The REAL Donnie Brasco

Summary

---

The Antihero Podcast – "The REAL Donnie Brasco"

Date: August 18, 2025
Guest: Joe Pistone a.k.a. Donnie Brasco
Hosts: Brent Tucker, Tyler, Interviewer 1

---

Episode Overview

This episode features legendary FBI undercover agent Joe Pistone—who infiltrated the Mafia as Donnie Brasco—sharing gripping stories and hard-won insights from his landmark six-year operation inside the Bonanno crime family. The conversation explores the psychology, risks, and personal costs of deep undercover work, the culture and rules of the Mafia, the reality behind the Donnie Brasco film, and the enduring impact of his mission both on his life and on the modern state of organized crime.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Nature of Deep Undercover Work

• Differentiating Undercover from Deep Undercover

  • Pistone clarifies the difference:
    • “There's undercover, and then there's deep undercover. ... In deep undercover, you leave everything behind. You walk out of your office and never go back ... your only association with anybody are the bad guys you're trying to infiltrate.” (10:40)
    • Emphasizes losing all contact with family/friends and relying solely on a constructed criminal persona to survive.
  • The lifestyle is “JV team for life”—always alone, relying on one’s wits. (11:41)

• How Pistone Got the Assignment

  • Grew up in an Italian neighborhood “knowing wise guys,” comfortable around criminals.
  • Became an undercover expert through smaller busts (stolen art, stolen cars).
  • Worked his way up from learning how to hot-wire cars to infiltrating sophisticated hijacking rings. (12:47–18:34)

Infiltration Tactics & Establishing Credibility

• Learning Criminal Skills
  • Attended a jewelry course at Zales to be a credible jewel thief.
    • “If I'm going to be a jewel thief, I better know something about jewels and precious gems.” (24:30)
  • Learned breaking and entering, alarm bypass, lock picking: “You better know how to get in locks. My guys taught me about lock picking, taught me about alarm systems and staves.” (25:18)
• Months of Patience & Protocol
  • Spent 5–6 months frequenting mob bars before even getting introduced—operation funding only lasted 6 months at a time.
  • Used mob lingo and protocol, such as “going on record” to avoid offense with mobsters' girlfriends. (31:27)
  • “When you're in an undercover operation ... you have to know your enemy. ... I wanted to know everything about the organization ... and if they had rules. And, you know, the mob, the Mafia has rules.” (27:56–28:52)

The Rules and Culture of the Mafia

• Key Rules That Will Get You Killed:
  • Don't steal from the family.
  • Don't fool around with a made guy's wife, daughter, or girlfriend.
  • No facial hair (after being accepted).
  • Don't embarrass a made man in public or lay hands on him.
  • Always dress well—even without a suit, at least a sport coat/slacks.
  • "Don't talk to grand juries.” (105:00–105:59)
  • “They're murderers, but they're not uncivilized. We have rules.” —Brent Tucker (106:16)
• Examples of Credibility Testing:
  • Survived a classic mob “sit down” where his life hung in the balance: “Donnie, if you don't convince me that you're as good a thief as Jilly says, the only way you're going out is rolled up in that rug.” (39:01)
  • Used street psychology: “You always gotta be on the offense. You can't let these guys get you on the defense.”

Building Relationships Within the Mob

• Blending In as “Don the Jeweler”
  • Developed a persona as a jewel thief, gradually being introduced up the ranks via legitimate street cred.
  • Was “claimed” by a made guy (Lefty), thus cementing his role and connections.
• Friendships and Emotional Toll
  • “I considered Sonny like a friend... But I knew what he was. I knew he was a killer.” (81:15)
  • Describes watching cartoons in his underwear with Sonny: “We’re still humans. We’re still people. ... Then we sat on the couch and watched cartoons on the television in our underwear.” (82:45)
  • Many wiseguys had rich personal lives with families—some asked Pistone to help straighten out junkie kids. (86:22)

The Major Operations

• Expanding Mafia Influence

  • Helped orchestrate Mafia “business expansion” by connecting Bonannos to operations in Milwaukee and Tampa—leading to the unprecedented linking of families across city lines. (63:30–69:22)
  • Story of the casino night and the unlucky (or rigged) slot machine payout that led to all participants getting arrested despite efforts to bribe the undersheriff. (94:18–95:47)

• Mob Hits, Power Plays, and Surviving Assignments

  • Witnessed and narrowly avoided mob hits: “I was supposed to be on a cleanup crew to clean up the crime scene, but he canceled me out at the last minute.” (97:11)
  • Was given a mob contract: “I'm giving you the contract to kill Bruno ... If I found him, I'd call the FBI, they'd snatch him, make it look like a hit.” (97:32)
  • Never carried a gun for six years until a mob war broke out. (98:47)

The Aftermath & Personal Toll

• Unmatched Success, Deep Cost

  • The operation lasted six years—Pistone only saw his family every six months; chaos and stress at home.
    • “Maybe every six months. ... They lived across country.” (100:41)
    • “I lost six good years with my wife and kids ... my wife just passed away, so I could never get those six years back.” (125:47–126:20)

• Trust and Betrayal

  • Mob slowly realized the betrayal: “When it first went down, they thought the FBI had kidnapped me ... until indictments came out and their lawyers finally said, hey, this guy’s really, really an FBI agent.” (112:48–113:13)
  • Several close mob associates were killed; a half-million dollar contract was put out on Pistone's life.
    • “Sonny Black ... left his pinky ring, money, keys, and said 'I'm probably not coming back.' ... Later, his girlfriend told me Sonny said, 'If I don't come back ... tell Donnie I loved him. No grudges. He was just better than we were.' That’s a gangster.” (121:01–123:32)

• Impact on the Mafia

  • His operation was considered the turning point: “Our operation was the one that kicked the ass, the Mafia's ass. It was the snowball.” (114:52)
  • “Back in our day, the Mafia ran the country ... Today it's another criminal organization, but a shell of what they once were.” (115:08–115:42)

Hollywood vs. Reality

• Truth vs. Film Fiction
  • The film Donnie Brasco was about “85% accurate”:
    • “If you know anything about making movies on somebody's life, they're lucky if they get the name right. ... Donnie Brasco was like 85% on the money.” (103:01)
    • Pistone corrects the film: “There's a scene ... about me slapping my wife. That never happened. That was put in by the director.” (103:31)
  • Technical details, like wearing a wire in his boot, and nearly being exposed when recognized in public. (108:56–109:57)
  • Discussed working with Johnny Depp (close friends) and Al Pacino in shaping the film. (134:52–137:39)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the spirit of undercover and the code of the mob:

• “Everybody has choices in life. I chose to be in law enforcement. You chose to be a gangster ... Even after I arrest you, you're still going to be a gangster.” —Joe Pistone (85:59–86:11)
• “You always got to be on the offense. ... I said, 'Don't ever talk to me like that again. If you do, there'll come a point where I'll stab you, and it'll be from behind.'” —Joe Pistone on psychological survival (44:28–45:41)

On the movie adaptation:

• “When I say my movie—Donnie Brasco was like 85% on the money. ... There’s a scene in there about me slapping my wife. That never happened.” —Joe Pistone (103:01–103:31)

On operational success and regret:

• “If you asked me that question last year...I might have said yes. But now ... I lost six good years with my wife and my kids, and my wife just passed away, so I could never get those six years back.” —Joe Pistone (125:28–126:20)

On Sonny Black before his death:

• “He said, 'I'm going to a sit down, and I'm probably not coming back.' ... He said, 'Tell Donnie I loved him. I don’t have any grudges against him. He was just better than we were.' That’s a gangster.” —Joe Pistone (121:01–123:32)

On Mafia rules:

• “Don't steal from the family. ... Always pay respect to other mafia members. ... If you lay your hands on them, you're gonna get killed.” (104:56–105:59)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00–04:52: Banter, sponsor messages, team introductions.<br>
• 05:00–12:00: Joe Pistone’s background, path into undercover work.
• 12:47–18:31: Learning criminal trades—hot-wiring, infiltration, stolen goods.
• 24:30–28:51: Deep-dive: Establishing a criminal persona, rules of the mob.
• 39:01–42:49: Surviving a life-or-death “sit down” with suspicious mobsters.
• 63:28–69:41: Orchestrating business expansions for the mob; the Great Lakes story.
• 97:32–100:22: Mob war, assignment to “kill” Bruno, operational close-down.
• 103:01–104:26: Hollywood vs. reality—accuracy of Donnie Brasco film.
• 121:00–123:32: Sonny Black’s demise and message for Pistone.
• 125:28–126:20: The personal cost and reflection on the operation's worth.
• 126:54–134:31: Funny mob stories: Lost fishing rods, birthday diamonds, air-conditioning in Miami.

---

Final Reflections

• Operation's Lasting Effects
  • Pistone’s infiltration and testimony directly led to the downfall of old-school Mafia dominance: “After ours, they went after all the bosses ... There wasn't anything in the country that moved that they didn't get a piece of. ... Today, just another criminal organization.” (115:08–115:42)
• Personal Sacrifice
  • While proud of the impact, Pistone shares the regret of lost family time, especially stinging due to the recent loss of his wife.

---

Light Moments & Human Stories

• Did you really have a lion?
  • Yes. Mobsters kept a lion cub as a pet until it became unmanageable. Eventually they chained it to a tree in a park and anonymously called the police. (106:22–108:44)
• Lefty’s quirks
  • Lefty threw a $500 fishing rig into the ocean out of frustration, couldn't handle air conditioning, and always wanted story recognition on his birthday. (127:10–134:31)
• Johnny Depp’s authenticity
  • Pistone spent months prepping Depp; the two are close friends to this day. (134:52–137:34)

---

Conclusion

This episode delivers a rare, unvarnished account of Mafia infiltration, filled with danger, dedication, psychological complexity, and even humor. Joe Pistone’s “Donnie Brasco” operation remains a gold standard of undercover work—with a cautionary tale about the personal cost of such sacrifice.

---

Transcript

[Joe Pistone]

I chose to be in law enforcement. You chose to be a gangster.

[Interviewer 1]

That's right.

[Joe Pistone]

You were a gangster before I got there. You were a gangster while I was there.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

And even after I arrest you, you're still going to be a gangster.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. Right.

[Tyler]

Hold on, we're not recording. Do you want to buy a shirt to support military dance? People want to see their sausage get made.

[Brent Tucker]

An appropriate level of inappropriateness.

[Sponsor Voice]

Something happens in my family tonight.

[Brent Tucker]

The Delta Force isn't coming to rescue my, My family might get like it is. First responders that are, that are going to save my, my family.

[Tyler]

They want the culture to be down. They want people that not want to be cops. And the people that do want to be cops are now walking into the job scared to do the job.

[Brent Tucker]

I'm going to try to act like it didn't happen, although we, we all know it did.

[Joe Pistone]

JV team for life.

[Brent Tucker]

In today's high stakes world of emergency response, efficiency, speed and seamless are essential. Introducing Apollo, the next generation tactical software and communication tool designed for first responders. Its effortless integration through both mobile and desktop applications makes onboarding simple and straightforward when every second counts. Apollo's clarity, simplicity, next generation communication operations and adaptability allows first responders to act quickly and effectively in critical moments. Apollo empowering those who protect and serve.

[Joe Pistone]

JV Team for life.

[Brent Tucker]

Congratulations. I heard the, the gay point in the street. You've done it.

[Interviewer 1]

All right.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, but I mean when you were.

[Tyler]

Earlier we were talking about the motorcycle gangs versus the mafia. And my two cents is that I think the motorcycle gangs are just, they're more thuggish and they don't like, I feel like the mafia is just so like that's where you get really executed and no one knows where your body is, you know?

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, that's true.

[Tyler]

You know, motorcycle club, we ate better.

[Joe Pistone]

Than and dressed better, so.

[Interviewer 1]

That's right. That's right.

[Brent Tucker]

You know, it's funny the, you know, talking about like the, the similarities or differences between, you know, whatever it is, like motorcycle gangs, mafia, cartel, and then they like, they're all, they're all criminals, right?

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

And like, you know, I fought in Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria and all three very different places and it, it is odd. Like there's distinct differences in all three places, but there's also like very distinct similarities. Like, because at the end of the day, like bad guys are bad guys and they're all kind of cut from the same claw and they all do bad guy things, you know.

[Joe Pistone]

Right.

[Brent Tucker]

So there's, there's unique pieces to them. But in the day, they're kind of the same bad guys.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, they are. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Some to. Some to actually, to a lot of degree, just figuring out the nuances and exploiting that is.

[Joe Pistone]

I, you know, I did some overseas work and stuff, and you're right. No matter what country you're in there.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Doesn't matter what country.

[Joe Pistone]

They're gangsters.

[Brent Tucker]

And small towns are small towns and big towns are big towns. And just the way people act and the way people connect are still.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Are still the same.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

You know. What's that? Oh, I know.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Trying to clack off a claymore over there. I see the light. I see the light. I see the light.

[Joe Pistone]

I haven't thought about that a long time. All right, now we're ready.

[Tyler]

Welcome back to the Anti Hero podcast. Part delta Force, part street cop. All truth. I'm Tyler, owner of Counterculture, Inc. Go to counterculture inkthreads.com use promo code ANTIHERO and get yourself 15 off. The best in counterculture. Graphic tees, stickers, hats, team room flags, ranger panties, hoodies. Anything you need, we got it. Go to counterculture inkthreads.com use promo code antihero and save 15%.

