold it in their hand, anything. And so make it more difficult for a criminal. Yeah, yeah. So they know that you're not going to have any defenses up.

Man, it's just such a crazy way to live. That's correct. Just such a crazy way they live. Well, look at the way I have to live. Well, yeah. I always look it over my shoulder. Yeah. I mean, where I'm living in the place I'm at now, I could pretty much see what's going on

and who might stand out in the crowd, sort of speak. Yeah. Okay, so you're born into a mob family on both sides. So your mom was, was she like a mob granddaughter? than, I guess, at that point? Well, you know, she just knew about it, but everybody knew that it was a big Italian thing. And basically back in those days,

they were very well respected or at least feared. You know, so my mom really didn't want no part of it because that's what she told my father. My father's family, of course, was involved. And my grandmother, my father's mother, her family was involved in it as well. And that's how my father got started. But she, like many other mothers do,

don't want their sons to get involved. Yeah. And believe it or not, not, I really wasn't going to be involved. I'm going to make you laugh, Jordan, but I was going to be a postman. Really? Yeah. That's my uncle and two cousins was a postman. So I was going to follow that and just, you know, live a normal life. That is the opposite of my, that is, if I had to pick one job, that is the opposite of gangster hitman, it's probably mailman because it's like stable, government job, the most dangerous thing in your job is like dogs and people who are not paying attention

when they're driving, you know, or like the amount of time you spend on the road. That's correct. And then it's like, well, now I'm actually just going to go and join the mafia. What did your father do in the mafia? I know you have to like earn and everything. What do he do? He started out in the card games, you know, collecting money and that kind of stuff. And I guess my father was very mean when he wanted to be.

He was a Gemini, so he was a true Gemini. But he was a good getaway driver. He actually avoided, they tried to rob him after a card game, and he was able to avoid that. Wow. Yeah, my cousin actually showed me the road they took, and he showed me what he did back in those days. Yeah.

You know, but he learned from the ranks, and that was it. Then, of course, he started hijacking trucks and things like that. So how did he end up getting you into it? If you were going to be a postman, how did he convince your mom, or how did it end up that you did not do that? He never convinced my mom, But what he did was, I saved I guess $1,000.

And, of course, you know, when you're young, you want to buy a car. Yeah. So he said to me, he says, you want that money to make money for you? I said, yeah, Dad, well, that's when I started loan sharking. Oh, okay. Yeah. The new way, if you're going to loan shark today is if you want to give somebody $1,000, make sure they have enough collateral to give you where it's at least $2,000.

So that this way, if they ever pay you, you don't have to break their legs anymore or beat them up. You just tell them, okay, you don't have to pay me. I just take the thing that you gave me that's worth the other thousand. I'll cash it and that's it. Right. So you take like a laptop or something. Right. Something that's worth I can get the money

without having to do violence anymore because let's face it, if I hurt the guy, he can't work or I get arrested again. And even if he signs a promissory note, the court just says, yeah, he owes you the money, but you still don't get the money

if you don't have it. Right, right. Yeah, judgment proof is what we call that. You can sue somebody for a million dollars and win, but if they're homeless and I'm not giving you anything. Exactly. Yeah.

But my father had still taught me the old ways And of course, I had to go to certain places when I started earning my own money. And then, of course, I'd help my father out with his. And basically, I hung around with a group of guys who used to be called the Third Street guys or the Third Street boys. Every young guy kind of gets into a group of gang or a club or whatever. And so they kind of knew we were getting into a lot of fights back then and stuff. And they knew that I would beat them up and my father would bail me out if that was the case.

So basically everybody paid. That's how I got started. do you even find people that need money? Or do they just go, man, I really need money, so I don't have a choice. I got to find Joe Barone. Trust me, they find you. Yeah.

Because they can't go nowhere else. They can't go to the bank. They try to every other route. They probably went to their own family members, and they can't even do that as well. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. Some of their family members don't even trust them. How do people get jobs in the mob?

Like your dad came to you and said, hey, do you want to get your money working for you? But later on, do you kind of come up with your own idea for a racket like, oh, hey, I got this idea where, you know, my friend runs a store, and if we run fake transactions on credit cards and we take some of the cash out and we say we sold the luggage, we can make like an extra thousand bucks a week. Is it like that? Okay.

Anything that can generate money for the mafia is in. Okay. Of course, now, don't get me wrong. There's going to be a lot of guys that are, like, especially the old timers, are going to shine down on you. Like here, for instance, you might know that they say there's no drugs. They don't want to deal anything with drugs. That's not true.

As long as I bring in them an envelope, they don't care what I'm doing. They don't ask no questions. They're like, you know, and if something happens to me and I get arrested, and then they say, didn't you know what he was doing this? He wasn't bringing you an envelope. I didn't know. He told me he was doing something else, they'll say, you know, to stick up for themselves. But anything that can make money, whether it be legal, illegal, they're in.

Look, they used to steal Viagra pills and then sell them on the street, you know, fake credit cards they can make up. Whatever it takes, as long as they not have to spend their own. own money if they have, Eddie, that's it. Because let's face it, most of the wise guys are broke today. Yeah, yeah, that's one thing I've noticed doing a lot of these interviews is like, no one's like, well, I'm rich now and I retire. They're all like, yeah, I went to prison and now I don't have any money.

I'm like, weren't you making $6 million in the 90s? How are you broke? And it's, yeah, maybe you'll answer that. You get a guy like Michael Francis. I don't know nothing about him, really, except what he tells you and stuff like that. He was making almost like $9 million a week or whatever it was with the gas business. Now, he was given big money to these people, and it still wasn't even good enough for them. They tried to scare him so that this way, you know, he could be like, hey, I'm going to make sure my loyalty is here.

I mean, his loyalty was always there. But the thing is, though all those people with the money he was giving them, where's their money? Yeah. He was giving Carmine, I think, like $2 million a week or something like that or even more. Where was his money? Carmine, tell us who that is? The snake. Carmine, the snake, Persico.

