#2343 - Joe Pistone

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

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:14Speaker 00

  Nice to meet you.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  My pleasure.

• 0:15Speaker 00

  You always wear sunglasses. Is that to hide your identity still?

• 0:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:19Speaker 00

  Force of habit?

• 0:20Speaker 01

  Actually, it's, it's, I have to see, number one. But where I, where I reside now, uh, my neighbors have no idea that they're living next to Donnie Brasco, so...

• 0:32Speaker 00

  Well, you have a very distinct voice.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know.

• 0:34Speaker 00

  I don't want to ask where you live, but, you know. What a wild life you've had, sir.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  Well, pretty much, yeah. Yeah, it, uh, never expected to go like that, but it, uh, it took off.

• 0:51Speaker 00

  So, when you, you first started working, it was with the FBI, correct?

• 0:55Speaker 01

  Well, I was with Naval Intelligence, uh, for three years. And then, uh, I always wanted to be in law enforcement. Uh, and I was working in Philadelphia, actually. And, uh, you do a lot of work with the FBI because, you know, on the government installations, government basis. So, I became friendly with some FBI agents and, uh, I figured if I, you know, when I get up, when I finish this, uh, tour with NIS, uh, I'm gonna go into law enforcement, so I might as well try to for the best and the best, you know, the FBI.

• 1:34Speaker 00

  And so, how does that lead to you infiltrating the mob?

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I didn't, I didn't infiltrate the mob right from the get-go, you know. It, uh, look, I grew up in, uh, in Patterson, New Jersey. I grew up in an all-Italian neighborhood, uh, knew wise guys, went to this high school with sons of wise guys. And when you're in a neighborhood, you know, you know, you know who the wise guys are. You hang out at the, you're, they let you hang out at the, the social clubs because, you know, you're a neighborhood kid, they know it. So, I knew the streets.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  So when I went into the FBI, I was, you know, I was street smart, basically, Joe. That's what it comes down to, you know. And my first assignments were bank robberies, fugitives, gambling cases. And I started doing some little undercover work on gambling cases. Because back then, the FBI was big into gambling, interstate gambling cases.

• 2:45Speaker 00

  So what was your first undercover work?

• 2:47Speaker 01

  First was infiltrating a gambling house in Jacksonville, Florida, actually. That's where my first office.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  What kind of gambling were they doing?

• 2:58Speaker 01

  Craps. I had a regular casino going. And, you know, I felt comfortable around that stuff because I grew up with that stuff. You know, I grew up, like I say, in the neighborhood. Crap games, card games, it wasn't anything new to me. And being around gangsters was not like intimidating because I was around gangsters growing up. So I didn't have any problem, you know, getting into these games and identifying the major players and who was running them, and that's basically what it was.

• 3:38Speaker 00

  So when you do this, did you have to testify in court with these guys?

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, later on, after the case goes down. But most of these guys plead guilty, so you never go to trial. Because, you know, it wasn't where they were facing, you know, 15, 20 years, you know. They might get a year or two years and then, you know, get some time knocked off their sentences. So most of it, they plead, and so you never have to appear in a court.

• 4:09Speaker 00

  So, but was there an issue with you being discovered and then getting found out and worrying about your safety afterwards?

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Well, not too much with these cases, no, not too much with those cases. And then I worked a lot of stolen art, buying, you know, buying stolen art, buying stocks and bonds, swag, stuff like that.

• 4:32Speaker 00

  So how many years did you do stuff like that before you started being undercover in the mob?

• 4:38Speaker 01

  Uh, let's see, probably...

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Four or five years, yeah, yeah.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  So you slowly sort of got acclimated with being undercover, you do a bunch of cases, and then how do they approach you?

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Well, what happened was is that I'm working out in New York, the New York office of the FBI, and there's a, there's a big case in Tampa, Florida. They have a case going on guys that were stealing automobiles, high-priced automobiles. In other words, you go to them and you say, "Hey, I want a Cadillac." Okay, what color you want, all right? What model you want? And then they'd go out and hook it. So they had, they grabbed one of the guys and they flipped him.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  And they grabbed his son. And they said, "Hey, look, you know, you help us and we'll, we'll cut your son a break." He said, "Okay." So he said, "Look, we want to put an undercover agent in with this crew." They operated all up and down the East Coast, from Baltimore all the way down to Florida. And the guy that was running it was what we call a half-assed wise guy out of Baltimore. So he says, "All right." So he introduces me to this guy and as a car thief.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  But before he introduced me, I said, "Look, I gotta know how to steal cars." So he gave me about a week's lesson on how to steal cars, how to hook cars.

• 6:31Speaker 00

  They're hotwiring, this is like, what year was this?

• 6:34Speaker 01

  This was in 19, let's see, 1970.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Maybe seventy-three, seventy-four.

• 6:44Speaker 00

  So you essentially just pop in the ignition?

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Pop in the ignition.

• 6:49Speaker 00

  Crossing wires?

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Crossing wires. And some cars had alarm systems, told me how to get under the car, disarm the alarm system, how to use a Slim Jim to get in the door, and then how to pop the ignition.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  And once I learned, you know, I figured I could do that, then he introduced me and I got in with this crew, there was a crew about,

• 7:16Speaker 01

  he was running like five or six guys. And I did that for a year and a half. Stole cars, stole the tractor trailers. I knew how to drive, I knew how to drive tractor trailers, because I did that in college. During the summertime, I drove a tractor trailer during the summer.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  So you take the cars, load them on a tractor trailer?

• 7:39Speaker 01

  No, we just stole the cars and I bring them to you.

• 7:41Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  But I mean, we stole rigs, too.

• 7:45Speaker 00

  Oh, I see.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Because we were dealing with companies, too.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  Got it.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  You know, these guys that own some trucking companies, they...

• 7:53Speaker 00

  So you have to trust this guy, though, to get you inside? Right? You have to trust this guy to not fuck this up and say, hey, this is a car thief?

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 8:03Joe Rogan?

  After a year away, Canelo Alvarez is back in the ring, October 31st, facing undefeated Christian Mubili, live on The Zone, and DraftKings Sportsbook has you covered for the fight. With DraftKings Sportsbook, your number one sportsbook for live betting, you can stay connected as the action unfolds and makes your picks in real time. Whether you're locked in for the main event or watching the full card with friends, DraftKings Sportsbook gives you another way to follow the fights you already care about. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use the code ROGEN. New DraftKings Sportsbook customers can spend five and get 200 in total bonuses within 21 days. That's code ROGEN. In partnership with DraftKings, the crown is yours.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, call 1-800-MYRESSET. 21 and over, Virginia only. Eligibility restrictions apply. $50 in non-withdrawable bonus bets issued every seven days via Click to Claim for 21 days. Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see sportsbook.draftkings.com/promos. Limited time offer.

• 9:06Joe Rogan?

  This episode is brought to you by the Mosquito Bowl. Here's a story that's pretty incredible. After Pearl Harbor, four of the best college football players in America walk away from promising NFL careers to enlist in the Marines and fight in World War II. And the craziest part, it's a true story. These guys had their whole lives ahead of them, but traded the glory of the gridiron for the brutal reality of combat where the stakes were life and death. Directed by Peter Berg, the guy behind Friday Night Lights, and starring Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson, and Tom Francis. The Mosquito Bowl, now playing in theaters. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter.

• 9:49Joe Rogan?

  Hook up a better speaker to your TV and your home theater experience is immediately 10 times better. Or add a little extra treat to your dog's food. They get so happy at dinnertime. Sometimes it's worth it to go that extra step to find people who will do that for your business. Check out ZipRecruiter. Try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/rogan. ZipRecruiter has what you need to find great candidates fast, like powerful matching technology to help sort through thousands of resumes and a feature that puts people who are the most interested and most qualified first.

• 10:29Joe Rogan?

  Try ZipRecruiter and meet great candidates who'll go the extra step for your job. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free today at ziprecruiter.com/rogan. That's ziprecruiter.com/rogan. ZipRecruiter, meet your match on ZipRecruiter.

• 10:52Speaker 00

  That's gotta be hair raising.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Well, it is because, you know, the guy's an informant and...

• 10:56Speaker 00

  And he's already in trouble.

• 10:57Speaker 01

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

• 11:24Speaker 01

  I get back to New York, we, they make their rest. I went to trial in that case, but that case was in, in Florida. And a funny story on that case is, if you want to hear it.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  We, we had, I hooked one, hooked a Mercedes and delivered to this guy. And go to his house and he wasn't home, but his wife was there. So I said, hey, you know, I'm delivering this car for your husband. And she says, oh, okay. I give her the keys and, because he had already paid. So me and the other guy, we leave. Fast forward now to court. I'm going, I'm sitting in the, outside the court getting ready to testify. And there's this lady. She looked familiar.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  It was two ladies and so she walks up to me, she says, aren't you Donnie? I said, yeah. She said, you delivered a car to my house, right? I said, yeah. She said, we know my husband's on trial now. I said, yeah, I know. I'm going in to testify. She says, after he goes to jail, you want to go to dinner?

• 12:53Speaker 00

  Dirty lady.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  No, thanks.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  She might poison you.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I get back to New York and I had a real great supervisor up there.

• 13:06Speaker 00

  Was she hot?

• 13:08Speaker 01

  I can't remember, Joe, it was so long ago.

• 13:10Speaker 00

  I would have remembered that part.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  If she was, I would have remembered.

• 13:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, you probably would have remembered.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  So I get back to New York and I had a real good supervisor named Guy Barata. It was an Italian guy from, from the Bronx, good street agent. And he was a supervisor of the truck hijacking squad. And back in the day, they were hijacking and all these hijackings were orchestrated by the mob, the mafia. And they were probably doing, you know, eight to 10 hijackings a day, which was big time money because they were pharmaceuticals.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Uh, high value, uh, food items like lobsters, coffee, you know, you're talking about the forty some foot trailers, so you're talking a lot of money. But they were all run by the mob. So he, uh, I get back to New York, I get to New York and, uh, he says, hey, I'm thinking about doing this undercover operation, uh, see if, you know, we can get something going with these, uh, these truck hijackers. So the idea was, you know, nobody had ever infiltrated the mob before, you know, actually the mafia mafia, had some informants in, in with them, but nobody had actually gotten in.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  So the idea was, let's, let's try to hit the fences. Fences are the, you know, the guys that, uh,

• 14:44Speaker 00

  Sell the goods.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  Sell the swag and sell the goods. So, you know, you need to have a profession. I mean, nobody's gonna do anything with you without a profession and it has to be one that's attractive to them. And plus in the government, you're, if you're gonna go undercover, your profession can't be one of violence, so who's not violent? Jewel thieves.

• 15:07Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  So I figure, okay, I'll go in as a jewel thief. Well, if you're gonna go in as a jewel thief, what do you have to know? You gotta know diamonds and precious gems, right? All right, so I went to, I went to school, I went to diamond school, diamond and precious gem school.

• 15:29Speaker 00

  Oh, so you have to be able to identify,

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I mean,

• 15:32Speaker 00

  Use a lens.

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Well, that's how you're gonna get, that's how you're gonna get caught, right?

• 15:36Speaker 00

  Right, right, right.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  Is if you get in a conversation, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

• 15:40Speaker 00

  Right, right. How long is the school for?

• 15:42Speaker 01

  I went, I think, for a couple of months until I got, you know, where I was comfortable. Now, take it another step further, if you're a jewel thief, what else do I have to know? You gotta know how to get in places.

• 15:55Speaker 00

  Right.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  So,

• 15:57Speaker 00

  Pick locks.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  I had to learn how to pick locks, right? What else you gotta know?

• 16:03Speaker 00

  Crack safes.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  You gotta know about safes.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  You gotta know about alarm systems.

• 16:07Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  So I had my guys, when I say my guys, our guys, you know, our tech guys.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  School me on lockpicking, different types of safes and alarm systems. So all that took a few months before I felt comfortable, you know. And then I went out and on this operation, we didn't do anything with contacts. Whereas everything I did, I did under Donnie Brasco. I rented an apartment, I bought a car, utilities, you know, phones, everything. Everything as a citizen, in quotes, Donnie Brasco.

• 16:58Speaker 00

  They get you a social security number and the whole deal?

• 17:00Speaker 01

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

• 17:34Speaker 00

  Right.

• 17:36Speaker 01

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

• 18:11Speaker 00

  How do you go and get your face seen? You just show up by yourself?

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Just show up.

• 18:16Speaker 00

  Is that suspicious, though? A guy shows up by himself, not from the neighborhood?

• 18:19Speaker 01

  No, well, that's the thing. See, because I couldn't say, hey, I'm from Brooklyn. I'm from Manhattan. I'm from the Bronx because these guys have the contacts everywhere.

• 18:28Speaker 00

  Right.

• 18:29Speaker 01

  So it was up to me if I got in the conversation with anybody. My story was, and then again, you have to, you have to, you have to know your enemy. Okay? And the enemy was the mafia. So you have to know about the mafia. You have to know, if you do get into conversation with these guys and they're, they're trying to check you out, what's your backstory? Where are you from? My background was, I was an orphan.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Okay? And I moved between Florida and California.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Why an orphan? Because then I wouldn't have to produce a mother and a father. Because again, if I was lucky enough to get in,

• 19:19Speaker 01

  they'd say, well,

• 19:21Speaker 01

  where are your parents at?

• 19:22Speaker 00

  Right.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Uh, I couldn't have any siblings that I knew of.

• 19:25Speaker 00

  Right.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  I couldn't have been married. So I couldn't have an ex-wife or anything because I would have had to produce somebody.

• 19:33Speaker 00

  Right.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  So my backstory was I was an orphan. To back it up, we found an orphanage that had burnt down.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  And all the records were destroyed, so they couldn't, they couldn't check that. I mean, these are all things that, that if you're gonna send somebody into an undercover operation that is, uh, deep cover, and remember, I had no informant bringing me in. This was a, it had to be a cold entree. So I hung around, uh, maybe five, six months. That's all I did. And that's another thing, too. It's a seven day a week job. Because if they see you Monday to Friday, and then they don't see you Saturday and Sunday, where the hell are you Saturday and Sunday?

• 20:23Speaker 00

  Right.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  So it's seven days a week. It was seven days a week.