[Brent Tucker]

And I'm Brent Tucker, owner of FRCC. Go to FRCC shop and use promo code FRCC15 to get 15% off the world's best coffee, cigars and bourbon.

[Tyler]

And of course, this episode brought to you by Human performance. Go to hp-trt.com and use promo code HERO and you'll save 20%. Not off your. Not just off your first initial Purchase. You'll save 20% off every single month that you're a member with HPTRT. So go to HPTRT.com use promo code HERO and save 20% off. And get the testosterone and other supplements that you deserve.

[Brent Tucker]

Don't forget Thursday nights for the boys. Every Thursday night, we do our squad cast. It's live, 8pm Eastern and goes until we're done. Also, our Patreon, if you want to continue to support us, keep the lights on, please consider being a Patreon member. And that was short and sweet because I want to get right into it. With us today, we have Joe Pistone, aka Donnie Brasco. He served 27 years as an FBI agent, 22 of those years involved in the undercover program, most notably his six year stint infiltrating the mafia, which was depicted in the movie Donnie Brasco. Just watched it last night again to research and it's. It's really? It's really good movie. Yeah, it's a good movie. It's a great story. And it's just. It is. It is a little odd when you. When you. Because everyone knows the movie Donnie Brasco, it became an iconic movie. And then seeing that as, you know, as a young man, and when I saw. I was too young and didn't really have the ability to realize, like, if that's a true story, and we'll talk about how true that story is. You know the details. But regardless of that, it is. It truly was based on a. A man who actually risked it to work undercover with the Mafia and would have never guessed years later I'd be in here getting to talk to you about it. So it's really cool. Thank you so much for. For showing up.

[Joe Pistone]

Thank you for inviting me. It's my pleasure. My pleasure.

[Brent Tucker]

We've been on a. We've been on an undercover role here of sorts.

[Joe Pistone]

We're not even done yet.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, we're not even done yet. Yeah, we've. We've had guys that infiltrated the. The Hell's Angels.

[Tyler]

It's crazy. And I feel like they. Everybody started coming out and telling their stories within the last couple years, you know, I guess since podcasts have been.

[Brent Tucker]

Relevant, we just had Billy Queen with. With the Mongols, and, you know, both those guys with him.

[Joe Pistone]

Very good friends with Billy. Billy and I are like brothers. Yeah. And I know Jay. Jay Dobbins. Very good friend of mine also. Yeah. Yeah. Two great undercovers. And Steve Murphy. I know Steve very well.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right, Steve.

[Joe Pistone]

No.

[Brent Tucker]

3.

[Joe Pistone]

Former DEA agent.

[Brent Tucker]

In fact, I say all four, actually, which is. Which is kind of crazy. Guys, all. We know each other. Of course, you have a. You have a common denominator. But now we're talking dea, atf, you know, CIA. But this is. Is that you guys worked on prominent cases and. And you're out there talking about. Is that how you guys cross paths, or is it a different way that you guys cross paths? How you know these guys?

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, we cross path being in the undercover field.

[Interviewer 1]

Oh, really?

[Joe Pistone]

I've known Billy. God, I know Billy Queen. I don't know. Over 20 years. I knew him before we start doing conferences together. We both do a conference every year in California, in San Diego. It's the Southern California Gang Conference.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

And I've been doing that. It's been for 14 years. I've been doing it for 12 years. We were off two years because of COVID and one year I was sick, so I couldn't make It. But we do that conference. Jay. I've known Jay Dobbins since he actually came out from undercover. We hooked up once he came out, and we spent time together discussing our undercover activities. Steve Murphy. I've known Steve for a good many years, and in fact, Steve Murphy does the Southern California gang conferen. So we're always crossing paths. And a couple years ago. It's funny, because a few years ago, I was honored by the Bobby Zine in Las Vegas as the undercover of the, I don't know, century or whatever. But. And who shows up but Jay?

[Interviewer 1]

Oh, really?

[Joe Pistone]

You know, they had a big affair. In fact, Bob Starkman came and they had a, you know, it was a giant gala affair. And I. I look out, and next thing I know, I see Jay Dobbins. He said, how could I come to Las Vegas, you know, knowing you're here.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

And, you know, and not come and see you. So we've all been good friends.

[Brent Tucker]

I love it.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Love to hear it.

[Joe Pistone]

And, you know, the. Really. The undercover, it's. It's a small fraternity as far as guys that. That have done it for several years and. And had, you know, deep cover infiltration. You know, there's. There's two different kinds of undercover. There's undercover, and then there's deep undercover. Yeah. And there's. There's not many guys or gals that have been involved in deep undercover. Because in deep undercover, you leave everything behind. You know, you walk out of your office and you never go back to. The case is over. You move out of your own residence, you move into an undercover apartment, and your only association with anybody are the bad guys that you're trying to infiltrate. You have no further contact with your former social life, or. So that's deep undercover. You know, you don't have. Your only identification is your. Your fake identification. Yeah, undercover. You know, just working undercover. You might make a few. Few buys, you might meet with the bad guys, but you go back to your office, you go home at night.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

So there's a difference.

[Brent Tucker]

And the difference being short term versus versus long term.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah. I mean, and it's the difference. You know, it'd be like, you know, like you with, you know, special operator. You know, you're in the military, but. You're in the military, but you're.

[Interviewer 1]

Right. Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

You're separate.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

You know, so that's. That's why it's such a. It's such a small fraternity.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

Because these guys did deep undercover. I mean, they went all in. Yeah. You go all in.

[Brent Tucker]

You have to.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah. And most of the time you're by yourself. You know, in my 16 year operation, you know, no surveillance. Well, I may have had surveillance a couple times, but Nobody's with you 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You're on your own, basically. So that. That's the difference.

[Brent Tucker]

I would, right off the bat.

[Joe Pistone]

How.

[Brent Tucker]

There's so many. It's small. I get that it's small.

[Interviewer 1]

There's.

[Brent Tucker]

There's only a few opportunities in a career. And I know this. There's only. Sometimes it's right, right time, right place that you get to be on for us, you know, the big mission. And like, how do. How did it end up being that they're like, you know, you're the guy. We're going to do this. We need to put someone here, long term, deep cover, and we want you to do it. Was it that up front or is it something that you kind of fell into?

[Joe Pistone]

Well, you know, I got into the Bureau and I'm basically a street kid. I mean, I grew up in Patterson, New Jersey. I grew up in an old Italian neighborhood, so I knew wise guys. I hung around, you know, growing up. You know, you go to the card games, you go to the crap games. So you know the streets. So I get in the Bureau. In fact, when I went to the FBI academy, the suit I had on was swag. You know, it fell off the back of a truck. I mean, because you went to the neighborhood, you know, guy that had all the swag, and you bought, you know, you bought your clothes and stuff. So I started out small, you know, being that I knew the streets. And, you know, I had come from Naval intelligence, so I had worked the streets there. I was asked to, you know, you do a little. Some little jobs. You do an undercover job, buying stolen art, maybe dealing in commodities. Stolen commodities. Infiltrating gambling dens, little things like that. And I was comfortable with that because I was comfortable being around gangsters, being around thieves, being around crooks. That didn't bother me at all. So after a while doing those little jobs, there was a job actually out of Tampa, Florida. There was a gang of car thieves. And what they would do is they'd order, they'd steal on order. You'd go to them and say, hey, look, I want a Mercedes Benz. All right, what color you want, what kind of interior you want, what goodies you want. And then we go. Or they go out and they hook it.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

And delivered it, Deliver it to you. And they also had the ability to change the VIN numbers and, and things like that, get them registered. That's a real organization. Yeah, it was it. And actually the guy that ran it.

[Brent Tucker]

An organization with some cus. With some customer service. Yeah, like, what do you want?

[Tyler]

What do you want?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, what do you want?

[Joe Pistone]

And we delivered it to you. Good luck. You didn't have to, you didn't have to pick it up. We'd bring it to your location. So they had, the FBI had been working this case, and they snatched one of the guys who was a real great. He probably was the best car thief of all of them, and they snatched his son and they went to him and, you know, they offered him a deal. You come with us and we'll cut your son a break. You know, the kid was looking at a pretty good time. He was like 18, 19 years old, you know, and he was looking like at 5 to 10.

[Tyler]

I've never heard of that before. Like a hostage, like a hostage witness.

[Joe Pistone]

Like, well, you know, the kid was starting out as a thief, so, you know, that's right. Well, so they, he agreed. He said, okay. He said, you know, if I help you, you promise that you'll, you know, you cut my son a deal? They said, yeah. So then they said, can you think you can get anybody in the organization? And he said, yeah. So I get a call because I had been done. And at that time there weren't many people doing undercover work. Okay, There was, there was maybe 20 of us through the, in the whole organization, the FBI that was actually doing undercover work. So I said, yeah, I said, but first of all, you know, I got to learn how to steal cars, you know, because that's one of the first things that later on that I learned is that you have to know your enemy and you have to know what, what crime is being committed and how to commit that crime, Right? So the guy agreed. Yeah, I'll teach you, you know, So I fly down, I'm in New York at the time, I fly down to Tampa and I meet the guy and he gives me a couple week crash course. How to steal cars, how to get under them, disarm the alarm system, how to do the ignitions. And I became pretty good at it. So I start running with these guys and I got to meet, in fact, the guy that ran the organization. He was a half assed wise guy out of Baltimore. He was an Italian guy. He was kind of hooked in with the mob, but he wasn't really, you know, he wasn't really a mafia guy. He just had connections. So I ran with them for a year and a half and stole cars and everything. Was a high end automobile. Even stole a couple tractors because I knew how to drive a rig. Because during college I used to drive cross country. Well, when I say cross country, from New York, New Jersey to Chicago, I had that run. So I used to drive tractor trailers. So I knew how to drive them. We stole them. And one time they even stole an airplane.

[Tyler]

Like grand theft auto.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah. So that was a year and a half and I get back to New York and my supervisor was an old timer named Guy Barata. He was a New York guy. I worked a lot of the mob as a New York agent. And he was thinking about starting an undercover operation to try to get into the, into the mob because nobody had ever infiltrated, you know, we had some informants, but nobody had ever really infiltrated. So he asked me, said, you know, I was on his squad and I wasn't known well, that well known about New York because I was always out doing undercover work other parts of the country. So I said yeah. So the idea was basically to attempt to infiltrate the fences because back then there was a lot of the mob was probably hijacking 10 to 15 tractor trailers a day out of New York, New Jersey. And you're talking high end loads, you know, worth a million, $2 million a load. So we figured, well, if we can get into the fences, then probably, you know, maybe we could work back into the mob.

[Tyler]

Where did they take all this stuff? Like where.

[Joe Pistone]

Well, if it's. Yeah, what, what they do is they hijack it sometimes it's a give up. In other words, the driver gives the, gives the load up for money or whatever. Okay, okay. If it's a straight out hijacking, what they, what they'll do is the, the truck, say, stops at a red light, right? Well, two guy, one guy will jump in the side of the passenger side, the other guy will come up on the driver's side, stick a gun in his face, get him out, and then they'll take his wallet, take his license and say, we know where you live. Right? So you were hijacked by black guys. When the FBI interviews you, you were hijacked by Puerto Rican guys, right? Because you know, the guy knew that. Well, JV team for life.

[Tyler]

Oh, the boys over at Ghostbed did it again. They lowered everything on their website, more than half the cost. Now you're going to get even more savings because they took each item, they lowered it more than half, and then they're still giving anti hero 10 off. So it used to be 50 off and then they were like, hey, we're just going to cut our prices down. So now when you go on the website, Anti Hero promo code Anti Hero will give you 10 off ridiculously reduced [e-mail] so go to ghostped.com forward/antihero and get 10% off the extremely reduced prices. These guys are awesome. These guys have been, they were our first sponsor. I talk with them all the time. They're big supporters and what we do, what we stand for, just like all the other podcasts that they, that they help out and they support. If it's, if you got to replace a mattress in the house, if you got to buy new sheets, if you got to buy a new pillow, go with Ghostbed because you're going to save money. And they help us out so much. They're part of the Anti Hero family, just like me and just like you are ghostbed.com forward/antihero or use promo code antihero at checkout and get 10 off your order. As you guys know, we drink way too many energy drinks on the Anti Hero podcast. That's why we partnered with Tasty gains. In this one container of 30 gummies is over a hundred cans of pre workout. This is our new replacement for energy drinks. It's a lot more convenient. Obviously, energy drinks you have to keep cold. They taste like shit warm. I keep these in my gym bag and in my, my, my duffel at work with all my meals in it. And it's just, I mean it's bright colors. You see it, you take it right before your workout. It's perfect. These things taste like candy, so be careful. Listen guys, we wouldn't be suggesting things that we don't recommend and take ourselves like the creatine gummies. No one really knows how creatine works. It's the most confusing thing in the world, but yet it's the safest supplement to take and the most effective supplement. Creatine helps your endurance levels and it helps traumatically with recovery. Creatine, though, is powdery and tastes like, is really annoying to when you're loading it and have to do all this stuff and mix it in your water and then of course if your water is not warm, then it doesn't mix well. These things are the definition of convenience right there. Bright colors. Put them in your gym bag, put them in your lunchbox. Creatine gummies. This one's blue raspberry. I prefer the my favorite's The Strawberry Creamsicle. These are a no brainer. Tasty Gains is a no brainer. Pre workout and creatine. The things you need to lift and get big. Go to tasty gains.com, use promo code ANTI HERO and get 20 off your order.

