474| Meet the legendary Donnie Brasco

My name is Morino Kano, I'm a 25-year veteran with the FBI.

And with me today is... Hi, I'm Jim Cummett, and we're tired of the other pro-Philophoning at City Prosecutor Riders in Criminal Minds and Bluebeard, Unautable. And today we have not only a very special guest and a great friend, but an iconic guest. And that is...

Jopiston, especially with the FBI for 27 years, you may know me better as Donnie Brasco. I've spent six years on the cover, infiltrating the New York Mafia and other Mafia families throughout the country. Well, it's so great to have you back. So great.

Oh, you're an absolute legend, we're so happy to have you, but you know what, Joe, you're a good man. I appreciate that.

I've enjoyed every minute I've spent with you, and I just really honor and respect you a lot.

Thank you. Joe, it's great to see you. It's my pleasure. A long time, no Jim. I met you.

“I don't know if you remember, but after I came out from undercover, I was on the Nimex.”

I was a broker, creating crude oil futures here, and we did. We both did this, I don't know, this post, under long-term undercover seminar or something at Quantico. And that's when I first met you, obviously, you were my idol, legend yet, but more than that, you know, just really gave me, because that was the hardest thing I've ever done

in my life. I actually had to apply and get the Series 3, Series 7, and Series 63 licenses.

I had never studied that in my life, other than I got a job as a clerk on the floor, and

then six months later, I told my boss, I want to take the brokers exam. He's like, are you out of your fucking mind? You've been in for six months, and I said, yeah, but I'm ready, I studied, and he's like, yeah, fuck me, fuck you, and then they really tried to screw me, but anyway, I was able to pass, and then I did that for three years, but the Gulf War broke out, so crude oil

was going all over the place. I could have lost the entire budget of the FBI in like five minutes. No, seriously, because every, I'm serious, at some points, I was trading 1500 contracts. Each contract is 10,000 barrels, and so many that goes up is $10,000, so multiply 10,000 times 1500, and sometimes, at one point during the war, Secretary Baker came out of a meeting

with Saddam Hussein and said, regrettably, and immediately went limit up $7.50, so $7.50 times 10,000 times 1500.

“That's how much money you could lose in one transaction.”

So who authorize that, well, they had no ideas, they just didn't, that's the whole thing. The people who were running it, you know, they very nice people, but had no idea, the complexity of what was actually going on there, and what the position they actually put me in. So it was me and Ben, Barry, another guy, we both became brokers, and it was insane, but let's talk about this.

So let's jump into this. You know, not think it off said, but go ahead, one time somebody from headquarters, I won't mention any names. That's me. There's a mob, really kill people, it goes to your people, not knowing anything about

money. Right. But I came back for, you know, they had to sneak me into building, I had to do a bunch of, you know, paperwork or something. Keep for work, of course, yeah, you didn't have to tell us.

Yeah. Anyway, I'm sitting in a corner, in a quiet corner, you know, doing all this paperwork, trying to hide from everybody. And I hear this guy, and it's a guy from headquarters, and he says, what the hell is Clementi doing?

Every single bill that he puts in is an even dollar amount when he goes out to these bars with these guys, doesn't he, you know, I know he has to pay taxes on this stuff and something. I, I forget it, I lost it, I got up and I said, are you out of your mind? He's like, why doesn't he pick up any receipts?

I'm like, are you out of your mind?

“These guys go in there and they throw away money, they, they, they, that's how they prove”

there, they're, you know, they're big shots. If I am trying to get in with them, I have to do the same thing, but I pay for their drinks. You don't put that out of 20 and say, can I have a $1.57 exchange? You give him a $20 for a $3 or, you know, whatever, I mean, it's just like he had no idea

because of it.

It was just, I, my head wanted to explode, and that's just, every day, there was always

something. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's like crazy because I, I was doing a drug deal.

“So they tell me, the drug guys tell me, check into this hotel, all right?”

So I check into their hotel in the morning. They call me a few hours later, and they say, all right, now go here and check into this hotel. Well, then we go to long story short. I had three hotel bills in the span of 12 hours. They kick it back.

They kick it back.

I know exactly what's going to happen.