• 20:28Speaker 00

  Did you have a family at the time?

• 20:29Speaker 01

  I did, yeah. But they, they lived, they lived across country at the time.

• 20:33Speaker 00

  That had to be crazy difficult for them.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  Very difficult. It was. It was, yeah.

• 20:40Speaker 01

  So.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  So you just kinda just hang around restaurants, bars?

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, and my only conversation with anybody was is uh what I'll have to drink and what I'll have to eat. And I'm not a drinker. I never was a drinker. So uh and you know, for young undercovers, you don't have to be a drinker and you don't have to do shit that, you know, that you think gangsters do.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  My, my extent of drinking was, and it still is, is a half a bottle of beer and maybe a glass of red wine. That's it. And I never, I never uh went outside those boundaries because that's, that, that's, that's me. I didn't do it.

• 21:25Speaker 00

  Right.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  So I used to go to this one place and actually this place wasn't too far from my uh, my apartment up in uh Yorkville. And uh wise guys would come in there, I don't remember if it was Wednesdays or Thursdays, I don't remember, with their girlfriends for dinner. And uh I always would sit at the bar, you know, never talk to the bartender other than, what do you want? What do you want to eat? What do you want to drink?

• 22:01Speaker 01

  So one night I go in there and, and uh the wise guys are there.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  One of the girlfriends, but there's one guy missing. But the, the girl that he was always with was there.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  So I'm at the bar and uh I guess she gets up, she goes to the ladies room, she comes by and she says hello. And I just said hello.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Now, again, knowing your enemy, know how they operate. So the first thing I do is I call the bartender over, right? Now, I know his name, but I don't call him by his name because I was never introduced to him. So I just said, sir, would you, you know, I said, I wanna go on record. That's a mob term. I wanna go on record. I didn't ask that young lady to stop and say hello. And he just nods and that's it. Well, fast forward, this happens like three or four different times. And they're in there, she's in there, he's not there.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  About the fourth time, the same thing, you know, she would come over and I would call him over. So finally he says, hey, he said, if you want to talk to her, go ahead. Her boyfriend went bye bye. He didn't go to Disneyland, Joe.

• 23:25Speaker 00

  Right, he got whacked.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  They whacked him. So I said, no, I don't have any, I don't have any, any interest. So now what does this guy know? He knows that I'm a street guy, alright? So he, now he comes over to me and now we start talking, alright? Talking about baseball, talking about how screwed up New York City is at the time. And finally he says, hey, my name is Charlie. I said, my name is Donnie. Now that's another thing, these guys don't introduce themselves like normal people, you know? Like, hey, my name is Joe Rogan. Or hey, my name is Donnie Brasco. It's nickname or first name.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  So that's another notch with him that this kid knows something. So a couple, a couple of weeks maybe go by and then one night he says, hey, you like to gamble? I said, sure, why not? He said, when I bang up here, I'm gonna go to, I'm gonna go to an all night game. I said, you wanna come? I said, yeah. So we close up the joint with him and takes me to a game. And obviously it's run by the wise guys. You know, they got a whole casino set up. And doesn't introduce me to anybody.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  But I'm okay because I'm with him. Right? So now, this is a couple more weeks, maybe. So now I figured now, and he don't ask me what I do. And I don't say anything about jewelry. So, but now I figured now I gotta try to set, set the hook. So I come in one night and I got a pack of the diamonds. All right? So I put them on a bar. And I say, hey Charlie, I need X amount of money for this envelope. I don't tell him what's in it. I just said, I need X amount of money.

• 25:35Speaker 01

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

• 26:17Speaker 01

  I'm not asking him at, uh, prices for Tiffany prices, right? Now we get to the, the game and he entered, you know, he introduces me as Don the jeweler. So he introduces me to this Colombo guy. Guy's name was Jilly. So, uh, Jilly said, hey, you know, Don, where you from? I said, well, you know, I. Hung around in, hung around Summit, Florida, hung around, you know, California. I said, you know, just move around a lot.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  He said, well, why don't you come out to my place, I'm out in Brooklyn. And I said, yeah, okay. So I go out there and I go out to his club and he has a store, you know, all swag. And so he was at the Clumbos. So I start hanging out there with the Clumbos and I got in with him and got in with his crew. Did some stuff with them, you know, because you gotta do something, otherwise.

• 27:31Speaker 00

  Right.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  If you ain't producing, if you ain't producing, you ain't worth it, you know.

• 27:35Speaker 00

  Like, what kind of, what's the first thing you have to do with them?

• 27:37Speaker 01

  Well, they had, they did some hijacking and, you know, unloaded some trucks for him and different things. So that went on with the, with the Clumbos and I was getting, I was getting good information with these guys. That went on for a couple of months. And finally, I get to the club one day and there's two guys there that I didn't know. So he introduces them to me as Frankie and Patsy. He said, Donny, you know, Frankie, Patsy. Okay. As it turns out, they just got out of the can.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  They were part of Julie's crew. One of the guys was a made guy. Made guy is a guy that's been officially inducted into a particular mafia family. And these guys were with the Clumbos. I think Patsy was a made guy and Frankie, Frankie was an associate, right? But they had just gotten out of the can. So they're looking to set up scores because, you know, they've been away for a few years.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  So, Jilly tells him, you know, hey, Donny's, you know, Donny's a good thief and he knows, he knows, uh, he knows alarms, he knows locks, he knows safes. So they had a couple, uh, uh, scores lined up. So we go out, case this place and I tell him, hey, I, I can't bypass that alarm. Because, you know, if you say you can do everything, nobody can do everything, no matter how good you are. So I said, no, I said, I can't defeat that alarm. Okay. Few, few days later, they got another one set up and, uh, it's a safe.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  We go in. I said, you gotta blow this safe, you know, you'll, you'll wake up the whole neighborhood, you know? Okay. So now this, this pisses them off. So, a couple of days later, I get to the club and Jilly, he says, Donny, let's, let's take a walk and talk. I said, okay. So we walk and we're talking. That's what a walk and talk is, you're walking on the street and you're talking because they don't think, you know, they don't think the FBI or anybody can hear you. I said, what's the matter, Jilly? He said, well, he said, you know, I told, I told Frankie, uh, and, and Fancy what, you

• 30:20Speaker 01

  know, what a great thief you are and he's, and they're pissed off because, you know, Fancy's pissed off because you turned down, uh, you turned down the, the two scores. I said, well, what do you want me to tell you, Jilly? I couldn't bypass the alarm. I honestly, I don't want to blow a safe that, you know, you gotta blow, blow, blow. So, he said, well, they want to have a sit down. I said, okay. So, we go back in the club and then they have a back room. So we're going to back room, sit down, they lock the door and, uh...

• 31:00Speaker 01

  Patsy pulls out a thirty-eight, lays it on the table, and said, "Donnie, if you don't convince me that you're as good a thief as Jillie says you are, the only way you're going out of this room is rolled up in that rug."

• 31:17Speaker 00

  Oh, boy.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Oh, boy. So, it's crazy what goes through your head. So, I look at the rug. I said to myself, "I hope it's fucking Persian. If I'm gonna go out of here, I might as well go out in a fifty thousand dollar rug." So, we're in there, and, uh... "Where you from, Donnie?" Now, you know, in these situations, you wanna be on the offense. You don't wanna be on the defense, but... I can't really disrespect him because he's a made guy. And, you know, if you know anything about the mob, you can't disrespect the made guy in front of other people.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  So, I said, "Hey, look, you know, I'm an orphan. I'm not from here. I've traveled the country, you know." "Well, tell us some people that you stole with."

• 32:09Speaker 01

  I said, "No disrespect, but I'm not giving you any names of people that I stole with." I said, "Why would I do that? Why would I give up anybody that I did scores with, right?"

• 32:22Speaker 01

  So, this goes on and on and on.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  After about four hours, finally Jillie says, "Hey,

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Donnie's been with us for months now. We know what he can do. It's over. It's over." And I said, "Okay. Now, I got a problem." The problem is, they just called me out.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  So, in their world, I can't go shake their hand because it's, "Why isn't Donnie pissed off?" Right?

• 32:58Speaker 01

  My only recourse here is some kind of physical recourse. But I can't do, I can't do anything to Patsy because he's the made guy. I can't touch him and that's, that's one of the rules of the mafia. You don't lay your hands on the made guy. It'll get you killed. It'll get you killed. So the only guy I can hit is Frankie. He's not a made guy. So we get up, start to walk out and I call Cock Frankie.

• 33:38Speaker 00

  Oh, Jesus.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  But that's the only thing that, that's gonna save me because otherwise it's, why isn't Donny pissed off?

• 33:46Speaker 00

  Right.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  So now I'm in a-

• 33:49Speaker 00

  Was Frankie questioning you too?

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. But he's not a made guy.

• 33:53Speaker 00

  Right.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  So he's fair game.

• 33:55Speaker 00

  Boy.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  So I hit him, he goes down. Now Patsy's jumping at me and he's, he's punching the hell out, but I can't-

• 34:04Speaker 00

  Can't hit him back.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  I can't hit him back. I can just protect myself. But I figure, well, you hit me once. I hit Frankie twice. So it went on. So then finally they broke it up. But now I know I can't stay around here. I can't stay with these guys because it, you know, you can't get into an altercation with made guys and-

• 34:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  And have it come out. So after, after we're, everything's settled down, I'd say to Jilly, "Jilly, let's take a walk and talk." So we do. We get outside, I said, "Jilly, look, no disrespect to you, you know." I said, "But I can't, I can't come around here anymore." I said, "Because you know how it's gonna end." He says, "Yeah, Donny, I realize that." He said, "But, you know, no real feelings between you and me." I said, "Okay." So at the, at the card game, I, I was introduced to a Bonanno guy by the name of Tony Mira.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  I had never done anything with him, but I was introduced to him. So I go back, I go back with Charlie, you know, to the card games and I start siding up to this mirror, who was a complete psycho case, a complete fucking psycho case, which I find out later on. He's a big brolly guy. And he says, you know, why don't you come downtown? I said, yeah, okay. So he was from Little Italy and that's where he hung out.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  He had a bus stop luncheonette down in Little Italy, but he was psycho. So I started hanging out with him, my first Bonanno guy that brings me around. So we're out one night and he was shaking down nightclubs and I was helping him. When I say helping, I was with him, you know, shake down owners and at nightclubs and stuff. So it's about three or four in the morning, one morning, and we go to a diner for breakfast

• 36:38Speaker 01

  and the eggs come out cold. So he starts berating the waitress. And there's, you know, we were with other wise guys and stuff. So I said, Tony, I said, you know, I said, she's only doing her job. I said, why are you taking it out on her? You know, she's here four o'clock in the morning waitressing. So he tore the shit out of me. He tore into me in front of everybody, but I really can't go back at him. But I have to let him know that, you know. I'm not, I'm not a pushover, you know.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  So the next day, now this guy, as I, as I had gotten to know him, I had seen him in action. So the next day, I told him, I said, Tony, nobody else is around, so it's my word on his. I said, don't ever talk to me like that again in front of people. I said, because I'll fucking stab you.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  I said, you won't even know it's coming. I said, don't ever embarrass me like that. And call me those names in front of other people. And he was like, so, uh. But he introduced me to, kept introducing me to other Benanos and then he introduced.

• 38:03Joe Rogan?

  So even after that?

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, after that.

• 38:05Joe Rogan?

  So after that, did you get his respect by saying you'd stab him? I don't think people realize how disgusting the data collection industry really is. Experts say that data brokers already have an estimated 1,000 data points on every person with an online presence. That includes your name, credit history, medical history, who your friends and family are, and your current location. Imagine if we're just some guy in his mom's basement, collecting all of this info about you. It's fucking gross and scary, right? But there's a way to stop these creepy data brokers from invading your privacy. And that's with a product called ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN is an app that hides your IP address and reroutes all your online activity

• 38:50Joe Rogan?

  through a secure encrypted tunnel. So any third party trying to harvest your information can go kick rocks. ExpressVPN can also help you access content from all around the world. There are titles that streaming services like Netflix aren't showing you just because of where you live. With ExpressVPN, you can change your location up to 105 countries, unlocking thousands of extra titles. And right now, you can get four extra months free if you tap the banner or go to expressvpn.com/rogan. That's expressvpn.com/rogan. And if you're watching on YouTube, you can get your four free months by scanning the QR code on screen

• 39:34Joe Rogan?

  or by clicking the link in the description.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, because he knew that, you know, he knew that I was embashing him. I mean, you know, he just beat me down in front of other people. I mean, not, you know, not physically, but, you know, just calling me, you know. And, uh, cause I was standing up for this waitress. But that was, that was him.

• 39:59Speaker 01

  So he introduces me to a guy by the name of Lefty Roggerio. Another made guy in the Benanos. From, uh, downtown, Nikobacher Village. They all lived in Nikobacher Village. And, uh, he introduces me to Lefty. So, no, Mira had just gotten out of the can. Now they send him back. Alright, so he goes back to the can. He was a big, he was a, a big moneymaker for the Benanos in dope. He was a big, uh, narcotics guy for the Benanos. Uh, but he had violated his parole, so they sent him back. So I started hanging out with Roggerio. Uh, and, uh,

• 40:43Speaker 01

  what Mira never did, and what Roggerio did, is, uh, uh, his captain was a guy by the name of Mike Sibella.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  And, uh,

• 40:58Speaker 01

  once I got, once Roggerio got to know me a little better, he brings me to Mike Sibella. Who's the captain of the crew.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  And, uh, he, he said to Mike, uh, "I'm going on record that Donny's with me." And that's what you do. When you're a made guy, you have an associate, you go to your captain and you, you go on the record. So now, nobody else could, could fuck with you. Nobody else could take you. Mira never did that, even though I, I spent a lot of time with Mira. He never went to his captain and said, "I'm going on record that Donny's with me."

• 41:37Speaker 01

  So I get to know, I get to know Roggerio pretty good. Uh, start doing stuff with-

• 41:43Speaker 00

  So all told, how much time are you undercover now?

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Now, this is probably, uh-

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Going over a year.

• 41:57Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, over a year now, yeah, yeah.

• 42:00Speaker 00

  Now, you were reporting to anybody during this time? Do you have to go back to the FBI?