[Joe Pistone]

JV team for life. So that's.

[Brent Tucker]

They weren't dumb.

[Joe Pistone]

No, no, no. You know, it's funny because in the six years I found guys that if they, if they did legitimate business, they'd be legitimate millionaires. Yeah, right.

[Tyler]

The amount of effort you put into something.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

How smart they were.

[Joe Pistone]

Exactly.

[Brent Tucker]

How hard working they were.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

So the idea again was to, to establish myself. Just, we knew bars and restaurants that these guys hung out in and just to get my, you know, go in, get my face known, hopefully get into conversation. But, you know, you can't, you can't have a profession that's one of violence. Yeah. So what's a good profession? Jewel thief. The only thing is, if I'm going to be a jewel thief, I better know something about jewels and precious gems.

[Interviewer 1]

Right? Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

So I went to. I went to school.

[Tyler]

Like FBI sanctioned school or.

[Joe Pistone]

No, I went to Zales. You know. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, yeah, I know Zales.

[Joe Pistone]

I just, I just went and registered and took, took a course.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

And learned about diamonds. Learned about precious gems.

[Tyler]

Was it an employee course or anybody?

[Joe Pistone]

No, anybody. Just Joe. Yeah, Joe Shit, the Ragman can go. And they didn't know who I was.

[Tyler]

I was like your alias at the time, right?

[Joe Pistone]

No, no, they didn't know who I was. It was just another guy that wanted to learn about diamonds and precious gems. But then again, you back it up. If, if you're a jewel thief, what do you have to know?

[Brent Tucker]

Breaking, entering, Breaking and entering.

[Tyler]

Criminal aspect.

[Joe Pistone]

So you better know how to get in locks.

[Interviewer 1]

That's right.

[Joe Pistone]

You got to know alarm systems, you got to know safes. So my guys taught me about lock picking, taught me about alarm systems and told me about safes.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

So once I felt comfortable, right. Knowing the diamonds and precious gems, and once I could, I could pick a lock pretty good and I knew about alarms and staves. Then I went out and rented my own apartment. We did this operation with no contacts. But back in the day, because you didn't have the Internet, you can do that. I just went and rented an apartment, went and bought a car, paid cash, and then just start hitting these, these bars and restaurants. And I probably did that for maybe five or six months. And the only conversation I had was with a bartender. What do you want to drink and what do you want to eat?

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

Because, you know, you go into these mob joints, you don't go and say, hey, I'm Donnie Brasco and I'm a jewel thief.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

Who the hell are you?

[Brent Tucker]

Just looking for your break. You are just looking for your.

[Tyler]

Have they got any jewels they want to.

[Brent Tucker]

An introduction?

[Joe Pistone]

I did that, like I say, for about five months, six months. And. But I'm. I'm seeing people that I know that are, you know, that are mob guys.

[Brent Tucker]

Now say this, that when you look back on the story, that doesn't seem like a long time, but I'm. I feel like if dirt during that time, five or six months. Did that feel like a long time or to you? Like, hey, I'm, I'm not. I don't know if. I don't know how much, how much of a rope they're going to give me to just continue to go out and eat and drink with until I have some sort of.

[Tyler]

Got to be breathing down his neck too.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah. Well, I was lucky in that this happened in New York.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

And back in the day, there was the New York office and then there was the FBI.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

You know.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

So.

[Brent Tucker]

So did you feel the pressure at five or six months, like, I need to get an introduct or you're like, as long as it takes is how long it takes.

[Joe Pistone]

Well, I felt it on myself.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

You know.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

Because the. All operations are based on six month.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

Funding.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

So, you know, usually if you don't come up with anything in the first six months, then they're gonna.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

But being. Being that I was in New York, New York had a lot of, A lot of sway over.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

Over headquarters back at, you know, back in my day. But I was, you know, I was seeing people and when I see, I mean, I would recognize bad guys, you know, because I read up on files and looked at photographs of different gangsters. Another thing too is when you, when you're in an undercover operation, I mentioned this before, you have to know your enemy. Okay. So my thing is, I always wanted to know everything about the organization that I was attempting to infiltrate. I wanted to know what their structure was, and I wanted to know if they had rules. And, you know, the mob, the mafia has rules. There's a lot of rules that they have. Some will get you killed and some won't.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

Okay. Some rules are like, they don't want you to have facial hair once you become in with them. So they'll tell you that. But one of the other rules is you don't mess around with anybody that's in the mob. Their wife, daughter or girlfriend. That'll get you killed. Really? That'll get you killed. Getting caught messing around with a kid, with a guy's wife, daughter or girlfriend. Unless you have good intentions with the daughter and you go to the guy.

[Brent Tucker]

And need some approvals on that.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, exactly. So. And then I knew a lot of mob terms, you know, from the neighborhood, you know, from growing up. So I used to go to this one joint, and it was a Lucchese. You know, New York has five mafia, five mafia families. And this place was a Lucchese family hangout. It was a bar restaurant. And the wise guys would come in there. I don't know if it was Wednesday or Thursday, for dinner with their girlfriends.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay?

[Joe Pistone]

So I go in one night, and I see that the table is there, but one guy's missing, but the girl that he's with is there.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay?

[Joe Pistone]

So. But I'm at the bar, and like I said, I never had conversation with this bartender other than, you know, what do I want to eat and what I want to drink. So during the course of the evening, this young lady gets up. She goes to the ladies room. As she's walking back, she stops and says hello to me. And I said hello, because I don't want to. You know, I don't want to offend her, but I don't know what the hell is going on because her boyfriend isn't there. So when she goes back and sits down, I call the bartender over. Now, this is protocol, okay? Right. So I don't. I know what his name is, but I don't call him by his name because I was never introduced to him, right? So I said, sir, you know, can I speak to you? He comes over and I said, I want to go on record, all right? Going on record is a mob term. I didn't ask that young lady to stop and talk to me, right?

[Interviewer 1]

Okay?

[Joe Pistone]

He just shakes his head. This goes on maybe three or four times, and every time I do the same thing. So after the fourth time, he says to me, hey, look, he said, if you want to, you know, if you want to talk to her, that's fine. Her boyfriend went bye bye. He didn't come to Orlando.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah. So I knew, you know, they probably whacked him for something. So I said to him, hey, look, I still have no interest in her. So now what does this guy know? He knows that I'm a street guy because I know enough to Say, every time, you know, so finally, the next time I come in, he comes over and he introduces himself. Now, he says, my name is Charlie. So I say, hey, my name's Donnie. Now that's another. Another clue is you don't introduce yourself as Donnie Brasco, right? Because these guys only introduce themselves by their first name or their nicknames. So now every time I come in, the next couple times I come in, we start having discussion about baseball, whatever the sport is about. New York City, you know, what's going on in the city. So then one night he says, donna, you like to gamble? I said, yeah. He said, I'm going to an after hours game after. You want to come? I said, sure. So I go with him to this game, and it's all wise guys from all over the city. So nobody questions me. He doesn't introduce me to anybody, but I'm with him. So I'm good. I'm good. A couple weeks go by and I think to myself, well, now I got to. I got to see if I can hook this guy in. So I come in one night and I got a packet of diamonds, and I lay them on a bar and I say, charlie, I need X amount of money for this package. I don't tell him they're diamonds. He doesn't ask me. I just said, I need X amount of money. Now, I'm not giving him Tiffany prices, I'm giving him street prices. But I'm letting him build in enough to wet his beak.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, Right. A couple weeks goes by, and I don't ask him about the package. He doesn't say anything. Then finally, I come in one night.

[Brent Tucker]

Does he get to keep the package so we can shop him around or.

[Tyler]

Do you keep it?

[Brent Tucker]

He keeps it.

[Joe Pistone]

Okay, all right. Yeah. So I come in one night and he says, hey, Donnie, somebody left this envelope for you. Put in my sport coat pocket. Now, what does he know? He knows I'm a thief because I gave him a packet of diamonds, right? I gave him, you know, I give him the swag price, right? So now when we go to the games, he introduces me to different guys. Hey, this is Don the jeweler. I never told him I was a jewel thief, but what else could I be, right?

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, right. So I met this one guy who was at Colombo and he was there. So he says, hey, Donnie, he said, you know, you ever get to Brooklyn? I said, not much. You know, I live up in Yorkville, which was a section in New York, Manhattan. And he said, why don't you come out to my club in Brooklyn. I said, all right. I says, I'll be out tomorrow. He said, okay. So now he's a Colombo guy. He's got a crew of hijackers. That's what they did. So I go out there and I start hanging out with them. Got in pretty good with. With this Colombo crew.

[Tyler]

And you're not being debriefed by the FBI at all at this point, right?

[Joe Pistone]

Well, I'm. And my only contact was on the telephone with my contact agent.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

You know, I would call him and regurgitate whatever I had to regurgitate.

[Brent Tucker]

Give him verbal. Verbal reports. Yeah, what's going on? So then make him type it out.

[Joe Pistone]

I go out. Nerd. So I'm hanging out there for a couple months with these guys and getting in good. Getting good with them. I come to the club one day, and there's two guys there that I didn't know. A Frankie and a patsy. I find out from Jilly after he introduces me that one guy's a made guy. That means he's been officially inducted into the Colombo crime family. The other guy's an associate, which I was at the time. You're a thief and associated with a particular family. So I said, okay. So, you know, he introduces me. I find out these guys just got out of the can. Both of them just got out of the can. So a couple days later, Jilly says, hey, Frankie, has a score lined up. We want to go case it. I said, okay. So we go. We case this place. I said, I can't bypass. That's an alarm system that I don't think I can work with, you know, because you can't be perfect in everything because it's not normal. So that's one. All right. A couple days later, hey, Frankie, you know, they got another thing lined up. Well, we go out there and I say, well, we can do it, but, you know, look at the neighborhood. You know, you got to get in and out. It was a safe job. It's got to be blown. Too much noise. So I turn that one, you know. So now this pisses Frankie off because Jilly's telling them what a great, great thief I was.

[Tyler]

I would think it would build your credit, you know, like, build your.

[Brent Tucker]

But it's. Yeah, I guess it's a fine line. Yeah, but at some. But at some point, yeah, but see, what good are you? Can't wait for the perfect job. Like, yeah, yeah, but.

[Joe Pistone]

But Jilly knew what I could do because I was with. That I was with Them for like, three months, four months. So, you know, to him, it wasn't any big deal, right? But to Frankie and Patsy, it was. So they say, hey, you know, to Jilly, you tell us this guy's such a great, you know, great teeth. He knows alarms. He knows it. And we got two jobs lined up, and he said he can't do them. So I come in one day, and Jilly says, hey, Donnie, we got to take a walk and talk. Now we're up in Brooklyn.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay?

[Joe Pistone]

So I said, okay. So we go outside and we walk. And I said, what's the matter, Jilly? He said, well, Frankie wants to have a sit down. I said, what's the problem? He said, well, you know, he had two jobs lined up. You said you couldn't do the alarm. The safe would, you know, you blow the safe, it'd be too loud. So he wants it. He says, as a made guy, he has that right. I said, okay. So we go back to the club. We go in the back room. The back room's probably this size. We sit down, and Frankie puts a gun on the table. And he said, donnie, if you don't convince me that you're as good a thief as Jilly says you are, the only way you're going out of this room is rolled up in that rug. Really? Yeah. So I said to myself, did you leave him? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I said to myself, I hope it's fucking Persian. If you're gonna go out, you might as well on the $50,000 rug. So we're there for, like, four hours, four and a half hours. And, you know, you always got to be on the offense. You can't let these guys get you on the defense. So every time he come out, he said, hey, look, you guys just got out of jail. I don't know that you're any. You know, that you didn't. You didn't snitch, and that's why you got out of the can. So this goes on, and it's back and forth, back and forth. I'm not giving you the name of anybody that I thieved with any place, you know. So after about four and a half hours, finally Jilly says, all right, that's it. You know, it's over. We know what Donnie can do.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

You want to know why I'm not in the can? It's because I didn't take bad jobs.

[Tyler]

Yeah, right.

[Brent Tucker]

That would have been a good one next time.

[Joe Pistone]

So once it's over, I said, jilly, can we walk and talk he said, yes. I said, look, Jilly, I said, no disrespect to you, but I can't come around here anymore, I said, because it's not going to be any good. It's going to get worse and somebody's going to end up getting killed here, you know. I said, so you and I part friends and let's leave it at that. He says, yeah, Donnie, I understand. So that was with the Colombos. Well, I had met this guy, Tony Mira, who was a Bonanno, at the games. And so I go back to the games with Charlie, and I signed up to Tony Mira, who's. Who's a main guy in the Bonanno family who had just gone out of the can himself, okay? So I have conversation with him, the meanest guy I ever met. I mean, the meanest guy I had ever met. An example. We leave the game one night and we go to a diner for breakfast. And the food comes out, you know, the eggs, and the eggs are, like, cold. And he starts berating the waitress, like, I mean, embarrassing.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

And I said, tony, I said, you know, it's not her fault. And there's other wise guys with us. And he goes off on me right now, I can't say anything too much because he's a. He's a wise guy, right?

[Interviewer 1]

Yep.