So my contact guy calls heck, he said, well, there's no authorization for any agent that have more than one hotel bill within it, but, you know, we beat him though, you know, I mean, we got that guy. Yeah, it's like, you have to. Yeah, there, yeah, headquarters, anyway, I definitely stood on your shoulders and, and felt

like, if you could do what you did, I could do what I did. I mean, it helped me to know, I mean, it's tough as the assignment I was on was, I mean, your life was in danger at any given instant, and that was, that was a hell of a sacrifice to make for your country. Yeah, it was, but, you know, I'm asked to open, it was a worth it, yes and no, it was worth

it because we showed that we can infiltrate the mafia. We didn't, I have to say this case, the, it was the beginning of the end of the mafia, as far as we know what in this country is being the one who are going to ice-crime group in a country and run into a country. When I was with them, there wasn't anything that moved in the country that they didn't get

a piece of. So, right, I thought I'd Jim, you worked in New York, I mean, anything in New York that didn't have a cut off construction, sanitation, street glue, everything.

“Oh my God, when those were the schools, I remember that case.”

In Chicago, we call, you know, in Chicago, everyone, you know, the streets and sanitation, or as they say streets and sand, he works for streets and sand, which was another way of saying the guy's connected, you know. So, so you don't, you probably don't know this, but there's a very, very personal reason why I was really just so happy and blown away by the work you did, is that my, my great

grandfather came over from Italy and started a construction company in the Bronx. And then, you know, he kind of built up the company and my grandfather took it over. And it was called Clementi Construction and they built the 8th Avenue, subway line, they built the Manhattan County Corps, they built Roosevelt High School, they built Columbia Law School, they built the building on Fordham, they worked, they did a lot of granite, granite work.

And they were working on the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. And my grandfather was accidentally electrocuted on the job. And, you know, it was terrible for my father, it was actually the day he was fine

home from the career war, so he never got to see him.

And then his brother, guy, took over the company and three months later, he was accidentally run over by a bulldozer. And yeah, these mob guys took over the company and my father actually went to law school on the GI Bill to sue to get the company back. He eventually won, he filed this for the pleading at the end of his first year law school.

By the time he got out of law school, he won the case, but they had sold off all the assets. And so this bill, this company, that my great grandfather, my grandfather built was just gone, everything was just gone, and they had to start over from scratch.

“But I think my brother, Tim and I both became FBI agents because of that, you know.”

And obviously, when we heard about Donnie Brasco out there, you know, putting it to those mob guys, you know, getting inside and actually undermining so much of what they did, we were very, very proud and that drove us literally to become FBI agents. I appreciate that, you know, this, this honor amongst thieves, it took a work with those guys.

That's for more jealousy and V. And I mean, one guy, actually, they got it and introduced me

He tried to have me kill three times.

“Well, he, I got closer to the capo in the family, my capo.”

And he, and he, and he was, and he eventually was in another crew, but he thought I was making so much money and he should be getting that money because he's the one that introduced me into the binados. And I mean, treachery is like crazy with these guys. You're making more money than I am, you're closer to the boss than I am.

You have more activities going on, you know, illegal activities than I have. It's, and look, who kills you in the mob. Your best friend, right, closest to, you know, 99% of the time.

And it's interesting because what you experienced is just so raw, powerful in your face,

it allows you, it teaches you to look at other criminal activity that is clouded in

“in niceties or just, brought it, yeah, where most people are like, well, I don't know,”

that's a wobbler. But you can just look at that and say, this is exactly what this is because you, you experienced it at such a, such a base, powerful level. And it's all ego driven and ego is a very powerful energy, like it, hate it, do it bad.

It's a very powerful energy that you can feel. And once you're tapped into it, you can really sense it when you see it in any other situation, even if it's not a dangerous one. Especially in that life, you know, these guys have, ego's, you know, bigger than Texas. I mean, and you can't shame them.

That's one of the reasons I, I always say that they were so successful, because there's

no shame in these guys, you know, anything they do, they don't regret, you can't embarrass them. It's a definition of a psychopath. Somebody who literally is only concerned about themselves and uses other people to their own hands without even thinking about it, there's as long as they can benefit, there's nothing

to stop them. I was, what about their mom, Joe? You can't shame them like your mother would be embarrassed or, oh, not at all, not at all, because you don't forget the authority killed their mother. You know, you think you guys grew up in that life, you know, cousins, fathers, uncles,

grandfathers, you know, they're all from the neighborhood, they're all in the life. And that's one of the things that was extraordinary about my, my infiltration, you know, was a cold infiltration. I came from nowhere, but Miami, California, I couldn't say I was from Brooklyn Manhattan. I just believed that, you know, they just believed the story, you know, I was in work.