So he was the head of a crime family? Colombo family, the accident, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because for people listening, they're probably like, I don't know who that is, right? So we got to keep that in my... And for me, it all blends together. I've heard Carmine before because Sammy talked about it a lot, but even then it's like,

okay, there's five families, but there's more than five, but also there's different bosses, and then some of them get killed, so then they change. So yeah, it gets a little confusing if you're not in the business. And it's always changing, and it's like anything else. I don't know everybody there is. Yeah. And Sammy, as well known as he is, he probably didn't even know everybody, you know? Sure.

It makes sense that anything that generates money is in. So my question is then, if I'm generating money off an idea that I have and it doesn't require violence or any sort of enforcement, why do I need the mafia for that, right? Like, why does somebody who's skimming gas money or whatever it was that Francinez was doing? Why does he need the mafia for that? Or is it just he doesn't have a choice because he's getting extorted, essentially? Basically, I think in Michael's situation, he was already a gangster, I believe. So anything he earns now really is part of what he's a part of. So he has no choice but to kick in and to do it, even though he came up with the whole thing himself. If you're like a guy like yourself and you come

up with it, well, why would you have to go to the mob? The only time you would have to go to the mob is if you need what they call, there's an old movie called Fist with Sylvester Stallone. And sometimes you need a little what they call push. Sometimes you need them to get involved like in unions, like strike breakers back in those days, and you would need it to get an advancement in certain places. Like here, I got a deal. I can buy a couple of houses, but the banks are going to give me a hard time with loans. So maybe I need a loan from the wise guys until I sell a house. But now all of a sudden, they become your partner.

And that's hard to get out of. Right. Okay. So if I'm in the mob with Michael Francis and I need a bunch of money, I say, hey, aren't you making $9 million a week from this gas thing? I'll buy a bunch of properties, but I need you to finance them. and then I can't get away from it. Once I'm on my own two feet, he's like, well, wait a minute.

I'm the one to help you get on your own two feet. You're not cutting me out now. It's like getting famous. Like, say you hit the lot of, all of a sudden you got all different people asking you for my family's hurting or I got an idea and people start coming to you when you got the money. Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Or if you got power.

And when you're in the mob, usually you have a lot of power, at least it's what it used to be. Yeah, I'm thinking what I would do if I was in the mob, right? And it's the only thing, I mean, I'm not. So I'm short on ideas, but, you know, I buy a lot of advertising for the Jordan Harbinger show on other podcasts. In fact, a lot of people listening right now are like, oh, I heard an ad for you on this show about crime or this show about politics. So it's very expensive to advertise, as I'm sure, you know, you can guess.

But I think, you know, if I was in the mafia, I could just be like, hey, instead of me paying for these ads, you're going to run an ad for me on your show and you're going to do it for free. And if they're like, why would I do that? I'm like, because I know where you live, and I know a lot of other people that you don't want them to know where you live. So just run a couple ads for me for free. It's not going to hurt you. You don't have to do anything.

You're not losing money. I'm just not giving you the money because I don't want to. And then they would be like, fine. If you're not going to break my legs, then I'll run an ad for you. And I, you know, let's save me a couple million bucks a year. But then now I have to kick that money back to the guys who were going to maybe enforce that particular threat, right? Yes, but also there's a flip side to the coin, too. If somebody's going to be selling you, if you make it a deal with somebody to sell some of your stuff.

Yeah. Basically, they're going to make money off of it too. So in other words, you're really working with them now. You know, just because you ain't coming up with no money up front. Okay. So they're doing you, they're helping you out. But at the same time, so instead of making $10,000 a year, I'm just throwing numbers out there on your stuff, they're going to make 20. Right.

So now you split the difference between the 20. So now you get $5,000 extra. That's not a bad deal. Right. It's about helping people here. look, I had to collect money one time for a friend of mine. This guy owed him $6,000. So I told him, I said, look, I says, let me know a little bit about the guy. I'll get the money for you because I don't want to drive all the way out to Pennsylvania to get it.

So he told me when I said, I'll only charge it at 1,800, which is the third. I made a phone call to the guy, and I told him a few things that I needed to tell him. And he understood that I was a friend and that I knew a little bit too much about him. Well, the next morning, I got a phone call for my friend to come down and pick up the money because the guy Western united to him that morning. See, that is a different tactic. He didn't have anything I could do to try to make him earn. He didn't own a club or a bar or anything like that.

So those things work in certain situations, just like what you're saying. I'm your partner almost in a way. You're going to earn money here. So why not? Yeah, okay. That makes it. Well, the reason why not is because then you can't get away from it. But I guess people aren't thinking about that in the moment.

Well, it's always about the money. Yeah. Everybody's hungry for the money. You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Joe Barone. We'll be right back. If you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers, and creators every single week, it's because of my network. And I'm teaching you how to build your network for free over at jordanharbinger.com slash course.

Now, the course is about improving your networking and connection skills and inspiring others to develop a personal and professional relationship with you. It'll make you a better networker, a better connector, and a better thinker. That's all at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. And by the way, most of the guests on our show, subscribe and contribute to the course. So come join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong.

Now, back to Joe Barone. And if you're born into it and you're already a gangster, you're already in any way. So what's the difference if you get in a little bit deeper? I mean, you're not, you can't just not associate if you're, no. I mean, it's too hard. So your father was Genevay's mafia would associate,

and the FBI documents that I looked at that you sent me, he can associate with Gen. Or you, as a result of your dad being Genevese, can associate with Genevese banana, lacosa nostril. LCN is La Cosa Noster, right? They use that abbreviation a lot. Yeah. Okay.

And that's just like a mafia term in general for the Italian mafia. Okay. Right. All right. My father was in the Genevese family. I guess I was supposed to go into that family as well after they found him dead and everything like that too.