[Joe Pistone]

And another thing that'll get you killed is two things. You can't insult the wise guy in front of anybody else. So if you're in an argument and you insult them, he has the right to go to his boss and have you killed. You can't lay your hands on a wise guy to back up a little bit. Back in the. The sit down, okay? Right, we're back in the sit down. Well, I was in a position there because now these guys called me out. So again, with these guys, you can't go to shake their hand and say, hey, I realize that, you know, you're concerned. Let's be friends. The only thing that they understand is a confrontation. But I can't lay my hands on Frankie because he's a made guy, right? But Patsy's fair game, okay? Patsy's fair game. So as we get up and we're walking out, I cold cock Patsy because I have to show some kind of force, some kind of anger. So now I'm in a fight with Frankie, beating the hell out of me because I can't do anything to him. I can just protect myself. But Patsy's on the ground. So every time Frankie hits me, I kick Patsy. If he hits me A good one. I kick Patsy twice. But that's how that came out, that I told Jilly, I can't be with you guys anymore. Getting back to Mira. So when we leave the restaurant the next morning, I'm down in Little Italy, because that's where Mira lived. And this guy, he was a psycho. He was totally unhinged. So I knew that anytime I had a beef with him, I had to be arm's length because. So I said, tony, I said, look, I said, you know, I didn't mean anything last night. It just, you know, you just embarrassed that it wasn't her fault the food was cold, you know. I said, but on the other hand, don't ever talk to me like that again. Don't embarrass me, because, you know, you always have to keep your credibility, right? I said, don't ever talk to me like that again in front of people. Because if you do, there'll be some point in time where I'll stab you and it'll be from behind, because I'm not going to do it in front of you because I don't trust you. And he was like, whoa. You know, old maneuver it is.

[Brent Tucker]

It's a gutsy call.

[Joe Pistone]

But, I mean, this guy was totally me. I mean, I've seen him stab people. I mean, we were in a bar one night, and there was me and. Me and Tony, and there were three guys over here that we didn't know. And, you know, being Italian, I talk. You talk with your hands. And I knock over this guy's drink, and he's like, bullshit. Now, I know Mira. So I said to the guy, hey, look, calm down. You know, call a bartender over, hey, would you clean this up and put their bill on my tab? And I tell the guy anything you want, but he keeps going.

[Tyler]

He was just taking the free drinks.

[Joe Pistone]

He don't stop. Next thing I know, Mira grabs a bottle of beer, bang, Cracks it over the bar, comes over me and just goes to this guy's. Now we got three guys against me, and Mirror. Mira is pretty big guy, okay? So we got three guys, and we're giving them a pretty good lick, okay? So then, you know, when I see that they're pretty much subdued, I grab him, I say, come on, Tony. We get out of here. Because we were over in Jersey. This happened in Jersey. So we get out of there. But that's how mean this guy was. This guy was. He was a total psycho. In fact, the wise guys didn't like him, but he was such a big money maker. Yeah, he was a big drug guy and made it. Made a ton of money in drugs for the Bonanno family.

[Brent Tucker]

You know, these are, these are crazy stories. You ever thought about doing a movie about your life?

[Joe Pistone]

I think they did. I think they did. But they left some of the parts out.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right.

[Joe Pistone]

You know, because I said, why'd you leave those out? Well, we didn't want the public to think you were a complete psycho.

[Interviewer 1]

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Tyler]

Who, who came to you with the movie deal?

[Joe Pistone]

I'm sorry, did they come to you? Yeah, well, I had the, the book, Donnie Brasco, my other cover, Life in the Mafia, that was on New York Times bestseller list.

[Tyler]

That was. Was that before the movie came out?

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Tyler]

Okay, so that. Okay, so they just took the book and they put the movie cover on.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, and then they came. They came to me, in fact, my good friend who I went to high school with, Lou Dijimo, who passed away, may his soul rest in peace. Now, he was one of the top casting directors in Hollywood at the time. Yeah, cast. Cast so many big time movies.

[Brent Tucker]

It does remind me. It does make sense. I kid. They're, they're trying to, you know, create a character, you know, and, and, but the, you know, when Audie Murphy got back from war and then he got into filmmaking, you know, and, and some of the filmmaking was of actual things that he did when, when he would tell them, no, no, no, we can't do it like this. Like this isn't how it happened. We have to do it like this. There. And they would say, that's, that's so crazy. We, we intentionally reeled this back because no one would believe you. And he's like, but, but that's how, that's. Yeah, that's the truth. So where it's. There are, it's crazy. And we've covered in this. There are some people who lie about and embellish things and make it even crazier to make it sound like they were that guy. But then there's. Sometimes there are these stories that are actually crazier than the story you heard because it's almost unbelievable. The truth is almost unbelievable. That's what this reminds me.

[Joe Pistone]

Although, you know, I have to, I have to be honest. But yet that the, the movie came because of the book, was a best seller. And then like I said, my good friend Lou De Jimo, who was a top casting director, was he cast most of Barry. Barry Levinson, the director. Yeah, well, Barry's a great director. He cast most of Barry's movies at the time, okay? So that's who. So he went to Barry and that's how I got the movie deal.

[Brent Tucker]

But I won't get off the story too much because I love. Keep going. I love this story.

[Joe Pistone]

So I hang out with Mira for a while and then he goes back to the can. But during the time I'm with him, I had met other Bonanno guys. And one of the guys was a guy by the name of Lefty. And so once Mira went to the can, I gravitated toward Lefty and see what, where Mirror made a mistake in the mob. If you're a made guy and you have somebody like me who you think is a good earner, right, you go to your capo and you say, hey, I want a claim. I'm putting a claim on Donnie Brasco. That means nobody else could deal with Donnie Brasco, okay? But that made guy, Mira, never did that.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay?

[Joe Pistone]

That was his mistake. Okay. So once I got in tight with Ruggerio, with Lefty, that's what he did. Our capo was a guy by the name Mike Cebella. So he goes to Mike and he said, I'm laying a claim on Donnie. So now I'm. I'm his guy. Yep, he's my guy, right in the Bonannos. So, you know, during all this time, besides the illegal activities that they're involved in, I'm gaining a lot of intelligence. In other words, I'm able to identify who the main guys are, guys in different families, who the guys in different families are, and then all the criminal activities that are going on.

[Brent Tucker]

So I mean, this alone is just obviously just valuable intelligence. Being able to connect the who's who the hierarchy, and have like actual inside information of who's working for who and who's and who they want to, you know, zone in on or just understanding the, you know, you can have informants and informants can, can tell you that, but in the days, it's nothing like either getting it dual sourced by one of your guys or getting it from, from the first time information from a guy you trust, it's your guy. It's just exactly valuable.

[Joe Pistone]

That's an excellent point because, you know, informants aren't going to tell you what, what's going to benefit them.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

You know, but, you know, an undercover is going to, he's going to give you the legit scoop, you know, and I was able to connect the dots with the, with the different families who was working with who on, you know, on different scams and schemes, which was a lot of good intelligence information.

[Brent Tucker]

Because you already said you have to understand your enemy.

[Joe Pistone]

Exactly. And the Bonannos had a. An active crew of Sicilians that over from Sicily that were Bonanno guys. But in the United States, very active in drugs. Have you heard of the pizza connection case? Ring a bell?

[Interviewer 1]

Yes.

[Joe Pistone]

Well, these were my guys. When I say my guys, the guys, the Sicilians that I got to know and were able to identify, which, you know, the FBI knew these guys were involved, but they didn't have, like, names or how they connected to the Bonanno guys that were. With the Americans, that were American. So the intelligence was very, very invaluable. So I'm with Mira. I mean, I'm with Lefty. And one day I get a call or my contact guy tells me. Because I would call my contact guy and just regurgitate over the phone, right? But you might not think it here, but I'm a guy of very few words. So if I didn't have anything that I thought was of vital intelligence or of criminal activity, I wouldn't call my contact guy. I mean, what am I going to say to. How you doing? You know, slow week. So I may go up. I may go a couple days. But he knew that because we were on the same. The same page.

[Brent Tucker]

So anytime you reach out, whether it's low, but anytime you reach out, it's a risk. So why.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, and I always did it from pay phones, you know, I never used a phone in my apartment or whatever.

[Interviewer 1]

Oh, yeah.

[Tyler]

I'm sure half our listeners don't even know what a payment is.

[Joe Pistone]

And another thing I did too, you know, which. It's funny, because as I got into the undercover business, as far as being out of working undercover, but getting involved in. In setting up operations with undercovers and helping them, right, Is, you know, they all wanted Mercedes Benz. They all wanted Rolls Royces. They all wanted gold. The only gold. I was a jewel thief, but the only gold I wore was my cross, you know, and my clatter ring. That was my jewelry, you know. So I get a call and. Or I mean, I called Steve and he says, hey, headquarters is reaching out for you. Okay, who should I call? Call this guy. What do you need? We got an operation going in Milwaukee. It's an undercover operation, but we're not making any headway. Milwaukee was tied into Chicago, the Milwaukee mobile. The head of Milwaukee was a guy by the name of Frank Balustrari, who was a very powerful boss. We were wondering if you could get your Bonanno guys involved. I said, whoa. So my first thing is, who's the undercover? Because in this business, especially the deep cover, there's only one person that saves your life, and that's yourself. No disrespect to HRT. Delta Force, SEAL Team 6. They're coming in after you're dead. Yeah, because what is it? It's action versus reaction. And the action is when they kill you, shoot you, and the reaction is when they hear. They hear the shot.

[Interviewer 1]

That's right.

[Joe Pistone]

So my first thing is, who's the undercover agent? Well, it's Ty Cobb. Oh, hell. Ty Cobb, Sure. I worked in Chicago. I work undercover cases with Ty. Former Marine, Just a tough son of a bitch. I said, all right, you know, give me a number to get in touch with him. So I find out that he has a vendor machine company out in Milwaukee. He's got everything set up, but he can't put his machines anywhere because it's all controlled by the Balestraris, the Chicago Milwaukee family. So I said, okay. So I said, let me see what I can do. So another thing, too. Anything that goes sideways is going to reflect on the undercover. So we're sitting around one day, and I said to Lefty, I said, you know, I got a call from a guy that I used to thieve with years ago in Baltimore, and he's out in Chicago. I mean, he's out in Milwaukee, and he's got a vending machine company out there. And the first thing Ruggiero left, he says to me is, is he crazy? They'll blow him up out there. So you can't just open up a vending machine company in mob territory. I said, it doesn't seem that big.

[Brent Tucker]

Of a deal, but I know we're just talking vending machines, man.

[Joe Pistone]

JV team for life.

[Tyler]

Are you tired of using your standard issue flashlight? I know you're still using it because I was still using mine. But I have good news. We've teamed up with Cloud Defensive, the best in the game when it comes to weapons mounted and handheld lights. Go to clouddefensive.com, put in promo code antihero15 and get 15% off your entire order. Cloud Defensive. Pushing the boundaries in Illumination Over a century ago.

[Sponsor Voice]

In 1910, the Flexner Report, funded by John D. Rockefeller and the Carnegie foundation, re engineered medical education from a holistic whole body approach, which appropriately treated the body as an interconnected system, to a compartmentalized approach. Under the guise of specialized medicine, they shut down or consolidated medical schools, marginalized naturopathic homeopathic and chiropractic medicine, replacing them with symptom management and synthetic drugs. Allopathy is a marketing strategy rooted in fear and manipulated science. This philosophy carries into veterinary medicine resulting in over vaccination, unnecessary surgeries and manufactured food. Just like they did for people. They call it care, but it's predatory and based on profitability. The truth, toxicity, compromised immunity and chronic inflammation. They're not fate, they're engineered. And so is your power to undo them. We built three targeted formulas to return the body to homeostasis for pets and people to detox, defend and restore. We are the correction to decades of corruption. We are vengeance.

[Tyler]

And of course we got to give a shout out to our boys in 09 holsters. Custom built ruggedized duty gear. Made in the USA for cops by cops, a Leo and veteran owned small business. They do an upgraded solutions for duty gear including cases for portable radios, body cameras, tourniquets and pretty much everything you need to carry on duty. So go to 09holsters com and use promo code antihero10 0zulu9. That's anti hero 10z9 and get yourself 10 off your order.

[Joe Pistone]

JV team for life. So I said, well he don't know anything. I said he don't know anything about the mafia, about the mob, you know. And I let it drop. A couple days later I said, you know, left that guy call me again. He wants me to go out there. What's he want you to do? I said, I don't know, he wants to help me. I mean he wants me to help him. So he says, well he said I'll tell you what, see if he has any money. So I, I called Ty. I said, ty, how do you want me to work this? He says, well he says, I got a warehouse full of machines. You know, they had a whole operation set up, the bureau. He said, tell him I got 100,000 in the bank, but I'm not doing any business. So I go back to Lefty and I said, lefty? He says he's got, I don't know, 50 machines. He's got a truck, he's got 100,000 in the bank, but he can't make any money because none of the places will take his machines. So he says, all right, let's go talk to Mike. Now in the mob you can't notice I bypass the fences. I'm right with the mob guys, right? Yeah, I mean, which I never expected, but yeah. So we go talk to Mike Cebella who's our capo. So he says, tell Mike. So I tell Mike the whole story. So Mike says. I said, yeah, Mike, you know, I've known him. I did a lot of thieving with him. He was a good guy. I mean, I haven't seen him in, you know, eight, 10 years, but he was always okay. He said, all right. He said, keep this here. You two guys fly out to Milwaukee and see if he does have an operation. So me and Lefty, we fly out to Milwaukee. Ty takes us around, you know, takes us to the warehouse shows, you know, does the whole dog and pony show.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

Okay. So there is some funny stories here.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

So Ty's showing us all around Milwaukee. And, you know, Milwaukee's on one of the Great Lakes.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay?