So can you tell us what, what was the story? How did you cold infiltrate them up? Well, we had, when I say, you know, the plan was to hit bars and restaurants where we knew these guys hung out at, because I was actually trying to infiltrate fences that we're dealing with these guys, you know, that we're fencing the commodities that they were stealing.

All right, fallen off trucks. Yeah, and the idea was to hit the bars and the restaurants and just get my face seen and hopefully get in conversation with somebody, well, you know how it is, you know, walking to a place and see my guys and say, hey, you know, I'm Donnie Brasco, yeah, I want to hook up with you guys, how are you doing?

Well, you know, I did nothing for like six months, but just hit places and had no conversations other than with the bartender and what do you want to eat and what do you want to drink? That was it, you know, and then I caught a lucky break.

“And you know, you know, when you infiltrate any group, you have to know everything about”

them, you know, you've got to know, if they have rules, regulations, the high archery, how they treat each other, and you know, the mob has rules, what I'm going to talk about the mob and talk about the mob fee, and some rules are get, some of get you killed in some won't. What I'll get you killed is you can't lay your hands on a made guy, you know, a made

You can't, if you get into a confrontation with him, and you physically know your hands

on him, that's that's the reason for them to want to kill you. And you know, working on the cover, and everybody has a like, everybody, no, we should like in the real world, you know, everybody, you know, doesn't like everybody, but one of the rules is, what I also get you killed is you don't fool around with a, with a wise guy's wife, a daughter, a girlfriend, that's a rule to get you killed.

You don't steal money from the family, that'll get you killed. You don't embarrass a wise guy in front of other people in an argument.

“So you see the fine line when you're working on the cover that you have to, you have”

to walk because you're going to get into confrontations with people. And if, if you know that they're a made guy, you've got to stand your ground, but, you know, you got to know where, where the fine is, where the fine is. So I was going into one place, it was, uh, a place where Lou Casey's hung out at when I say hung out, they, they, they would come in there on a, on a weeknight, uh, with their girlfriends

and have dinner. So I go in one night, and I used to go in there when I found, I don't know, remember, because it was Wednesday at Thursday, when I got that powder, and I made sure I went in that night

“every night to, to this, to this bar restaurant, and I go in one night, and, uh, everybody's”

there, but one guy, but his girlfriend's there, but he's not there. Now this happens, like two or three times, and then one night, the, uh, the girlfriend goes to the ladies room, she comes out, and she stops, and she says, hello to me. And I say, hello, that's what I say. What I do then is I call over to bartender, and I say, I just want to let you know, uh,

I want to go on record, that's a mob, mob term, I want to go record, that I didn't ask that young lady to stop and have conversation with me, and, you know, he just shakes his head. Well, this happens like three, four more times. He said, say, look, pal, he

“said, uh, if you want to talk to her, you can talk to her, her boyfriend went by by.”

Wow, did you go to Disneyland? I don't think so. So I said, no, I don't have any, any interest in there. I said, I'm not interested in, you know, and getting involved with anybody. Oh, what was this guy? No, now he knows, he, this guy's a street guy because he knows enough to, to go on record that, you know, he has nothing, no, no concerns for this young

lady. So now, at least he starts talking to me. We never had any conversation prior to that,

about anything, but what do you want to eat and what do you want to drink? Because he was watching, he was, he was, he was their eyes and ears. Yeah. So, you know, now we're talking about New York City. We're talking about sports and, you know, the home of Gilla. So 190 says to me, you like to gamble. I said, yeah, I like to gamble. He said, you want to go to an all night game. I said, sure. So we go and I find out it, it's a big game run by

all the five families. And they also, they all split the, the proceeds, you know. So this goes on and he doesn't introduce me to anybody. It's, you know, but I'm with him. So it's not a big deal. So after a few weeks, now I figure, well, at least now, you know, I have some kind of relationship with this guy. And I learned his name is Charlie. And I just tell him my name is Donnie. I don't, because you know, these guys aren't introduced themselves

formally by their full name. It's either, it's either their third or whatever they're

called, you know, the nick names, right? So I come in one night and I got a packet of diamonds. I give them to him. I don't tell them what they are. I just say, Charlie, I need extra amount of money for this envelope. He just takes it says, okay. A couple of weeks go by, doesn't say a word. One night at the committee says, Hey, Donnie, somebody lifted this package. So I put it in my sport code pocket. Now, we go to the card game. And now he introduces