Yeah, he know people in the Lucchese family. He knew people in the Bonano family. He knew a lot of people. Matter of fact, I guess you're familiar. with the Garmec District in New York City. Yeah, sort of, a little bit. It's a thing where all the clothes, everything, it's mainly run by the Gambino family,

but for some reason there was some kind of problems going on there with people getting their money. Well, they called my father in. And there's, I believe, three fractions. I don't know if it was Lucchese, Gambino, and I don't know who else was the other one in there. But because my father knew everybody, and they all vouched for my father

to make sure that everything they knew them, they liked them, and they trusted them to make sure everybody got what they were supposed to get, that's what he did because he was well liked. So basically I knew different people from different families as well too. And so I was able to talk to whoever I had to talk to too. I know your world sort of got turned upside down in, it says January 12th, 1992. Your father was killed by somebody.

I mean, do we know that story? What happened there? My father had to go on the lamb. He had wound up killing for the mob. This guy, Victor Matooro, I believe his last name was, he was a gangster. And supposedly they had suspicions that he was working with the FBI. Okay. And it was true.

He was working with the FBI. So my father was last seen with him going to his house with some other guy. And then, of course, the next day they found the guy hanging. And they said that it was suicide, but it wasn't suicide. They just made it look like that. Well, they wanted to, I believe, get my father for that murder and maybe a couple more. Mm-hmm. A couple more murders.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, my father, I think, had about four bodies under his belt, I think, that I know of. That you know of, yeah. Anyway, he got tipped off that they were looking to arrest him, pinch him. He took off on the lamp.

And so then he gave me instructions what to do, where the places to pick up money and this and that, and that's what I did. Oh, okay. Okay, gotcha. So he's, like, calling you from a pay phone, and he's, like, leave an envelope full of cash at Johnny's bar and tell him that Mike's going to come in and get it. And then some other guy comes in and gets the cash for him and drops it off. He can't, like, go around using a credit card or, like, withdrawing from a Chase bank down where he's staying, right? No, I mean. He needs cash to survive.

It was actually trucking companies, basically, and stuff like that. He was controlling and taking care of. Okay. His job was to make sure that no other wise guys came in, took over the trucking company. Ah. Because he's, right, so he's on the run, and he's got to protect the thing that's earning for him because somebody else can just do it since he can't be around to call shots. The only problem is, is what I went to go collect the money, I didn't know who to kick it up to.

And nobody came to see me until one day I met the guy. And the guy says, listen, we can't beat no more. And that's it. That means somebody else, you know, finally the higher-ups took the businesses. And that was it. Ah, okay. So what happened to your dad then? Like, he was on the run.

Why get rid of him? He was still on the lamb. Matter of fact, he was with another wise guy someplace in, I guess it was Honduras. And I don't know. I guess they got wind that he was there. I don't know why. It was my impression that the wise guys killed him. maybe as a precaution.

It's my intention now that I think the FBI had him killed and leaked to where he was to the mafia because he could expose them because don't forget he knew a lot of judges. He knew a lot of politicians as far as trying to get me out of trouble and stuff like that. So I can maybe explain it better for the audience and for you, Jordan, as well. Yeah. John Gotti had his connections and Sammy the Bull had his. My father had his, just like I had mine. people have different crews.

In other words, nobody knows everything that everybody else has. Some things you keep quiet. And so my father would, you could almost actually see that movie in The Godfather. Remember where they wanted to use all his political connections

to get the drug business going? Sort of, yeah. I mean, it's been a while since I've seen it, but yeah. But he didn't want to do that. Well, same thing like my father. Certain things and certain people that he knew he kept away because they were his own connections.

Same with me. I had certain things that nobody knows about, but I kept quiet. Why do I have to tell them everything? Yeah, good point. Yeah. Yeah, because they take you from you. That makes sense.

Yeah, they'll take you from you. Listen, most people get killed in the mafia because they want what you have. There ain't a real brotherhood there. Yeah. They use an excuse, oh, he was no good. We got worried he was bad. All kinds of different excuses. Right, of course.

And so, man, so if you want to do something that earns in the mafia, you have to make damn sure that they can't replace you easily. Right. Because they will otherwise. Like, why give you the money if you've already set it up and they don't need you anymore? They can just get rid of you and take the... So the podcasting example is not really that bad because nobody else can do this show. So they would be like, well, don't touch Jordan because nobody else is going to do this.

Exactly. Nobody else is going to do mediocre interviews. Like, we got to keep around. Yeah. I mean, if you listen to Michael Francis, he even tells you the story himself too. He didn't tell them everybody who he knew and who his partners was in the gas business. He was a smart man. He knew what he was doing.

but yet they still wanted to intimidate him. All the money he was given him, they still wanted to intimidate him. Because they, you know why? And you know this too. Money buys power. So let's say, hey Jordan, you're not going to sell out for a million dollars, right?

Okay, would you sell up for five? Well, wait a minute. Five is a lot different than a million, you know? And if you're making that kind of money, like nine million bucks a week, you have to keep intimidating that person because otherwise, what if he starts donating to politicians and the police chief?

And then he's close with the commissioner and the FBI. He's like, okay, look, man, I got these guys. They're looking over my shoulder. You're going to have to arrest this whole bunch of these crime family guys to get me away from them, and I'll keep you in the office. But if you're really scared of those guys, you're just going to be like, you know what, I don't want to rock the bow because I'm going to end up getting killed, so I'm not going to do anything. Always remember this, and this is just the truth.

The facade is that they're together. They're not together. It looks like they're together. But it's all about its greed. It's always about the power and the money, and that's it. And I know. Yeah, I lived it, so I know. It makes sense.

You see a lot of young people especially, and I guess older people, they really romanticize the mafia. Like, oh, man, it's different now that they had the code of honor and all this stuff. But when you really look at all these stories from all these folks, they're always getting murdered by their cousins, brothers, or families or other things like that. They end up turning on each other all the time. And also, there's only honor up until it's, like, really inconvenient or more profitable to screw over somebody.

Well, here, I'll give you a perfect example. When I was younger, I got into a problem at some party at a house. I made one phone. There was about four or five guys that were going to jump us or something like that, me and one of my friends. So my friend says, make the call, Joe. I made a call. I had two carloads of guys coming over there.