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Never, once I stepped out of the office, I never went back to the office. I had, I had, what you have is a contact agent, Joe, and that's somebody that you, if you have a problem, you call him and he helps you solve it.

• 42:17Speaker 00

  So you're totally on your own?

• 42:18Speaker 01

  You're on your own.

• 42:19Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  I had no surveillance because, you know, you're in New York City.

• 42:23Speaker 00

  Right.

• 42:25Speaker 01

  You're working seven days a week. You know, my day would go from maybe 11 o'clock in the morning to maybe 3, 4 o'clock the next morning. Seven days a week, so, you know, your only lifeline is, is the phone to this, to your contact agent. Yeah.

• 42:47Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  And, uh, so I'm doing a lot of stuff like that with, and I'm, I'm gaining all kind of intelligence, though. You know, identifying made guys, identifying guys in other families that are made.

• 43:02Speaker 00

  Are you writing this stuff down or you just keep it all in your head?

• 43:05Speaker 01

  No, in your head. And what I do is I, I would regurgitate it over the telephone to my contact guy. And he would reduce it to paper. Yeah, because he's like, you know, these guys would come to my apartment. I, I couldn't take the shot of, you know, and I, I didn't wear a wire with these guys. You know, very seldom did I have a wire on. Most of my recordings are on the telephone. I wore a wire a couple of times when I knew I was going to get a contract to, to kill people.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  Uh, and when I, I had the feeling, uh, that I was gonna be told about hits. And what I did was I had a mini, mini cassette recorder that I bought at, uh, what's that, Radio?

• 43:59Speaker 00

  Radio Shack?

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Radio Shack.

• 44:00Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  You know, and I just put it in my, uh, I just put it in my, uh, sport car pocket.

• 44:07Speaker 00

  You had to be really worried about getting caught with that.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, but at, at least, you know, nobody's tapping, you know, because if, once you get in with these guys, when you meet them for the day, they all hug each other and they kiss each other on both cheeks, you know? If they kiss you on the lips, then you're done. You know that that's the last fucking day you're gonna be there. Uh, so, yeah, so I didn't make, I didn't make many body recordings, uh, because you're always, and, uh, they're, they're very touchy feely guys, you know?

• 44:43Speaker 00

  Right.

• 44:44Speaker 01

  I mean, when I was, I was with Mirror one time, and, uh, uh, we stopped, he said, hey, pull over, Donnie. I pull over, and he tears my, he tears my, uh, my car, the dashboard apart. Now, if you saw the movie, that was, they had Lefty do that, but that was, in the real life, that was Tony Mirror.

• 45:09Speaker 00

  Mm.

• 45:10Speaker 01

  I mean, you know, so I couldn't have my car wired.

• 45:14Speaker 00

  Right.

• 45:16Speaker 00

  Does he suspect in you or suspect in somebody else when he's tearing your dashboard?

• 45:20Speaker 01

  Well, it's, it's, well, I'm new, you know?

• 45:22Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  I'm, uh, you know, nobody could go to anybody and say that they knew somebo, that, that they knew Donnie.

• 45:28Speaker 00

  Right.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  You know, so that's how they, that's how they, um, uh, check you out, you know? Cause they had no other way of checking me out, really. Uh, so I, you know, hanging with Jerio, doing stuff with him, uh, and, uh, now we come to a point where I'm really in with, with the Benanos. I mean, uh-

• 45:54Speaker 01

  They're starting to talk.

• 45:57Speaker 01

  They would talk business with me there. You know. And they felt comfortable with me because.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  Again, reverting back to my. My early years growing up, you know, hanging out and. At the. At the social clubs in the neighborhood, you know. I knew that. If you don't have any interest in in the conversation, walk away from it. And that's what I did with these guys is.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  If they started to talk about something, I would get up and walk away. Because it puts in their mind. You know.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  Downey's not really interested in, you know what I'm saying, it's not, he doesn't want to. Get into our real business.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  So.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  That made them trust me more. That made them trust.

• 46:54Speaker 00

  You knew the protocol.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I knew, right, I knew the protocol, exactly. So.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Now, what happens is that. The FBI FBI had an operation going in Milwaukee. Undercover operation against the Milwaukee family, right? The Balustreri family who's connected to Chicago. Now, this will give you, this will give you a little hint how the mob works.

• 47:26Speaker 01

  So they're not really good, not really going anywhere. All right, they had a vending machine company set up.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  And the undercover was undercover, actually, that I knew, which is. Because I had, I ever, I had a rule, if I didn't know you. I don't care if you're an FBI agent or not. I'm not introducing you. I'm not vouching for you. Because I don't know if you're any fucking good or not.

• 47:54Speaker 00

  Right.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  You know?

• 47:57Speaker 01

  So they reach out to me and they say, hey, uh, uh, we got an operation going in Milwaukee. Yeah, and, uh, this is what it is. We got a vending machine company. We got, we got trucks. We got, uh, uh, we got a warehouse. We got machines, but we're not getting anywhere. You know, the undercover, uh, who's the undercover? Ty Cobb.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  That was his, yeah, that, that was the agent's real name. Is, is, uh, I said, Ty's the undercover. They said, yeah. I said, okay, now you can, now I'll listen to you. Cause I know Ty and I had done undercover work in Chicago, uh, together. I said, okay.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  So I'm talking, you know, I said, well, tell Ty to call me. I want to talk to Ty. So he said, he, he tells me what, what's going on. He said, you know, I'm, I'm going to all these bars or restaurants and they won't take my machines because the mob, it's all the mob's machines. I said, all right. So I said, well, what's the plan? Well, maybe you can bring the Bonanos out here and we can get a sit down with the balustraries. I says, well, let me, let me see.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  So I went with Jerry O one day and, uh, I just, uh, I dropped a, he left, you know, I got a call the other day from a guy that I, that I used to steal artwork with down in Baltimore. And he's out in, uh, Milwaukee. He said, what the fuck's he doing in Milwaukee? I says, he's got a vending machine company and he wants me to come out and help him. He says, is he crazy? He said, they'll blow him up out there. He says, he can't do a vending machine business out there. That's the mob.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  I said, well, he doesn't know, he, he doesn't know anything about the mob. And we drop it.

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Couple of days later, I says, I left this guy call me again. He, he needs help. He said, Donnie, what do you, what do you think? He said, you can't just go out there.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  And then he looks at me, he says, "This guy got any money?"

• 50:28Speaker 01

  I said, "I don't know, let me ask him." I said, "I'll call him tonight and find out if he's got any money."

• 50:37Speaker 01

  So, I called Ty. He was going by, he was going by the name of Tony.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  And I said, "Hey, Tony."

• 50:50Speaker 01

  He said, I said, "Lefty wants to know if you got any money." He said, "All right, tell him I got 200,000 in the bank. And, you know, I got, I got a warehouse full of machines, I got everything set up." "That's okay." So I go back to Lefty, I said, "Left, he's got, Tony's got 200,000 in the bank. And he's got this big warehouse set up." He says, "All right, let me talk to Mike." Now, Mike Cibello's the captain, right?

• 51:23Speaker 01

  So Mike said, "All right," he said, "you and Lefty go out there. Just sit down with him and make sure that he has what he says he has. Don't tell anybody you're going." I said, "Okay."

• 51:36Speaker 01

  So, the first thing is, call Tony and tell him to send us airplane tickets. Because, you know, wise guys, they're not spending their own money. So the Bureau, you know, Tony puts, gets us two plane tickets. Me and Lefty fly out there. And he takes us to the warehouse and he's, you know, they got, they got the whole operation going on.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  And Lefty said, "Okay," so we go back and report back to Mike. And he said, "Okay," he says, "now here's the story."

• 52:14Speaker 01

  Tony's been with the Benanos for 10 years. He's been one, he's been an associate of ours for 10 years. Because that's what he has to tell Chicago and Milwaukee. Because if they just say, Donny just met this guy, they're gonna say, well, he's not with you, you didn't claim him, so we'll take the whole business.

• 52:39Speaker 00

  Right.

• 52:40Speaker 01

  So here's the way it works. Now we go to our consigliere, the consigliere to Benanos, right? Guy by name of Bobby Badhart. You know why they called him Bobby Badhart?

• 52:55Speaker 00

  Because he had a bad heart?

• 52:56Speaker 01

  Bad heart? Easy, right? So he goes and Bobby Badhart now has to call Chicago, right? And tell Chicago that, hey, we got a guy that's been with us for 10 years. He's settled now in Milwaukee, he's been in Milwaukee for a couple of years, and he wants to go into the business and he has machines and everything, and we'd like to have a sit-down with Balistreri, the boss of Milwaukee. Okay.

• 53:38Speaker 01

  Chicago now calls Balistreri's consigliere and relates the whole story to him. So now we gotta wait and see if he wants to have the sit-down. A week or so goes by, Chicago calls back and said, okay. He'll sit, he'll have a meet with you guys. Who's coming out? Be Lefty Ruggiero and Donnie Brasco. Now Lefty's a made guy, so, you know.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  So they say, okay, come on out, check into this hotel and wait for a phone call. So me and Lefty fly out, check into this hotel and we wait about three or four days, just hanging around the hotel. We can't go anywhere because we can't miss the phone call. So we get the phone call. It says, okay, come to Snug's Restaurant. Such and such a day, such and such a time. It's Ballastery's Restaurant. He owns a hotel and it's a restaurant in this hotel.

• 55:00Speaker 01

  So me, Lefty and Tony, the other undercover, we go there. And now, if you know the mob, Joe, you don't get to sit down with a boss. Unless you're another boss. You know what I mean? Guys, made guys that are just made guys in other families don't get to sit down with a boss. So now, who's there is Ballastery the boss, his underboss, his consigliere and his two sons, who are both lawyers, right?

• 55:40Speaker 01

  So we have a big spread. We're eating. Why do you want to be here? Well, you know, Tony's been with us. Now, Lefty's doing all the talking because he's the main guy. Tony's been with us for 10 years, you know, him and Donnie. They did a lot of art theft together and stuff and they've all been, they've both been with us. And Tony, Tony thought he, you know, he could get the, he can get the business going with the machines and stuff.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  So after this whole dinner, probably about five or six hours, he said, okay, we'll get back to you. All right.

• 56:36Speaker 01

  So a couple of days later, he called, why don't you have dinner at my house? A fucking boss is inviting us to dinner at his house? It doesn't happen.

• 56:49Speaker 01

  If you know the world of the mafia.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  Gives us the address, me, Lefty and Tony, and Lefty's like, you gotta know wise guys, right? Lefty's like, we're going to the dinner at a mob boss's house, at his house.

• 57:10Speaker 01

  He's like, you know, I mean, we know it's a big deal, but to a wise guy, it's a big fucking deal, too.

• 57:20Speaker 01

  So we go to his house and he's right on the lake. He has a big, big table, you know, like you see in the movies, and got the maids serving us. And he said, okay, he said, we'll go in partners, we'll be fifty-fifty partners. Tony does all the work, you know, we'll tell you where to go to, to put your machines in, they'll take your machines.

• 57:56Speaker 01

  So now, what did we just do? We just married two mafia families together, Benanos and the Balistreries through Chicago. First, marrying two mafia families to do business together, right? Me and Lefty go back to New York. Everything's going good.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  Tony's meeting with the sons, because that's who, he said, you meet me with my sons, right? After a few months, nothing, they stopped meeting with him.

• 58:35Speaker 01

  Don't know why. They won't take his calls, nothing.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  So I tell, I said Lefty, they don't, they're not responding. What do you mean they're not responding? I said, they're not taking his calls anymore. He said, well, what do you do? Try to, you know? I said, Tony, I said, Lefty, this guy's not like that. Make a long story short. Tony had been a cop in a city outside of Milwaukee. After he got out of the Marine Corps, before he went into the Bureau. And somehow they found out. There was a leak somewhere.

• 59:27Speaker 01

  But they don't, they don't tell. We find this out later, that this is how they, they don't tell this to Lefty. Which saved my ass. Cause I, I vouch for Tony.

• 59:41Speaker 00

  Right.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  Right? So. We're trying to get in touch with Chicago. Chicago's not, you know, Chicago say, we don't know why they, why they stopped, you know? We don't have any idea. So that goes, now that's, I got that hanging on me. Right?

• 1:00:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  So Lefty sends me to Milwaukee, go, you know, go find out, go search for this guy and blah, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, I come up with a story, left, you know? I found this car, it's in the parking lot, I mean, it's in the parking lot of the airport. Then when I went back, it was gone. So I go and they said, oh, the cops towed it. You know, and it's all bullshit, of course, but I gotta cover, you know, what happened to this guy. So now we gotta go tell Mike Sabell, our captain.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  Cause, you know, our money source dried up. So we go sit down with Mike. And this is hard to believe, but, and he's ripping. Right?

• 1:01:11Speaker 01

  You know, my punishment was?

• 1:01:14Speaker 00

  What?

• 1:01:15Speaker 01

  I couldn't go to the Christmas party.

• 1:01:18Speaker 00

  That's it?

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  That's it. I mean, he was ripped.

• 1:01:24Joe Rogan?

  This episode is brought to you by The Farmer's Dog. Here's a fun fact. Research shows that dogs who maintain a healthy weight can live up to two and a half years longer on average than dogs who are overweight. Isn't that wild and also kind of obvious at the same time? So why is feeding vague scoops of ultra-processed kibble still the status quo for most dog owners? Healthy alternatives exist, and trust me, I know. I buy one, The Farmer's Dog. I use it for both my dogs. They love it. They eat it up quick. It smells good to them. It smells good to me. It's human-grade food. The Farmer's Dog makes fresh food for dogs, and my dogs love it. Their recipes are made with real meat and fresh vegetables that are gently cooked

• 1:02:08Joe Rogan?

  to retain vital nutrients. They also portion out the meals to your dog's nutritional needs, which helps avoid overfeeding and makes weight management easier. And isn't getting more time with our four-legged best friends something every dog owner wants? The answer to that is yes, obviously. So try The Farmer's Dog today and get 50% off your first box of fresh, healthy food. Plus, get free shipping. Just go to thefarmersdog.com/rogan. This offer is for new customers only. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. If you're thinking about building a website, you should try Squarespace. I know because I use it.