but that's how we got around. So now he introduces me. He actually introduced me to a plumber guy who was out in Brooklyn. I got in conversation with him because the clumb was

where the first family I actually got in in with. I was in with them for maybe maybe three

four months. And then I got into a physical confrontation with two of them. One was a maid guy and one wasn't a maid guy. And I got into a physical confrontation with them. Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, oh. Oh, I beat the hell out of the guy. It wasn't a maid guy. The other guy took some good shots. I'm because I could hit him. The Meinungsfreiheit, the man and name in will. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. And I'm looking forward to my try in your state. I'm alive. I'm on 18 years in the leader hall of Stuttgart. Wow. Can I tell you a little story about

clumbos? My brother Tim and I went to, you know, we went to Catholic school. Yeah, a little bit upstate New York. And

“you know, Chris and Joe Jr went to high school with us. And there was always a rumor that they were in the Mafia. But, you know, we didn't know the Mafia. We were in high school, right?”

They got dropped off by, you know, chauffeurs every day and they got picked up. Well, I'm freshman

hazing day, right? My brother walks into the bathroom and these three seniors are beating up this arrogant little punk freshman. So my brother kicks their asses. Two of them. And the early guy runs away. And it's Christopher Clumbo. And he's like, ah, you know, you save my life. So he loved our family, right? Oh, that's funny. Fast forward. 20 years at a reunion. I'm there. And he comes up to me. And he goes, oh, my God, you know, we got to break bread. We got to catch up, you know, all this stuff. You brother saved my life when I was a kid. All right, great. And he said,

"So what are you doing now?" And I said, I'm going to have to be higher to him.

“Oh, usually his eyes went like this. Oh, there's a right. I'll call you if you're in a lunch.”

I mean, I'm in to legit shit now. All my money's made on, all right, maybe you'd take all the two here and there. But all my money's made legitimately on the on the stock market. And then his, that's awesome. His friend, his bodyguard came up. And he's like, he's like, hey, how are you doing? He's patting me down, you know, like, as a feast. Yeah. Well, he doesn't know. I have a family pack with my gun in it, right, my crits. And you know,

completely missed it. Because it wasn't 90s. Yeah. Yeah. I do the same thing to him. I was like, how are you doing? You know, and I'm hitting him all over the place, you know. Anyway, immediately Chris goes to him. Oh, this is my friend Jim. Yeah, we went to high school together. And yeah, he's a DNA now. He just didn't want anybody to know. He's talking to an FBI. I said, all right, Chris. Yeah, all right. Well, you have a good day. You know, and I stayed away from

after that. I didn't want him to get whacked or something because of what I was doing. But it was just kind of a

“funny situation. Unfortunately, obviously, you know, that father got killed. Columbus day, right?”

And Columbus started shot nine times. I didn't know they were actually in the mafia until I actually saw the video of the funeral and there. Well, they were. Yeah, they were there. Yeah, and I was like, wow, this is, this is very real. Anyway, sorry for that side note. But you got into the Columbus. Yeah, so I, you know, I got into a beef with these two guys at a physical confrontation. So I went to the Capitol, you know, and said to him, hey, you know, his name was a guy by name of Julie.

And I said, you know, I can't come around here anymore. I said, I appreciate everything. But, you know, this won't end well. Because these guys, these guys were part of his crew and like say, one guy was a big guy. So back at the card game, I met Tony Meera. It was a banana. I started hanging around with him. And here's a guy that made this guy ever met, guys. I mean, a total psychopath. Wow. He was, he was a tremendous tremendous money maker for the bananas.

Well, a guy that brings in money to the family. He's a criminal genius, right?

“Yeah, and his was his was drugs. And he had just gotten out of the pen. Just got out of jail.”

So I hung around with him. And he introduces me, you know, into the bananas. And then he goes back to the can. He goes back to jail. And I started hanging around with a guy by name of Lefty, who I, you know, was introduced to was a banana guy. So I became friendly with him. The capo at the time was a guy by name of Mike Sebella. So he was the capo that he came, you know, pretty entrenched with the bananas. And in fact, that I was running

a bookmaking operation with Lefty for the underboss of the family. The boss of the family at

“the time was Carmine Galente. And a guy by name in Nicky Glasses was the underboss. So Lefty and”