It was about 15 guys. They left because the girl told him, this guy knows some people. You better get out of here. Anyway, my friends said, don't worry about it. You better be safe and sorry. Let's go away. And I left with them. But there's power in that.

It makes you feel good that you can make a phone call and get somebody to back you up, you think that they're doing it because they love you. I mean, these guys just love to fight. You know what I mean? Right. But you think it's like, wow, man, you can't thank them enough. And they saved you in a way.

Right. So it feels really good. And the town talks about it for like a couple of days and, you know. But in the mafia, it's almost like that. But at the same time, they don't really care. Yeah, yeah. It's just profit and self-aggrandizement. And then beyond that, it's like,

The rest of it's just lip service, yeah, from the sound of it. Listen, mafia didn't start off like that. You know how the mafia started, right? Not really, because I only hear, you know, you hear like the romanticized version, but all I know is a little bit about, you know, in Sicily. You know what? Why don't you tell it? I'm just going to ruin it.

My friend, he was a captain and a banana family told me exactly what mafia stood for, the letters, M, you know, and all of that stuff. But I forgot because after I was locked up for a while, I wound up getting PTSD and stuff like that. But basically in Sicily, it was a small little island, And so he used to get taken over all of times, and that's how the mafia used to start. It was taken over by the French people, came in, Spain, different people. It was a protection thing.

They protected each other. They stood together for something. Well, later on, as it went on, and when they didn't get invaded no more, then they started saying, well, we'll protect you, and we're going to get something for it. And that's how it started. Right. Okay, so it started off as a self-defense. It's interesting.

That happens a lot with self-defense movements. Like, you hear about it with drug cartels in Mexico. It's like, you know what? We're sick of being pushed around by the cartels. We're going to start our own citizen militia where we get armed and we don't let people push us around because the police are corrupt. And then it's like two, three, five years later, those are the people who are kidnapping and extorting people.

And it's like, wait, weren't you supposed to be here protecting us? Well, we got to earn a living somehow. You know, we pushed out the cartels. There's a power vacuum. So now we're the bag. It just like it really does. You trade hats really quickly after that. Well, what's the old phrase?

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Yeah, exactly. I mean, the cartels got started. because they did allow drugs in this country, just like Prohibition got started. You made the mafia rich by saying nobody could drink anymore. There's a law in Connecticut. After two o'clock of the morning, you can't have sex with your wife. That's a real law. Is that true? Yeah. I got to Google that later. Yeah, you check that out. That's crazy. But they never got rid of it. Now, who would ever even put something like that in the laws? But there's so many stupid laws,

nobody knows them all. I got to look this up. This is insane. Cohabitation law. No, let me see. You know what, this isn't going to come too easily. No. Connecticut lawyers who are listening to this right now, tell us whether or not that's an urban legend, because that is very strange. I've never heard that, but that doesn't mean it. I mean, there are weird laws on the books.

Oh, got you. There's all kinds of stuff. If you look up weird laws, like, you can't have chickens out on Sunday morning before noon in Kentucky, and you're like, what? And it's like, because they were disturbing church services or something like that. Right.

You know, there's a reason for it that doesn't make any sense anymore, but they don't bother to get rid of it because it's not enforced. Well, that's funny. When I was in the box and I was locked up for 15 months in the hole, why only five days a week you can get 45 minutes outside? Why Saturday and Sunday, you can't? Yeah.

You know, why? Yeah. They want you to relax on the weekend. I don't know. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah.

So, okay. So your father was killed under, was the, was it Vinnie the Chin? Was he the head of the Genevice family at that point? Yes, I think he was still around then. My father's boss was Barney, Barney Belamo. Bonnie is still very powerful to this day. Smart as a whip. When I say a good guy, I guess he's a good guy,

but he's very powerful, very well-liked. He can go anywhere in the world or in the country and be known, you know? Wow, yeah, so initiated, so this is Liborio Belomo. Is that his official? Okay, yeah. His father was a soldier close to Fat Tony Salerno.

Yeah, inducted or initiated in 1977. How was he alive and not in jail? I mean, that's rare to be around for that long. Oh, he was in jail for a long time. He's, in fact, he's one of the youngest guys that would be made, too. But he's very smart. But a good guy, you know, like as far as a wise guy would be concerned, you know what I mean? Yeah, he's 65 now.

I mean, you just never hear about that. A lot of these guys are gone or they're in prison or whatever. So how did the FBI then convince you to become an informant? It's a far cry from, okay, your father's dead. We don't really know who did it, too. Now you're working for the FBI. So I was doing my time. I got arrested on extortion and gun possessing charges.

I guess I was facing maybe, I don't know. I think my lawyer said they shouldn't get me like three or four years or whatever it was. Okay. It could have been longer. I don't know. And I was willing to take the deal and stuff. I was fighting in the court. So I got moved from the prison I was into MCC.

When I was in MCC, the boss of the Lucchese family came to me, which was Vicka Muso. I don't know if you heard of Victor of Muso. No, but he's the boss of a little Casey family. I was good friends with him. Okay. He said to me, he says, listen, the FBI's going to come see you. I don't even know how he knew, but he knew.

Yeah, how did he know that? We're at MCC. So he says to me, he says, you tell them, you listen to what they got to say, you sit there, you keep quiet. He says, and you tell them this. I'd love to help you, but I'm not even in a position to help myself. I never forget that. Anyway, I get pulled into the bullpen,

and all of a sudden, now the marshals come and get me, and they take me to this hallway, and I'm like, where's the courtroom? You know? Right. And all of a sudden, two FBI agents are waiting at the bottom and the hall for me. He goes, okay, you're going to go with them now. And they left. Well, I go into a room.

Who's there is the AUSA. Is that a U.S. attorney? Yes. Okay. That's correct. Federal prosecutor, essentially? Yes. Okay.