• 1:02:51Joe Rogan?

  That's right, joe rogan.com is powered by Squarespace. It has all the features that you need to create a standout website like an AI-enhanced website builder, SEO optimization tools, and seamless checkouts with mobile pay links. Head to Squarespace.com/rogan for a free trial. And when you are ready to launch, use the offer code ROGAN to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  But he banned me from the Christmas party.

• 1:03:22Speaker 00

  Because you introduced him to the cop?

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  Well, he didn't know he was a cop because...

• 1:03:27Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  Because, you know, the operation just shut down and sort of the money stopped, wasn't coming in anymore.

• 1:03:34Speaker 00

  Right. And they don't tell you why?

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  No. So I said, well, if that's the best that could happen, I don't go to the Christmas party. You know, cause each crew has a, you know, they have their own party and shit, you know. I'm saying to myself, my God, this is, this is what I'm.

• 1:03:51Speaker 00

  So they don't suspect you at all?

• 1:03:52Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:03:54Speaker 00

  How, how do they not suspect you? How do they not question you?

• 1:03:58Speaker 01

  Well, I had been with them so many, I had been with them now, you know, Joe, over two years now.

• 1:04:03Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:04:04Speaker 01

  And, you know, so, but I'm always on edge because I, I don't know, why aren't the balustraries telling Regerio?

• 1:04:15Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  Unless they're too embarrassed. You know what I mean?

• 1:04:20Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't know.

• 1:04:22Speaker 00

  To this day.

• 1:04:23Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, after we found out, yeah, yeah, to this day, I have no idea why they didn't tell him.

• 1:04:30Speaker 00

  And whatever happened to Tony?

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  Oh, we just shut the operation down.

• 1:04:34Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  They just shut it down. You know, uh, so I'm, I'm going on again, uh, we're going on, um, nice cup.

• 1:04:47Speaker 00

  Want it? You can have it?

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  No, thank you. I got some swag coming for you.

• 1:04:51Speaker 00

  All right.

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:53Speaker 00

  Well, I got swag too. You have one of them JRE.

• 1:04:55Speaker 01

  But I mean, I, I got a lot of Donnie Brasco swag that I'm gonna mail to you.

• 1:04:59Speaker 00

  All right, cool.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  It was supposed to be at the hotel. It, it never made it, so.

• 1:05:04Speaker 00

  But this has to be hair raising.

• 1:05:05Speaker 01

  It is because now I'm like, and, and Lefty said, you know, now he's, he's grilling me again about my relationship with, with Tony.

• 1:05:15Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:05:16Speaker 01

  Uh, but I gotta stick to the story, you know?

• 1:05:19Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  Uh, so, uh, so I, I, I kinda squared things, squared things around with him and, because I, you know, um, and Mike, so now what happens is that, um,

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  At the time, Carmen Galenti was the boss of the Benanos, alright? And they killed Galenti. They whack him, alright? Because there's kind of a beef within the family and one side didn't like Galenti, so they whack him. Mike Sabella now was associated with Galenti. So they tell Mike, "Mike, either step down or we're gonna whack you too." So he gives up his captainship and just becomes a regular soldier again, right?

• 1:06:25Speaker 01

  So, one of the originators, when I say originators, instigators, whatever, is a guy by the name of Sonny Black Napletano. He was out in Brooklyn. So they put me in, remember, we were with Mike Sabella. So they put me and Lefty now with, under Sonny Black, they make, Sonny Black becomes a captain. They put me and Lefty under Sonny Black out in Brooklyn. So that's who we report to every day. And what you, you know, you have to, you have to check in with your captain every day.

• 1:07:07Speaker 01

  So every day, me and Lefty would report out to the Motion Lounge. It's on Grammer Withers Street in Brooklyn. Sonny's our new captain. So, and again, you know, the intelligence information I'm gathering is like no other than anybody else can get because, you know, informants are gonna give you all this stuff. And I'm meeting different people again, I'm meeting people from different families through these guys.

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  So I'm rocking out there in Brooklyn, under Sonny Black, and I get another call.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  Then what, the headquarters wants to talk to you. About what? Well, we got another cover operation going in Tampa, Florida. Yeah? And we want to see if you can bring your Bonanos in. I says, hey, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait, wait, wait, wait. I just went through to San Milwaukee. Well, supervisor wants to talk to you. I knew the supervisor. Supervisor's a good guy. So I call him, I said, Tony, what's up? He says, we got a nightclub.

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

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

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  I said, I got no problem with Steve. And they gave me the other guy. And the other guy I knew, but I didn't, I never worked with him. I said, but as long as Steve is, is involved, I'll see what I can do. But I don't know how long it's going to take. So you gotta just let me think about this. All right? Because I don't want to come up, you know, I'm not coming up with a story, hey, I got a call from a guy that I used to fuck a thief with.

• 1:10:05Speaker 00

  Right, right, right.

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  So I figure, okay.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  After a while, okay, here's what we'll do. We used to go to Miami a lot. When I say we, I'm talking about me, Lefty, the wise guys. We'd fly to Miami for a long weekend. We had a hotel down there that put us on the arm, right? Give us the suites and stuff and stay for the weekend. So I says, okay, here's what we'll do. The next time we go to Miami, right? You guys go down there and we're, well, whenever we go to a restaurant, I'll let you know what restaurant we're gonna go to.

• 1:10:56Speaker 01

  And you guys just happen to be in the restaurant. And you, you,

• 1:11:05Speaker 01

  Steve Salmieri, who was going by Chico. I said, Chico just happens to notice me and comes over to the table. And hey, Donnie, how you been? So it's like a bump, right? It's not like.

• 1:11:18Speaker 00

  Right, right, right.

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  So that's what we did. So we're out at this restaurant and we set that deal up. And Chico comes over and, Donnie, hey, I haven't seen you in years. How you doing? What are you doing down here? Well, we got a nightclub. You got a nightclub, where? It's outside of Tampa, up in Tampa, Florida. No kidding? How long you been down there? Uh, I don't know, three, four years, you know? What are you doing? And I said, it's a nice club, why don't you come by? Now that, you know, again, you're talking about a nightclub and, you know? So everything is, is dollar signs.

• 1:12:04Speaker 01

  So I said, Left, you wanna take a ride up one day?

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  He said, yeah. So when they leave, he says, you know these guys? I said, well, I know Chico. I said, I don't know the other guy. I said, but you know, Chico, he was a good thief, you know? I said, I haven't seen him in a while. I haven't seen him in like, maybe five years, but he's always was, you know, he's always a good thief. So, so I said, let's take a ride up. So we take a ride up and it's a nice nightclub. It's on like five acres. They got tennis courts. We hang out. Lot of business, you know?

• 1:12:53Speaker 01

  It was open from, I don't know, nine o'clock to all, it was one of, you know, open all night. So, he said, nice place. He said, we have to tell Sonny about it when we go back to, when we go back to Brooklyn. Okay. So we go back to Brooklyn and tell Sonny about it. Now, you know, now I'm like in my fourth year with these guys. So we go back to Brooklyn and tell Sonny, hey, we ran into one of Donnie's old friends.

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  Boy, they got a nice club there. Oh, yeah. Well, maybe we'll go down to see it. So we go down and they see a lot of potential. But now we, they can't operate anything illegal because Santo Trafficante owns Florida. So now we gotta go through the same routine. All right?

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  The consigliere has to call Traffic Canty's guy and say, hey, we got, you know, one of our guys has a club down there who hasn't been with us for, you know, Chico hasn't been, had to be with the Benanos again for five, six years. Excuse me. So we go through that same routine. And finally, you know, that, this takes a while. It's not like overnight. So we go through the routine and he says, okay.

• 1:14:51Speaker 01

  His guy says, all right, Santo will meet you at such, such a hotel on such, such a day. Get to meet another fucking boss of Florida. Me and Sonny meet him. We actually, oh, no, the first time we met him was at, at a restaurant in, right outside of Tampa, that Greek fishing village. I've drawn a blank, but at any rate, we meet him in a restaurant and actually it was Papas' Restaurant, that was the name of it.

• 1:15:32Speaker 01

  And Sonny had never met him before, but, you know, he go through all the niceties and Sonny tells him, you know, we got a nightclub and we want to start running gambling out of it, you know? So he says, okay, I'll, I'll meet you. I'll come up and look at it. I'll meet you. So I, I don't know if we met him the next week or next couple of weeks. We meet him again. Now this time it's in a hotel room. He comes to Sonny's hotel room. And sets everything up, right? Forms the marriage.

• 1:16:15Speaker 01

  Again, this is the second time we married two fucking mafia families together. So, he, he said, all right, you want to do a casino night? Yeah. He said, I'm gonna send my two guys up. Okay. Couple of days later, two guys come up from Miami. Card sharks. I sat in a hotel with these room guys, Joe. And they were marking all the decks of cards.

• 1:16:54Speaker 01

  I could not, after they get done, I had no idea how they marked these cards. They were for blackjack and stuff, right? Had craps tables, the dice were fixed. I mean, it was like, everything was, you know. So we set the club up. And we're advertising casino night for the veterans of foreign war. We even had a certificate and everything, right?

• 1:17:38Speaker 01

  We're paying off somebody in the sheriff's department. To protect us. Well, we got the game going. And doing pretty good, doing pretty good. And place is jammed. So what happens is that all of a sudden, they're knocking at the door. One of the doormen slides, he comes to me, he said, Donnie, there's a bunch of sheriff's deputies outside. Whoa. So right away, I get on the phone. I can't get, I can't get our contact in the sheriff's department.

• 1:18:23Speaker 01

  He's not answering his phone. And then we had just paid him that day. Right? So.

• 1:18:34Speaker 01

  I said, all right, clear all the money off the table. So we get all the money off the tables and put chips back on the tables.

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  I said, all right, let them in.

• 1:18:46Speaker 01

  Because we had the, we had the certificate, we had everything. And what we had done was every so often, we collect the money and we stash it in the furnace room. All right, there was a lot of money stashed.

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  What we had was an old time one armed bandit. All right, the thing had to be a hundred years old. Nobody ever put money in it, it was just there. So they, they come in and they, they, they don't see any money. One of the, one of the deputies puts a, I don't know, nickel, dime, pulls the handle. And what do you think happens? He fucking wins. You're running a gambling operation. Said, nobody's ever played that thing, right? Well, they wrecked the joint. They wrecked it, we all get arrested.

• 1:19:41Speaker 00

  Why, why did he get arrested? Because it, I don't understand.

• 1:19:44Speaker 01

  It was a gambling charge. So they arrest us.

• 1:19:48Speaker 00

  Oh, because, but why? Because of the one armed bandit?

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  Because they, they, they won and they said that that's, that was gambling.

• 1:19:56Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:19:58Speaker 01

  Nobody even knew there was any money in it or anything. It was just there as a decoration.

• 1:20:04Speaker 00

  Oh, boy.

• 1:20:05Speaker 01

  You know, it was, it was an antique.

• 1:20:09Speaker 00

  So they just used it as an excuse?

• 1:20:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, just use an excuse because we were the, we were the mafia Guineas from, from New York.

• 1:20:17Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:20:18Speaker 01

  That's what we were. Right, so they throw us in a can and.

• 1:20:24Speaker 00

  Just for the one armed bandit?

• 1:20:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:25Speaker 00

  They never find the money?

• 1:20:27Speaker 01

  Uh, we didn't, but somebody did.

• 1:20:29Joe Rogan?

  Oh, boy. This episode is brought to you by Chime. And I know people don't usually get excited about banking, but Chime is doing something different and it's worth paying attention to. In a recent survey, they ranked the number one choice for new checking accounts in America. That means real people, millions of them, are choosing this over traditional banks. That's because banking at Chime is fee-free. No monthly fees, no overdraft fees, and thousands of fee-free ATMs. But here's the real kicker. If you get their Chime card, it gives you 5% cash back on a category you actually pick yourself. Your savings rate, crazy high. It's nine times the national average. They're calling it the most rewarding way to bank.

• 1:21:12Joe Rogan?

  Go to chime.com/rogan. Takes a few minutes to sign up. Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services and Chime card provided by Chime's bank partners. Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com/disclosures for more details. This episode is brought to you by Noco. You're miles from home, you turn the key, nothing. Dead battery. Normally, that means finding another car, someone willing to give you a jump, and dealing with old jumper cables. But what if you didn't need any of that? Keep a Noco portable jump starter in your glove box and jump-start your car yourself. No cables, no second vehicle, no waiting for help.

• 1:21:55Joe Rogan?

  It also works as a power bank and has a built-in LED flashlight. Noco, the end of jumper cables. Use code ROGEN10 for 10% off. Select jump starters at N-O dot C-O.

• 1:22:10Speaker 01

  Somebody did.

• 1:22:11Joe Rogan?

  How much money?

• 1:22:15Speaker 01

  There was over 30 grand that I know that was stashed.

• 1:22:20Joe Rogan?

  So they swiped that?

• 1:22:21Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know. Somebody did.

• 1:22:23Joe Rogan?

  Probably.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  Somebody did.

• 1:22:24Joe Rogan?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:25Speaker 01

  So, we had traffic county's lawyer. When he gave us, I don't know who it was. So, we called a lawyer and he gets us out of the can the next day.

• 1:22:39Speaker 01

  And now, now I'm in another fucking bind because now we got busted and we did, you know, we were paying the guy off.

• 1:22:49Speaker 00

  And what happened to the guy you paid off?

• 1:22:52Speaker 01

  He committed suicide later on.

• 1:22:53Speaker 00

  Oh, how convenient.

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:57Speaker 00

  Did he really commit suicide?

• 1:22:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, he did.

• 1:22:59Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:22:59Speaker 01

  Because, uh, when he got a subpoena.

• 1:23:03Speaker 00

  Oh, he knew they were coming for him.

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:06Speaker 00

  Oy.

• 1:23:07Speaker 01

  So that, uh, that kind of, uh, screwed that thing up. And, uh, uh, but, you know, you know, Sonny knew that, uh, uh, that we were paying the guy off and everything. So, you know, it was just a...

• 1:23:25Speaker 00

  Hazards of doing business.