I were running his bookmaking operation. It's like crazy. And then, you know, what was lost a lot. And is what we did in that case, you know, we married the bananas with two different mafia families throughout the country, which is, which is lost. But after, you know, I've been in the movie and stuff when they tell the story, that's a big part that was lost that just didn't get picked up on and how crazy that was to even come about. Yeah, yeah. What happens was that I mean,

it's after I was in with these guys, you know, now I'm allowed into the social clubs, you know, because you're not really a part of anything until you get, until you get the okay, you can commit to the social clubs and listen to conversation and stuff like that. So I get a call from headquarters. Well, not really headquarters from my contact agent. And he said, so and so wants to talk to you at headquarters. That's an okay. So I call

and the FBI had an operation going and Milwaukee. And it wasn't going anywhere. So they said, you think you can introduce your banana guys to Milwaukee. Now, you know how that works is that the whole country is cut up, you know, and each mafia family has a section of the country that they can operate in and you can't go, one family can't go operate into another family. It killed it, it started war, whatever. Yeah. And so just to show you how they operate is, first of all,

I say, who's the undercover agent? Because, you know, you guys know you worked on the cover,

nobody saves your life, but yourself. You know, and I always, I always

impressed this upon under covers when I, when I'm given a class is that you're the only person that's going to save your life. HRT is not going to save your life. Really, sealed team six, not going to see why. Action versus reaction, must the action. The action is they're killing you. They're shooting you stabbing you. The reaction is, hey, they're shooting Clemente. We got it. We got to go in.

To the action is always behind the action. So you can't really depend on your, if you have a surveillance

team on you. Because they're going to be 15, 20 seconds behind. I mean,

“you guys know the story of the IRS agent, which, which story got stabbed 17 times?”

No, bad guy. Bad guy you said, right a bad guy. Okay. IRS agents have it in me. And I think it was an IRS agent. I got the tape. tape is chilling. It's me with a bad guy. They're in a hotel room. You know, his surveillance team

Right in between. Yeah. Sure.

Third, and they had met before. Wasn't the first meet.

So the bad guy looks out the window and it sees two guys standing by their car. With their jackets off and their pistols, he says, hey, he said, there's two cops outside. Standing by that car. So the undercover goes at the looks and he says, that are probably in the restaurant. Have a lunch. Well, it's makes this, this makes the bad guy hanky, right? Well,

“they get into an argument. Now, his team is listening to it and they're watching it, right?”

Because they had the room, but the bad guy for some reason just goes cool. Pulls out the knife and starts stabbing the undercover agent. He stabbed him 17 times before they came into the door and kept got in. Action versus what? Yeah. Action. But it's like, it's like what we hear in the news all the time, Joe, when a cop or shoot somebody who's closing the gap with a knife, you and I both know, you can close that gap in no

time and all it takes is one, you know, one strike with the knife and you're dead. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, my brother always said, you know, he was a tactical agent, a sniper, a SWAT guy,

and he always said, a knife is more, yeah, more dangerous and, you know, anyway. I wanted to show you this, Joe, this is my idea when I was undercover, my trading license. And so it was James Galente. So, because it was the first time they put somebody to cover in the city, I was living in, I'm decouver in my own city. So, they put me down in battery park city and I just wasn't allowed to go and do anything with my family and friends, but in case somebody yelled out, hey,

Clemente, at least it's close enough. Galente, close enough that I could cover, you know.

“You should, you should start sporting a mallet again, Jim. It wasn't a mallet, actually. It was,”

I had very nice long here. It's just, my hair was really, I just had it slick. No business in the front, that part of the mallet wasn't there, just partying the back and cut the sides or whatever.

Oh, my God. Yeah. Well, you know, my first question, what, who's the end of the cover?

Yeah. And, you know, it's may seem, I don't know what, but if I didn't know you, I'm not going to introduce you to anybody. Right. It comes back on me with the bad guys. Exactly. Exactly. Oh, man, that's, that happened. And it goes back to action versus reaction, too. If, if, if some undercover that you don't know, it runs as mouth, you're dead. Yeah, long before anybody shows up. But I knew the undercover and I had worked with him before.

So I said, okay. And, you know, what it is, the bureau had a big business, machines, vending machines, pool tables, but they couldn't, they couldn't, penetrate the, the bars and restaurants because the dollar strayers family owned, owned everything, you know, and dollar strayers were connected to Chicago at, but to get back to the story. So I'm not going in, you know, saying to my guy, lefty, hey, let's go out to Milwaukee, you know,

you got to drop subtle hints. You know, I said, hey, I got a call from a guy that I knew ten years ago that I used to leave with, and he's out, and he's out in Milwaukee, and he's trying to, he's trying to open up a vending business. Well, the first thing with Jerry

“or says to me, is he's crazy, they'll blow him up out there. That's the first words, right?”