Benjamin Rosenberg, I think his name was back then, another FBI agent and the two that brought me in and my attorney. So I says, you guys mind if I talk to my attorney for a minute? And so they left the room And he said, I said, what's going on? I said, I told you, I'm not going to cooperate with these people. He said, oh, look, Joe, he says, they just called me at a spur of the moment.

He says, listen to what they got to say. You got nothing better to do. You're here. Yeah, yeah, you're not really, you don't really have another meeting conflicting with this one. Exactly. He's like, what do you got going? That's better than is.

Anyway, I said, okay, they call them back in. And they said, look, Joe, they started talking to me a little bit about this, that, you know, like, hey, you know, this is the kind of life. You want this, you know, that kind of stuff. stuff. And then all of a sudden, they showed me a photo. They took out these photos about this stick. So several inches high, yeah. Yeah. And they should take a look at it. So I said, okay, so they put the handcuffs in front of me. And I started looking through the photos. And of course, I noticed it's the cemetery where my parents are buried. And I'm looking at it. I see them digging up my father's

body. Oh, wow. They exhumed the body after three months. I never knew this. Nobody told me at home. That's the first time I saw my father. It was over a year. Yeah. And so his, his, He had decay on his face and stuff. Take your time. Yeah, take your time. He had a V cut shape in his chest and another stitch is going down here. They zoomed one, and they tried to look for some bullet wounds and stuff like that, but they didn't find any, supposedly.

I put the photos down, I asked them to excuse me for a minute. I hung out my lawyer. They came back in and they said to me, Joe, we have reason to believe that the wise guys killed your father. They said we have information that three men went down there under your last name. Your father always met him in a wall. It never took him back to his villa, but this particular time he did, we were going to arrest him that weekend, and we found him dead.

And that's what made me think that the wise guys killed him, because they did know where he was in a way, because my father did move from one place to another, had to get a different phone number. So they knew that too. So, you know, they always know something. Yeah. So that was the first time I saw my dad.

And then they said, there's just the kind of life you want or do you want to find out who killed him? So pardon the, this might be a morbid question. So feel free to tell me you don't want to answer it. But if they didn't find any bullet wounds, what do they think happened to him? Was he stabbed or was he poisoned or something like that? Later on, I went to my uncle who my father learned from. And he didn't exactly tell me either. But he told me this.

He said, Joseph. and my family always called me Joseph. But anyway, he says to me, says, those are the cover-up the stab wounds. I see. It was a fake autopsy. Oh, I see. So they, right, so I don't know much about embalming,

but I assume if there's a lot of damage, they probably cut out the damaged skin and then sew the other skin up over it so it looks a little bit better. Right. And they never performed a full autopsy. Matter of fact, the guy that does it in California, he's pretty famous.

He actually came there. They got him. At least that's what the FBI handler told me. They got him over there. My uncle was there, and he didn't want them to, I guess, cut my father up and do all of that stuff to him because he was still intact pretty much, except he just had a lot of decay on his face and stuff like that. Sure. This is the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Joe Barone. We'll be right back.

Thank you so much for listening to and supporting the show. Your support keeps the lights on around here, and I know there's a lot of discount codes and URLs, and they're kind of a pain to write down. We put them all in one place. You can check them out at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. please consider supporting those who support us. Now for the rest of Part 1 with Joe Barone. I guess it's probably not for appearance. It's probably because if they're going to embalm somebody,

they can't really do it if there's a lot of open wounds on them, so they have to make sure that those are closed. Because otherwise, sorry, I know we're talking about your father here. I'm just going to shut up now. No, no, that's okay. I understand. I'm just thinking out loud here for the audience because it was a little confusing.

So I assume at that point you're like, well, I want revenge on these pricks who killed my dad. You know, I'm not really that much of a mean person, but I would love to find out who killed my father. But I don't have it in me to kill somebody, like, unless it's, you know what I mean? I'm not a killer. Yeah. I mean, I'll defend myself, of course. You know, I'm capable of doing that pretty good, thank God.

Yeah. But I was angry. Yeah, I was angry. Yeah, I bet. The first thing you say is, you know, fuck the mafia. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.

And that's what I did. I thought about it. I told them, let me think about it. I always learned that from a sit down. You never agree to anything right there and then. Huh. You always say, think about that. I got to think about it.

Or in legal terms, it's I'll take that under advisement. Yeah, yeah. Is that because you don't want to make an emotional decision in the moment and then have to, because you can't change your mind, right? No, once you make a decision at the sit-downs, you've got to stick to it. But you definitely want to still go over it. And if you're unsure of something, you always never agree to that. Uh-huh, okay.

And basically, a lot of times you don't agree to it. it'll never happen. You know, you'll do what you want anyway and they'll do what they want. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, that's sort of negotiation, a good negotiation tactic right there. You know, like you don't want to say, I'll take it right away unless it's really in your favor, then I guess you jump on it. And you can't act like you want it so bad either. Sure. It's like, I want to buy a brand new car. Oh, my God, I love that car. You don't tell that to the salesman. Say, yeah, it's all right. I don't know, man. Yeah, put him on the fence. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that's, if you're ever going to buy a car, the last thing you want to do is tell the salesman, you couldn't find it anywhere else and you love it. Exactly, because he's going to club you right over the head. Right. Yeah, exactly. So these guys, what surprises me here is these guys, these gangsters kill your father. They murder your father and then they just expect you to be okay with it. Like, you're, because you're still in the mafia, right?

Do they not think like, oh, you know, Joe's going to be upset if we do this? Well, remember one thing, too. I'm not really in the mafia. I got what they call papers with them. Okay. You know what that means? No. Okay.

So Papers means it's almost like I'm supposed to be with a certain family because my father was. You know, I have to prove myself a little bit, but yet, you know, we give him a little leeway because we knew his dad type of thing. Yeah, okay. But because I was doing my own loan shark in and I wasn't really working for anybody else, they, I guess they would view you as what they call an up-and-comer. Okay. And of course, I paid respects to people and things like that. So I was connected, if you want to say it that way. That's about the easiest way for regular people to know.