[Joe Pistone]

Right. So we're driving down, I guess it's Lakeshore Boulevard or Lakeshore Drive, and there's one of the Great Lakes. So Ty says, yeah, and that's one of the. That's one of the Great Lakes. So Lefty looks at him. That's not a fucking lake. That's the ocean. That's the ocean. Well, you know, the Great Lakes, they have big freighters.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

He said, you see that big ship? You think that ship can float in a lake?

[Brent Tucker]

It does look like an ocean. It's so fast. It's not called a great lake for no reason, But.

[Joe Pistone]

So he said, yeah, look, you know, Left, you're probably right. You know, I don't think a ship that big afloat on a lake. Yeah, but you know that you get some. You get some laughs now and then. So we get back and, you know, me and Lefty fly back to. Back to New York. Now, here's the way it works. We can't just. When I say we, the Bonanno just can't go out to Milwaukee.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

And help. Help Ty with his vending machine business. We got to go to Ark Consiglieri.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

It was a guy by name of Bobby Badhart.

[Tyler]

Sounds like a good guy.

[Interviewer 1]

Great name.

[Joe Pistone]

You know why that's his nickname?

[Brent Tucker]

Why?

[Joe Pistone]

Because he had a bad heart. Because he had. I'll tell you what.

[Brent Tucker]

He's on it.

[Joe Pistone]

Tell you. We're a copper.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

So we explained to him. He said, okay, now, Bobby. So then we have to. We have to say that Ty has been with the Bonannos for years.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Brent Tucker]

To make the connection.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah. In other words, if we just said we. We just met him, right? Then they could say, hey, so now Ty has to call Chicago. I mean, not Ty. Bobby Bhadar has a call Chicago. Right. Tell him that we got a guy that's been a Bonanno for years in Milwaukee. We want to have a sit down with Frank Balustrari, the boss.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay?

[Joe Pistone]

So then Chicago calls Frank, explains to him, and then he says, he either says yes or no, Right? Right. After about a week or so, Chicago calls back to Bobby and says, okay, have Donnie and Lefty fly out, check into this hotel and wait for a phone call.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay?

[Joe Pistone]

So we fly out, check into this hotel. We're in there for like. You ever been to Milwaukee in the wintertime? No, I've never been to Milwaukee. Sounds cold though. You don't want to. So we check in and we can't leave the hotel because we can't miss a phone call. You know, back then we didn't have cell phones, you know, so we're sitting in this hotel room. Well, not room, it was, you know, out there. They have the enclosed pools because in the wintertime, so about the third or fourth day, we get a call, hey, tomorrow night, go to this, go to this restaurant and you'll have a sit down with. With the boss. Now if you know anything about the Mafia, to sit down with a boss is like sitting down with the good Lord. I mean, that's, that's the way they operate. You don't just sit down with a boss, especially a boss from another family, right? So me, Lefty and Ty, we go, we go to the restaurant and it's in a hotel which is owned by Frank Balustrari. Now there's Frank, his underboss, his consigliere, and his two sons. His two sons were lawyers, but they were also inducted into the family. They were made guys too. And we sit down, we have a big meal. Now Lefty does all the talk, most of the talking, because he's the maid guy. So we explained to them what we want to do, etc. Etc. So Frank says, well, you know, let me think it over. He says, why don't you guys come to dinner at my house tomorrow night? That's another thing. Going to the dinner at a mob, you know, it's hard for people to fathom, but when you know the mob, you know how the Mafia, you're going to dinner at a major mafia boss's.

[Brent Tucker]

House for him to invite another house, it's a big deal. And then. And for two of you to be FBI agents, just crazy.

[Joe Pistone]

So the next night we go to his house and it's gorgeous house and you know, he's got the long table like you see in the movies, and he's got the maids, you know, serving us and stuff. So finally he said, okay, we'll go in business with you. It's 50. 50. Ty. He was going by name of Tony.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

Tony has to do all the work, and it's a 50, 50 split. We'll tell you where to go and put your machines. That's a coup. That's a big coup. So now what did we just do? He just married two mafia families.

[Brent Tucker]

Now they're connected big time.

[Joe Pistone]

Big time. Right. So we go back to New York, me and Lefty. Is it.

[Tyler]

Is it common for the families to work together for business?

[Joe Pistone]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely.

[Brent Tucker]

And this is a. This is. I know it's almost a. A petty question, but I just. I. I've thought of it a couple times.

[Interviewer 1]

Now.

[Brent Tucker]

When they send you these places, who's paying for. Oh, it sounds like a silly question, but it's not. Who's paying for the hotel and the. And the flights out there, like, you got if you were not undercover?

[Joe Pistone]

Taiwas.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Brent Tucker]

But, you know, do they. If you were sent somewhere on my business.

[Joe Pistone]

Oh, they do that.

[Brent Tucker]

They. They pay for your flights?

[Joe Pistone]

Normally, I tell you, when they say you pay for your flights, you know, we're talking a different time. When.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

When stuff wasn't, you know, you didn't. You didn't make reservations on your computer.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

I mean, we had a travel agency where we got tickets for nothing.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay. Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

I'm talking about the mob.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Tyler]

Were they in business with the mob?

[Joe Pistone]

Whenever we went somewhere, we'd go into this travel agency, and they would, you know, that's where the old.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

They had the old tickets. Remember the old tickets?

[Brent Tucker]

I remember that. In fact, I remember the one travel agency I know as a kid. There's one right across the street from a feed store. So I vaguely remember travel agencies before the Internet.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, yeah. You know, back in the day. Right. So now that's the one mafia family that I've been able to marry up. Right. We get back to New York. Everything is going good for a couple months. Finally, Ty calls, and he says these guys cut off contact with me.

[Interviewer 1]

All right.

[Joe Pistone]

Why? I don't know. I don't know. They're not answering my calls. I don't know. So I, you know, I have to tell Lefty, and we, you know, so he says, well, bring him in. Tell Ty to come into the city. We got to have a sit down. So Tyke flies in, and we have to explain. We have to explain. First he Explains the lefty then he has it. Now we got to go talk to Mike Sabella. The capital. Because, you know, the money. Yeah. And the money stopping.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

So make a long story short, what we find out later and why Milwaukee never told the Bonanno's, I don't have any idea. But what we find out later. Ty had been a cop once he got out of the Marine Corps. And before he came into bureau, he had been a cop in some little town outside of Milwaukee. And they found out for some. I don't know. Well, there was a leak, we know that. But the thing was is now they never say anything.

[Interviewer 1]

Wow.

[Brent Tucker]

That could have disrupted everything.

[Joe Pistone]

Well, you know, and I'm. I'm living with this, you know, are they going to drop the hammer or not?

[Interviewer 1]

Right. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

It's only a matter of time you feel like.

[Joe Pistone]

So, you know, It's a big McGilla. Mike is mad at me, Lefty's mad at me, you know, but I can. I can kind of handle Lefty.

[Brent Tucker]

What are they mad at you about? Because they don't know he's a cop yet.

[Joe Pistone]

No, but they think it's his fault.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay. Right.

[Joe Pistone]

You know, did he fool around with somebody's wife, around with somebody's girlfriend? Did they catch him stealing money?

[Brent Tucker]

What did he do? What do we not.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, I said I got no idea. So what we have to do is we gotta just close the operation and Ty disappears.

[Interviewer 1]

Right?

[Joe Pistone]

Right. So they send me out to Milwaukee to look for him, you know, so that. That's a big McGill. I can't find him. I say, I think. I think he got whacked because I found this car in the. In the airport parking lot and I saw some blood on a seat, you know, and the one thing that week out in Chicago, there was a big art heist. So I said he might have been involved in that because that's what we did when he and I, you know, and maybe the guys that he did the heist with, you know, hit him. I don't know. But so I skated on that one.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

Things are going good and again, you know, involved in illegal activities. The, the, the. The intelligence. Now they whack Carmen Gallente, who was the boss of the Bonanno's at the time.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay?

[Joe Pistone]

They kill him.

[Interviewer 1]

Who did?

[Joe Pistone]

The mob. Okay, the mob. Because he was another mean guy. He. He controlled all the drugs and everything and he didn't want to share any of that with anybody.

[Tyler]

His own fan, like his own family.

[Joe Pistone]

Family. Yeah. Well, he got together with the commission and other families to get rid of him.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay, all right.

[Tyler]

Even that's like a business meeting.

[Joe Pistone]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Final discussions for the night.

[Joe Pistone]

Who's taking the minutes tonight?

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

So they whack him and they appoint Rusty Restelli, who's in the can, as the new boss. He had been the underboss. He had been a boss for a while, but now he's in the can. But he's the acting boss. I mean, he's the boss even though he's in the can.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

So being that Mike Cibella was close with Galenty, they go to Mike and they say, mike, you either step down from being a captain, go back to being a soldier, or we're going to kill you, too. So he steps down.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

So now they put me and Lefty out in Brooklyn with a capo named Sonny Black who was aligned with Rusty Rastelli. So being that Rusty's in a can, Sonny's one of the acting bosses of the family. Him and another guy by the name of Joey Messina, another capo. They're basically running the American faction of their family. Of course, there was the Sicilian faction who had their own home group. So now me and Lefty are reporting out to Brooklyn every day to Sonny Black. Who? Sonny Black. You know, remember, all these guys are stone killers, right? I mean, every one of them had I don't know how many hits under their belts. You know, probably the one, you know, probably the least amount of hits, maybe 5 to 10 to 15.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

That these guys had killed me.

[Tyler]

And that's the crazy thing. Like, people, if you take a life and it's justified and justified in Christ, justified in country, you know, and that, you know, you can live with this. Can you imagine just being a stone cold killer, killing for money, killing by orders, and there's.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, just living with yourself every day. See, in the mob, if you're a made guy, you're not killing for money. You're killing because you're ordered to kill it.

[Interviewer 1]

Right?

[Joe Pistone]

You know, the mob doesn't go to another. Another made guy and say, you know, we want you to hit this guy, and it's 25,000, 50,000 if you get. If you get it. If you get a contract to kill somebody in the mob, it's your responsibility. He dies if he does it. If you refuse.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

Well, then you can eventually know that you're going to die because you don't refuse, because. And you know, I've had this discussion before, is that to them, the American Mafia? If somebody kills the American Mafia, they've been involved with them. They're either maid guys or they're individuals that have been involved in illegal dealings with them and screwed him in some way. The American Mafia doesn't just kill citizens.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay?

[Joe Pistone]

Okay.

[Tyler]

If a, If a made man gets an order to kill, is it his job to make sure it happens or does he usually take it?

[Joe Pistone]

It could be either way.

[Tyler]

Because I was wondering, when do they use contract killers as opposed to doing it in house?

[Joe Pistone]

Somebody might, they might use contract killers. Like at one time the Gambinos used the Westies.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

They were Irish mob out of New York, but they had an agreement. But most of the time it's. It's within the family or they might reach out to another family.

[Tyler]

That's loose ends.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, yeah. To take care of somebody. So now we're with Sonny Black. Sonny Black was a different kind of a guy. I mean, he was a stone cold killer, but he was a guy that you could spend. I could spend time with and just BS, right? You know, Lefty was a 247 gangster. You know, you couldn't just talk about anything with him.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

You know, like, I used to stay at Sonny's black apartment because my apartment was uptown. And like, I would stay with him and be. I became. I became tight with him. There's a guy that's running the family, right. And I'm like, living in, you know, Right. Staying with him.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Brent Tucker]

And to some degree. And I think. And this is what seems to be a little bit of a commonality between it. It's. It's not.

[Joe Pistone]

It's.

[Brent Tucker]

Yes, it's a job to you, but you're deep undercover. Like, this is your life, you know, and you can't.

[Joe Pistone]

You.

[Brent Tucker]

You're going to become friends, like with these people, like, just, just because on the surface you can see what they do and that's who they are on paper. But when you spend every day with them, they're mean. You still make connections with people, you know. Did you find that to be hard? Were there anyone. Did you always keep it inside completely isolated, or did you genuinely be like, yeah, he's. He's my friend, you know, or it felt like it at the time that they felt like actual friends.

[Joe Pistone]

I considered Sunny like a friend.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

But I had no, no, if trying to grasp for the word I'm trying to use here. But I knew what he was. I knew he was a killer. And in this life, if they think I'm bent, it's because I'm an informant, not that I'm an undercover, right. And they're going to kill you in a Cincinnati minute, you know, So I never, like I say, I would sleep at Sonny's apartment. You know, it's funny because I would tell my handler, one of my very good friend Jules Bonavalante, who ran the case from headquarters, he said, when I talked to him, he said, what'd you do? I said, well, I slept over Sonny's last night. He got up in the morning. Now, here's the. Here's the guy that's running the. One of the most vicious crime families, right? I said, he went across the street and got his hard butter rolls and coffee. He says, you're kidding me. I said, no, that's. I said, and we're still humans. We're still people. Exactly. And then we sat on the couch and watched cartoons on the television in our underwear. Yeah, I mean, got a big day.