Oh, blow him up. I said, well, I said, he don't know anything about anything. I said, you know, I said, he was a good thief, you know, we did a lot of artworks, stolen artwork and stuff. Let it drop a few days later. I let it drop again. And then a couple days later, I let it drop again, and he says, this guy got any money, as I don't know. Well, the cut to the chase, finally, I said, yeah, he says he's got $100,000

in the bank, he's got trucks, he's got them. He says, well, let's go talk to Mike. Mike, Isabella was our captain. So we don't talk to Mike. And he says, okay, you guys fly out there,

to Milwaukee and and tie shows us around it. You know, he has a warehouse. He has, he has trucks, he's got machines. They got the home of Gill. He's got the home of Gilla. People have no idea the amount of logistics that went in to him having all that stuff. Yeah. Right. I mean, you had the warehouse, he had machines, he had two trucks, you know, he had an office, everything. So we fly back, tell Mike. So now here's the way it worked. We can't just go out there.

So we go tell Ark and Sigliary. We're not open Sigliary, it is. So now you've moved up a couple matches. Yeah. Exactly. Now you've got a lie because Banados can't say that that tie,

“we just, you know, found tie. Tie has been been an associate Banados for 10 years. That's the only way”

they can tie him in. So Ark is Sigliary, cross your cargo, right? And tells him to story, it's Chicago, it's Sigliary. Chicago, it's Sigliary then calls Milwaukee. Relays the story to them for us to give us permission to come out and sit down and talk to them, talk to them,

Milwaukee family, right? All this takes a couple of weeks. Finally, it's okay. Downing

and lefty, fly to Chicago, checking to this hotel and wait for a phone call. So we're out there a couple days and finally we get a phone call or I go to this restaurant and you'll meet who you

“got to meet. Well, who do we meet? We meet the boss. Wow. Wow. You know, you know,”

sit down with a boss. No, we meet the boss, the under boss, his Gets Sigliary and his two sons, who are actually they were lawyers, but he inducted him into the family. They were made guys, but they were attorneys. Wow. So we have a home of Guilard Aaron. Then he says, all right, I want to invite you guys to dinner at my house tomorrow night. I said, oh, he's shit. You know, I mean, I've been around New York a long time. You don't just,

you know, boss. Things are laid back in the Midwest, Joe. Oh, yeah. So the next night, we go to his house and the same crew there and we have dinner. So they say, okay, we'll allow you to operate this business. You know, you do all the work, but we get 50% damn, sure. I mean, 50%, but I don't own care because Ty's going to do all the work. What does the difference? So we do that. That goes on for a few months and then they cut Ty's with,

with Ty. We don't know why. We found out later that there was a leak somewhere

“that they found out who Ty was. Now, the thing was for you. What wasn't that dangerous for you?”

Yeah, they never, here's something we never ever found out why they never told Chicago and why

they never told the bananas. They just completely cut Ty off. So now I'm in a pickle because I got to, you know, because you vouch for him, right? Yeah, yeah. But they send me out there, look at form and, you know, we concocted, you know, all kind of stories and I said, I think he got clipped. Fortunately, first it was a big art heist in Chicago at the time. So I said, I think he did that heistness. You know, I went under. Yeah. But I got cold then. I had to sit down with Mike and he just

read me out. But nothing happened. So, you know, and to this day, we don't know why. Of course,

everybody out there's dead now. So we'll never find out why they never went back to the bananas and

say, we know that this guy is a cop. Do you think, do you think Chicago and by extrapolation, Milwaukee felt that maybe you guys were working them, like working to deal like someone had a hammer

I don't know. I don't know. I mean, it's still why they wouldn't, you know, it's still a puzzle.

“I have no idea. I couldn't even fathom an idea. Why? Well, so that finally blows over, right?”