• 1:23:26Speaker 01

  Hazards of doing business as a mob, you know? But when we got back to the club, like I say, the, the statue was gone with the money. Somebody took it. Uh, and so we go back to New York and again now, there's another beef in the, in the Bonanno family. Cause after they whack Alenti, uh, they make, uh, Rusty Restelli the boss of the family, but Rusty's in a can. He's in a can. So Sonny Black is, is running the family along with, uh, another capo. And then there's a Sicilian faction of the Bonanno family and they're running their, they're running their faction. All right?

• 1:24:13Speaker 01

  Now there's a faction of three capos that are against Rusty Restelli and they're against Sonny and the other capos.

• 1:24:24Speaker 01

  So now there's more friction in the Bonannos.

• 1:24:29Speaker 01

  So, uh, in order to solve this, they, uh, uh, they call a sit-down. Sonny Black, the guy's on his side, the capo's on his side, uh, call a sit-down for the other, the other three capos to straighten this out.

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  Well, the, the deal is when these other three capos get to the sit-down, they're gonna whack them.

• 1:24:56Speaker 00

  Oy.

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  They're gonna whack them.

• 1:25:01Speaker 01

  So, uh...

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  I was supposed to be in on that, but they cut, they cut me out at the last minute. I was supposed to be in on the hit, but they cut me out the last minute. And then they, I was supposed to be on the cleanup crew. But they cut me out at the, you know, at the, at the last minute.

• 1:25:21Speaker 00

  Why'd they cut you out?

• 1:25:22Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Cause I wasn't told until after, you know?

• 1:25:28Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:25:30Speaker 01

  So they whacked these three guys. And the next day, Sonny calls me into the club. And he, he said, uh, Bruno never showed up. That was the fourth guy that would, uh, one of the capos in Delicato. His son was supposed to come and he, he didn't show. So he gave me the contract to kill him. So he said, we think he's in Florida. So he sends me to Florida to look for him, but he wasn't, he wasn't down there. And the deal was that if I did find him, I'd call the FBI. And they would snatch him and we'd stage a hit. Or if they found him, you know, we'd do the reverse.

• 1:26:15Speaker 01

  They'd, they'd stage a hit, but we, we never found him. So now, all this time, I never carried a gun. I never carried a gun in this whole operation.

• 1:26:28Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:26:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:29Speaker 00

  Was that unusual?

• 1:26:30Speaker 01

  No, because these guys don't carry guns on a daily basis. The mob, you know, mafia guys.

• 1:26:36Speaker 00

  They don't?

• 1:26:37Speaker 01

  No, no, because they're always getting roused by the cops.

• 1:26:40Speaker 00

  Got it.

• 1:26:41Speaker 01

  Right. The only time they carry a piece is when they're gonna go, go do some work.

• 1:26:45Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  You know? Uh, so.

• 1:26:49Speaker 00

  Did you see guys get killed?

• 1:26:51Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:26:53Speaker 00

  I don't believe you.

• 1:26:55Speaker 01

  So.

• 1:26:58Speaker 00

  He has no ever heard of my life.

• 1:27:01Speaker 01

  So we, we, uh, let's move on.

• 1:27:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, let's move on.

• 1:27:07Speaker 01

  We, um, um.

• 1:27:10Speaker 01

  You made me lose my train of thought, Joe.

• 1:27:12Speaker 00

  Sorry, sorry, sorry.

• 1:27:14Speaker 01

  No, so, uh, we're in the club, so I get the contract for Bruno, but obviously I can't find him. Bureau can't find him.

• 1:27:23Speaker 00

  Did anybody ever find him?

• 1:27:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what happens is we're in a club one day in the motion lounge and, uh,

• 1:27:35Speaker 01

  Sonny gets a phone call and he says, hey, Donny, he said, uh,

• 1:27:41Speaker 01

  Uh, we think Bruno's at such and such a place, uh, and, uh, But it was, it wasn't, it was bad info. It was bad info. So I was asked, well, what would you do if he was there? I said, I hate to say, but Bruno probably was a dead man. And, well, how could you say that? Well, because when you're given a contract, it's your responsibility that guy gets killed. And if you refuse the contract.

• 1:28:17Speaker 00

  You get killed.

• 1:28:17Speaker 01

  You're gonna, you're gonna get whacked.

• 1:28:19Speaker 00

  So would you have had to do it?

• 1:28:21Speaker 01

  Well.

• 1:28:22Speaker 00

  If you found him?

• 1:28:23Speaker 01

  I could have given it to some, to one of the other guys to do it, but it's my responsibility.

• 1:28:28Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:28:28Speaker 01

  You know, and my whole, look, my mindset in undercover is I'm not dying for a gangster.

• 1:28:38Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:28:39Speaker 01

  I'd die for a citizen. I'll take a beating for a citizen, but not for a gangster. Uh, you know, that's.

• 1:28:47Speaker 00

  He's gonna get whacked either way.

• 1:28:49Speaker 01

  He's gonna go either way.

• 1:28:50Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:28:51Speaker 01

  So I'll take my shot with the government.

• 1:28:53Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  It's, it's, you know, it's not, it's not, you know, a lot of people can't deal with that, but.

• 1:29:03Speaker 00

  I get it.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  You know, uh, so.

• 1:29:07Speaker 00

  It's the job.

• 1:29:08Speaker 01

  That's the job, you know, I mean, look, I'm there to put you in jail, I'm not there to, to get you killed, I'm not there to kill you, I'm there to arrest you and, and try to, you know, hopefully send you to jail, but I'm not gonna die for you.

• 1:29:25Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:29:27Speaker 01

  I'm not, you know.

• 1:29:28Speaker 00

  So it's a situation where your back is against the wall.

• 1:29:30Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:29:31Speaker 00

  Got it.

• 1:29:31Speaker 01

  So, uh, but I, but you know, that, that didn't happen.

• 1:29:36Speaker 00

  Did they ever find him?

• 1:29:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, they found him, uh, they found him actually, I don't know if it was a year or so later, I'm, I'm not too sure, but yeah, he, he eventually got arrested. Yeah, he was a coke, you know, he used coke, so, um.

• 1:29:53Speaker 00

  Sloppy.

• 1:29:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. So now, you know, now with the war going on, the bureau decides that, uh, well, we gotta, we gotta shut the operation down.

• 1:30:05Speaker 01

  So those hits took place on May 5th.

• 1:30:10Speaker 01

  So, and prior to that, I had a sit down with Sonny Black. And he said, Donnie, he said, uh, the books on the, the books on the mafia are opening up in, in December. He said, and I already proposed you for membership into the Benano family, so you're gonna, you're gonna get inducted into the family in December. He said, so, I congratulated him, thanked him, kissed him on both cheeks, you know.

• 1:30:44Speaker 00

  So you were gonna be a made guy?

• 1:30:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was gonna be a made guy, yeah.

• 1:30:47Speaker 00

  How attractive is that life when you're in it?

• 1:30:50Speaker 01

  Oh, forget it.

• 1:30:51Speaker 00

  Must be so much fun.

• 1:30:54Speaker 00

  Part of the problem, right?

• 1:30:55Speaker 01

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

• 1:31:20Speaker 00

  VIP treatment.

• 1:31:20Speaker 01

  You get the VIP treatment. You don't order off the menu. You know.

• 1:31:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:31:27Speaker 01

  You know.

• 1:31:27Speaker 00

  So, there's perks.

• 1:31:29Speaker 01

  There's those perks, but you know.

• 1:31:30Speaker 00

  Too scary.

• 1:31:31Speaker 01

  I didn't want to wake up every day saying, do I go to jail or do I get whacked today?

• 1:31:35Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  That's, that's their mindset.

• 1:31:36Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:31:37Speaker 01

  It's crazy.

• 1:31:38Speaker 00

  It is crazy.

• 1:31:38Speaker 01

  It's crazy.

• 1:31:40Speaker 00

  But I've talked to guys in that life and they love it.

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:43Speaker 00

  That's what's crazy about it.

• 1:31:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, they could, I, I know guys that became informants and you know, they wish they could go back.

• 1:31:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:31:56Speaker 01

  You know. Uh, no, I, I, I, I wouldn't want, you know.

• 1:32:02Speaker 00

  But that is a problem with guys who do undercover work, right?

• 1:32:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, some of them, some of them fall in love with it.

• 1:32:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:32:07Speaker 01

  They fall in love with the undercover aspect. And I think, I think the reason that, that I was successful in all my cases and that I'm still 98% sane is I didn't fall in love with it.

• 1:32:27Speaker 01

  And I grew up on the streets. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:32:32Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 1:32:32Speaker 01

  I mean, I grew up in that environment. And I was never attracted to it as a kid.

• 1:32:38Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:32:39Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:32:40Speaker 00

  Right. Did you ever run the risk of running into someone that you knew who knew you as Joe Bastone?

• 1:32:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, did you see the movie?

• 1:32:50Speaker 00

  I did, but I don't remember.

• 1:32:51Speaker 01

  In the airport?

• 1:32:52Speaker 00

  Oh, that's right.

• 1:32:53Speaker 01

  With the lawyer.

• 1:32:54Speaker 00

  Oh, that's right.

• 1:32:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:56Speaker 00

  That's what really happened?

• 1:32:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:58Speaker 00

  How did that go down?

• 1:33:01Speaker 01

  Well, I saw, you know, we saw, made eye contact and you know,

• 1:33:09Speaker 01

  and I just clocked him.

• 1:33:10Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 1:33:11Speaker 01

  And Sonny says, Donny, why'd you do that? I said, Sonny, you guys are looking at my prick, what do you want me to do?

• 1:33:16Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  You know. But no, I never got attracted to the life other than as a job. And I, and I think another reason too, Joe, where a lot of undercovers go wrong is they think they have to act like gangsters.

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  They change their personalities.

• 1:33:42Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:33:43Speaker 01

  And you can't be A in the daytime and B at night.

• 1:33:48Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:33:48Speaker 01

  I never changed my personality.

• 1:33:50Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:33:51Speaker 01

  You know. And a lot of undercovers are extroverts. And I'm the exception to that rule when I'm really an introvert.

• 1:34:04Speaker 00

  So you didn't need the attention?

• 1:34:05Speaker 01

  I didn't need the attention.

• 1:34:06Speaker 00

  You didn't thrive on it?

• 1:34:07Speaker 01

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

• 1:34:49Speaker 00

  Probably lucky.

• 1:34:50Speaker 01

  Probably.

• 1:34:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:34:52Speaker 01

  Or, you know, you never have more than one glass of wine. That's all I, that's all I can ingest, is one glass. And see, too many undercovers think, oh, all, all bad guys are drinkers, all bad, you know. Donnie, you ever, I never do drugs.

• 1:35:08Speaker 00

  The coke is a real problem with guys who go undercover, right?

• 1:35:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:12Speaker 00

  Because they have to do it with everybody.

• 1:35:14Speaker 01

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

• 1:35:41Speaker 01

  I said, "To me, it's a moneymaker." See, but too many young undercovers think, "Oh, you know, I gotta drink."

• 1:35:48Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:35:49Speaker 01

  You know, "I gotta do this, I gotta do that, I gotta act tough."

• 1:35:53Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:35:55Speaker 01

  You don't have to. All you do is you have to be yourself.

• 1:36:00Joe Rogan?

  This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Scams have gotten smarter because criminals use AI to flood you with fake texts, emails, and phone calls that are designed to be more convincing than ever. One wrong click can put your personal information and your identity at risk. So protect yourself with LifeLock. LifeLock helps detect and alert you to threats. And if your identity is stolen, LifeLock will step in to fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Dedicated, US-based, identity restoration specialists will work with you until your identity is restored, backed by the million-dollar protection package with up to $3 million in coverage for eligible losses and expenses.

• 1:36:43Joe Rogan?

  Visit lifelock.com and save up to 30% your first year with the promo code JRE. That's promo code JRE. Or go to lifelock.com/JRE for 30% off. Terms apply.

• 1:36:58Speaker 04

  Shaq here. What's it like to buy a car from Carvana 100% online and get it delivered to your door? Let me tell you. Your car is here, Mr. Shaq. Thank you, Mr. Carvana guy. Can't wait to take it for a spin. Only the best for you, Mr. Shaq. Hey, have you always been so big, tall, and handsome? Not always. I was 6'10" once. Seven days to love it or return it, Mr. Shaq. Not that I would. You never do. No, I never do. So buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply. See our seven-day return policy at carvana.com.

• 1:37:29Speaker 01

  That's all.

• 1:37:29Speaker 00

  That way, you don't have to ever change it up.

• 1:37:32Speaker 01

  That's exactly right. You never have to change it.

• 1:37:34Speaker 00

  You never get caught.

• 1:37:34Speaker 01

  You never get caught.

• 1:37:35Speaker 00

  Because you're always yourself.

• 1:37:36Speaker 01

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

• 1:38:00Speaker 01

  And I never got into anybody's face.

• 1:38:05Speaker 01

  To make myself look tough.

• 1:38:07Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:38:07Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, and that's where a lot of young undercovers go wrong, that they think, you know, they watch too much television.

• 1:38:16Speaker 01

  Be honest with you.

• 1:38:20Speaker 01

  The only time I, the only time I, I screwed up, I tell you.

• 1:38:27Speaker 01

  We're in Miami, right?

• 1:38:31Speaker 01

  And I'm in another undercover's car.

• 1:38:38Speaker 01

  So it might have been, it might have been Chico's, I don't remember.

• 1:38:45Speaker 01

  So there's the three bad guys, you know, and he had his car wired up.

• 1:38:56Speaker 01

  So we're riding by and it's a strip club.

• 1:39:04Speaker 01

  And it said 20, 22 naked dancing girls.

• 1:39:14Speaker 01

  And I said 44 nipples.

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  That's all I said.

• 1:39:22Speaker 01

  Well, that came out at trial.

• 1:39:27Speaker 01

  By the defense attorney. And I had to explain why I was such an expert on female nipples.

• 1:39:36Speaker 00

  That's just simple math.

• 1:39:40Speaker 01

  But what I'm saying is, you know.

• 1:39:44Speaker 00

  So somebody remembered you saying that?

• 1:39:46Speaker 01

  Well, it was on the tape.

• 1:39:47Speaker 00

  On the tape.

• 1:39:47Speaker 01

  On the tape.

• 1:39:48Speaker 00

  So they were trying to use that against you?

• 1:39:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was, you know, my, it was, my character was, you know, was questioned.

• 1:39:58Speaker 01

  Uh, but you know, it goes back to what I say is that I would not normally say that.

• 1:40:05Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:40:05Speaker 01

  You know what I mean?

• 1:40:06Speaker 00

  Right, right, right, right.

• 1:40:07Speaker 01

  Uh, it was just a dumb statement, but it's always gonna come back to bite you in the ass.

• 1:40:12Speaker 00

  Right, right, right, I got you.

• 1:40:14Speaker 01

  Uh, so.

• 1:40:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, you just got caught up in it.

• 1:40:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:40:18Speaker 00

  So what happened when they opened up the books?

• 1:40:21Speaker 01

  Well, they closed the case down. So I got them to, I got them to postpone it till July, cause we had one more meeting with Traffic Candy set up. So I, I got them to postpone it until after that meeting, but I couldn't get them to, to wait until after I got inducted into the, into the family. They wouldn't wait.

• 1:40:44Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:40:44Speaker 01

  So they, they closed the operation July 27th. Uh, yeah. Yeah, and, uh, six years undercover, seven years of testifying.

• 1:40:57Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:40:58Speaker 01

  But I was lucky enough that, uh, after that case, I did, I did undercover work overseas. I did undercover work for Scotland Yard.

• 1:41:07Speaker 00

  Oh, really?

• 1:41:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:08Speaker 00

  What'd you do over there?

• 1:41:10Speaker 01

  I have one case. And, uh, so, uh, they had two Scotland Yard detectives who I knew. I, I did a lot of work with their undercover unit. And, uh, so they were into, uh, the Chinese Triads. And there's stuff I can't disclose, but they, they were, um, they were manufacturing credit cards. And I won't, I won't say which, which companies. Uh, and you can bang them out for like 50,000 before, before they were discovered, cause they had, they had the numbers.

• 1:41:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, I knew a guy who did that.

• 1:41:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, they had the legit numbers.

• 1:41:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. That was back when they had like the carbons, right?

• 1:41:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. So Scotland, so Scotland Yard was, was trying to get to, to the location in another country, right? Where they were actually, everything was going down. So they were meeting with the number two Triad in London.

• 1:42:19Speaker 01

  So they said, hey, look. Our guy from New York, mafia guy from New York, who's the money man, wants to have a sit down with you. He says, okay. So I fly over to London. And I knew this Scotland Yard guy, because I had done other stuff with them. So they introduced me to the supervisor of the serious crime squad. He was the guy that was running this case.

• 1:42:54Speaker 01

  So I would break his chops, you know, you can't, they don't carry guns or anything, you know, even the undercovers don't, they don't, they don't carry guns. So I, I'm sitting down with him. And I said, they, I said, I got my gun, but I didn't bring any bullets. You have any bullets? The guy goes, ape shit. You can't carry, I said, calm down, I'm just breaking your chops, right? So and he says to me, what are you wearing to this meeting? I said, I'm wearing slacks, sport coat and a shirt. He said, no, no, you got to wear a suit.

• 1:43:34Speaker 01

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

• 1:43:56Speaker 01

  So he turns to, he turns to the, the undercover guy from Scotland Yard.

• 1:44:04Speaker 01

  And turns around, opens his safe, pulls out money, says, go buy him a suit. I said, you're going to buy me a suit? He said, yeah. I said, what do I do with the suit when I'm done with it? He said, you keep it. I said, all right.

• 1:44:23Speaker 01

  So me and Graham, we go, I buy two suits, one for me and one for Graham.

• 1:44:29Speaker 01

  Right?

• 1:44:31Speaker 01

  So we go to the meeting and I'm wearing his suit. So there's me, the two Scotland Yard guy undercover guys and the Triad. So now, before we go to the meeting, the supervisor's telling me, "Look, you can't insult this guy. You've gotta be nice to him because he's the number two guy." So I says, "Hey, look," I said, "I don't tell you how to run your serious crime squad. Don't tell me how to work undercover." I says, "Whatever you need, I'll get." I said, "But don't tell me how to do it." So he's all nervous.

• 1:45:11Speaker 01

  So we're in a resort. They rented a suite, big suite in a resort. And they're next door. So they got the suite where we are, they got it wired, audio, video, right? So we go in and we're sitting there and we get through all the niceties with the

• 1:45:38Speaker 01

  with the Triad.

• 1:45:41Speaker 01

  So the guy keeps fucking interrupting me.

• 1:45:45Speaker 01

  So finally he says, "Hey Chin."

• 1:45:49Speaker 01

  I said, "Why do your sentences always starting to fucking middle of mine?"

• 1:45:53Speaker 00

  "Oy."

• 1:45:55Speaker 01

  And he looks at me.

• 1:45:58Speaker 01

  And you can hear there's dead silence, right? Then he says, "Oh, Mr. Joe." I was going by Joe Marino at the time. He said, "Oh, Mr. Joe, I apologize, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

• 1:46:14Speaker 01

  Graham tells me, he says, "When you said that, he thought the supervisor was gonna have a heart attack."

• 1:46:21Speaker 01

  "He just blew it, he just blew it, it's over."

• 1:46:28Speaker 01

  After that, the guy gave us everything. The location of the factory, the whole Magilla.

• 1:46:34Speaker 00

  Do you feel like you had to do that to have his respect?

• 1:46:36Speaker 01

  Of course. I mean, I'm a mob guy. What do I know about the Triads?

• 1:46:40Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:46:41Speaker 01

  You know what I mean?

• 1:46:42Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:46:42Speaker 01

  So, if I would have let him kept stepping on me.

• 1:46:45Speaker 00

  Right. That'd been out of character.

• 1:46:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:48Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:46:48Speaker 01

  So, yeah.

• 1:46:50Speaker 00

  That had to be fucking scary.

• 1:46:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, the Triads are, you know.

• 1:46:53Speaker 00

  They're scary.

• 1:46:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, they are. They are. And he was the number two. And I give these guys credit. I mean, he got to the number two guy, but they couldn't get, you know.

• 1:47:02Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:47:03Speaker 01

  So, but.

• 1:47:05Speaker 00

  What a life.

• 1:47:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:07Speaker 00

  How do you stay calm in these situations?

• 1:47:12Speaker 01

  I, me, Joe, I just stay who I am.

• 1:47:18Speaker 01

  You know, I get that sece in me. And, you know.

• 1:47:24Speaker 01

  You, you go at it when you have to. And if you, if you don't, you know.

• 1:47:32Speaker 00

  If you don't, it probably seems off.

• 1:47:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:47:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 1:47:37Speaker 00

  But that's gotta be just fucking nerve wracking.

• 1:47:42Speaker 01

  I, you know, it is because what's nerve wracking is you always have to be on.

• 1:47:49Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:47:50Speaker 01

  You know, you can never be off.

• 1:47:52Speaker 00

  You never relax.

• 1:47:53Speaker 01

  No. I mean, and, I mean.

• 1:47:59Speaker 01

  Not many guys could say

• 1:48:03Speaker 01

  that they had sit downs with two mafia bosses of different families. Right? I used to stay at Sonny Black's apartment with him in, in Brooklyn. And this guy was running the Bonanno family. He was one of the top capitals in the Bonanno family. But, Sonny, I don't know how many hits he had on, now. All these guys I dealt with, don't forget, all these guys had hits under their belt. These weren't, these weren't novice guys. I mean, they all had, you know, five, six, 10, 15 hits under their belt.

• 1:48:38Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:48:39Speaker 01

  You know.

• 1:48:41Speaker 01

  I mean, I got into a fight one time in a bar with Tony Mira.

• 1:48:47Speaker 01

  I mean, me and him against three guys.

• 1:48:52Speaker 01

  And, I mean, he grabbed a beer bottle, broke it on the, broke it on the, the bar, and just boom, rake the guy's face, you know. Now, there's another guy, you know, I, I always brings it up to young undercovers is that this was probably the, the meanest guy I ever fucking met.

• 1:49:16Speaker 01

  I mean, flat out mean.

• 1:49:19Speaker 01

  You know, these other guys were mean, you know, because they, they killed people, but I mean, he was just a mean guy. The other guys, the other gangsters didn't like him.

• 1:49:31Speaker 01

  I never saw him, I never saw him overindulge in any, in any liquor. Never, never.

• 1:49:40Speaker 01

  And, and he would stab you as soon as look at you. And after that incident, I told you when I, I had to go around with him, I always made sure I was an arms length away from him.

• 1:49:53Speaker 00

  What was his name?

• 1:49:55Speaker 01

  Tony Mirror.

• 1:49:55Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 1:49:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now, after it was over and they found out who I was, they killed Mirror. His own nephew killed him, actually.

• 1:50:04Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:50:04Speaker 01

  Because he introduced me to all the Bonanos.

• 1:50:07Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:50:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Lefty was on his way to get killed, but the, the FBI picked it up on the wiretap. So they snatched him, you know, surveillance team snatched him off the street.

• 1:50:22Speaker 01

  They killed Sonny Black. Sonny Black got killed.

• 1:50:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, he got killed, yeah.

• 1:50:29Speaker 00

  So all the people that had let you in?

• 1:50:32Speaker 01

  The, yeah, yeah. Tell you how Sonny Black got killed.

• 1:50:37Speaker 01

  You talk about a gangster, right?

• 1:50:44Speaker 01

  When it came out that I was an under, you know, undercover, in the, in the beginning, the mob didn't believe I was an under, an FBI undercover agent. They thought the FBI had kidnapped me and was trying to turn me.

• 1:50:57Speaker 01

  Because we, you know, we picked it up on the wiretaps and informants.

• 1:51:02Speaker 01

  But once, you know, once their lawyers told them, hey, he really isn't undercover agent.

• 1:51:10Speaker 01

  So Sonny Black gets a call, you gotta come, go to a sit down.

• 1:51:19Speaker 01

  So he walks into the motion lounge. He had a diamond ring. Takes off his diamond ring. All right. Takes his money out of his pocket. Takes all his keys except his car keys. Puts them on the counter. Says to the bartender. I just got called to a sit down. I probably not coming back. Is that a gangster?

• 1:51:52Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:51:53Speaker 01

  Calls his girlfriend. And this is how we found this out. Calls his girlfriend. And tells her the same thing. So what happens is that after they find his body and everything. His girlfriend calls the FBI. And she says, I'd like to have a meeting with Donnie Brasco. And I said, why? He said, because I got something to tell him that Sonny Black. She called him Sonny.

• 1:52:38Speaker 01

  She didn't call him Sonny Black. She said that Sonny wanted me to give him a message. They said, okay. So they fly her down to DC. And myself and the agents, the other agents go out to a restaurant. And she said, Sonny wanted me to tell you. This is what happened. She said, this is what happened. He got called to a sit down. And he goes into the motion lounge. Gives his ring, his money, his car keys to the bartender and tells the bartender, you know.

• 1:53:25Speaker 01

  I got called to sit down and I'm probably not coming back. And then he calls me. And he says her name. And he said, uh. If I don't come back. He said, I want you to get in touch with Donnie. And tell him I loved him. And he was just better than we were. I don't hold anything against him.

• 1:53:53Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:53:56Speaker 01

  Is that a gangster or a?

• 1:53:58Speaker 00

  That's a guy that's living that life. Wow.

• 1:54:02Speaker 01

  Is that a gangster?

• 1:54:03Speaker 00

  That's crazy. How did that make you feel?

• 1:54:06Speaker 01

  Well, it, it, it kinda threw me for a loop. I mean, I had a good relationship with him and like I said, I didn't want to see anybody get killed. You know, even Mira, I don't want to see him get killed. I mean, although I, I might have fucking done it myself. I mean, he was, that guy was just plain mean, but you know, that's not my job. My job is to gather evidence, bring it to trial and hopefully you're convicted.

• 1:54:31Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:54:33Speaker 01

  But, uh, yeah, Sonny was, Sonny, you know. The difference, me and Sonny, we could sit just like we're having this conversation. He wasn't 24/7 gangster. You know what I mean?

• 1:54:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:54:52Speaker 01

  We'd break chops, we'd break balls. Where Jerry was 27, 24/7 gangster. I couldn't. I liked him because he was a great cook. I mean, he was bad. Boy, I'll tell you, Joe, he could cook. But you, you always, you, you, there was always something. You know, he was digging for, you know. But like Sonny, I, look, I'm staying over at, at, at.

• 1:55:29Speaker 01

  The main capo in the family, one of the two main capitals in the family's apartment. He'd get up in the morning, I sleep on his couch. We'd get up in the morning. He'd go, here's a guy that's running a goddamn Benano family. He'd go out to get coffee and hard rolls and butter. And bring him back and me and him would sit there in our shorts and watch cartoons on television.

• 1:56:01Speaker 01

  I tell that to the guys at the FBI and they say, no, I'm telling you, this is, you know. And then he had a weight bench in his apartment. And back in the day, I used to lift pretty good, you know. I mean, you can't tell me now, because I'm old now, but.

• 1:56:23Speaker 01

  And I was, I was pretty good at hand wrestling. I mean, arm wrestling, right? And he could never beat me. And he was built like you. I mean, he was built, right? He's about your size and everything and big arms like you got. But he could never beat me in arm wrestling. And I don't know what it was, if I, you know. So one day he says to me, Donny, he's, I'm gonna beat you today in arm wrestling. I says, Sonny, you'd never fucking beat me. Why today?

• 1:56:54Speaker 01

  I'm gonna beat you. I said, okay. So the day goes on. So then he says, all right, let's go, right?

• 1:57:05Speaker 01

  We're going on. He spits in my eye.

• 1:57:11Speaker 01

  Boom. He says, I told you I'd beat you. But I mean, that's the kind of guy he was.

• 1:57:17Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:57:18Speaker 01

  You know? And I couldn't get PO'd at him.

• 1:57:21Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:57:22Speaker 01

  You know? But with Lefty, you couldn't, you couldn't joke around like that.

• 1:57:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:57:30Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, he was, he was, he was something else, man.

• 1:57:37Speaker 01

  He couldn't stand, he couldn't stand air conditioning.

• 1:57:42Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:57:42Speaker 01

  Never. We'd be in the car in Miami, the windows would be up,

• 1:57:50Speaker 01

  and he'd be smoking English olives with no air conditioning.

• 1:57:53Speaker 00

  Jeez.

• 1:57:54Speaker 01

  And I'm dying, I'm dying. I put the window down, Donnie put that window up. I put, I turned, he turned the air conditioning off. He couldn't stand air conditioning.

• 1:58:06Speaker 00

  Why?

• 1:58:07Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't know. He had cancer, maybe it was, I don't know.

• 1:58:11Speaker 00

  Oh, he had cancer at the time while he's smoking with the windows rolled up?

• 1:58:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, but he had been cured of that, you know, he had been cured, he had testicle cancer years before. He had, eventually died of lung cancer. He used to smoke English olives. We go in the hotel room and we always had a big suite, so you know, we didn't have different rooms. We'd have a suite with two bedrooms.

• 1:58:41Speaker 01

  He turned the air off. Turned the air off.

• 1:58:46Speaker 01

  So, you know, you have to do things to keep your sanity sometimes, right? So, we're down in Miami, so I figured, son of a bitch, I'm gonna get you today, alright? So I said, "Left, I gotta go to the, I gotta go to the head. I'm going up to the room." I go up, I take the cover off the air conditioning, I crank it where you could hang meat in there, right? And I put the cover back on, and I, I put a thing in there, so you know, if you move the thing back up here. We get upstairs, I mean, it was freezing. So we get in that room, we get in that suite,

• 1:59:28Speaker 01

  and he's like, "Donnie, turn that air conditioning off." So I go over there and I said, "Left, I don't know if something's wrong, I don't know." He said, "Call the front desk, get maintenance up here." So I pick up the phone, but I don't, I make believe I'm talking. I said, "Yeah, this is room so and so, and our air conditioner's broke, could you send somebody up?" But I'm not talking to anybody. Because I want him, I want him to freeze as long as he can freeze. So he's, after a while, did you call that? I said, Left, you saw me, call, call him again. And I do the same thing. And now he's calling me, Joe, every name in the book.

• 2:00:13Speaker 01

  It's your fault, you did this, you broke it. I said, Left, I didn't do a thing, I don't know nothing about air conditioning. Right? So, finally, after about a half an hour, I do, now I call and I say, hey, your air conditioning? So they send somebody up and then the guy takes it. Okay, there it is. But he blamed me, but, you know. But that's how you keep your sanity sometimes, you know?

• 2:00:43Speaker 00

  God.

• 2:00:45Speaker 00

  What is it like to experience all that and then see it in a movie? Like, what is it like to see a guy like Johnny Depp play you in a movie?

• 2:00:55Speaker 01

  Oh, God, what an experience that was.

• 2:00:57Speaker 00

  It has to be so weird.

• 2:00:59Speaker 01

  It was, and you know Johnny Depp?

• 2:01:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know him.

• 2:01:03Speaker 01

  I love that boy.

• 2:01:03Speaker 00

  He's a great guy.

• 2:01:06Speaker 01

  I could cry, I'm telling you. I mean, what he's done for my family.

• 2:01:19Speaker 01

  Excuse me.

• 2:01:21Speaker 00

  It's all right.

• 2:01:23Speaker 00

  He's a sweetheart of a guy, like genuinely. I've hung, I've hung out with him a few times at the Comedy Store.

• 2:01:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01:29Speaker 00

  In L.A. Very, very nice guy.

• 2:01:31Speaker 01

  I love him. He loved my wife.

• 2:01:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. He, um, he just flew in in January to have dinner with my whole family.

• 2:01:59Speaker 01

  And my grandkids.

• 2:02:10Speaker 01

  Flew in from Spain.

• 2:02:14Speaker 01

  And, um...

• 2:02:25Speaker 01

  My wife couldn't make the dinner.

• 2:02:31Speaker 01

  So the next day.

• 2:02:37Speaker 01

  He went and spent almost five hours with her.

• 2:02:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:49Speaker 01

  And then she passed away. A little while after that.

• 2:03:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. He's a great guy.

• 2:03:02Speaker 00

  He really is.

• 2:03:04Speaker 01

  I mean, he's genuine.

• 2:03:05Speaker 00

  He's genuine, and it's odd. It's odd for a movie star.

• 2:03:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:10Speaker 00

  You know, I meet movie stars and I always have this wall up because I always feel like, okay, I'm just gonna talk to some bullshit person. You know what I mean? Like, I've met a bunch of them and they're not really there.

• 2:03:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly, exactly.

• 2:03:23Speaker 00

  But when you meet one and they're really there, it's amazing. You know, like, you realize, oh, they're just human beings who are in this very unusual position.

• 2:03:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:32Speaker 00

  Where they're incredibly famous. And, you know, they're famous in a very weird way. They're famous for pretending to be other people.

• 2:03:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:03:40Speaker 00

  And acting in films and, you know, you know them so well as, you know, a fucking pirate or whatever.

• 2:03:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we We met in ninety-six and have stayed friends up until

• 2:03:54Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 2:03:57Speaker 01

  Up until now. And he has stayed friends with

• 2:04:04Speaker 01

  my girls.

• 2:04:07Speaker 01

  My grandkids that he, you know,

• 2:04:11Speaker 01

  that he knew since they were, you know.

• 2:04:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:04:17Speaker 01

  And now as adults.

• 2:04:20Speaker 01

  I mean, he takes, he takes phone calls from my one granddaughter.

• 2:04:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:04:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's a genuinely good guy. Before his trial was going on, I had a conversation with him for half an hour on the phone in Hawaii. I was in Hawaii, drinking margaritas in a lounge chair. And my friend Doug, Doug Stanhope, calls me up and he's like, "Johnny wants to talk to you." And me and Johnny were on the phone for like a fucking half an hour.

• 2:04:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I used to, I used to keep in contact with him when he was in trial.

• 2:04:56Speaker 00

  What a crazy trial.

• 2:04:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:58Speaker 00

  But that trial showed you who he really is, who he really is, and who she really is too. And it just shows you, you know.

• 2:05:04Speaker 01

  I didn't know her.

• 2:05:06Speaker 00

  You're lucky.

• 2:05:08Speaker 01

  I'll tell you a funny story, is that, do you know Vanessa?

• 2:05:12Speaker 00

  No.

• 2:05:14Speaker 01

  This is when, excuse me, well, I mean, I met Johnny, he was first going out with Kate Moss.

• 2:05:24Speaker 01

  And they all love my wife.

• 2:05:30Speaker 01

  So, then he was, one day he calls me and he says, "Hey, I'm gonna be in Joe's Stone Crab.

• 2:05:39Speaker 01

  I'm gonna be in Miami," he said, "meet us at Joe's Stone Crab." I said, "Okay."

• 2:05:46Speaker 01

  So, me and my wife go down there, and there's Johnny, his father. His father's a great guy, you know his father?

• 2:05:53Speaker 00

  No.

• 2:05:54Speaker 01

  His father's a great guy too, really good guy. And I had met his father during the shooting in the movie and everything, right? We hung out. So, he introduces us to Vanessa, right? You know, you know who she is, right?

• 2:06:13Speaker 00

  His ex? Who's Vanessa?

• 2:06:17Speaker 01

  Pervis D C, she's the French singer, that's the one who his kids are by.

• 2:06:22Speaker 00

  Yes, his ex.

• 2:06:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So.

• 2:06:27Speaker 01

  Now, my wife wouldn't, when she ate, she would not touch anything.

• 2:06:33Speaker 01

  She had to eat with a knife and fork, you know, a real the mutton, right? Irish. So. You know, you had Joe's Stone Crab, what are you gonna do? You're gonna eat, you know, you gotta, you gotta break, you gotta touch him.

• 2:06:47Speaker 01

  So Vanessa says, uh...

• 2:06:52Speaker 01

  He don't like them. He says, oh, I like them, but I don't. I don't like to touch them.

• 2:06:59Speaker 01

  She broke.

• 2:07:03Speaker 01

  All the claws, everything, took all the meat out. So my wife could eat it.

• 2:07:10Speaker 00

  With a fork?

• 2:07:10Speaker 01

  With a fork.

• 2:07:13Speaker 01

  I'd say, only you could do that, you know, only you could get somebody to, you know.

• 2:07:19Speaker 01

  But.

• 2:07:19Speaker 00

  How long did you know him before he played you in the movie?

• 2:07:22Speaker 01

  I didn't, I didn't.

• 2:07:23Speaker 00

  You didn't know him at all?

• 2:07:24Speaker 01

  No, I mean.

• 2:07:25Speaker 00

  Did you get to meet him before he played you? I mean.

• 2:07:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, we met. I guess we met maybe three or four months before we start shooting.

• 2:07:34Speaker 00

  Did he want to talk to you about the life?

• 2:07:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I spent time with him and. What's amazing about him, Joe, is that.

• 2:07:44Speaker 01

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

• 2:08:08Speaker 01

  And Johnny's walking away and she's calling me.

• 2:08:11Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 2:08:12Speaker 01

  Because.

• 2:08:13Speaker 00

  The way he walked.

• 2:08:14Speaker 01

  The way he had that little gimp and.

• 2:08:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:08:17Speaker 01

  I mean, he's, he's, he's just amazing, you know? And he, he doesn't like prod you about stuff. He just absorbs it.

• 2:08:26Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 2:08:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:08:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. He's something. But I've stayed in touch, I stayed friends with Chrissy, your sister. You know, I've seen the whole family, basically.

• 2:08:39Speaker 00

  How strange was it to watch the finished product? To watch this version of your life, of your story?

• 2:08:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, it was. Now. For you and your audiences, I just want you to know in that movie, I never slapped my wife in real life.

• 2:08:56Speaker 00

  Why'd they add that in there?

• 2:08:58Speaker 01

  Ask the director.

• 2:09:00Speaker 00

  Damn, those motherfuckers.

• 2:09:01Speaker 01

  Ask the, because that wasn't in the script.

• 2:09:03Speaker 00

  Oh, Jesus Christ.

• 2:09:04Speaker 01

  Ask the director. I almost went, I went bullshit.

• 2:09:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:09:09Speaker 01

  When I, when I, and you know, it's funny because Johnny used to pick me up every morning to go to work. Right? And here's the kind of guy, I tell you the kind of guy.

• 2:09:23Speaker 01

  We'd stop at a bodega and he'd run in and get, get the coffee and, and hard rolls. I said, I go, no, I'll go in. I mean, I mean, you know, to get to just a regular guy.

• 2:09:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:09:39Speaker 01

  And I, that, that day was kind of like, wasn't himself on the ride in. And then I saw them rehearsing that scene. I went, I went, I went ballistic, man. I went ballistic. But, you know, you, you know, you know, the, the director's the captain of that ship, you know?

• 2:09:59Speaker 00

  They always have to do something like that.

• 2:10:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:01Speaker 00

  They always have to add some bullshit that didn't really happen.

• 2:10:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:04Speaker 00

  It drives me nuts.

• 2:10:05Speaker 01

  Yep. So, but what are you gonna do?

• 2:10:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. So, how, after the case is closed, what is life like for you? Like, how do you, I mean, you had to be worried about your life.

• 2:10:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, what happened is, once they found out, the, the, the, the commission put a $500,000 contract on me.

• 2:10:32Speaker 01

  And the New York officer of, of the FBI went to every boss.

• 2:10:38Speaker 01

  And told them they better not think of, you know, trying to cash in on that, you know?

• 2:10:48Speaker 01

  So, um, I was working out of, out of Washington, out of Quantico and, um, families moved. I think we got like five or six moved since then, you know, you try to back everything.

• 2:11:03Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:11:05Speaker 01

  The Bureau was good about that.

• 2:11:11Speaker 01

  But you know, what's in the back of your mind is not the legitimate, legitimate gangster, you know, it's some cowboy that thinks, hey, you know, God.

• 2:11:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, get on the good side.

• 2:11:26Speaker 01

  There's not any Brasco, you know, if I take him out, we're in.

• 2:11:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:11:30Speaker 01

  Which, and I don't think anybody was gonna pay anybody 500,000.

• 2:11:37Speaker 00

  Probably not.

• 2:11:37Speaker 01

  You think the mob is, they don't use their old money for, you know, for squat, so.

• 2:11:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:11:44Speaker 01

  But that's the only thing that you worry about is, you know, some cowboy, you know.

• 2:11:51Speaker 00

  How long was it before you stopped worrying about that?

• 2:11:56Speaker 01

  Well, you never really do, I mean, you know.

• 2:11:58Speaker 00

  Even to this day?

• 2:11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, you know. Because there's always somebody that thinks they're, you know, they're gonna be famous about doing something.

• 2:12:11Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:12:12Speaker 01

  You know that.

• 2:12:12Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 2:12:15Speaker 01

  So, uh. But it was, it was more prevalent back in the, you know, back in the day, you know. As it's, most of my guys now are, I don't know any of them that are alive, actually.

• 2:12:34Speaker 00

  Did you keep in touch with any of those guys?

• 2:12:36Speaker 01

  No, no, no. My, my whole thing in undercover, Joe, was I never arrested anybody that I worked against. My whole thing was, I did the undercover, you make the arrest, I'll see him in court. I'll see him in court. Yeah, yeah. Uh, it was funny, you know, you always sit down with the, after the case is over, you sit down with the, the profilers and everything and they say, well, we think this guy will turn, this guy. Not one of my guys, when I say my guys, ever became an informant.

• 2:13:20Speaker 00

  Really?

• 2:13:22Speaker 01

  Never.

• 2:13:23Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 2:13:27Speaker 01

  The, uh,

• 2:13:31Speaker 01

  one of the prosecutors in Milwaukee, he said, "I think we should go talk to Ruggiero." I said, "Are you fucking crazy?" I said, "You walk in there and mention my name, he'll go crazy." He said, "Exactly what happened." "Exactly what happened." Yeah, yeah. He did fifteen. He did fifteen. Never cracked. The only reason they let him out was, uh,

• 2:14:01Speaker 01

  uh, he had, uh,

• 2:14:04Speaker 01

  they found out he had,

• 2:14:07Speaker 01

  I don't know if it was gum cancer or whatever. And then he had one lung taken out. And then he had cancer in the other lung. So he had like three or four months to live. So he was such a pain in the ass for the Department of Corrections that, uh,

• 2:14:26Speaker 01

  they let him out. He died at home.

• 2:14:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:14:31Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 2:14:32Speaker 01

  But he didn't crack. Of course, Sonny, Sonny had a shot. He, he said, "No, none of them, none of them."

• 2:14:41Speaker 00

  They tried to turn all of them, huh?

• 2:14:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. They all went to the can. They all did like fifteen, twenty years, yeah.

• 2:14:51Speaker 00

  Wild.

• 2:14:53Speaker 01

  Wild is right. I mean, now, as soon as they, as soon as they put the last click on the handcuffs, they're all, they all want to talk. Right?

• 2:15:01Speaker 00

  Now.

• 2:15:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, now, yeah. Yeah.

• 2:15:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, they all, they all got hits under their belt, but as soon as they put those cuffs on them, you know, some of the guys, they do their time, but eventually, they turned on, none of those guys became snitches.

• 2:15:19Speaker 00

  What do you think happened to this, the culture of the mob where these guys started snitching?

• 2:15:25Speaker 01

  They didn't want to do the time. I mean, some of them did time, some of them did seven, eight years, you know? But then I think when they still, when they kept getting beat over the head, you know, they figured what good is it? And you know what? The, the culture of the mob has changed to, uh...

• 2:15:43Speaker 01

  I found near the end.

• 2:15:49Speaker 01

  These guys didn't. To the old timers, this was like their life, you know? They were really committed to it. It was. The younger guys, it's a me generation, just like normal citizens. They want it now.

• 2:16:06Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:16:07Speaker 01

  They don't want to, I mean, I don't know. Like, the old timers, they could cultivate politicians, they could cultivate

• 2:16:19Speaker 01

  law enforcement. These guys today, you know, they can't cultivate politicians and judges like the old timers did. You know, and drugs, drugs is a big downfall of mob, because now the guys start, some of them start using it.

• 2:16:38Speaker 00

  But it's also, you can't keep secrets anymore.

• 2:16:40Speaker 01

  No. The only secret is when one guy's alive.

• 2:16:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, especially with cell phones.

• 2:16:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:16:47Speaker 00

  Internet.

• 2:16:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:16:49Speaker 00

  Surveillance, surveillance is so easy now. Everything you do is surveilled, every phone call you make.

• 2:16:54Speaker 01

  You're on camera.

• 2:16:55Speaker 00

  All day long.

• 2:16:56Speaker 01

  I read a, I read somewhere or heard where the average individual is on the camera over 500 times a day. Just walking around.

• 2:17:07Speaker 00

  Just walking around.

• 2:17:08Speaker 01

  Wherever you go.

• 2:17:09Speaker 00

  And then your phone's listening to everything you say.

• 2:17:11Speaker 01

  Everything.

• 2:17:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, and everybody has a phone.

• 2:17:13Speaker 01

  Everybody.

• 2:17:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:17:14Speaker 01

  Everybody. Today, and that's what's tough in undercover today is building your legend, because it's it's hard to do 100% backstopping.

• 2:17:23Speaker 00

  Right, how can you?

• 2:17:25Speaker 01

  With the internet.

• 2:17:26Speaker 00

  Right, also, Google image search, bam. Put your face up there, oh, that's that guy.

• 2:17:30Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 2:17:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, instantly.

• 2:17:34Speaker 01

  So, I don't know, I mean.

• 2:17:36Speaker 00

  How much of the mob even exists now?

• 2:17:40Speaker 01

  It's still there, but, you know, they're they don't control what they did. They don't control every, or label, you know? When I was in it, they controlled everything. I mean, they controlled unions, they controlled every bit of.

• 2:17:55Speaker 00

  Vegas.

• 2:17:56Speaker 01

  Vegas, they controlled every bit of.

• 2:18:00Speaker 01

  Uh, commodity that, that ran. In fact, when I was in it, they still had the skim out of Vegas. And Bellistreri had offered me with Lefty, he had offered me, uh, the job of running the skim from there to Kansas City.

• 2:18:27Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 2:18:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:18:31Speaker 01

  I mean, that's how tight I was with the Badanos that, you know, that was before the thing went south, you know?

• 2:18:38Speaker 00

  That's so crazy that you got in that deep.

• 2:18:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:40Speaker 00

  Were you the deepest that anybody had ever infiltrated the mob?

• 2:18:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And everybody else that, that went in, you know, they had, they had an informant. I had no informant.

• 2:18:53Speaker 00

  You just made your way in slowly.

• 2:18:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:56Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 2:18:57Speaker 01

  And I wasn't, I wasn't a mark, you know? Where I didn't have all this money.

• 2:19:05Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:19:05Speaker 01

  You know what I mean?

• 2:19:06Speaker 00

  Right, where they could exploit you.

• 2:19:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:19:08Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:19:08Speaker 01

  So, you know, uh, yeah.

• 2:19:13Speaker 00

  Crazy life, Joe.

• 2:19:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was.

• 2:19:14Speaker 00

  When you look back on it now, does it seem real? Must seem insane.

• 2:19:19Speaker 01

  Well, you know, sometimes I think, I can't believe I did that.

• 2:19:23Speaker 00

  Right, that's what I mean. Yeah.

• 2:19:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, and then other times that, you know, I say,

• 2:19:32Speaker 01

  as, as deep as I got, I could have done more.

• 2:19:35Speaker 00

  Like how?

• 2:19:36Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, if I, if I would have got made.

• 2:19:39Speaker 00

  Right, right, right. Do you wish they had gotten you made?

• 2:19:44Speaker 01

  Only because I had spent so much time. I spent six years. You know, and then to cap it off with getting inducted. And not only that, think of the feather in the cap of the FBI.

• 2:19:59Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:20:00Speaker 01

  The mafia inducted one of our own, you know? I mean, that would have really kicked their ass.

• 2:20:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:20:07Speaker 01

  But, you know.

• 2:20:09Speaker 00

  It's funny that you think back and that's the thing that you wish. You know, it's kinda crazy.

• 2:20:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, but still, I know. I mean, you know, it's like.

• 2:20:18Speaker 00

  It's the ultimate fuck you.

• 2:20:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, right?

• 2:20:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:20:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:22Speaker 00

  I mean, you fuck.

• 2:20:22Speaker 01

  I mean, I did. We pretty much decimated them anyway.

• 2:20:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:20:27Speaker 01

  You know, uh, but.

• 2:20:30Speaker 00

  It is kinda crazy when you think about the chokehold that the mob had. And then it's.

• 2:20:35Speaker 01

  Nothing, nothing moved in this country without them getting a cut of it.

• 2:20:39Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 2:20:40Speaker 01

  It's crazy, right?

• 2:20:41Speaker 00

  Did that all come about because of prohibition? Is that what it all started? Is that when they really got a stranglehold in this country?

• 2:20:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:20:52Speaker 00

  Isn't that crazy?

• 2:20:52Speaker 01

  Pretty much, yeah.

• 2:20:53Speaker 00

  Cause that's exactly what's happening right now with the cartels.

• 2:20:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:56Speaker 00

  It's the same fucking thing.

• 2:20:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:20:58Speaker 00

  And it's like, we never learn.

• 2:21:00Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 2:21:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, um.

• 2:21:06Speaker 01

  History repeats itself, right?

• 2:21:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:21:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, uh, I think our problem is we don't, we don't study our enemy. Remember, remember what I said before? Any, anybody I went against, uh, I always knew, I always knew who they were. I wanted to know your structure. I wanted to know how you treated each other. Uh, I wanna know all the crimes you're involved in.

• 2:21:39Speaker 01

  I wanna know if you, how violent you are and who your violence is against. You know, uh, I wanna know your history. How you became what you are as far as a criminal organization.

• 2:21:56Speaker 01

  And we don't do that. I mean, uh, I'm talking about

• 2:22:03Speaker 01

  as a whole, you know?

• 2:22:07Speaker 01

  You know, I don't want to get into politics, but you know, you gotta study your enemy. You gotta know your enemy. The art of war, right?

• 2:22:18Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:22:19Speaker 01

  The art of war. And I tell all my, in any undercover classes, you gotta read that book, The Art of War, because it was written thousands of years ago, but it's, it'll serve you today.

• 2:22:36Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's kind of crazy when you think that. People don't change that much over time.

• 2:22:42Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:22:43Speaker 00

  Human nature's still the same.

• 2:22:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:22:46Speaker 00

  And the same strategies apply.

• 2:22:48Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:22:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:22:50Speaker 01

  It's nuts. And, you know, and like I said before, the only thing that's changed in undercover is building your legend because of the internet.

• 2:23:01Speaker 00

  Right.

• 2:23:01Speaker 01

  Nothing else has changed.

• 2:23:02Speaker 00

  But now it's gotta be almost impossible.

• 2:23:04Speaker 01

  You ingratiate yourself the same way.

• 2:23:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:23:07Speaker 01

  You know, you do all that shit the same way.

• 2:23:09Speaker 00

  Well, especially if someone had any kind of social media before they got in the bureau.

• 2:23:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, or you become a cop.

• 2:23:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, everybody's kind of ratted on themselves.

• 2:23:21Speaker 01

  Yep, yep. It's nuts.

• 2:23:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. But there's other ways they catch people now, obviously, with all the surveillance. Did you make a bunch of notes?

• 2:23:33Speaker 01

  No, I just wanted to...

• 2:23:34Speaker 00

  Did you make sure you covered everything?

• 2:23:37Speaker 01

  I just wanted to, uh, mention, uh, my, uh, my grandkids set me up with an Instagram.

• 2:23:58Speaker 01

  And they said, make sure you bet you did.

• 2:24:00Speaker 00

  Did they run it?

• 2:24:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I joke, forget it. I just about can turn my phone, I'll be honest with you. And the real Donnie Brasco. And then a cameo page.

• 2:24:16Speaker 00

  You have a cameo page? Where you send people cameos?

• 2:24:18Speaker 01

  Jopastone.

• 2:24:21Speaker 01

  You just go into Jopastone.

• 2:24:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. The real Donnie Brasco.

• 2:24:28Speaker 00

  How do you spend your time these days? There it is. The real Donnie Brasco.

• 2:24:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:24:34Speaker 01

  That's, that's, that's from January, Joe, when he's, when he flew in for the dinner.

• 2:24:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:24:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:24:42Speaker 00

  That's great.

• 2:24:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:24:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I'm kind of, I'm kind of, right now, I'm writing, I got another book, writing on the Penanos.

• 2:24:56Speaker 01

  And

• 2:24:59Speaker 01

  I spend time with, helping out with that Southern California gang conference I mentioned.

• 2:25:08Speaker 01

  It's really, you know, like I said, I've been with them for 14 years, actually been doing it 12, one year COVID and one year I was sick.

• 2:25:19Speaker 01

  And these guys are, these coppers that run it.

• 2:25:24Speaker 01

  They all do it on their own time. There's no administrative, nobody gets paid.

• 2:25:30Speaker 00

  Really?

• 2:25:30Speaker 01

  Nobody gets paid. They do it all on their own time. And the conference usually gets between 700 and 800 people.

• 2:25:42Speaker 01

  At each conference. And like I say, it's held once a year. It's held in San Diego, but it's the Southern California Gang Conference. And if anybody's interested, you have to be, you have to be a police officer or in law enforcement, you could be Department of Corrections. Their, their email is, is [email protected]. Go on and get information about it. Or if they want to attend it, you know, that's, that's how you can sign up.

• 2:26:18Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 2:26:19Speaker 01

  And they have great speakers every year. And, yeah, I, and some of my merchandise, you can see I have a shirt here, it says, Southern California Gang Conference, Donnie Brasco. We sell these shirts. I give a hundred percent to the, to the organization. I don't, don't keep any, and the mugs we sell and stuff, I donate. My books, I, I sign books there and I give all the money to the organization. I don't, I don't take anything either.

• 2:27:03Speaker 00

  That's great.

• 2:27:04Speaker 01

  Because these, because these police officers don't take any, you know?

• 2:27:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:27:09Speaker 01

  Their time is donated, so, yeah, it's, you know, who's there to help you when your, when your spouse or your, you know, one or the other dies in the line of duty? So, yeah.

• 2:27:22Speaker 00

  So you were telling me before the show that all that money gets donated to the spouses of people who were killed in the line of duty?

• 2:27:29Speaker 01

  Yes, sir, yeah.

• 2:27:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:27:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. You know, to help them get started after.

• 2:27:33Speaker 00

  That's awesome.

• 2:27:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And it's a great conference. Like I said, they, they get between seven and eight hundred, either a police officer or Department of Corrections, you know, and anybody that's in law enforcement is eligible to attend it. And it's a week, it's in San Diego, yeah, yeah.

• 2:27:51Speaker 00

  Well, Joe, thank you very much for being here. I really appreciate it.

• 2:27:54Speaker 01

  Hey.

• 2:27:55Speaker 00

  What a crazy life you've had.

• 2:27:56Speaker 01

  Thank you, thank you. I'm, I'm really excited.

• 2:28:01Speaker 01

  To get the invite. And my, uh, my grandkids were, "Whoa, you're going on Joe Rogan." They all love you, man.

• 2:28:09Speaker 00

  Well, tell them I said, "Thank you."

• 2:28:12Speaker 01

  They all love you, yeah.

• 2:28:14Speaker 00

  And thank you for being here.

• 2:28:15Speaker 01

  Well, my pleasure.

• 2:28:16Speaker 00

  It was my pleasure, too. Thank you very much.

• 2:28:17Speaker 01

  Thanks, partner.

• 2:28:18Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 2:28:18Speaker 01

  That's all.

• 2:28:19Speaker 00

  All right. All right, bye, everybody.

• 2:28:35Speaker 05

  Progressive's Accident Response can contact emergency services if you're in a major accident. The only thing worse than someone you love being in an accident is not being able to help them. So Progressive is here to help when you can't. So get peace of mind knowing your loved ones are protected with Progressive's Accident Response. Learn more at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Limited availability in California. Driver is responsible for emergency and towing charges not covered by the policy. Coverage subject to policy, terms, and conditions.

• 2:29:05Speaker 06

  They're running a Cover 2 defense. But you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go-to restaurants. Or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats. Order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.