Okay. They do expect you to be okay with it because this is the life he chose. It's almost like a policeman or a fireman if they get killed on a job. It's sad, but at the same time, that was their job. I get that, but it's also like they didn't get killed. If a police officer gets shot in the line of duty, he doesn't get shot by another cop who says, you know, I just didn't like that guy and I wanted his job, right? That's different, I guess.

That's dramatically different. Yeah, that's apples and oranges. Yeah. But because that's why I said, a lot of people, you talked about the young, young generation glamifying this life, like, and all of this stuff. Well, what's the glamorifying? So you wake up, your best friend might kill you that day. The FBI might be waiting for you at 6 o'clock in the morning at your house.

I have to make sure I earn money so this way the boss doesn't want to. Where is all the glamour? What? Because I got a new car. Yeah. Why? Because some people look like they respect me. Because maybe I go into a restaurant I eat for nothing.

You know what I mean? Yeah. You know, what is the real thing? But everybody's looking for something to, and it's enticing to take. think you have people that are behind you. I guess it makes sense if you grow up with nothing and also you don't get respect. It's like then that's all you care about. But if you have other options, this is not really a good avenue for you to go down.

That's right. My father had nothing when he was growing up. And so when he was able to get money like he did, he would spend $10,000 on clothes. He'd come home with all shoes to match his color of his pants and sport jackets and things. He was so proud of it. He would change like two or three times a day and just bring all his clothes to the dry cleaners. He was spending about $3, $400 a week on clothes and the dry cleaners. My God, that's insane.

Yeah. Keep that dry cleaner in good. I mean, that's a good business. Be a mafia dry cleaner and a mob neighborhood is probably a pretty good business. Would add that. Yeah. But that's how it started for me to join your Team America, if you want to say it that way. Okay.

So you become a confidential informant, which is essentially exactly what it sounds like, right? That's right. The FBI is coming to you. You're still essentially in the mob informing on things that are happening. and I've got some notes here. You informed about corrections officers smuggling drugs into prison because you were already in prison. So you told that, hey, these are the guys

that are getting the drugs from. You know, whenever this corrections officer is on duty, you can easily get, I don't know, pills or whatever it is. And also, it looks like there was a plot to release an inmate for a $50,000 bribe, which I don't even know how that works because corrections officers aren't supposed to be able to release inmates, but I guess that's part of the racket, right?

Well, correctional officers aren't supposed to do a lot of things, but yet they still killed that kid. They're not supposed to be drugs in it. They still killed Epstein, didn't they? Yeah, yeah, probably. Well, who knows? I don't know.

I don't have any information about that. Me neither, but I was in the box. I was pretty surprised when I heard this thing, that two COs at the same time fell asleep and the cameras were off. Yeah. That sounds mafia-esque now when you put it like that, right? Well, think about it too.

Like I said, I wouldn't say this if I didn't know what was going on in the box. I knew what the hole was like. They had cameras there. And usually it was a guy, that was having a problem in one of his cells, well, what do you think happens? All the CEOs get together, they go there, they turn off the cameras themselves so that this way you can't see what's going on when they want to get the guy out of his cell.

So it looks funny, you know? It looks very funny. Yeah, I mean, look, even if he did kill himself, no one's going to believe that because it's just too insane that the cameras were off and the CEOs were asleep. I mean, that doesn't make any sense. Exactly. So, you know, not to get off the subject, but I'm just saying those things are a little bit hard to believe.

Yeah, no, for sure. Or even they just went in there and said, you have 10 minutes to kill yourself right now or we're going to do it. And then he's like, well, I know how this ends, right. Exactly. And going back to how the guy would have escaped from prison. I mean, most security guards, what do they make?

Maybe $30,000 a year, especially back in the 90s, maybe. I'm not sure. I don't know. So if he had some connections, however, he knew how to get to the security guard and offer him $50,000, some people will take it. Yeah, of course. I mean, especially if you don't have to pull the trigger yourself, all you have to do is say you were asleep and then you get fired. There you go. Yeah. That's not the end of the world.

No, not for 100 grand. Not for three or five years of your annual salary before taxes, right? I suppose. Yeah. And you can rationalize something like that pretty easily too. Like, so this P.O.S. guy is going to, all I have to do is not stop him from killing himself and I get five years of money. Yeah. This is no saint. I mean, this is a terrible person, Epstein. So whatever, good riddance. Exactly. Yeah, I can see that rationalization working pretty well. Who's really going to care? Exactly, who's going to care about them? No. But yeah, the security guards, those were things that were going on while I was away. And also I solved a few unsolved murders for them as well. Yeah, I have notes on that. It says informed on Genevay's crime family shooters, aka contract killers, who they were. By the way, how much asking for a friend, of course, how much does it cost to have somebody killed generally? Or journalistic purposes only, but I've always wondered that. If you were going to do a contract for a hit, it shouldn't be low less than $100,000. And that's if I'm going after a gangster, if I'm just going after like some neighbor that's really pissing me off or something like that. Yeah, usually a contract hit is $100,000 to start. It's the way it is.

But if you're a gangster and another gangster, the head gangster gives you the order, you don't get paid anything. You just... Right, yeah. That makes sense. I was just thinking, like, what if somebody is just, you know,

they're picking on my kid and they're really horrible, they're selling drugs at school, Nobody will do anything. The father, you know, is threatening me and I'm like, this is somebody that's got to be taken care of. I guess at that point, you don't have to kill that person.

You can just threaten them with credible violence, right? Exactly. There's some things that could happen to them. Somebody gets taught. Listen, not everybody in the mafia's tough, but there are really some tough guys and scary people too.

There was a guy like Tommy Karate. He was scary. He'd kill you. If he came to your house and told you something, you should listen to him. Yeah. Just like they had Greg Scarper back in those days. He was very scary too. If he told you something, you better listen. You know,

then there's just some people that will just know right away. There was a guy, Frankie Slearno. He was a tough guy. He was in what they called the Purple Gang. I don't know if you ever heard that. Yeah, isn't that the Jewish mafia out of Detroit? No, that was the Purple Gang was in the Bronx in New York. I think it's a different Purple Gang. I swear there's a purple gang out of Detroit. It probably was. It probably was. Purple Gang, also known as the Sugarhouse Gang, was a criminal mob of bootleggers and hijackers, primarily Jewish in 1910 to 1932. We're probably talking about something totally different. Without a doubt, even Elvis Presley sang about the Purple Gang when he was doing a jailhouse rock song.

The whole rhythm section was a Purple Gang. But this Purple Gang was in the Bronx, and they were connected a lot of them to. This one particular guy drove around with a dead body in his trunk for about three days. I guess he was fooling around the guy's, his girlfriend or something like that. But he killed him, showed everybody he had him in a trunk. But this guy came to my house. And when I looked into his eyes, he had no soul. And I knew for a fact that he wasn't even bigger than me, muscular than me, nothing.

But he was definitely somebody that would just kill you without and just probably eat the sandwich at the same time. Yeah, just a sociopath with no feelings. Yep. Yeah, that is terrifying. You meet people like that and you're just like, you see people look at you in a certain way and you're like, this is a really bad, bad, bad person. And you talk to guys that have been in prison. I've done some work in prison, some volunteer work. And there's a lot of really nice guys, especially in the programs that I'm in,

and they're scared of these other guys because they're like, there's people in here, man, that you wouldn't believe. And I'm like, yeah, imagine your cellmate is one of these guys. And he's like, I want the top bunk. You're like, all right, no problem. Yeah. Listen, I've seen people that never lifted a weight in their entire life could probably lift you up the floor with one hand.

I've seen guys that never knew how to fight or anything, but their fingers, they will, you know, some people just, you know, and if they're a bad person, yeah, they grow rough. Yeah. You can't beat them no matter what you do. I see people get hit with baseball bats and the guy shrugged it off. It took the bat and beat the guy with it. Jeez. Yeah.

Not an environment that I would survive well in for sure. No, it's not this guy. It's rough. So what of the FBI documents says it says fingered, which is funny because they use this exact term in an FBI document, fingered 51 people according to it, which is pointed out that, you know, informed on these particular guys and had them put away. I guess is what that means, which is funny because you think the FBI would have all these, other parts of these documents have all these technical legal terms, and then other parts

look like they were transcripts of a conversation between two guys who live on a block. Like, it's very funny to read these documents. Yeah, I probably, and probably the whole time I was working undercover, which was like 18 years, I probably gave them a lot of information. 18 years is a long-ass time. Yeah. Before we get into that, there's a lot of redacted stuff in the documents. Did the FBI redact that or did you redact that before you sent it to me?

The FBI did it, right? That's correct, yes. Do you know what that is? Is it mostly just people's names? It could be names because their whole keys are they say, oh, it's an ongoing investigation. Right. And that's their key to get out of saying anything or having to show you anything unless you were a judge, I guess. Yeah.

So it's probably just probably some names, locations maybe. Yeah, okay, because it didn't seem like it actually seemed incredibly easy to understand, even with the redacted stuff. Like it would be like Joe Barone and then there'd be like a date missing, went to go see and it's clearly a name missing. And they were going to engage in it. It lists all this explicit criminal behavior. So I'm like, well, they're not hiding that part.

I mean, that part's pretty. Yeah. So it's like if you were involved in it, you know exactly what they're talking about. But if you're just me reading it, you're like, oh, who knows who that is. It sucks, but that's what they got to do, I guess, you know? Yeah. Yeah. No, it makes sense.

Look, I didn't have any problem. They did a pretty fair job redacting it because it was really easy for me to find out everything I needed to know other than the name of the person who was informing on it or whatever, other than you. And the documents are pretty effusive about your ability to provide good, quality, timely information on a lot of pretty serious crimes and people in La Cosa Nostra over, like you said, 18 years. It's got to be really stressful to do that, though. I mean, were you worried about getting caught? You have to be at some point. Whether I was in public or even alone, I always had to portray the man. I was, you know, be the man I was portraying myself to be.

Yeah. I had nightmares at night, even back then. I guess I couldn't have no relationship, really, somebody I really loved or cared about because I was always afraid for them. I knew what I was doing myself, but even being in it, though, I was not thinking of it. Only sometimes when I used to get those calls for late night meetings or meet me in 15 minutes, I thought they found out who I was. And I thought I was going to be killed. As a matter of fact, one guy, the captain and a family I was in, he called me and says,

can you meet me in 20 minutes at my cousin's house? His name is Dominic Sicali. So I said, can you make it? He said, 15 minutes. I said, could you make it 20? He said, yeah, but be there in 20. So I said, okay. So sure enough, I called up the FBI guy and I told him, I said, look, I got a call down.

I don't know what's going to happen. So he took the call. He said, make sure you call me immediately and get back home. I don't care what time it is I'll be waiting for you. I said, okay, but I was scared. I went to the house and, of course, his cousin said, what's going on? My cousin called me, told me you got to meet him here.

You all right? And she knew where he was. He's a killer. I said, yeah, I guess so. So here, but his father come in and they're kind of cold to me a little bit. I said, hello, and then we left. So now I'm getting into the car with them. Oh, man.

I'm getting goosebumps. Yeah. So wait, hold on. I'm getting into the back seat. And I said, this is kind of unusual. They're letting me get in the back seats. I said, well, maybe they're going to take me someplace and not shoot me in the car. Right, because otherwise you'd be in the front seat so they could shoot you

the back of the head. Exactly. All right. I've seen a lot of mafia movies. You can tell now. I'm starting to get the hang of it. But meanwhile, he had this kid's baby's chair in there too. And I said, he's not going to kill me in the car seat. This is what I'm doing to say to myself. The car seat. This way I can try to keep myself calm. On a road that we're supposed to be doing 30 miles an hour, he's doing 80. On the way there, I'm talking to my sister. So what's up? Guys, everything okay. Are we all right? He said, you don't know where we're going, Joe. I said, no, what's up? everything good. I mean, what's up? You know, and I'm pretending, you know, like, what are we doing? We've got to do something? I thought we had to do something bad. I'm trying to think.

You see, you don't know where we're going, huh, Joe? I said, nah, all right. It says, whatever. So they said, hey, Joe, what's the matter? You thought you're going to get whack? We're going to go to this place. They took me to a strip bar. So they're just messing with you at this point. They were laughing in the car to themselves. They were like almost tears coming out. It was what's about. Joe, you thought we thought we had to do some work. I was ready to go to, I said that it was going to change by shirt or something. I was making up any excuse. Yeah. But I'm going to tell you, Joy. I'm not going to lie to you. I was afraid. Well, yeah, of course you were. And also, why did they do that? That's so freaking mean.

That's not the only time they did it to me. They did it to me a couple of times. And they used to get a kick at it. But do you see, this is how to test you? He asked me for $20,000. On a spur of them about how to give him $20,000. Now, do you think the FBI was going to give me my $20,000 back? Or if I asked them on, I need $20,000 real quick, do you have it? It would have took weeks to get to permission just to get it. Good thing I had $20,000 in my safe. Okay, back then, thank God, I was doing good. I gave the $20,000. He said, I'll give you back to you in two weeks. He paid me back in three weeks, but I could have been out that money. What am I supposed to do? You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show with former mafia underboss Sammy the Bull Gravano. My mother father bought me a bike.

They were broke. It was a Schwinn. I had to take care of it. Fucking Thursday out, somebody stole it. My friends come running to me. Sammy, the bike, your bike is down the block near the fruit and vegetable store. I go running down there. The bar is right across the street where the wise guys hung out. So I grabbed the bike. These kids were older than me, bigger than me, and they started fighting. I were fighting the two of them.

I was crying. I was getting beat up a little bit, but I was fighting like a bastard. One of them guys from the crosser street walked over. Hey, come here. What's your name? Sammy. Another guy from the cross of street. yelled him, what's going on?

He said, no, and this kid Sammy, you see him? He was fighting these fucking kids. You see the way he was fighting? He's like a little fucking bull. A friend of mine, Tommy Sparrow, his uncle, Shorty Sparrow, he wanted to see me. He made an appointment, I went to see him. But he was good.

He said, listen, Sammy, you've got to hook up. You're a tough kid. You're in fights. You know what's going to happen. Someday you're going to hit the wrong guy. They're going to find you in the truck. Whatever I ask you to do, I've done, and I will do it with you.

And I knew exactly what he was talking about. And I shook his hand at 23. I was an associate in the Colombo family. I think a piece of me died on every one of those murders. It's a scar in my body. I feel it. When I talk about it in my podcast, maybe I'm getting old. I actually become emotional.

I'm not a person who normally cries, but it brings me close. To hear more about how Sammy rose in the ranks to become one of the most notorious gangsters of all time, check out episode 587 and 58 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. We'll be back in a few days with part two of this interview. And by the way, if you're looking for Joe Barone, just be aware I have no idea where he is. I've scrambled and deleted all of our contact

and internet connection information for my protection. So I can't help you locate him in any way, even if I wanted to. By the way, another little special announcement here, if you know anyone who is an experienced cybersecurity professional and or a very capable IT professional. Not the kid who set up your AOL email account, but a legit expert.

If you know someone like that and they want to help Ukraine, there are a lot of groups out there who may be interesting to you, and I'd encourage you to take a look. I may also be able to help guide you here a bit as well. The best groups are going to be helping in the cyber defense arena. This stuff is all nonviolent.

You're not going to be poisoning a water system or something horrible that harms civilians. You're going to be making invasion logistics that much slower and more. difficult. Now, I am not affiliated with any particular group. I'm simply offering some advice here for those who keep asking. And in a group such as this, you would be reverse engineering new malware and threats, working on identification of unpatched and vulnerable systems, and identification of supply chain organization, etc. Again, happy to help guide you if you're into

rooting for the underdog. And a lot of these groups are trying to make the world a safer place by buying some time here for Ukraine. This is a humanitarian effort. And again, I have nothing to do with these groups other than helping to spread the word like any other journalist and trying to save the lives of people on the ground. Of course, I wouldn't want you to do anything illegal. I've got a reputation as a law-abiding citizen to uphold. And if there's one thing you know about me, it's that I like to color inside the lines. So you can reach out if you need any guidance in this area, and that's all I'm going to say about that. Stay tuned for Part 2 of Joe Barone. Links to everything in the show notes. Please use our website links. If you buy any books from any

of the guests you hear on the show, that always helps support us. Transcripts are in the show notes. There's a video of this interview on YouTube, advertisers, deals, discount codes, all at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram, or just connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm teaching you how to connect with amazing people and manage relationships using the same software systems and tiny habits that I use. It's our six-minute networking course. The course is free. It's over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Dig that well before you get thirsty. Most of the guests on the show, subscribe and contribute to the course. come join us you'll be in smart company where you belong this show is created an association with podcast one my team is jen harbinger jace sanderson

robert fogarty millio campo ian baird josh ballard 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 if you know somebody who's into the mafia stuff true crime maybe a little police informant story share this episode with him the greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about in the meantime do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen and we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by What Was That Like Podcast? If you're looking for a new show to add to your rotation, something that'll make you stop mid-dishwashing and go, wait, what that actually happened? You got to subscribe to What Was That Like? It's real people telling the most surreal moments of their lives and they're not just giving you the highlights.

They're walking you through it from the inside as a person who actually lived it, which means you're basically getting a front row seat to the chaos. One episode is about Scott getting locked up in a foreign jail for a crime he didn't commit. Sure, Scott. Another is Sue's parachute failing. Wow, I'm surprised she was around to tell that story. And then there's Michael who was stabbed on a bus, which makes your commute instantly feel a little bit more relaxing. Do what you think?

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