Then they whack a lengthy. Who's the boss? And he appointed a boss, my name at Rusty with Steli. Now, Mike's ability was our capital, but he was close to the lengthy. So the powers have been out, go to him in the underboss, Mickey glasses and say, look, you guys got two options. You step down or you get killed. Well, it gave me options. Yeah, yeah. Because they were good, you know, they were just lined with with the wrong boss. So they stepped out. They appointed Rusty

Rusteli. The boss, but he's in jail. He's in jail. So they appoint a guy by the name of Sunday Black. It was a capo as one of the street bosses and Joey Masina as the other street boss. So they got two guys, two capos running the family and then they got a Sicilian faction that family that they appoint one of their capos as not a commission, but it was the word I'm looking for. These three guys now are running the family. They transferred me, they transfer me,

I left the out to sunny black in Brooklyn. So now I got to report every day out to Brooklyn

“under sunny black. Things are going good. Now you have to remember, all this time,”

I'm also meeting with members of other families. So I'm a identifying other made guys in other families. I'm identifying what their illegal activities are involved in. Who's made? Who was it made? A lot of good intelligence. Plus, you know, what illegal activities are involved in? And for our listeners, in order for you to do that, you have to go into the New York office to do that. To, it's not like we didn't have encrypted apps or anything like that. This had to be done

almost in person, right? Or you had to meet with someone and pass it off or how?

“Everything I did Murray was on the telephone with my contact agent. I would meet him once a month”

in either the museum of natural history or the library uptown. Because that's where these guys are going to, to the main library uptown, you know. Unless they're in the can and they're going to the law library. Yeah. Yeah. But everything else was via telephone. I go to pay phone downtown and just regurgitate everything, you know. And then when I met Steve, you know, we discussed what we had in discuss. So I became really, really close with sunny black. His social club was the motion

lounge on Graham and Whithers in Brooklyn. And he had an apartment up on a third floor. And my apartment

was at 92nd and third. That's where I lived. And so it was late or he said, Donnie, just stay with me. So I would stay in his, you know, sleep on his couch. Funny story because you guys know, you know, Jews bought one of a lot there, right? Yeah. You know him. Yes. You know, Murray, you might know this. Okay. Jules was a legend in New York office. I mean, he was a supervisor and then he went to headquarters and ran the organized crime division. And he was by my guy.

So I'm talking to him one day and he said, What the hell are you doing? He said,

You're sleep over his house. What do you do? I said, Jules, here's what we do. I said, we get up in a

morning. I'm in my shorts. Sunny's in his shorts. Of course, he's sleeping in his bed. And he said, but this guy's, this guy's the top capo. He's one of the families. Yeah, but he likes me. I said, he go across a street and get a hot, get a, get a, get a, get a butter roll and coffee and bring it

I said, Jules, you and I are like brothers. You never lied to me. You're like, I said, that's what

we do. That's awesome. He says, the capo goes and gets you to coffee and butter roll. I say, yeah, it's a kind of guy. He's, you know, so he's a good guy. Yeah. Man, so that's awesome. You didn't have to wear a wire during any of his time, huh? No, no, I, I, Jimmy, you can't hire a wire, you can't

“hire a wire under tidy whiteies. I know, but that's what I'm saying. I mean, good Lord, I had to wear”

wire every day. Yeah, the only time, I never, I never really were a wire. I, I, I, I, I went to radio shack and I bought a mini cassette and the only time I, I really used it was, if I was called to a meeting and I knew, I pretty much knew what they were going to talk about. Like, there was, there were, I hit where they hit three capos. I knew when I was called to that meeting that that, that was going to be the discussion. So I, I just put that in my, in my sport co-pocket

headed on and, and that's how I recorded, but I never wore a wire one. Yeah, I mean, I mean,

I was like one more guy when it's got, because every time, when you get there in a morning

“or whenever you get there, the first thing they do is they hug each other, they kiss each other,”

and, you know, they might, in the beginning, they're doing that, you know, they're doing a lot of time. Yes. Yeah, but then once once you, once you, once you ingratiate yourself with that, that's just normal business. You, you get there in a morning. Well, you know, you get to the club like 11 30, 11, 11, 11, 30. And the first time I see you that day, we go up, we hug, we kiss each

other on the cheeks. That's, that's just the way they do things. So there's no way I was going to wear,

you know, a lot of a wire, you know, in, in that situation. But wasn't risky putting that, um, that recorder in your, in your, um, sport co-jacket or pocket? No, sometimes I, I wore cowboy boots, sometimes I put it in my cowboy boot. Yeah. I was sad I can see. I started down in my cowboy boot. But after, you know, and I got, I got really in tight with sunny black. I, I really got it tight with him. And then after a, a while I get another call, the FBI has an operation going in Tampa, Florida.