[Tyler]

Of killing ahead of me.

[Joe Pistone]

I got to get my cartoons in, so. But you're right, you do become, you know, and again, too, when you're in deep cover. Remember I said, you have to know your enemy. You got to know everything about your enemy.

[Brent Tucker]

Absolutely.

[Joe Pistone]

Well, knowing the Italians, if I was lucky enough or fortunate enough to get accepted, I knew that they were going to delve into my background. So my story was I was an orphan, right? I had no knowledge who my parents were. I was an orphan. I was never married. I didn't know of any brothers or sisters, so I couldn't take them to a graveyard and show them a grave. I couldn't say, well, here's my ex wife. All right, so what would happen on holidays? I'd get invited Christmas Eve, I'd get invited Christmas Day.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

To spend time with them, see? So, I mean, you see that part of them, right? You know, like you say to me, and I think that now you know.

[Brent Tucker]

Your wife, now you know their wife's, now you know their kids. Like, I guess it's a very. That's what I'm kind of getting at. It becomes, you spend enough time with even bad people, you come. You come to find out they're. They're humans as well. And it's going to affect more than just them when this job is done. It's going to affect their wife and their kids who had. Who may have had nothing to do with this. But that's. But yeah, that was a decision they made. You know, they.

[Joe Pistone]

They dragged their. But another thing, too, in deep undercover, you got to have. You're going to have a mental toughness that most People don't have. Like in your former business. Not many people can do that.

[Brent Tucker]

I say it all the time. It's hard to. I don't think it's something you can develop. I think it's very hard to screen for the term I use. Some people are just wired right.

[Joe Pistone]

You just.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, you just wired right. It's hard to find those people. You can.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, you can, but it. It's hard.

[Brent Tucker]

You can be wired right. For that job.

[Joe Pistone]

And, you know, to me, I like Sonny. If he wasn't a made guy, I mean, if he wasn't a gangster, we'd be great friends, right? You know?

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

But I knew where the line was, you know, And I. Look, when you're. When you're. When you infiltrate these type of people, you know that when it comes out, somebody's going to die. Besides going to jails, somebody's going to die because of you. But that's where the being wired different comes in. Hey, my whole thing is, look, everybody has choices in life. I chose to be in law enforcement. You chose to be a gangster.

[Interviewer 1]

That's right.

[Joe Pistone]

You were a gangster before I got there. You were a gangster while I was there.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

And even after I arrest you, you're still going to be a gangster.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. Right.

[Joe Pistone]

So.

[Interviewer 1]

Yep. And you're right.

[Brent Tucker]

Those are things you can't lose sight of.

[Joe Pistone]

Right.

[Brent Tucker]

And you have to remind yourself, I.

[Joe Pistone]

Mean, I met son. I met all Sonny's kids. I met Lefty's kids. I mean, I had one guy, you know, his son was a junkie. He wanted me to go talk to his kid and straighten the kid out.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

I mean, and here's a stone cold killer. But he didn't, you know, he was hurting because his kid was a junkie.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

He's still a father, you know.

[Joe Pistone]

Right. So. So we're going along. Good. And again, I get another one of my conversations. They want. They want to call, you know, they want you to call headquarters. You know, what's. Well, they got a. They got a nightclub down there. Down where? In Tampa, Florida.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay. All right.

[Joe Pistone]

And they want to see if you can do the same thing you did in Milwaukee, Hook them up with traffic. Annie, who was the. Another. Another strong mafia boss who ran all the. Okay, we're in Florida, Right?

[Interviewer 1]

Right. Yes. Right. Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

So I said, man, you know, I don't know.

[Brent Tucker]

The first one didn't go so good.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah. But I said, well, again, who's the undercover agent, right. Who's running this nightclub? So they gave me two names, one guy I didn't know. I mean, I knew him, but I didn't. I never worked with him.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

But I knew that he was a good guy.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

The other guy was a friend of mine. I had worked other undercover operations with him. I said, okay, if they're the two guys, let me see what I can do. I said, but I'm not going to go to Lefty or Sonny and say, hey, you know, I just got a call from a guy.

[Interviewer 1]

Right, right.

[Joe Pistone]

That didn't work. I said, so here's what we'll do. We usually went to Miami. When I say, we the wise guys, for, like, long weekends, okay, Just to hang out. I said, we'll be at. We'll do a bump down there. In other words, I'll tell you when we're going to be there. You guys be in Miami. When we go to a certain restaurant, I'll let you know when we're there. And then you guys go there and then.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

We bump into each other. You know. Hey. Hey, Donnie, you know. Hey, Chico, you know one of those. So that's what happened. Come on, join us for dinner. Well, no, we don't want to bother. Come on, sit down. Sit down. This is. This is Lefty, this is. I forget who else is with us. Hey, this is Chico. Chico, who's your friend? Well, he's, you know, Tony. Nice to meet you. What do you guys do? Well, we got a. We got a nightclub up in. Out. Up in Tampa. Now, that rings bells. Right? Because a nightclub is what? Money, money, money. Everything is money.

[Interviewer 1]

Right?

[Joe Pistone]

Everything is money.

[Brent Tucker]

And that's all. And that's as I'm assuming, because you're talking about. But that's how these guys are wired. They're always looking for opportunities. They're always looking for ways to make money. The only thing you got to do is kind of plan it, and they'll take it from there.

[Joe Pistone]

They'll take the bait later on, you know, it's money. Planting your flag.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

You know, in new territory.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. Expanding the operation.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

Hey, why don't you guys stop up, Up. You know, here's where we're at. Okay. We will. So, you know, we have a good night. We go back to New York.

[Interviewer 1]

A.

[Joe Pistone]

Few days later, maybe a week. I say, you know, Chico called. He wants to know if you guys are gonna. We're gonna go down here. Yeah. Tell him we'll be down.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

You know, so we fly down. They got a great club going. And again, it's traffic candies territory.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

What do we want to do. Well, we want to start, you know, gambling out of the club, okay? So we got to do the same thing, right? Our guy's got to call Traffic Canny's guys. Traffic Canny, you know, so finally Traffic Canny says, okay, I'll send up my guy Benny. I'll send him up, take a look at your operation, and we'll see if we can do business. Well, this takes, you know, takes a while. And then we get a call. Traffic Kenny wants to meet you guys. Traffic Kenny's coming up. You know, he lived outside of Tampa. Anyway, he wants to have a sit down with you guys, all right? So me and Sonny Black fly down from New York. Now I'm sitting down with another mafia boss, right? It's like, this is crazy, right?

[Tyler]

Their weakness is money.

[Joe Pistone]

Exactly. So he gives the, you know, the same deal.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay?

[Joe Pistone]

You know, Chico's been with us for, you know, we got to tell him the same lie, right? Okay, so what he does is we're. We're planning a big casino night. So he says, I'm going to send two of my guys from Miami up. Why? Well, they're. They're good at gambling.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay?

[Joe Pistone]

Right. So these two guys from Miami come up, all right? Come to our hotel room. They sat there and marked the cards. They marked every deck of cars after they. They. I'm watching them mark the cards, right? So after they're done, I could not tell where these cars were marked, really. But these guys, you know. Yeah, Here. Down in that one.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

So everything was fixed.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

Right. So we're paying off the undersheriff of the county. So we're going to have this big casino night. We bring into tables, crap tables, roulette tables, blackjack tables. And, you know, the people are citizens. The people are just, you know, Right. Just normal citizens. So we. We start the. We started going. We had paid off the. The undersheriff that. That day. We're going pretty good and hear a knock on the door. Somebody looks down, he said, donnie, there's a bunch of deputies out there.

[Interviewer 1]

Whoa.

[Joe Pistone]

Trying to get the undersherif on the phone. Yeah, he ain't answering. What are we gonna do? All right. Clear all the money, put all the chips on the table. Now, we had an old one, armed bandit.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay, okay.

[Brent Tucker]

And what's an old one? The slot machine.

[Tyler]

Okay, okay.

[Joe Pistone]

Slot machine?

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

I mean, it was a relic. Nobody had. It was just there. Nobody had ever played it. Nobody ever put any money in it. It was, you know, Right. So they're banging on so Once we get all the chips on the table, say, okay, let them in. They come in. You guys are running a gambling operation. Now, we had a certificates that. This is a charity for the veterans of foreign war. I mean, legitimate certificates, right? Now, we understand you. You know, no. One of the deputies go over and I don't know if it was a nickel machine or what. He pulls the handle and money comes out. He hit.

[Brent Tucker]

He said, are you kidding me?

[Joe Pistone]

No, I'm not.

[Interviewer 1]

Wow.

[Joe Pistone]

He said, you're running a gambler. I said, you m. Effort. Nobody has ever put money in that machine, right?

[Interviewer 1]

Never, right?

[Joe Pistone]

Never. And this guy puts money in it and it hits, wins. So now they wreck the joint. They put us in a can, you.

[Brent Tucker]

Know, they really did wreck the joint, pretty much.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay?

[Joe Pistone]

So traffic Candy had to give us the name of his lawyer, okay? So he got his lawyer to get us out, all right? And that pretty much, you know, we had it. We had to mend relationships there and everything. Now, what's going on in the Bonanno family? Remember I told you Rusty Restelli was in a can? He was the boss, right? He's the boss. So Sonny Black and Joey Messina are running the family. Two. Two capos. And there's a faction of the family that's against Rusty Rastelli. They want to take over the family. All right? So they're. Now there's. There's friction in the family. So Sonny Black and Joey, they go to the commission, you know, and they get permission to take these guys out, okay? So what they do, you know, they call for a sit down, right? So when these guys get to the sit down, they whack him. Now, I was supposed to be there, but at the last minute, Sonny canceled me out, okay? I was supposed to be on a cleanup crew to clean up the crime scene, but he canceled me out at the last minute.

[Brent Tucker]

Do you know why?

[Joe Pistone]

No, really.

[Tyler]

Did you know this was gonna happen?

[Joe Pistone]

No, I knew. I knew after the day after. Gotcha. So the next day, he calls me to the club. I mean, I come to the club, right? And he said, we took care of those three guys. Four guys were supposed to show. One guy did it. He said, bruno didn't show. He said, so I'm giving you the contract to kill Bruno, okay? I said, okay. So he says, we think he's in Florida. So he sends me to Florida, to Miami, because Bruno was a junkie, okay? So I fly to Miami, you know, and the deal was, if I found them, I'd call the FBI, they'd snatch Him. And we'd make it look like a hit and the reverse if they found them, you know. But we never found him. He was on. He was on the Lamb. So I fly back to New York now, since there's a shooting war, Sonny gives me a gun. I never carried a gun in the whole six years.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

We go to a. We go to a wedding, everybody's packing, right? Which normally wise guys don't pack, okay? Unless they're going to do a piece of work, right? So we're in the club one night, one afternoon, and Sonny gets a phone call. And now it's my responsibility that he gets killed. So.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

He said, donnie, he said, such and such an address. Okay? So we saddle up and we're going to go to the address, you know? So before we leave, the phone rings again. Sonny says, hold up. He comes out to the car and he said, it's bad information. He said, it's bad information. So I was asked, well, what would you have done? I said, well, Bruno's a dead man. I said, I ain't dying for a gangster. I said, I die for a citizen, right? But I'm not dying for a gangster because I know he was a stone cold gangster. What am I going to do? Get there and say, hey, guys, I'm really an FBI agent, right?

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

What do you think they're going to do? They're going to kill him. Kill me.

[Interviewer 1]

That's right. Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

I said, he's gone, you know? Well, they said, well, it's time to close this operation.

[Brent Tucker]

But how long had this operation been going on?

[Joe Pistone]

Six years.

[Brent Tucker]

Holy guacamole. It's so, so crazy. And you, you're married at this time.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

You have kids at this time and for six years, I'm assuming you saw them. Little. Very little.

[Joe Pistone]

Very little, very little. Maybe every six months.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Is that what.

[Joe Pistone]

Because they lived across country.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

I was living in New York. They lived across country.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

What. So now as. As we found out with. With other cases that it's kind of half the story. How did. How did they. I say they. The FBI. Would they have a plan for you? Did they protect you? Do you feel like they did everything after you did everything to put your life on the line? Did they carry their weight and do everything to take care of you after that?

[Joe Pistone]

I have to say, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, I. There were some. I had problems after I got out with. With an sac. You know what an SAC is? Special Agency, Special Agent Charge.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah. It'd be like. Like a General.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

He runs an office.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

Okay. And the office that they put me in, I didn't get along with him.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

I mean, he's probably. What would you call that?

[Tyler]

He's a little insecure.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, well, the guy was never a cowboy guy. Yeah, exactly. You know, all you undercovers do. Yeah, I got.

[Brent Tucker]

I got. I got some questions about that. I wanted to. I didn't want to ask any of these questions until. Until I heard the story. Like I said. I watched the movie again last night to. And it's. Of course, there's always. Hollywood's gonna do what Hollywood's gonna do, but I've always heard that that movie was. Was. Here's what I'm getting at. Like, Behind Enemy Lines was a, you know, movie about a pilot that got shot down in the Bosnian war. And that's about as close as that movie got to reality. And everything after that was just completely, you know, scripted and false and, you know, and dramatic. But it does seem like the movie. Of course it's going to have its discrepancies, but it seems like it did a pretty good job of following the. The story. Like, how do you feel the movie portrayed.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Trade that.

[Joe Pistone]

As far as the movie, if you know anything about making movies on somebody's life, they're lucky if they get the name right. I was fortunate. I'd say my movie. When I say my movie. Donnie Brasco was like 85 on the money. That's cool for your audiences. Like I told you before he went on the air, there's a scene in there about me slapping my wife. Well, that never happened.

[Brent Tucker]

You were quick to correct that one.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, that never happened. That was put in by. By the director.

[Brent Tucker]

1 I think you already covered. It was just kind of a funny one to me. But. But it seems like. Did. It was about the mustache and did the FBI wanted you to shave the mustache because it was against regs or is because wise guys don't have mustaches.

[Joe Pistone]

That's a funny thing. The FBI was always on me about my mustache. But doing all the things you're doing.

[Brent Tucker]

And they can't let the mustache.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, but, you know, during that time, agents didn't have beards and mustaches.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

But, you know, working undercover, I was okay with it.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

But then once I got involved with the Mafia, where they accepted me, they told me, donnie, you got to shave your mustache. The Mafia told me that.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

When I say the Mafia, my. You know.

[Interviewer 1]

Right. Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

You know, I told you before, there were certain rules, and this is Rules that were. That were told to me, all right? Always dress nice.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay?

[Joe Pistone]

You don't have to have a suit on, but we want to see you dress nice. We want to see you with slacks. You know, maybe a sport coat, okay? That's rule number one. Again, they didn't want any facial hair.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay?

[Joe Pistone]

Don't steal from the. This will get you killed. Now, don't steal from the family. If you steal any money from the family, you're going to get killed. Okay?

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

Always pay respect to other mafia members.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay?

[Joe Pistone]

Okay. If you get into an argument with a mafia guy, do not embarrass him in front of other people, okay? You cannot lay your hands on a mafia guy. For my. Especially if you're. If you're not made. If you're not inducted into their family, right. If you take a slap, you got to eat that slap. Because if you lay your hands on them, you're going to get killed.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

Don't fool around with a maid. When I say maid guy, that's somebody that's been officially inducted into a family.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

Don't fool around with a maid guy's wife, daughter, or girlfriend unless you got good intentions with the daughter.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

Don't talk. Don't talk to grand juries, okay? Yeah. I mean, those things will get you killed. You know, facial hair is a shot. If you don't do it right, they're not going to kill you, but you're gone.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, Right?

[Brent Tucker]

I love it. They're murderers, but they're not uncivilized.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

We have rules.

[Joe Pistone]

The.

[Interviewer 1]

Did.

[Brent Tucker]

Did they really give Lefty a lion?

[Joe Pistone]

Well, yeah, we did have a lion.

[Tyler]

He's like, oh, now that I remember, we did have a lion.

[Brent Tucker]

Why did you have a lion?

[Joe Pistone]

We did have. One day, this wrangler comes in the club, and the lion was a cub. It started out as a cub. Like a fish in a fish tank.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, they do that.

[Joe Pistone]

And then what happens with lions?

[Brent Tucker]

They get bigger.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

So we used to keep it in. In the motion lounge for a while, and then it, you know, and it got big.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

So Sunny's cousin had a big warehouse.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

So we put in the warehouse.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Brent Tucker]

It's just a lion in New York.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Whatever happened to the lion? Do you know what happened?

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, I know. What happened is it got too much. It got to be a lion.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

So he said, we got to get rid of this lion.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

So they called the wrangler, and the wrangler said, I don't want it.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

How am I going to do it right. So he said, well, can you at least come and get it?

[Tyler]

I was gonna say, can you get in trouble for having it?

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, I'm sure you can. He said, can you. Can you at least come and get it? Bring it to the park and chain it to a tree?

[Tyler]

You know, these guys are typically.

[Joe Pistone]

Usually smart. So that's what he did, you know, he tranquilized it a little bit.

[Brent Tucker]

A little bit.

[Joe Pistone]

So they called the precinct.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

And the guy in the desk, look, quit bothering us. You're drunk. Hangs up, Right? Yeah, about three times.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

So we said, you can't leave this lion in a park overnight.

[Interviewer 1]

Right?

[Joe Pistone]

So they get this couple, throw them a hundred apiece, and say, look, go to the precinct and tell them you're walking in a park and there's a lion chained to a tree.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

And that's what happens.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

That's how. That's how.

[Tyler]

I wonder where that line is now.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

That's how to get rid of the lion, the.

[Brent Tucker]

The shoe debacle and the Japanese restaurant. Now it seems like.

[Interviewer 1]

Did.

[Brent Tucker]

Did you ever have to act, Start wearing a wire or recording for. For some of the stuff, or is everything always a phone and verbal report?

[Joe Pistone]

What I did was when I. When I felt I was going to have good conversations, I wore cowboy boots, okay? So I had a mini cassette recorder that I bought at Radio Shack.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

And put it down the boot.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Did that ever come down back. Back to bite you? Was there any a time that you had to take your shoes off or anything like that? That little bit of the story in the movie. All right, but the. The airport incident with the. With the. With, I believe it was the Attorney General or. Did you ever have an attorney? It was an attorney.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah. Did.

[Brent Tucker]

Did you ever run. In six years, did you ever run into someone that.

[Joe Pistone]

Just that one. Just that.

[Brent Tucker]

That was a real story.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah.

[Interviewer 1]

Really?

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

And did he. Did he. Did he really try to come. Come talk to you?

[Joe Pistone]

Well, he's calling my name.

[Brent Tucker]

He's calling your name.

[Joe Pistone]

And I. I was. I saw him come and he's calling my name, and I'm with Sonny, and I clocked him.

[Brent Tucker]

And so just like the movie. That one was straight out of the movie.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Or straight out of real life.

[Joe Pistone]

I said, sonny, the guy's looking at my prick. What do you want me to do?

[Brent Tucker]

I love it. I do love some of the. Because the story is, you know, is so wild, it's almost hard to tell, like, some other stories. It's almost hard to Tell between like what. What Hollywood put that in and. And what's real.

[Joe Pistone]

I love.

[Brent Tucker]

That's a true story. Did your wife ever change her number or is there ever.

[Interviewer 1]

Like.

[Brent Tucker]

Did she really? She was.

[Joe Pistone]

Well, you know, look, look, here's the way it is. You're never home, right? I mean, six years.

[Brent Tucker]

A long time.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

I mean, she decided she.

[Joe Pistone]

So, you know, and the thing.

[Brent Tucker]

She doesn't know what she's signing up for. I should say, like, no one connects.

[Joe Pistone]

And the thing is, is that in. In my profession versus your profession, you know, you're going to be deployed.

[Interviewer 1]

That's right.

[Brent Tucker]

I have a.

[Joe Pistone]

My defense in my profession is you volunteer.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

You know what I'm saying? So, you know, give you a conversation. Look, you're not home for months. You're on the phone and the washing machine broke. What the f. Do I care about the washing machine breaking?

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

Doesn't call the Maytag guy. He's sitting there doing nothing. Call him.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Brent Tucker]

Those.

[Joe Pistone]

Now you think that went over? No. Right.

[Brent Tucker]

So, yeah, there's some similarities in our. In our jobs as far as that's concerned. That's a big deal to her.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

And it is.

[Brent Tucker]

It's a big deal to her, but it's. But, you know, when. When you're. When you're literally living with the Mafia, that just doesn't hit your radar.

[Joe Pistone]

So it's a big deal. But. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, she got ticked off, but hey, understandable. I'm probably the only guy that. Of all my friends that never got a divorce.

[Interviewer 1]

That's awesome.

[Joe Pistone]

Good for you.

[Brent Tucker]

That's awesome. The. Trying to think of. I had a couple others that. That I thought of while. While you were talking. And one of them is when it. When it came to. At some point, I would imagine it took a while, but you had to. You had to stand in front of those guys at some point and in court. Yeah. And how did you. You know, how did. How long did it take them to realize it was you?

[Joe Pistone]

Took them a while because when it first went down, they thought the FBI had kidnapped me and was trying to make me an informant.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

So until indictments actually came out and their lawyers finally said, hey, this guy's really, really an FBI agent.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

They killed Sonny Black. They killed Tony Mira. Jilly got killed. Lefty was on his way to get killed, and the bureau had picked it up on a wire and they snatched him. They snatched him off the street and saved his life. He. Eventually he did 15 years in a can and he let him out because he was dying of cancer. They let him out and I think he died six months after he got out. But they had put it half a million dollar contract out on me, the commission.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

And I, I testified from. For seven years. Six year undercover operation. I testified for seven years.

[Brent Tucker]

Do. And this is what, you know, you have to.

[Joe Pistone]

It's.

[Brent Tucker]

There's obviously been a lot of time, you know, since then and now you're still alive. But yeah, the Mafia doesn't, doesn't forget. I don't. Do you think either this operation and constant operations like this and the pressure that the FBI and law enforcement put on the Mafia broke them, broke them down. And they're not the same Mafia. And that's, you know, that's part of the reason you feel like you're still alive as a Mafia, you know, to this day. No, no, you're, you're no longer, you know, associated with them. So it might be hard a question to answer, but no, no, that they are just as strong.

[Joe Pistone]

They don't definitely are. I mean it's not only me saying this, but you talk that most law enforcement people, most people that are dealing with our operation was the one that kicked the ass. The Mafia's ass. Because it was the snowball.

[Brent Tucker]

Love to hear it.

[Joe Pistone]

I mean after ours, you know, then they went after, they went after all the bosses.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

Then came the commission case where we indicted every, every major boss in New York, put him in jail. Went after the bosses in other parts of the country. Yeah, the Mafia today. Back in our day, the Mafia ran the country.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

There wasn't anything in the country that moved that they didn't get a piece of.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

Today it's another criminal organization.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

But a shell of what they once were.

[Tyler]

Did you guys take down all the corrupt local cops that might have been under your pay grader?

[Joe Pistone]

The only, the only was that under sheriff. Yeah. And he actually committed suicide when it came out.

[Brent Tucker]

Took care of himself.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We had a crooked detective in New York, but I think that we never got charged. They just let him retire. I didn't have much, much dealing with cops, you know, as far as, as far as that.

[Brent Tucker]

But you, but if it, and of course we're not saying that didn't. It never happened because clearly it did. But you know how Hollywood and stories like to really, you know, ramp that up. And of course like, you know, you only dealt with your small sliver, but in the six years you did that, had it been kind of a pandemic, you, you Would have run across, you know, a lot more crooked cops and your dealings. But it doesn't seem like that was.

[Joe Pistone]

Really something you like, a lot of. I knew of guys, you know, coppers that were bent, you know, but I never had actual dealings with. With them.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

And I'm. Look, there were. There were guys that I was around that didn't get arrested, okay? Because they were. They were on the peripheral. You know, they might have been thieves, but I knew they weren't killers.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

You know, I focused mainly on the guys I knew that deserved it, that were the killers, the guys that ran the families. You know what I mean? I wasn't one of these guys in any of my undercover operations that you jaywalked. I'm making. That wasn't me. That wasn't me. No, I also made it a point. I never arrested anybody in my undercover operations. I did the operation. You make the arrest. I'll see you in court.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

That's the way I operated.

[Brent Tucker]

How long do you think?

[Joe Pistone]

Never. And nothing to. I never.

[Brent Tucker]

You can interrupt.

[Joe Pistone]

I never said. I want to sit down with that guy and try to turn him.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

If they asked to talk to me, fine.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

But I'm not going to them. I mean, that's. That's the way I operate. I'll tell you a story about Sonny Black.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

Remember I told you he was a stone cold killer?

[Interviewer 1]

Yep.

[Joe Pistone]

But he was a guy that, you know, I sat. Like I say, I sat and watched cartoon in our underwear eating a hard rolling. If you're from New York, you know, the hard rolling, butter, you know, and drinking coffee, you know. And I've told this story before. Sonny Black was probably built like you. I mean, the guy was, you know, was. Not that you're not good. Yeah, you're a good thing, but I mean, you're not as. Okay, I'm talking about, you know.

[Interviewer 1]

All right.

[Tyler]

Oh, now he's calling me short.

[Joe Pistone]

So back in the day, I had probably another 15 pounds of muscle on me because I used to lift weights pretty good back in the day. All right.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

And these guys couldn't beat me in arm wrestling.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

Why? I don't know. I was pretty good arm wrestling.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

Now my fingers don't work too good.

[Interviewer 1]

But.

[Joe Pistone]

So Sonny would. He and I would arm wrestle all the time. He could never beat me. So one morning he says, donnie, today's the day I'm going to beat you.

[Brent Tucker]

All right?

[Joe Pistone]

I said, sonny, you've never beaten me yet. He said, I'm going to beat you today. I Said, okay, we're going. He spits in my eye.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

Boom. He said, I told you I was going to beat you. Now, did I get mad at him? No, because that was him, right? You know what I mean? It wasn't, you know, but the FBI goes to Sonny and an agent that knew him pretty good. And, you know, that was in the movie, too, I think, right? And they show him the picture, and he said, right. You know, he said, if I see him, then I'll know that he's, you know.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

Okay. Now, they all know that I'm really an undercover agent. Sonny Black gets a call to go to a sit down.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay?

[Joe Pistone]

Right. Now, remember, he had introduced me to other bosses, other people, other families. I mean, so he. And he gets a call to go to a sit down, goes into the motion lounge. He wore a pink diamond pinky ring, which one day he tried to give to me. And I said, no, Sonny, that's yours. Puts his ring in a bar, takes his money out of his pocket, Puts his money on a bar, takes all the keys off his key ring, puts him on the bar, except the keys to his Cadillac. And he said to the bartender, you tell me this is not a gangster. I'm going to a sit down, and I'm probably not coming back.

[Brent Tucker]

And goes to the meeting anyway, calls.

[Joe Pistone]

His girlfriend, tells her the same thing. Then he tells her something else, right? One of the things he tells her is, if I don't come back and I'm missing, I want you to get in touch with Donnie and tell him. Right? So after a while, you know, they realize he ain't coming back. She calls the FBI. She said, I want to talk to Donnie Brasco. And why do you want to talk to him? Was I got something to tell him from Sonny Black. Okay. So they fly her to Washington, right? Me, her, and two agents, we go to dinner. So she says. Donnie says, here's what happened. He said, sonny got a call, go to a sit down. He went in the bar, you know, when he did this, right? And then he calls me and tells me. And he says, whatever, you know, I don't want to mention her name on it, right? He says, if I don't come back, you know, I'm gone. He said, I want you to get in touch with Donnie. Tell Donnie I loved him. I don't have any grudges against him. He was just better than we were. That's a gangster.

[Interviewer 1]

Wow. Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

Respect.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

All right.

[Brent Tucker]

That's crazy.

[Joe Pistone]

And in all my trials, I never lost it. Never Lost a defendant for entrapment.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

I only lost one defendant in one trial because the jury screwed up. But then we convicted him in another.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

Another trial.

[Interviewer 1]

Wow.

[Brent Tucker]

Wildly successful operation. Yeah, thankfully.

[Interviewer 1]

Because it.

[Brent Tucker]

Because it took a lot of years off your life to do that. And your. Your story is. And the way it ends is. Is unique to some of the other undercover operations that we've covered. So this second final question is a lot easier to ask you, but it's still your answer to give. Was it worth it?

[Joe Pistone]

I think it was worth it because it wasn't a BS Operation because we saw all the results, all the convictions we got. It was the beginning of the downfall of the mafia. And I can be proud of that, that it was. You know, we showed a mafia where it was then and where it is now, and it was all because of our operation that led to all the other mafia.

[Brent Tucker]

Phenomenal effect it had.

[Joe Pistone]

All the other mafia cases.

[Brent Tucker]

Would if. If you went back in time now worth. It's one thing. This one's similar, but it's different. Would you do it again? Would you go back there and tell until your younger self. Yeah, take that or say, well, let someone take this.

[Joe Pistone]

It. It's a funny thing. If you asked me that question last year.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

In the beginning of last year, I might have said yes, but now. And I don't mean to get slurpee or. But I lost six good years with my wife and my kids, and my wife just passed away, so I could never get those six years back.

[Brent Tucker]

You know, what was it?

[Joe Pistone]

What was it?

[Tyler]

What was the key to keeping your marriage stronger and all that?

[Joe Pistone]

Married to an Irish lady.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, I said that was my second last question to you. And after that heavy ending, we could probably use a pick me up. So do you have a funny story for us? We always end our episodes with do you have a funny story?

[Joe Pistone]

Can be anything.

[Tyler]

Anything in life.

[Brent Tucker]

Anything you can, you can take.

[Joe Pistone]

Could it be a mob story?

[Brent Tucker]

You can take your time.

[Interviewer 1]

You can.

[Brent Tucker]

It could be a mob story. It could be anything.

[Joe Pistone]

I got a couple of them.

[Brent Tucker]

Whatever comes to mind does have to kid it.

[Joe Pistone]

Be two.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, sure. Oh, for sure. I prefer to, actually.

[Joe Pistone]

We're out fishing one day when I'm talking about the mob.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. So.

[Joe Pistone]

We got like $500 rigs that the. The owner of the boat provided us. You know, so everybody's fishing and everybody's catching fish but Lefty, okay, He gets so pissed off, he takes this $500 rig and chucks it in the ocean. I mean, that Might not be funny to you, but it was funny to us out on the boat for sure, you know?

[Interviewer 1]

For sure.

[Joe Pistone]

And then another time, it was his birthday.

[Brent Tucker]

Lefty.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah. So I had got him some diamonds.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

I got him a diamond for his wife and his three daughters. So I got him four diamonds. So I had him in a pack. So we get up in the morning, and then we meet, and he said, donnie, what's today? I said, I don't know. What is it? Tuesday, Wednesday?

[Interviewer 1]

I don't know.

[Joe Pistone]

Oh, okay. So we're going on to the afternoon. Yeah. Same question. I slept. I don't know what today is.

[Interviewer 1]

Right.

[Joe Pistone]

I don't know. It was Wednesday. Thursday, it's the 10th. I don't know.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

He's trying to get me to say, yeah, it's my birthday.

[Interviewer 1]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

So that goes on all day. So then we go to dinner. All right. So we're sitting at. There's about five or six of us. So somebody says, hey, Left, today's your birthday. I said, oh, my God. God, Lefty. That's why I said, I forgot. I got your present. So I pull up and I give it to him.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

And. Oh, Donnie, you didn't have to do that. You didn't have to give me any presents for my birthday. He said, how did you know it was my birthday? I said, because you've been telling me all basic.

[Brent Tucker]

I mean, gangsters still have birthdays, and it's still feelings, too. Feelings.

[Interviewer 1]

Where the.

[Brent Tucker]

This is odd. Where do you get the diamonds from? Do you just go to the. Does the FBI have stuff like evidence? You just go shopping?

[Tyler]

Birthday.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

You just go shopping down there? Confiscated.

[Joe Pistone]

Confiscated stuff, Right? Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

So let's just go. You go confiscated shopping, you know, to see. See what you want to get them.

[Joe Pistone]

But, yeah, he was a piece of work.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Seemed like. Seemed like some characters that's.

[Joe Pistone]

You know, there was another guy, you know, Nikki. Nikki had a dry sense of humor, you know, and you say, donnie said, you know, people call me fat, but I'm. I'm just short for my weight. I'm taking that one.

[Brent Tucker]

Short for my weight.

[Interviewer 1]

I've never heard that.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, I love it, man.

[Joe Pistone]

But I mean, you know, those are things that. That you look back on it. I mean, he couldn't. He couldn't take air conditioning.

[Brent Tucker]

He couldn't take Lefty.

[Interviewer 1]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

Couldn't take it.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

So we'd be in Miami, right? And he smoked English ovals, I mean, and they stunk.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Joe Pistone]

Now we're in a car in Miami. With no air conditioning on.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

I turn it on. He turned it off. I turn it on. I closed the. I put the window down. He put the window up because of the draft, so. What draft? It's a hundred degrees, right? So, I mean, we'd be in a hope. And whenever we went to Miami, we'd get like a suite. You know, the hotel. We knew the manager, he'd give us a big suite.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

You couldn't have air conditioning.

[Brent Tucker]

That's so weird.

[Joe Pistone]

I mean, he just could not. So, yeah, we're in Miami one day, and, I mean, I, like, had it up to here, right? So I said, left. I got to go to the head. So I run up to the room and I take the cap off the thermostat.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

And I turned it. Where you could hang meat in that room, right? Yeah, Right. And I put something in there. So you. If you went to turn the thing, you couldn't turn it. I put the cap back on. About an hour later, we're going up to the room to take showers, right? And it is so cold.

[Brent Tucker]

You see your breath?

[Joe Pistone]

I mean, cold.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

So he's. He's hollering, bitching and moaning. You did this, Donnie? I said, what did I do? I don't know. Nothing. He said, call the front desk. Tell him to come up here. So I call, but I got my hand on the thing, and I'm not talking to anybody.

[Interviewer 1]

Right? Yeah, yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Love it.

[Joe Pistone]

I said, hey, we're in suite such and such, you know, in the air conditioner. Can you send somebody up 20 minutes later, nobody's coming, and he's going. He's to going, doing batshit, you know, calling me. Everything you can think of that it's my fault. So I call again, and I'm talking to nobody, right? I do it like three times, and then I can say he's. He's becoming unhinged.

[Interviewer 1]

Right?

[Joe Pistone]

So then I do call the maintenance guy because I didn't want to go over there.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, Right.

[Joe Pistone]

So the maintenance guy comes up and, you know, I give. I give him like, you know, But.

[Brent Tucker]

I bet it was as. As cool as was for you. I bet it was great to have that. Not only that, that little victory with them, but a little bit of time in the ac.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, I mean. I mean, it was crazy. You could not put air conditioning on. It was nuts. Can you imagine riding someone like that? Yeah. Yeah. In Miami or anywhere in Florida, somebody's Miami forefathers, he would play snow, smoking English ovals. And you got the windows up. No air conditioning on.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

I mean, that's almost.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah, he'd.

[Brent Tucker]

He, he. He deserved to go to jail for that alone.

[Joe Pistone]

I. He was, he was hard to. He was. He was a tough guy to, to be around.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

It was all about him, you know, but it was crazy because he loved his grandkid.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

One day he says, we're in Miami and his daughter and the little kid was there because he would. Sometimes he brought them and he says, I can't wait till he's, I don't know, 16 years old. Why? Because I'm going to buy him a machine gun for his birthday. I said, you're going to buy your grandson a machine gun for his birthday?

[Brent Tucker]

16?

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Not a 15. Not a 15. He's too young.

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

I'm a responsible gangster.

[Joe Pistone]

16.

[Tyler]

I shot my first machine gun at 16.

[Joe Pistone]

I'll tell you what, though. The man was a hell of a cook.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, they depicted that. The movie, too.

[Interviewer 1]

That he.

[Joe Pistone]

I mean, that was. That was legit. The man could cook. Man could cook.

[Brent Tucker]

The. Were you brought in as a. I said. I said, last question. But we're gonna hang out after this, I'm sure. If you got time and ask all sorts of ridiculous questions. Were you brought in as an advisor for the movie?

[Joe Pistone]

Yeah, actually, I spent a lot of time with. With Johnny Depp.

[Interviewer 1]

Really?

[Joe Pistone]

Oh, yeah. I spent about four months with him before we start shooting.

[Interviewer 1]

Oh, wow.

[Joe Pistone]

And then I spent every day on a set with him.

[Brent Tucker]

Nice.

[Joe Pistone]

He's a hell of a. Hell of a guy. We've been friends now since 96. I mean, he's been friends with my whole family. Yeah, he's just a great, great guy. And in fact, back in January, he flew in from. I think he was in Spain. Spent two days with us with my whole family. Spent about four or five hours with my wife who was very, very sick. He's just a great guy, man. He. I mean, do you.

[Brent Tucker]

Do you remind him that. I mean, he became very successful, you know, obviously, everyone knows this.

[Joe Pistone]

Well, you know, you remind him that. I do. I said, johnny, remember what your first real movie was?

[Brent Tucker]

You gotta remind them. You know, you gotta. You gotta keep grounded.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. You know?

[Joe Pistone]

No, he's. He's a great guy. He's very.

[Brent Tucker]

That's good to hear.

[Joe Pistone]

He's very thoughtful.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, that's good.

[Joe Pistone]

He's very. I can't say enough about him.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

How was, how was Al Pacino?

[Joe Pistone]

Oh, that was a good.

[Brent Tucker]

On set, it seems like a. It just seems like him and like a role like that.

[Joe Pistone]

It's just, unfortunately, I haven't stayed, like, in. In contact with Al. Like, I mean, I'm a really contact with Johnny Regular, but I think it was last year. When did we go to Connecticut? Two years ago. Two years ago. I'm in the. What airport was that? Westchester. No, no, but. What. Yeah, I mean, Westchester Airport and. Okay, I get. I get it. My cell phone's ringing. It's Johnny Depp and Al Pacino. Yeah, they're calling me from Paris. It was Al Pacino's birthday, so they were celebrating Al's birthday in Paris.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, I'm sure they're reminiscing about movies they did together.

[Joe Pistone]

And Al said, you know, what a great time he had on Donnie Brasco and everything. He's a great guy, too.

[Brent Tucker]

Love to hear it.

[Joe Pistone]

Really. Really a good soul. But like I said, I. I don't stay in touch with him like I do with Johnny. I mean, Johnny and I are like. And he. That's the way he's with my whole family.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah.

[Joe Pistone]

You know, my grandkids can call him. I mean, really.

[Brent Tucker]

I love to hear that.

[Joe Pistone]

And he brings up the phone.

[Interviewer 1]

Yeah. Very cool.

[Joe Pistone]

You know, I mean, this kind of guy is. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, I can't. I can't thank you enough for. For coming out here telling the story. Those stories they do. I'm so glad you wrote a book about it. Those stories have to be told. You know, young men in this country have to hear, you know, stories like this so we can have. Have young men that want to continue to do good things. And they need. They need stories to hear.

[Joe Pistone]

Sacrifice, you know?

[Brent Tucker]

That's right. And they need to hear the whole story. They need to know the sacrifice part of it. They need to know what they're signing up for. It's not. It's not all glory.

[Joe Pistone]

It's.

[Brent Tucker]

It's tough. But in the day, someone has to do it.

[Joe Pistone]

Well, I appreciate you having me on. Yeah, man. Thank you so much for coming.

[Tyler]

Short notice, too.