They got a nightclub and the boss down there, a Santa, traffic can't be, you think he can do anything down there. And again, it's like, come on, you know, we just didn't go walk it. Yeah, look what happened there. It wasn't good. So when I asked, who's the undercover agents? So there were two of them. I do one was Steve Salmary, who I had worked with before. I knew Steve. The, the other guy. I didn't know, but I knew guys that knew him and Steve knew him. And he, he was a great undercover. So I

said, well, again, let me see what I can do. I said, but I'm not going to say that I got a telephone call. So we used to go to Miami, maybe once a month or a weekend when I say we, the, the wise guys. And I said, the next time I'm down in Miami, I'll let you know, I'll let you know where you stand, where we're staying and what restaurant we're going to be at. And then we'll just do a bump, you know,

“you guys, you're in a restaurant, you recognize me. Hey, Donnie, you know, and we do that. So that's what”

we did. So then we sit down at the table and, hey, what are you guys doing? Well, we got a nightclub up in Tampa. So I don't have to, you know, so you're not doing the actual intro. Yeah, I'm not doing the actual intro. I'll just say, hey, I know Steve, you know, I'm not Steve, you know, we're trying to go legit. That's what these guys are saying, you know. But what, what piece of interest, a nightclub, you know. So again, sunny black sends me a lefty there to check it out. I said, yeah, they got,

you know, they got a real nightclub going. And now we have to go, you know, so the idea is, let's start gambling out of this, out of the nightclub. But we got to go through to say McGillard. We got to get permission from Santo, traffic can'tty. So our category has to call traffic can'tty, specifically area.

in tarp and springs. Me and Sunny meet him. Here's another, I'm meeting with another mafia boss.

“I said the traffic can't be back in the day was, he was big. He was big. Me with him,”

actually met with him twice. One time he came over to look at the club. And we start doing business. You know, he said, okay, the same thing. So we start running games out of there. One, one, one game. We were paying off somebody in the sheriff's office. And we get, we get busted one night. So that, you know, that screwed up that deal. But you know, like I say, this operation, we married the bananas with two different mafia families, which is a big deal, right? You know,

take down, we take down the Milwaukee family, you know, at the end. We got traffic can'tty. He actually died while we were at trial. But we still got convictions on, you know, on other guys that were associated with him. And then we took down the bananas. Man, what a huge, so it was, I was, I was involved in 17, 17 trials after that. Wow, we're going to cover for six years. I testified for seven. Exactly. You know, I know exactly

you're saying because I, after the commodities under cover, yeah, I was under for three years. And they were still calling me up five years later. Yeah. You know, the late, oh, we're starting

another trial. Finally, I got so sick of it. I just said, you know, I got the message from the

AUSA, I was on to something totally different. I was heading, I was heading out to the behavioral analysis unit. I did not want to look back. And so I just waited till late at night. And I called the AUSA's, you know, phone and left the message at work. And I said, hey, you know, I got your message today. And I'm just telling you, man, I can't remember. I got damn thing about this case anymore, man, my memory is so bad. I, like, I'm so confused. I, I don't even remember who I was working with,

“or what, ah, man, it's really, wow, it's so confusing. Give me a call if you, if you want to talk”

about this, and I have phone, I never heard from again. Well, I mean, you guys, go forever.

Yeah, when I, when I told him it was enough, was, then they wanted me just for, uh, for historical, you know, and I said, you know, that's it, you know, uh, you got enough movie. Yeah, but you got enough, it's, you know, if, if you have only events, why do you need me for historical? All right. Joe, this has been so amazing talking to you about literally one of the most important cases in the history of the FBI, and you, you were inspirational, and I mean, to me,

to morey, to thousands of agents, uh, across the country, and, you know, and you helped put away some really bad people who did a lot of really bad things. So we want to thank you for your service,

“and we'd love for you to come back next week, so we can do, do you talk about this stuff?”

Well, sure, and thank you for that compliment, and of course, I'll come back next week. Anything for you guys, you just let me know, and I'll be here. All right, great. Thank you for listening, and thank you, Joe Pistone. You are, you're our hero. We'll talk to you next week. Thank you, everyone, for listening, and until next time, this is Best Case Worst Case signing off. A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers,

but it wasn't until 2023 when he was finally caught. The answers were there, hidden in plain sight,

so why did it take so long to catch him? I'm Josh Zeeman, and this is Monster, Hunting List, the investigation into the most notorious killer in New York since the son of Sam, available now. Listen for free, on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts.