Inside the American Mob (2013–…): Season 1, Episode 1 - Stayin' Alive in the '70s - full transcript
In the early 1970's, the five families of the American mafia ruled the streets of New York City, but a new generation of FBI agents are about to change the game.
SALVATORE POLISI: I was born
and raised in Brooklyn.
From the time I was about
four or five years old
I was introduced to the American
mob through an uncle of mine.
I go to Manhattan,
I meet this guy,
says, "Listen, you know what?
Johnny Dio says
you owe him a favor.
You got to go to Miami.
Here, here's an address
and here's a name.
And this is what he wants done."
And I look and I listen and
I say, "Hey, no problem."
Couple days later
I get on a plane,
I fly down to Miami Beach.
I meet another guy down there.
Guy says, "Come with me."
I drive over to a little garage,
he says, "Here's a key
to that truck."
He says, "That's what
you're gonna drive
when you go to this house."
He opens up a drawer and he
says, "Now take this with you."
I look down, and it's
a Sheffield knife.
He says, "And you know
what you got to do."
A girl opens the door.
And I say,
"Take me to the back!"
GIRL: Get off! Get off!
POLISI: He's at the pool.
He's a young guy, like 30-ish.
"Okay, let's go get him."
She goes to the back
of the house,
opens the door, says, "John!"
I tie him to the pool table,
and I sit her down,
I say, "You got to watch this."
She said,
"What are you gonna do?"
[grunting]
Took the Sheffield knife,
stuck the knife under
his testicles and sliced him.
[screaming]
She screamed, he yelled.
Went to back to New York
and never talked about it.
And that's how wild and crazy
the mob was in the '70s.
I'm laughing, I mean,
I'm sure the guy didn't die,
and I'm sure we didn't
sever his testicles,
but there was some blood on
the pool table, and I left.
And that was the story.
NEWSWOMAN: In Brooklyn,
a low-level mobster
is put to rest, shot dead
in broad daylight.
Days later another reputed
gangster snuffed out,
execution style.
MAN: Watch your head
when you sit down.
MAN: Roll sound!
NARRATOR: It seems incredible,
but not so long ago in America,
a hidden empire of crime,
violence and money
ruled large parts
of this country.
These men are witnesses...
MAN: Sound speed.
NARRATOR:
...stepping forward now
to tell their story firsthand.
A few stay in the shadows
for personal safety,
fearful of an organization
that most Americans know
only as legend.
Its true name,
Cosa Nostra.
MAN: Lights.
How would you describe
the Mafia?
What is the Mafia?
MICHAEL FRANZESE: You know,
what is the Mafia,
La Cosa Nostra, as we call it
here in America?
MAN: Cosa Nostra is a cult.
MAN: It's a secret society.
FRANZESE: It's a brotherhood
among men.
MAN: Everything that they do
is about making money illegally.
MAN: The Mafia is much more like
a pack of rats
that eat anything in their path,
including each other.
SELWYN RAAB: It is the most
enduring, powerful and venal
organized criminal organization
to exist and to continue
in America.
MICHAEL CHERTOFF:
So in many ways,
you almost had
a shadow government
that controlled huge amounts
of economic activity
in a totally unaccountable way.
JIM KALLSTROM:
The golden age of the Mafia
was the beginning of the '70s,
when they had the strongest grip
on legitimate business
in the United States of America.
NARRATOR: In the 1970s
they controlled trucking,
the ports, the garbage business,
and a lot of the meat,
produce and fish markets.
Much of the building trade
is in their hands.
The carpenters and
electrical unions.
They have judges
on their payroll
and police in their pockets.
RUDOLPH GIULIANI:
No criminal organization
in the history of our country
has ever infiltrated legitimate
institutions of society
the way the Mafia
was able to do.
RAAB: The bosses--untouchable.
They were sitting on thrones.
No one could remove them.
No one in law enforcement is
gonna do anything to hurt them.
KALLSTROM: The FBI did not
have the tools
to deal with a major criminal
enterprise like that.
NARRATOR: By 1970,
law enforcement faces
an overwhelming challenge.
How do you take down
a secret criminal organization
with such deep roots,
so much power,
but so completely hidden
from sight?
KALLSTROM: We were faced with
a mammoth challenge.
And that was, how do you deal
with this enterprise?
How do you actually have
an impact on it?
NARRATOR: That enterprise is
divided into five families--
Genovese, Lucchese, Gambino,
Bonanno, and Colombo.
INTERVIEWER: Mr. Colombo,
are you a boss of the Mafia?
JOE COLOMBO: No, I am not.
INTERVIEWER: Is there a Mafia?
COLOMBO: No, there is not.
NARRATOR: But Joe Colombo is
lying with the confidence
of a man who believes
he's untouchable.
There is a Mafia in 1970,
and he is one of
its most powerful members,
the boss of the most violent of
the five families, the Colombos,
and a vicious killer
in his own right.
RAAB: In his 20s,
he already was involved
in a minimum of 15 hits.
R. LINDLEY DEVECCHIO:
He was credited for at least
18 or more murders,
so he did a lot of work
for the family,
a lot of work being
killing people.
NARRATOR: And Colombo
presides over an army
of psychopathic killers.
Chief among them, this man,
one of his capos,
Crazy Joe Gallo.
RAAB: He was a predatory hood.
He was good at breaking legs,
shooting people.
In the basement he kept
a chained cub lion.
And the idea was he brought
people down there
to show them that if
they got him angry,
he might feed them to the lions.
NARRATOR: But Gallo answers
to the boss,
and that boss makes
a big impression
on everyone who meets him.
MAN: How did you first meet
Joe Colombo?
FRANZESE: I met Joe Colombo
as a kid.
He had a farm upstate
that we would go to,
and I just knew him as Joey.
He was a dapper kind of dresser,
and people respected him,
and he was just a nice guy.
So I met him at an early age,
you know,
before I really realized
who he was.
COLOMBO: Let me tell you
something...
NARRATOR: Joe Colombo was
a mixture of Old World and New.
Like other bosses of
the five families,
he's a master of murder
and corruption.
But unlike the rest,
he's no immigrant.
He's a second generation
Italian American,
born in the United States, and
comfortable in the public eye.
RAAB: He sees himself as
a new generation of boss.
And he believes he's being
harassed unfairly
because he's Italian American.
And he also sees
a great opportunity
that he can become sort of
a civil rights leader.
COLOMBO: I thank God that
I was born of Italian birth.
[cheering]
DEVECCHIO: In 1970, he started
the Italian American League,
which was supposed to be
an organization that showed
that Italians were being
discriminated against.
RAAB: He begins
attracting attention.
TV interviews,
magazine interviews.
FRANZESE: I had just come home
from school,
and we got a phone call.
Joe Colombo's son, Joey Junior,
got arrested.
We're gonna be picketing
the FBI building.
I said, "Great. I'll be there."
DEVECCHIO: Colombo, you know,
was so incensed
that his son had been arrested
on a federal charge
that they actually started
picketing the FBI office
at 69th and 3rd in Manhattan.
We'd walk out of the office
there and they'd call us names.
I had a rock thrown at me,
which just missed my head
and bounced off a firebox.
NARRATOR: Colombo and
his legions take the fight
to the very doors of the enemy.
FRANZESE:
I start walking the line.
Some guys drive by in a car,
and they yell out to me,
"You guinea," whatever they
said, you know, something.
And a cop was standing there
and he said,
"Hey, shut your mouth and
get across the street."
And I got arrogant with him.
Before you know it, I've got
a bunch of cops on top of me
and they're hitting me
with the sticks.
They pick me up and put me
in a paddy wagon.
Joey, I remember, as I'm
bleeding, he puts his head in,
and he says,
"Don't worry about it.
We got everything
under control."
He said, "Just go with them,
we'll take care of it."
You know, it was
a tremendous impression,
'cause I saw the power that
Joe Colombo had at that moment.
It was a good moment for me.
INTERVIEWER: You've had a number
of successes, haven't you?
For example, you've managed to
get the Justice Department
to drop the word "Mafia"
entirely.
Was that your doing?
COLOMBO: It was the voice of
all the Italian people.
FRANZESE: Around that time,
the producer of "The Godfather"
came to visit Joe Colombo.
He sent for him.
And Joey actually looked at
the script of "The Godfather"
back then.
And he took any reference
to the word "Mafia,"
he pulled it out of the script.
GIULIANI: Getting the Justice
Department of the United States
to ban the use of
the word "Mafia,"
that's pretty good
political power.
That is pretty
good political power.
RAAB: The one thing that the
bosses in the '70s did not want
was publicity.
NARRATOR: But against the
tradition of the five families,
Colombo loves the attention
and doesn't seem to know
when to stop.
FRANZESE: Joey started to get
a little bit too out of hand.
RAAB: The old-fashioned bosses
don't like the spotlight.
He's beginning to draw
too much attention.
These are people who like to be
in the shadows.
FRANZESE: I knew it was starting
to become an issue.
RAAB: All that meant
was trouble.
[crowd chanting]
DEVECCHIO: Well, the second
Unity Rally in Columbus Circle,
somewhere around 50,000 people
attended that rally.
The usual hoopla, the vendors
and people waving the banners
and talking about how great
it was to be an Italian.
FRANZESE I had an argument with
my mother that morning.
She did not want me to go.
She said she had a dream that
something bad was gonna happen,
and I said, "I'm going."
ANNOUNCER: I am heartened
by the unity of purpose
that has brought us together.
FRANZESE: We arrive at
Columbus Circle.
They had a big stage set up.
RAAB: There's police protection.
The TV cameras are there.
Thousands of people
are milling around.
ANNOUNCER: A wonderful lady!
JOSEPH COFFEY: We're in a van
with a periscope taking pictures
to see who's who and what's what
within the mob.
DEVECCHIO: Took pictures,
saw enough people,
I was on my way
back to the office.
FRANZESE: I remember Joey
calling me over.
And I walk up the steps
to the stage,
he hands me some brochures,
and he says, "Michael, I want
you to give these out
around Lincoln Center."
And I said, "Okay, Joey."
I turn around and walk away,
and as I approach the steps...
RAAB: Suddenly, one cameraman
gets close to him,
and instead of taking a photo,
fires a gun.
FRANZESE:
I hear boom, boom, boom!
The place went crazy.
ANNOUNCER: Please do not...
Please, ladies and gentlemen!
There's so much bad
happened already.
We plead with you!
Stay back!
We plead with you!
NARRATOR: In June of 1971,
mob boss Joe Colombo is shot
at his own Italian American
civil rights rally
in New York City,
and all hell breaks loose.
Colombo lies unconscious
in the ambulance
transporting him to the hospital
while the big questions
start to emerge.
Who would dare to gun down
one of the most powerful figures
in the Mafia?
REPORTER: What kind of condition
did he appear to be in?
WOMAN: He looked pretty bad.
I mean, I don't know, I've never
seen anybody shot before,
but he was down on the ground
and there was a spot of red
on his right cheek.
ANNOUNCER: In unity,
we pray to our Father
that Joey Colombo makes it.
Our Father...
NARRATOR:
Joe Colombo isn't dead,
but he's in a coma and shows
no sign of waking up.
DEVECCHIO: Everybody was in
a state of shock.
It didn't take us long to
find out that a black man
by the name of Jerome Johnson
was the actual shooter...
ANNOUNCER: Do not move.
DEVECCHIO: ...who himself
was killed there
by members of
the Colombo family.
ANNOUNCER: Give us this day
our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses...
WOMEN: ...as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
DEVECCHIO: And our biggest
concern then was who did it?
RAAB: Someone had to
give the orders.
ANNOUNCER: And lead us
not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.
RAAB: Joe Colombo's chief aids,
they knew right away where the
finger of suspicion pointed.
It pointed to Crazy Joe Gallo.
NARRATOR: Crazy Joe Gallo is
a captain in the Colombo family.
He has a knack for violence,
and no sense of loyalty.
INTERVIEWER: You know anything
about a gang war?
Are you trying to
protect yourself?
JOE GALLO: Gabe, Gabe,
what kind of gang war?
There's no gangs, there's
no wars, there's nothing.
RAAB: Crazy Joe Gallo epitomized
the predatory street thug
of his era.
He always shot for the top.
FRANZESE: Joey Gallo was
an enemy of Joe Colombo's,
was resentful of the fact
that Colombo was the boss
and he wasn't.
NARRATOR: Joe Colombo will
lie in a coma for years
and eventually die
of his wounds.
But in the meantime,
Joe Gallo has his own problems.
RAAB: Gallo had to clear it
with the Commission.
Because a cardinal rule,
which is a self-protection rule,
is you can't kill a boss.
NARRATOR: To understand
what happens next,
you have to understand
how the Mafia began.
The structure of the
organization is the brainchild
of this man,
Charles "Lucky" Luciano.
RAAB: He could be
aptly described
as the criminal version of
a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffet.
He was a genius.
He wrote the constitution
for the American Mafia,
a bible that still
continues till today.
FRANZESE: He had a vision of
what this life should be,
and he implemented that vision.
JAMES KOSSLER:
Luciano's idea was
to set up a organization
nationwide,
not unlike the Roman legions
of Italy.
NARRATOR: In 1931,
Lucky Luciano incorporates
five New York City street gangs
into a single unit.
These gangs become the five
families of the modern Mafia
we know today--
Gambino, Colombo,
Bonanno, Genovese,
and Lucchese.
They're governed by
a gangster board of executives
known as the Commission.
The Commission, the five
mob families' board,
gets to say who lives
and who dies.
And that's where
Joey Gallo comes in.
RAAB: No question about it.
You don't kill a boss
without permission
and hope to get away with it.
There's a contract out
on Joe Gallo's life,
and he knows it.
His 43rd birthday comes around
only 10 months after Joe Colombo
was shot and paralyzed.
It's 4:00 AM and they go
into Little Italy.
And there's only one place open
in Little Italy.
KALLSTROM: There's a restaurant
that's still there today
called Umberto's Clam House.
And Crazy Joe Gallo was sitting
there having a spaghetti dinner.
MAN: They were sitting
at a rear table
when a man walked in
from the backdoor...
...and fired three shots.
[three gunshots]
KALLSTROM: His face fell
into the spaghetti.
RAAB: He manages to stagger out
on the main street,
falls on his face and is dead.
Revenge has been done.
[sirens]
NARRATOR: The shooting of
mob boss Joe Colombo in 1971,
and the murder of Joe Gallo
in retaliation in 1972,
mark the beginning of a new era
for law enforcement
and the American mob.
A younger generation of
federal agents and gangsters
are about to go head-to-head.
Some of the cops are
Italian Americans,
and most of the gangsters
are like Joe Colombo,
born in the USA, not immigrants
like their fathers.
Young guys like
Michael Franzese,
who is standing near Joe Colombo
when he's shot.
FRANZESE: The shooting that day
really impacted me,
when I said you know what?
Something's really going on here
that I don't, I don't
quite understand.
NARRATOR: So Franzese turns
to the one man
who can answer his questions--
his father, Sonny.
One of the most
notorious figures
in the entire history
of the American mob.
EDWARD McDONALD:
Sonny Franzese was somebody
who was a legendary figure in
the world of organized crime.
Very powerful.
FRANZESE: Law enforcement
said he killed
at least 30 people back then.
Now it's, I think it's 60,
um, which I don't believe.
60 people? I mean, come on.
NARRATOR: Growing up,
Michael worships his father
and despises the cops
who shadow him.
FRANZESE: One day I was playing
ball in the street--
I think I was
eight or nine years old--
the ball sailed over my head
and rolled down the street.
The detective stopped the ball
with his foot.
And when I got close to him,
he pulled over his jacket
and he had a gun in there.
And he said,
"This is for your father.
He's gonna get it one day."
And I just looked up at him,
I'll never forget, and I said,
you know,
"Can I have my ball, please?"
He kicked the ball
roughly past me.
And, boy, I hated that guy
at that moment.
You know, I always say,
if I was lost when I was a kid,
the last person I would go to
would be a cop.
I always looked at my dad as
the hero and them as the enemy.
NARRATOR: At the time of
Joe Colombo's shooting in 1971,
Sonny is in prison serving
10 years for bank robbery.
Michael pays him
an urgent visit.
FRANZESE: It was that when we
first really had a discussion
about the life.
First he got angry with me.
He said, "I told you not
to be involved here.
You got to go to school."
I said,
"I'm not going to school.
It's over. I have no desire.
I'm part of this,
I got to help you out."
He said, "Is this what
you want to be part of?"
And I said, "Whatever I got
to do to help you out.
I don't even know what
I'm really a part of.
You never sat down and
explained anything to me.
But it's time."
He says, "If you had to kill
somebody, could you do it?"
I thought about it,
and I said, "You know, if
the circumstances were right,
I think I could."
And he said to me, "Well,
that's the right answer.
Somebody's gonna be
in touch with you."
He said, "You do whatever
you're told."
That was it.
And that was the extent of
the discussion we had.
In asking me that question,
he gave me a choice.
And I made my decision
right then and there.
ANNOUNCER: Here's the mother of
the Italian American
Civil Rights League.
A wonderful lady!
[cheering]
NARRATOR: Before mob boss
Joe Colombo is shot
at his own rally in 1971,
he provides American
law enforcement
with its first big break
against the Mafia.
COFFEY: Joe Colombo organized
a meeting in Columbus Circle
for all his Italian American
cohorts, legit and illegitimate.
NARRATOR: He steps out of
the shadows long enough
for the FBI to photograph
him and his associates.
It's a key moment in
the government's fight
against the Mafia's
five families.
A new generation of FBI agents
and mobsters
are about to go head-to-head.
DEVECCHIO: We photographed
everybody at that rally.
And it enabled us to identify
a lot of the organized
crime members--
who was close to Colombo, who
was made in the Colombo family.
KALLSTROM: The last thing
La Cosa Nostra needed
is the type of public disclosure
that Joe Colombo did.
NARRATOR:
But in the early 1970s,
the FBI still faced
a major obstacle
in trying to nail the bosses
of the five families.
MITRA HORMOZI: Organized crime
families have a code.
It's called "omerta."
And basically,
it's the code of silence.
LOUIS PICHINI: And at that time,
omerta really lived.
The code really had
some substance to it,
and people abided by it.
Which meant that, if you were
prosecuting the mob,
if you were investigating
the mob,
you really didn't have access
to anybody on the inside.
DEVECCHIO: Colombo, as well as
the other bosses,
they knew they were
well insulated.
They had all these soldiers
and all their underlings
to do their criminal bidding,
and they were completely
untouchable.
HORMOZI: Omerta has kept
this gang hard to infiltrate,
so it was almost impossible.
NARRATOR: But just as there is a
new generation inside the mob--
second generation Italians
like Michael Franzese--
there's also a new generation
of agents joining the FBI,
and they're Italian American
as well.
One of them will change history.
This guy, Joe Pistone,
who's about to go deeper inside
the American mob
than any FBI agent before him.
MAN: How did you get into
undercover work?
JOE PISTONE: I always wanted
to be a cop.
I always wanted to be
a police officer, really.
I figured if I'm gonna be
in law enforcement,
I might as well be
with the best.
And I applied to the Bureau,
to the FBI,
got appointed as a special agent
in 1969.
NARRATOR: Pistone and fellow
agents like Steve Salmieri
are the FBI's secret weapons
in the 1970s.
STEVE SALMIERI: We were all
basically inner-city kids,
and we basically made a career
of being Italians
from the inner city.
PISTONE: Even though we hung out
on the corner
with the mob guys growing up,
it all went back to
your upbringing.
I can always remember my dad,
you know, saying,
"You never take another man's
money, you always be fair."
And this always stuck with me.
And I think that's why,
you know, seeing these guys,
seeing the flash and the cash,
you're impressed,
but it wasn't like, geez,
I want to be like that.
NARRATOR: Pistone and Salmieri
join the FBI at a low point
in its battle with the mob.
Agents have a hard time
infiltrating
Mafia neighborhoods.
POLISI: Viewing and watching
FBI's agents on the street,
they all dressed the same.
Everybody had the same hat,
the same suit.
It was easy to spot them!
SALMIERI: Organized crime knew
what police could
or couldn't do.
And that different agencies
they knew, like the FBI,
wasn't working undercover.
And back then it was
a very closed society.
RAAB: They could've worn
a breastplate or a sign
that said "FBI agent"
and given their name,
it was so simple to make them.
NARRATOR: So the FBI
changes strategy.
They send in the neighborhood
guys without a rule book.
PISTONE: When I first started
doing undercover in the FBI,
there was no training.
It basically was guys
that were street guys
before they came in the Bureau.
SALMIERI: We really didn't have
guidelines, we had no training,
and other than we knew that what
was right and what was wrong.
NARRATOR: Street guys like
Pistone and Salmieri know that
to be credible in the mob,
you have to have a specialty.
SALMIERI: He and I were sent
to jewelry school.
PISTONE: We took the same
course together.
And I learned all about
diamonds, precious gems.
NARRATOR: But the newly minted
jeweler now needs a solid cover.
PISTONE: When you're going
into undercover,
you need to have an identity.
Back then, you pick a name,
the government was
able to provide you
with a birth certificate,
took a driving test
like anybody else,
and got a driver's license in
the name of Donnie Brasco.
SALMIERI: We made up
social security numbers.
You didn't give them
your real name.
RAAB: He knows how they operate,
and he knows what
the dangers are.
NARRATOR: With Pistone's alias
established,
Operation Donnie Brasco
slowly begins.
The Bureau targets mob hijackers
as Pistone's way in
and Donnie Brasco hits
the New York streets.
PISTONE: When I first hit
the streets in the operation,
we had restaurants and bars
picked out
that where I would go
and get my face seen,
and hopefully get into
conversations with people.
I went probably six months
not having any illegal
conversations with anybody.
SALMIERI: The Bureau spent a lot
of time, and gave him time,
to actually infiltrate.
Which was the key, because they
were so used to something fast.
PISTONE: To build your persona,
your best bet is being yourself.
You have to, you know,
convince these guys
that you are who
you say you are.
After about six months,
I'm in there one night.
This young lady gets up,
goes to the ladies' room.
On her way back to the
ladies' room, she says hello.
And I say hello.
The bartender catches this.
I call the bartender over, and I
said, "I want to go on record."
Well, that's a mob term.
"I want to go on record.
I did not initiate conversation
with that young lady."
POLISI: There was three
basic reasons
to get killed in the Mafia.
It was either
A) you were an informant,
B) you disobeyed your boss,
or the third possibility was
that you slept with a made
member's wife or daughter.
That would get you killed
for sure.
PISTONE: He just nods his head.
"If you want to talk to her,
talk to her.
Her friend went bye-bye."
Well, he didn't go
to Disneyland.
That meant, you know.
But now the guy knows
that I'm a street guy.
NARRATOR: His credibility
established,
all Pistone needs now is
the right invitation.
And he gets one from
the bartender,
when he asks him if
he likes to gamble.
PISTONE: He said,
"After I close up,"
he said, "you want to come out?"
He said, "I'm going to a couple
after-hours joints."
So I said, "Yeah."
It's a gambling joint
run by all the families.
This bartender introduced me
to different mob guys
from different families.
NARRATOR: It's the breakthrough
Pistone's been waiting for--
a chance to get right into the
gambling dens of Cosa Nostra,
where no FBI agent has
ever penetrated before.
RAAB: They've never had somebody
inside the Mafia
listening to them.
NARRATOR: Now they do.
NARRATOR: The 1970s are
the golden age of the mob,
and the five families of
the New York Mafia operate
with impunity and
rake in millions.
But things are
starting to change.
Undercover agent Joe Pistone,
under the alias Donnie Brasco,
has infiltrated the mob
for the first time ever.
It's an operation so secret,
most in the FBI don't even know
it's happening.
DEVECCHIO: Very few agents
knew what he was doing.
He answered only to one or two
guys, and that was it.
And everybody else,
there was no,
there was no discussion of it
whatsoever.
KALLSTROM: I mean,
I had to be informed,
and the people that were
covering had to be informed,
but it certainly wasn't general
knowledge in the FBI office.
PISTONE: You have to know
who you're infiltrating.
You have to wait for the right,
you know, the right moment.
NARRATOR: Joe Pistone starts
at the bottom rung.
PISTONE: In the mob, everybody
starts out as an associate.
Now, an associate is a crook,
a guy that has the ability
to make money.
And how do you do that?
By showing that you have
the ability to be an earner.
GEORGE ANASTASIA: Traditionally,
to get involved with the Mafia,
you would be an associate
at first.
You'd be--a made guy
would use you.
In the beginning maybe
you're a gopher,
maybe you're running errands,
maybe you're picking up
some money,
taking money here to there.
Maybe you're collecting
sports bets.
POLISI: We did the grunt work
for the mob bosses,
or the upper echelon mob guys.
If they gave you an assignment,
you couldn't refuse
and you had to do it.
FRANZESE: You could tell by
being around the guys
who had, you know,
for lack of a better word,
who was intelligent.
In other words, some guys were
there to do the work,
they were kind of the thug guys,
and other guys were more
looked up to,
to, you know,
bring the family forward.
PISTONE: My background
helped a lot,
because I know you don't
walk into a place
that you know there's mob guys,
and you walk up the mob guy and
say, "Hey, I'm Donnie Brasco,
I'm a jewel thief.
I want to, you know, I want to
start running with you guys."
It's like, it doesn't happen.
SALMIERI:
And you got to remember,
the god of organized crime is
money, "scharole" in Italian.
And if you had something that
they were interested in,
that they could use you at,
well, that's what it is--
what are they looking for?
And then you furnish it.
PISTONE: We figured that being
a jewel thief was a good one
because you could do it alone.
So I got a pack of diamonds.
And I put the envelope on
the bar, and I say, "Charlie,"
I say, "I need X-amount of money
for this package."
I don't tell him what's in it.
He takes it.
Couple weeks go by.
One night I come in,
and then he says, "Somebody left
this envelope for you."
So I said, "Okay,"
I put it in my pocket.
We go out and get back, and
what I asked for is in there.
So now the guy knows that,
you know, I'm a little shady.
NARRATOR: But the deeper
Pistone goes,
the more dangerous
the operation gets,
especially when he wears a wire.
KALLSTROM: There were times
when we felt
that we had to have
close protection for him.
We dedicated one particular
surveillance team,
that became very
familiar with Joe
and they developed all kinds of
signals and modus operandi.
NARRATOR: Agent Joe Pistone
is gaining credibility
as a criminal on the street,
while mob descendant
Michael Franzese
is about to begin his own career
in Cosa Nostra.
FRANZESE: One of my dad's
soldiers called me and said,
"Meet me at the JV lounge,"
which was on Metropolitan Avenue
in Brooklyn.
We go see Tom DiBella.
Tom was acting boss for Persico
at the time,
who had taken control
of the family.
And Tom says to me, "I got
a message from your father.
He said you want to become
a member of our life.
Is that true?"
And I remember saying, "Yeah,
if that's what my dad wants,
that's what I want."
And he said,
"I didn't ask you that.
I said, is this what you want?"
And I said,
"Yes. It's what I want."
TOM DiBELLA: Michael...
FRANZESE: He said,
"Well, here's the deal.
From now on, 24 hours a day, 7
days a week,
you're on call to
serve this family.
If your mother is sick
and she's dying,
and we call you
to serve this family,
you leave your mother's side
and you come and serve us.
From now on, we're number one
in your life,
before anything and everything.
I'm putting you
with Andrew Russo,
he's your captain.
You do whatever
Andrew tells you."
I said, "Okay."
Andrew looks at me, he says,
"You're gonna be busy
from now on."
He says, "Meet me tomorrow night
on Carroll Street,
and wear a suit."
That was it.
NARRATOR: Michael Franzese is
now a Colombo family associate.
His education begins and ends
with one lesson--
how to make money
for the boss of the family.
POLISI: As an associate,
if you made a score,
you had to make sure you sent
something up to the boss--
a couple hundred dollars
in an envelope.
Most guys that are associates,
not made members,
they always have to kick up
to their boss.
ANASTASIA: If you get involved
and you become an earner,
somebody who can be trusted,
you become a higher associate.
FRANZESE: I had to be
a good earner.
I wanted to be the best possible
mob guy I could be.
I made a score at one point,
some guy came to me
with a load of meat.
If I remember,
$6,000 or $7,000 worth of meat.
MAN: Let me show you...
FRANZESE: So I said, "Andrew,
I got this load of meat."
He says, "Make sure when you get
the money, you turn it in."
Great. So I bring it,
and I turn it in.
It's like seven grand,
and he takes it,
and after a day or so
he gives me back 600 bucks.
And I said, "Wait a second. I
give him 7,000, I get 600 back?"
I said, "What the...I don't like
the math here," you know?
I saw my father the next time
and he said to me, "What'd you
turn it all in for?"
He said, "Rule of thumb--
25% goes to them."
He said, "You keep the rest."
It's really on-the-job training.
I mean, nobody prepares you
for this stuff.
NARRATOR: Franzese soon finds
a much bigger way to earn--
a gigantic scam in
overseas shipping.
For a cut of the take, a friend
who works for a shipping company
sends Franzese fake work orders
to repair his containers.
Franzese doesn't actually
repair the containers,
but bills the company anyway.
FRANZESE: And they would
cut me a check.
We were doing
$20,000, $30,000 a month.
And all he did was submit a work
order and I submitted a bill.
And that was the scam.
McDONALD: He became
the biggest earner
not only in the Colombo family,
but probably on
an individual basis
among all the made guys
in the five families.
FRANZESE: It was only
a handful of us
that were making real money.
NARRATOR: He's so successful
at earning
that the highest honor in
the Mafia is within his grasp.
He's on the verge of
becoming a made man.
FRANZESE: Even though I didn't
know the time or the place
or when the event would happen,
I knew that things were
starting to heat up,
because a couple of guys were
all of a sudden being made.
So I kind of knew
my time was coming.
NARRATOR: It's 1975,
and Michael Franzese,
an associate in New York City's
infamous Colombo family,
is on the verge of achieving
the highest honor in the Mafia--
becoming a made man.
FRANZESE: My dad never told me
about his particular induction.
You know, he said you're not
gonna know when it happens,
but when it happens,
you're gonna feel good about it.
It's a very serious situation,
and you're gonna get on a high
afterwards.
And he was right.
I'm in bed one morning,
it was early.
And I get a call from Andrew.
And he said,
"Meet me on Carroll Street
at such-and-such a time,"
he said, "Dress up."
It happened to be Halloween
night, and it was 1975,
a night I obviously
can't forget.
We end up in Brooklyn at
Anthony Colombo's catering hall.
And then I started to realize,
this is it, you know?
This is my time.
POLISI: To become a made guy,
you have to participate in
a murder, you were 100% Italian,
and you were sponsored by
two official members.
You qualify and you had to go in
and take this oath
that you were never
supposed to reveal
the secrets of the organization.
FAT SAL: You could refuse it
all you want.
If they want you to
become a made guy,
they're going to force you
to become a made guy.
It is a lifetime contract.
Respect and honor
is the whole life.
POLISI: The only way out
would be death.
FRANZESE: It was very dark,
there was a couple
of candles lit.
I walk down the aisle and
I stand in front of Tom DiBella.
Tom was acting boss for Persico
at the time,
who had taken control
of the family.
And this initiation starts.
And it's very intense.
And Tom looks at me and he says,
"Are you ready?"
And I says, "I am."
And then we went through
the ritual.
Andrew had a little knife.
And he cuts my finger and
some blood drops on the floor.
And he, I remember him gripping
my hand very firmly.
And I remember looking down and
seeing blood spots there,
so this was a place I knew
that had been used before.
He took a picture of a saint,
put it in my hands,
and lit it aflame.
And then Tom started
to say to me,
"Tonight, Michael Franzese,
you're being born again."
And I'll never forget
those words.
He said, "You're being born
again into a new life,
our life, La Cosa Nostra."
"Do you swear to give your life
to this, to La Cosa Nostra?"
I said, "Yes, I do."
"If you violate what you know
about this life,
betray any of your brothers,
you will die and burn in hell
like this saint is burning
in your hands."
And he said,
"You're a friend of ours."
And he hugged me.
Andrew hugs me.
And then all the captains line
up and they all give me a hug,
and welcome me,
a kiss on the cheek.
As Tom said, "From now on,
wherever you go in the world,
you'll have a brother there.
Don't ever worry about
your mother,
your sister, your daughter.
We're gonna protect them."
And you know, I got your back,
you got mine.
That was exhilarating for me
to know that, okay, I made it,
I'm here, and now it's up to me
to really prove
that I'm worthy of the life.
As Tom said, "Let this be
a lesson to all of you.
We don't earn for you,
you're gonna earn for us.
It's all about earning for
the family and doing for us."
And he looked at me.
"We want you guys
that are earners
to get out there and earn."
And then we ate,
and we had a celebration.
And then that was it.
And I went home that night
after we talked
and I was very exhilarated.
And I understood that once
you're part of that life,
you're a new creation
within that life.
NARRATOR: Michael Franzese
is now a made man
in the Colombo family, moving up
from associate to soldier.
But undercover FBI agent
Joe Pistone
is still knocking on the same
door, trying to get in.
Under the alias Donnie Brasco,
he gets his first invitation
from a Colombo hijacker
named Jilly.
PISTONE: He had a club
up in Brooklyn.
So I go up there and I start
hanging out with Jilly.
When you're with a particular
Mafia crew,
they go to their social club
every day
and you hang out with your crew.
NARRATOR: Every day he walks
a line fraught with danger.
PISTONE: They're playing cards,
they're talking about
if they got a book-making
operation going,
they're talking about
if they got a club,
a bar, a go-go joint,
all their illegal activities
that they have going on.
They're talking about problems
within the family.
How are we gonna
make more money?
To be a good investigator,
to be a good agent,
that's one of the things,
street smarts,
you have to be convincing.
RAAB: He's got to be able
to carry out the acts
that they want him,
the proof that he's a loyal,
dedicated member,
and that he'll do
what he's told.
Because one mistake,
the slightest error...
If mob guys suspect that
you're an undercover agent
or you might be an informer,
you're through.
They never hesitate to kill.
NARRATOR: Undercover FBI agent
Joe Pistone
has finally penetrated
the Colombo family ranks
under the alias Donnie Brasco.
He gets his first break with
a Colombo hijacker named Jilly.
PISTONE: When I was with Jilly
I had to learn about
how to steal cars.
I had to learn how to
get under the car,
disarm the alarm system,
punch a door lock,
punch an ignition key.
And we'd actually go on lots
and take the cars.
This was the first time that
I stole anything of high value
where I actually
stole it myself.
NARRATOR: But not everyone in
Jilly's crew likes or trusts
the newcomer, Donnie Brasco.
And his attempt to
become an associate
within the Colombo family
hits a roadblock.
PISTONE: I got into a beef
with two of these guys.
Frankie and Patsy,
they came out of the can,
they wanted to start
making money.
Being that I was a jewel thief,
they wanted some information
on different things.
They come up with some
crazy schemes to rob places.
I tell them, "Look, you got
an alarm system in this place
that, you know,
you can't defeat."
Or, "How do you expect
to crack that safe?"
I'm being negative.
I'm telling them,
"No, you can't do it like that.
You can't do this."
And this kind of
ticked them off.
Patsy was a made guy.
And Frankie wasn't.
Patsy puts a gun on the table.
And basically what
he says to me,
he said, "Donnie,
if you don't convince me
you're as good as these guys
say you are,
the only way you're going out of
here is rolled up in that rug."
RAAB: You're Joe Pistone.
And you're wise enough to know
that at any moment, any mistake,
the slightest error could be
a death sentence for you.
PISTONE: He said, "Donnie,
tell us where you were
before New York, tell us who
you robbed with down in Miami."
RAAB: These guys you're dealing
with are stone cold killers.
And they don't want to
take any chance.
PISTONE: As a street guy,
you don't give up other guys
that you did,
supposedly did scores with.
You try to turn
the conversation around.
"How do I know that you didn't
become an informant in jail?"
BRASCO: Could make
a lot of dough...
PISTONE: Finally, after about
five hours, it's all over.
As a street guy,
if I go to shake his hand
and say, "Look, you know,
I understand that, you know,
you had a concern,
but let's forget about it,"
that's a red flag
in somebody's mind.
Because, why isn't Donnie mad?
We just basically
called him out.
The only thing they understand
in this situation is force.
I turn around and I hit Frankie.
Why? He's not a made guy.
I can't hit Patsy.
Now Patsy's punching
the hell out of me,
but I can't do anything.
You lay your hands on a made
guy, that's cause to get killed.
So that's another notch
in my credibility,
because if I was bad,
you know...
I wouldn't do that.
NARRATOR: So Pistone survives
the sit-down
and successfully proves himself
to the Colombo family.
And for the first time,
an FBI agent has been
fully accepted
into the world of
the American mob.
GIULIANI: Law enforcement work
requires infiltration.
The Pistone case was
a big, big breakthrough
because it filled in
a lot of the blanks.
It identified
a lot of the people.
That's absolutely vital to any
kind of successful effort
to deal with any kind of
organized criminal enterprise.
NARRATOR: But it's only
the beginning
of this extraordinary effort
by Joe Pistone
to get inside the American mob.
PISTONE: This undercover case
was the beginning
of the unraveling of the Mafia
in America as we knew it.
NARRATOR: Now as he gets
even further inside,
the job is about to get
far more dangerous.
Even though
he's established himself
inside the Colombo family,
an even greater opportunity
opens up
in the most vicious of all
the five families, the Bonannos.
MCDONALD: The Bonanno family
controlled gambling
and loan sharking
back in the day.
But those days were over,
and they had to find other ways
of making money.
JIM WALDEN: The Bonanno family
can be fairly characterized
as groundbreakers when it came
to drug trafficking.
FAT SAL: They would smoke drugs,
rob drug dealers,
they were wild guys.
WALDEN: The Bonannos were
really, at this period of time,
the worst.
ROBBER: Get down!
ROBBER: Everybody down!
Hit the floor!
NARRATOR: The 1970s will see
the historic rise of two men
within two of the mob's
key families--
undercover agent Joe Pistone
with the Bonannos...
PISTONE: When I was told you got
the contract to kill Bruno,
I said, "Okay, Sonny,
where do you think he is?"
NARRATOR: ...and newly made man
Michael Franzese
among the Colombos.
FRANZESE: I had a jet plane,
I had a helicopter,
I had all the money I wanted,
I did whatever I wanted to do.
NARRATOR: And usher in a vicious
new era of bloodshed.
FRANZESE: Even my own father
put a contract on me.
[gunshots]
and raised in Brooklyn.
From the time I was about
four or five years old
I was introduced to the American
mob through an uncle of mine.
I go to Manhattan,
I meet this guy,
says, "Listen, you know what?
Johnny Dio says
you owe him a favor.
You got to go to Miami.
Here, here's an address
and here's a name.
And this is what he wants done."
And I look and I listen and
I say, "Hey, no problem."
Couple days later
I get on a plane,
I fly down to Miami Beach.
I meet another guy down there.
Guy says, "Come with me."
I drive over to a little garage,
he says, "Here's a key
to that truck."
He says, "That's what
you're gonna drive
when you go to this house."
He opens up a drawer and he
says, "Now take this with you."
I look down, and it's
a Sheffield knife.
He says, "And you know
what you got to do."
A girl opens the door.
And I say,
"Take me to the back!"
GIRL: Get off! Get off!
POLISI: He's at the pool.
He's a young guy, like 30-ish.
"Okay, let's go get him."
She goes to the back
of the house,
opens the door, says, "John!"
I tie him to the pool table,
and I sit her down,
I say, "You got to watch this."
She said,
"What are you gonna do?"
[grunting]
Took the Sheffield knife,
stuck the knife under
his testicles and sliced him.
[screaming]
She screamed, he yelled.
Went to back to New York
and never talked about it.
And that's how wild and crazy
the mob was in the '70s.
I'm laughing, I mean,
I'm sure the guy didn't die,
and I'm sure we didn't
sever his testicles,
but there was some blood on
the pool table, and I left.
And that was the story.
NEWSWOMAN: In Brooklyn,
a low-level mobster
is put to rest, shot dead
in broad daylight.
Days later another reputed
gangster snuffed out,
execution style.
MAN: Watch your head
when you sit down.
MAN: Roll sound!
NARRATOR: It seems incredible,
but not so long ago in America,
a hidden empire of crime,
violence and money
ruled large parts
of this country.
These men are witnesses...
MAN: Sound speed.
NARRATOR:
...stepping forward now
to tell their story firsthand.
A few stay in the shadows
for personal safety,
fearful of an organization
that most Americans know
only as legend.
Its true name,
Cosa Nostra.
MAN: Lights.
How would you describe
the Mafia?
What is the Mafia?
MICHAEL FRANZESE: You know,
what is the Mafia,
La Cosa Nostra, as we call it
here in America?
MAN: Cosa Nostra is a cult.
MAN: It's a secret society.
FRANZESE: It's a brotherhood
among men.
MAN: Everything that they do
is about making money illegally.
MAN: The Mafia is much more like
a pack of rats
that eat anything in their path,
including each other.
SELWYN RAAB: It is the most
enduring, powerful and venal
organized criminal organization
to exist and to continue
in America.
MICHAEL CHERTOFF:
So in many ways,
you almost had
a shadow government
that controlled huge amounts
of economic activity
in a totally unaccountable way.
JIM KALLSTROM:
The golden age of the Mafia
was the beginning of the '70s,
when they had the strongest grip
on legitimate business
in the United States of America.
NARRATOR: In the 1970s
they controlled trucking,
the ports, the garbage business,
and a lot of the meat,
produce and fish markets.
Much of the building trade
is in their hands.
The carpenters and
electrical unions.
They have judges
on their payroll
and police in their pockets.
RUDOLPH GIULIANI:
No criminal organization
in the history of our country
has ever infiltrated legitimate
institutions of society
the way the Mafia
was able to do.
RAAB: The bosses--untouchable.
They were sitting on thrones.
No one could remove them.
No one in law enforcement is
gonna do anything to hurt them.
KALLSTROM: The FBI did not
have the tools
to deal with a major criminal
enterprise like that.
NARRATOR: By 1970,
law enforcement faces
an overwhelming challenge.
How do you take down
a secret criminal organization
with such deep roots,
so much power,
but so completely hidden
from sight?
KALLSTROM: We were faced with
a mammoth challenge.
And that was, how do you deal
with this enterprise?
How do you actually have
an impact on it?
NARRATOR: That enterprise is
divided into five families--
Genovese, Lucchese, Gambino,
Bonanno, and Colombo.
INTERVIEWER: Mr. Colombo,
are you a boss of the Mafia?
JOE COLOMBO: No, I am not.
INTERVIEWER: Is there a Mafia?
COLOMBO: No, there is not.
NARRATOR: But Joe Colombo is
lying with the confidence
of a man who believes
he's untouchable.
There is a Mafia in 1970,
and he is one of
its most powerful members,
the boss of the most violent of
the five families, the Colombos,
and a vicious killer
in his own right.
RAAB: In his 20s,
he already was involved
in a minimum of 15 hits.
R. LINDLEY DEVECCHIO:
He was credited for at least
18 or more murders,
so he did a lot of work
for the family,
a lot of work being
killing people.
NARRATOR: And Colombo
presides over an army
of psychopathic killers.
Chief among them, this man,
one of his capos,
Crazy Joe Gallo.
RAAB: He was a predatory hood.
He was good at breaking legs,
shooting people.
In the basement he kept
a chained cub lion.
And the idea was he brought
people down there
to show them that if
they got him angry,
he might feed them to the lions.
NARRATOR: But Gallo answers
to the boss,
and that boss makes
a big impression
on everyone who meets him.
MAN: How did you first meet
Joe Colombo?
FRANZESE: I met Joe Colombo
as a kid.
He had a farm upstate
that we would go to,
and I just knew him as Joey.
He was a dapper kind of dresser,
and people respected him,
and he was just a nice guy.
So I met him at an early age,
you know,
before I really realized
who he was.
COLOMBO: Let me tell you
something...
NARRATOR: Joe Colombo was
a mixture of Old World and New.
Like other bosses of
the five families,
he's a master of murder
and corruption.
But unlike the rest,
he's no immigrant.
He's a second generation
Italian American,
born in the United States, and
comfortable in the public eye.
RAAB: He sees himself as
a new generation of boss.
And he believes he's being
harassed unfairly
because he's Italian American.
And he also sees
a great opportunity
that he can become sort of
a civil rights leader.
COLOMBO: I thank God that
I was born of Italian birth.
[cheering]
DEVECCHIO: In 1970, he started
the Italian American League,
which was supposed to be
an organization that showed
that Italians were being
discriminated against.
RAAB: He begins
attracting attention.
TV interviews,
magazine interviews.
FRANZESE: I had just come home
from school,
and we got a phone call.
Joe Colombo's son, Joey Junior,
got arrested.
We're gonna be picketing
the FBI building.
I said, "Great. I'll be there."
DEVECCHIO: Colombo, you know,
was so incensed
that his son had been arrested
on a federal charge
that they actually started
picketing the FBI office
at 69th and 3rd in Manhattan.
We'd walk out of the office
there and they'd call us names.
I had a rock thrown at me,
which just missed my head
and bounced off a firebox.
NARRATOR: Colombo and
his legions take the fight
to the very doors of the enemy.
FRANZESE:
I start walking the line.
Some guys drive by in a car,
and they yell out to me,
"You guinea," whatever they
said, you know, something.
And a cop was standing there
and he said,
"Hey, shut your mouth and
get across the street."
And I got arrogant with him.
Before you know it, I've got
a bunch of cops on top of me
and they're hitting me
with the sticks.
They pick me up and put me
in a paddy wagon.
Joey, I remember, as I'm
bleeding, he puts his head in,
and he says,
"Don't worry about it.
We got everything
under control."
He said, "Just go with them,
we'll take care of it."
You know, it was
a tremendous impression,
'cause I saw the power that
Joe Colombo had at that moment.
It was a good moment for me.
INTERVIEWER: You've had a number
of successes, haven't you?
For example, you've managed to
get the Justice Department
to drop the word "Mafia"
entirely.
Was that your doing?
COLOMBO: It was the voice of
all the Italian people.
FRANZESE: Around that time,
the producer of "The Godfather"
came to visit Joe Colombo.
He sent for him.
And Joey actually looked at
the script of "The Godfather"
back then.
And he took any reference
to the word "Mafia,"
he pulled it out of the script.
GIULIANI: Getting the Justice
Department of the United States
to ban the use of
the word "Mafia,"
that's pretty good
political power.
That is pretty
good political power.
RAAB: The one thing that the
bosses in the '70s did not want
was publicity.
NARRATOR: But against the
tradition of the five families,
Colombo loves the attention
and doesn't seem to know
when to stop.
FRANZESE: Joey started to get
a little bit too out of hand.
RAAB: The old-fashioned bosses
don't like the spotlight.
He's beginning to draw
too much attention.
These are people who like to be
in the shadows.
FRANZESE: I knew it was starting
to become an issue.
RAAB: All that meant
was trouble.
[crowd chanting]
DEVECCHIO: Well, the second
Unity Rally in Columbus Circle,
somewhere around 50,000 people
attended that rally.
The usual hoopla, the vendors
and people waving the banners
and talking about how great
it was to be an Italian.
FRANZESE I had an argument with
my mother that morning.
She did not want me to go.
She said she had a dream that
something bad was gonna happen,
and I said, "I'm going."
ANNOUNCER: I am heartened
by the unity of purpose
that has brought us together.
FRANZESE: We arrive at
Columbus Circle.
They had a big stage set up.
RAAB: There's police protection.
The TV cameras are there.
Thousands of people
are milling around.
ANNOUNCER: A wonderful lady!
JOSEPH COFFEY: We're in a van
with a periscope taking pictures
to see who's who and what's what
within the mob.
DEVECCHIO: Took pictures,
saw enough people,
I was on my way
back to the office.
FRANZESE: I remember Joey
calling me over.
And I walk up the steps
to the stage,
he hands me some brochures,
and he says, "Michael, I want
you to give these out
around Lincoln Center."
And I said, "Okay, Joey."
I turn around and walk away,
and as I approach the steps...
RAAB: Suddenly, one cameraman
gets close to him,
and instead of taking a photo,
fires a gun.
FRANZESE:
I hear boom, boom, boom!
The place went crazy.
ANNOUNCER: Please do not...
Please, ladies and gentlemen!
There's so much bad
happened already.
We plead with you!
Stay back!
We plead with you!
NARRATOR: In June of 1971,
mob boss Joe Colombo is shot
at his own Italian American
civil rights rally
in New York City,
and all hell breaks loose.
Colombo lies unconscious
in the ambulance
transporting him to the hospital
while the big questions
start to emerge.
Who would dare to gun down
one of the most powerful figures
in the Mafia?
REPORTER: What kind of condition
did he appear to be in?
WOMAN: He looked pretty bad.
I mean, I don't know, I've never
seen anybody shot before,
but he was down on the ground
and there was a spot of red
on his right cheek.
ANNOUNCER: In unity,
we pray to our Father
that Joey Colombo makes it.
Our Father...
NARRATOR:
Joe Colombo isn't dead,
but he's in a coma and shows
no sign of waking up.
DEVECCHIO: Everybody was in
a state of shock.
It didn't take us long to
find out that a black man
by the name of Jerome Johnson
was the actual shooter...
ANNOUNCER: Do not move.
DEVECCHIO: ...who himself
was killed there
by members of
the Colombo family.
ANNOUNCER: Give us this day
our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses...
WOMEN: ...as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
DEVECCHIO: And our biggest
concern then was who did it?
RAAB: Someone had to
give the orders.
ANNOUNCER: And lead us
not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.
RAAB: Joe Colombo's chief aids,
they knew right away where the
finger of suspicion pointed.
It pointed to Crazy Joe Gallo.
NARRATOR: Crazy Joe Gallo is
a captain in the Colombo family.
He has a knack for violence,
and no sense of loyalty.
INTERVIEWER: You know anything
about a gang war?
Are you trying to
protect yourself?
JOE GALLO: Gabe, Gabe,
what kind of gang war?
There's no gangs, there's
no wars, there's nothing.
RAAB: Crazy Joe Gallo epitomized
the predatory street thug
of his era.
He always shot for the top.
FRANZESE: Joey Gallo was
an enemy of Joe Colombo's,
was resentful of the fact
that Colombo was the boss
and he wasn't.
NARRATOR: Joe Colombo will
lie in a coma for years
and eventually die
of his wounds.
But in the meantime,
Joe Gallo has his own problems.
RAAB: Gallo had to clear it
with the Commission.
Because a cardinal rule,
which is a self-protection rule,
is you can't kill a boss.
NARRATOR: To understand
what happens next,
you have to understand
how the Mafia began.
The structure of the
organization is the brainchild
of this man,
Charles "Lucky" Luciano.
RAAB: He could be
aptly described
as the criminal version of
a Bill Gates or a Warren Buffet.
He was a genius.
He wrote the constitution
for the American Mafia,
a bible that still
continues till today.
FRANZESE: He had a vision of
what this life should be,
and he implemented that vision.
JAMES KOSSLER:
Luciano's idea was
to set up a organization
nationwide,
not unlike the Roman legions
of Italy.
NARRATOR: In 1931,
Lucky Luciano incorporates
five New York City street gangs
into a single unit.
These gangs become the five
families of the modern Mafia
we know today--
Gambino, Colombo,
Bonanno, Genovese,
and Lucchese.
They're governed by
a gangster board of executives
known as the Commission.
The Commission, the five
mob families' board,
gets to say who lives
and who dies.
And that's where
Joey Gallo comes in.
RAAB: No question about it.
You don't kill a boss
without permission
and hope to get away with it.
There's a contract out
on Joe Gallo's life,
and he knows it.
His 43rd birthday comes around
only 10 months after Joe Colombo
was shot and paralyzed.
It's 4:00 AM and they go
into Little Italy.
And there's only one place open
in Little Italy.
KALLSTROM: There's a restaurant
that's still there today
called Umberto's Clam House.
And Crazy Joe Gallo was sitting
there having a spaghetti dinner.
MAN: They were sitting
at a rear table
when a man walked in
from the backdoor...
...and fired three shots.
[three gunshots]
KALLSTROM: His face fell
into the spaghetti.
RAAB: He manages to stagger out
on the main street,
falls on his face and is dead.
Revenge has been done.
[sirens]
NARRATOR: The shooting of
mob boss Joe Colombo in 1971,
and the murder of Joe Gallo
in retaliation in 1972,
mark the beginning of a new era
for law enforcement
and the American mob.
A younger generation of
federal agents and gangsters
are about to go head-to-head.
Some of the cops are
Italian Americans,
and most of the gangsters
are like Joe Colombo,
born in the USA, not immigrants
like their fathers.
Young guys like
Michael Franzese,
who is standing near Joe Colombo
when he's shot.
FRANZESE: The shooting that day
really impacted me,
when I said you know what?
Something's really going on here
that I don't, I don't
quite understand.
NARRATOR: So Franzese turns
to the one man
who can answer his questions--
his father, Sonny.
One of the most
notorious figures
in the entire history
of the American mob.
EDWARD McDONALD:
Sonny Franzese was somebody
who was a legendary figure in
the world of organized crime.
Very powerful.
FRANZESE: Law enforcement
said he killed
at least 30 people back then.
Now it's, I think it's 60,
um, which I don't believe.
60 people? I mean, come on.
NARRATOR: Growing up,
Michael worships his father
and despises the cops
who shadow him.
FRANZESE: One day I was playing
ball in the street--
I think I was
eight or nine years old--
the ball sailed over my head
and rolled down the street.
The detective stopped the ball
with his foot.
And when I got close to him,
he pulled over his jacket
and he had a gun in there.
And he said,
"This is for your father.
He's gonna get it one day."
And I just looked up at him,
I'll never forget, and I said,
you know,
"Can I have my ball, please?"
He kicked the ball
roughly past me.
And, boy, I hated that guy
at that moment.
You know, I always say,
if I was lost when I was a kid,
the last person I would go to
would be a cop.
I always looked at my dad as
the hero and them as the enemy.
NARRATOR: At the time of
Joe Colombo's shooting in 1971,
Sonny is in prison serving
10 years for bank robbery.
Michael pays him
an urgent visit.
FRANZESE: It was that when we
first really had a discussion
about the life.
First he got angry with me.
He said, "I told you not
to be involved here.
You got to go to school."
I said,
"I'm not going to school.
It's over. I have no desire.
I'm part of this,
I got to help you out."
He said, "Is this what
you want to be part of?"
And I said, "Whatever I got
to do to help you out.
I don't even know what
I'm really a part of.
You never sat down and
explained anything to me.
But it's time."
He says, "If you had to kill
somebody, could you do it?"
I thought about it,
and I said, "You know, if
the circumstances were right,
I think I could."
And he said to me, "Well,
that's the right answer.
Somebody's gonna be
in touch with you."
He said, "You do whatever
you're told."
That was it.
And that was the extent of
the discussion we had.
In asking me that question,
he gave me a choice.
And I made my decision
right then and there.
ANNOUNCER: Here's the mother of
the Italian American
Civil Rights League.
A wonderful lady!
[cheering]
NARRATOR: Before mob boss
Joe Colombo is shot
at his own rally in 1971,
he provides American
law enforcement
with its first big break
against the Mafia.
COFFEY: Joe Colombo organized
a meeting in Columbus Circle
for all his Italian American
cohorts, legit and illegitimate.
NARRATOR: He steps out of
the shadows long enough
for the FBI to photograph
him and his associates.
It's a key moment in
the government's fight
against the Mafia's
five families.
A new generation of FBI agents
and mobsters
are about to go head-to-head.
DEVECCHIO: We photographed
everybody at that rally.
And it enabled us to identify
a lot of the organized
crime members--
who was close to Colombo, who
was made in the Colombo family.
KALLSTROM: The last thing
La Cosa Nostra needed
is the type of public disclosure
that Joe Colombo did.
NARRATOR:
But in the early 1970s,
the FBI still faced
a major obstacle
in trying to nail the bosses
of the five families.
MITRA HORMOZI: Organized crime
families have a code.
It's called "omerta."
And basically,
it's the code of silence.
LOUIS PICHINI: And at that time,
omerta really lived.
The code really had
some substance to it,
and people abided by it.
Which meant that, if you were
prosecuting the mob,
if you were investigating
the mob,
you really didn't have access
to anybody on the inside.
DEVECCHIO: Colombo, as well as
the other bosses,
they knew they were
well insulated.
They had all these soldiers
and all their underlings
to do their criminal bidding,
and they were completely
untouchable.
HORMOZI: Omerta has kept
this gang hard to infiltrate,
so it was almost impossible.
NARRATOR: But just as there is a
new generation inside the mob--
second generation Italians
like Michael Franzese--
there's also a new generation
of agents joining the FBI,
and they're Italian American
as well.
One of them will change history.
This guy, Joe Pistone,
who's about to go deeper inside
the American mob
than any FBI agent before him.
MAN: How did you get into
undercover work?
JOE PISTONE: I always wanted
to be a cop.
I always wanted to be
a police officer, really.
I figured if I'm gonna be
in law enforcement,
I might as well be
with the best.
And I applied to the Bureau,
to the FBI,
got appointed as a special agent
in 1969.
NARRATOR: Pistone and fellow
agents like Steve Salmieri
are the FBI's secret weapons
in the 1970s.
STEVE SALMIERI: We were all
basically inner-city kids,
and we basically made a career
of being Italians
from the inner city.
PISTONE: Even though we hung out
on the corner
with the mob guys growing up,
it all went back to
your upbringing.
I can always remember my dad,
you know, saying,
"You never take another man's
money, you always be fair."
And this always stuck with me.
And I think that's why,
you know, seeing these guys,
seeing the flash and the cash,
you're impressed,
but it wasn't like, geez,
I want to be like that.
NARRATOR: Pistone and Salmieri
join the FBI at a low point
in its battle with the mob.
Agents have a hard time
infiltrating
Mafia neighborhoods.
POLISI: Viewing and watching
FBI's agents on the street,
they all dressed the same.
Everybody had the same hat,
the same suit.
It was easy to spot them!
SALMIERI: Organized crime knew
what police could
or couldn't do.
And that different agencies
they knew, like the FBI,
wasn't working undercover.
And back then it was
a very closed society.
RAAB: They could've worn
a breastplate or a sign
that said "FBI agent"
and given their name,
it was so simple to make them.
NARRATOR: So the FBI
changes strategy.
They send in the neighborhood
guys without a rule book.
PISTONE: When I first started
doing undercover in the FBI,
there was no training.
It basically was guys
that were street guys
before they came in the Bureau.
SALMIERI: We really didn't have
guidelines, we had no training,
and other than we knew that what
was right and what was wrong.
NARRATOR: Street guys like
Pistone and Salmieri know that
to be credible in the mob,
you have to have a specialty.
SALMIERI: He and I were sent
to jewelry school.
PISTONE: We took the same
course together.
And I learned all about
diamonds, precious gems.
NARRATOR: But the newly minted
jeweler now needs a solid cover.
PISTONE: When you're going
into undercover,
you need to have an identity.
Back then, you pick a name,
the government was
able to provide you
with a birth certificate,
took a driving test
like anybody else,
and got a driver's license in
the name of Donnie Brasco.
SALMIERI: We made up
social security numbers.
You didn't give them
your real name.
RAAB: He knows how they operate,
and he knows what
the dangers are.
NARRATOR: With Pistone's alias
established,
Operation Donnie Brasco
slowly begins.
The Bureau targets mob hijackers
as Pistone's way in
and Donnie Brasco hits
the New York streets.
PISTONE: When I first hit
the streets in the operation,
we had restaurants and bars
picked out
that where I would go
and get my face seen,
and hopefully get into
conversations with people.
I went probably six months
not having any illegal
conversations with anybody.
SALMIERI: The Bureau spent a lot
of time, and gave him time,
to actually infiltrate.
Which was the key, because they
were so used to something fast.
PISTONE: To build your persona,
your best bet is being yourself.
You have to, you know,
convince these guys
that you are who
you say you are.
After about six months,
I'm in there one night.
This young lady gets up,
goes to the ladies' room.
On her way back to the
ladies' room, she says hello.
And I say hello.
The bartender catches this.
I call the bartender over, and I
said, "I want to go on record."
Well, that's a mob term.
"I want to go on record.
I did not initiate conversation
with that young lady."
POLISI: There was three
basic reasons
to get killed in the Mafia.
It was either
A) you were an informant,
B) you disobeyed your boss,
or the third possibility was
that you slept with a made
member's wife or daughter.
That would get you killed
for sure.
PISTONE: He just nods his head.
"If you want to talk to her,
talk to her.
Her friend went bye-bye."
Well, he didn't go
to Disneyland.
That meant, you know.
But now the guy knows
that I'm a street guy.
NARRATOR: His credibility
established,
all Pistone needs now is
the right invitation.
And he gets one from
the bartender,
when he asks him if
he likes to gamble.
PISTONE: He said,
"After I close up,"
he said, "you want to come out?"
He said, "I'm going to a couple
after-hours joints."
So I said, "Yeah."
It's a gambling joint
run by all the families.
This bartender introduced me
to different mob guys
from different families.
NARRATOR: It's the breakthrough
Pistone's been waiting for--
a chance to get right into the
gambling dens of Cosa Nostra,
where no FBI agent has
ever penetrated before.
RAAB: They've never had somebody
inside the Mafia
listening to them.
NARRATOR: Now they do.
NARRATOR: The 1970s are
the golden age of the mob,
and the five families of
the New York Mafia operate
with impunity and
rake in millions.
But things are
starting to change.
Undercover agent Joe Pistone,
under the alias Donnie Brasco,
has infiltrated the mob
for the first time ever.
It's an operation so secret,
most in the FBI don't even know
it's happening.
DEVECCHIO: Very few agents
knew what he was doing.
He answered only to one or two
guys, and that was it.
And everybody else,
there was no,
there was no discussion of it
whatsoever.
KALLSTROM: I mean,
I had to be informed,
and the people that were
covering had to be informed,
but it certainly wasn't general
knowledge in the FBI office.
PISTONE: You have to know
who you're infiltrating.
You have to wait for the right,
you know, the right moment.
NARRATOR: Joe Pistone starts
at the bottom rung.
PISTONE: In the mob, everybody
starts out as an associate.
Now, an associate is a crook,
a guy that has the ability
to make money.
And how do you do that?
By showing that you have
the ability to be an earner.
GEORGE ANASTASIA: Traditionally,
to get involved with the Mafia,
you would be an associate
at first.
You'd be--a made guy
would use you.
In the beginning maybe
you're a gopher,
maybe you're running errands,
maybe you're picking up
some money,
taking money here to there.
Maybe you're collecting
sports bets.
POLISI: We did the grunt work
for the mob bosses,
or the upper echelon mob guys.
If they gave you an assignment,
you couldn't refuse
and you had to do it.
FRANZESE: You could tell by
being around the guys
who had, you know,
for lack of a better word,
who was intelligent.
In other words, some guys were
there to do the work,
they were kind of the thug guys,
and other guys were more
looked up to,
to, you know,
bring the family forward.
PISTONE: My background
helped a lot,
because I know you don't
walk into a place
that you know there's mob guys,
and you walk up the mob guy and
say, "Hey, I'm Donnie Brasco,
I'm a jewel thief.
I want to, you know, I want to
start running with you guys."
It's like, it doesn't happen.
SALMIERI:
And you got to remember,
the god of organized crime is
money, "scharole" in Italian.
And if you had something that
they were interested in,
that they could use you at,
well, that's what it is--
what are they looking for?
And then you furnish it.
PISTONE: We figured that being
a jewel thief was a good one
because you could do it alone.
So I got a pack of diamonds.
And I put the envelope on
the bar, and I say, "Charlie,"
I say, "I need X-amount of money
for this package."
I don't tell him what's in it.
He takes it.
Couple weeks go by.
One night I come in,
and then he says, "Somebody left
this envelope for you."
So I said, "Okay,"
I put it in my pocket.
We go out and get back, and
what I asked for is in there.
So now the guy knows that,
you know, I'm a little shady.
NARRATOR: But the deeper
Pistone goes,
the more dangerous
the operation gets,
especially when he wears a wire.
KALLSTROM: There were times
when we felt
that we had to have
close protection for him.
We dedicated one particular
surveillance team,
that became very
familiar with Joe
and they developed all kinds of
signals and modus operandi.
NARRATOR: Agent Joe Pistone
is gaining credibility
as a criminal on the street,
while mob descendant
Michael Franzese
is about to begin his own career
in Cosa Nostra.
FRANZESE: One of my dad's
soldiers called me and said,
"Meet me at the JV lounge,"
which was on Metropolitan Avenue
in Brooklyn.
We go see Tom DiBella.
Tom was acting boss for Persico
at the time,
who had taken control
of the family.
And Tom says to me, "I got
a message from your father.
He said you want to become
a member of our life.
Is that true?"
And I remember saying, "Yeah,
if that's what my dad wants,
that's what I want."
And he said,
"I didn't ask you that.
I said, is this what you want?"
And I said,
"Yes. It's what I want."
TOM DiBELLA: Michael...
FRANZESE: He said,
"Well, here's the deal.
From now on, 24 hours a day, 7
days a week,
you're on call to
serve this family.
If your mother is sick
and she's dying,
and we call you
to serve this family,
you leave your mother's side
and you come and serve us.
From now on, we're number one
in your life,
before anything and everything.
I'm putting you
with Andrew Russo,
he's your captain.
You do whatever
Andrew tells you."
I said, "Okay."
Andrew looks at me, he says,
"You're gonna be busy
from now on."
He says, "Meet me tomorrow night
on Carroll Street,
and wear a suit."
That was it.
NARRATOR: Michael Franzese is
now a Colombo family associate.
His education begins and ends
with one lesson--
how to make money
for the boss of the family.
POLISI: As an associate,
if you made a score,
you had to make sure you sent
something up to the boss--
a couple hundred dollars
in an envelope.
Most guys that are associates,
not made members,
they always have to kick up
to their boss.
ANASTASIA: If you get involved
and you become an earner,
somebody who can be trusted,
you become a higher associate.
FRANZESE: I had to be
a good earner.
I wanted to be the best possible
mob guy I could be.
I made a score at one point,
some guy came to me
with a load of meat.
If I remember,
$6,000 or $7,000 worth of meat.
MAN: Let me show you...
FRANZESE: So I said, "Andrew,
I got this load of meat."
He says, "Make sure when you get
the money, you turn it in."
Great. So I bring it,
and I turn it in.
It's like seven grand,
and he takes it,
and after a day or so
he gives me back 600 bucks.
And I said, "Wait a second. I
give him 7,000, I get 600 back?"
I said, "What the...I don't like
the math here," you know?
I saw my father the next time
and he said to me, "What'd you
turn it all in for?"
He said, "Rule of thumb--
25% goes to them."
He said, "You keep the rest."
It's really on-the-job training.
I mean, nobody prepares you
for this stuff.
NARRATOR: Franzese soon finds
a much bigger way to earn--
a gigantic scam in
overseas shipping.
For a cut of the take, a friend
who works for a shipping company
sends Franzese fake work orders
to repair his containers.
Franzese doesn't actually
repair the containers,
but bills the company anyway.
FRANZESE: And they would
cut me a check.
We were doing
$20,000, $30,000 a month.
And all he did was submit a work
order and I submitted a bill.
And that was the scam.
McDONALD: He became
the biggest earner
not only in the Colombo family,
but probably on
an individual basis
among all the made guys
in the five families.
FRANZESE: It was only
a handful of us
that were making real money.
NARRATOR: He's so successful
at earning
that the highest honor in
the Mafia is within his grasp.
He's on the verge of
becoming a made man.
FRANZESE: Even though I didn't
know the time or the place
or when the event would happen,
I knew that things were
starting to heat up,
because a couple of guys were
all of a sudden being made.
So I kind of knew
my time was coming.
NARRATOR: It's 1975,
and Michael Franzese,
an associate in New York City's
infamous Colombo family,
is on the verge of achieving
the highest honor in the Mafia--
becoming a made man.
FRANZESE: My dad never told me
about his particular induction.
You know, he said you're not
gonna know when it happens,
but when it happens,
you're gonna feel good about it.
It's a very serious situation,
and you're gonna get on a high
afterwards.
And he was right.
I'm in bed one morning,
it was early.
And I get a call from Andrew.
And he said,
"Meet me on Carroll Street
at such-and-such a time,"
he said, "Dress up."
It happened to be Halloween
night, and it was 1975,
a night I obviously
can't forget.
We end up in Brooklyn at
Anthony Colombo's catering hall.
And then I started to realize,
this is it, you know?
This is my time.
POLISI: To become a made guy,
you have to participate in
a murder, you were 100% Italian,
and you were sponsored by
two official members.
You qualify and you had to go in
and take this oath
that you were never
supposed to reveal
the secrets of the organization.
FAT SAL: You could refuse it
all you want.
If they want you to
become a made guy,
they're going to force you
to become a made guy.
It is a lifetime contract.
Respect and honor
is the whole life.
POLISI: The only way out
would be death.
FRANZESE: It was very dark,
there was a couple
of candles lit.
I walk down the aisle and
I stand in front of Tom DiBella.
Tom was acting boss for Persico
at the time,
who had taken control
of the family.
And this initiation starts.
And it's very intense.
And Tom looks at me and he says,
"Are you ready?"
And I says, "I am."
And then we went through
the ritual.
Andrew had a little knife.
And he cuts my finger and
some blood drops on the floor.
And he, I remember him gripping
my hand very firmly.
And I remember looking down and
seeing blood spots there,
so this was a place I knew
that had been used before.
He took a picture of a saint,
put it in my hands,
and lit it aflame.
And then Tom started
to say to me,
"Tonight, Michael Franzese,
you're being born again."
And I'll never forget
those words.
He said, "You're being born
again into a new life,
our life, La Cosa Nostra."
"Do you swear to give your life
to this, to La Cosa Nostra?"
I said, "Yes, I do."
"If you violate what you know
about this life,
betray any of your brothers,
you will die and burn in hell
like this saint is burning
in your hands."
And he said,
"You're a friend of ours."
And he hugged me.
Andrew hugs me.
And then all the captains line
up and they all give me a hug,
and welcome me,
a kiss on the cheek.
As Tom said, "From now on,
wherever you go in the world,
you'll have a brother there.
Don't ever worry about
your mother,
your sister, your daughter.
We're gonna protect them."
And you know, I got your back,
you got mine.
That was exhilarating for me
to know that, okay, I made it,
I'm here, and now it's up to me
to really prove
that I'm worthy of the life.
As Tom said, "Let this be
a lesson to all of you.
We don't earn for you,
you're gonna earn for us.
It's all about earning for
the family and doing for us."
And he looked at me.
"We want you guys
that are earners
to get out there and earn."
And then we ate,
and we had a celebration.
And then that was it.
And I went home that night
after we talked
and I was very exhilarated.
And I understood that once
you're part of that life,
you're a new creation
within that life.
NARRATOR: Michael Franzese
is now a made man
in the Colombo family, moving up
from associate to soldier.
But undercover FBI agent
Joe Pistone
is still knocking on the same
door, trying to get in.
Under the alias Donnie Brasco,
he gets his first invitation
from a Colombo hijacker
named Jilly.
PISTONE: He had a club
up in Brooklyn.
So I go up there and I start
hanging out with Jilly.
When you're with a particular
Mafia crew,
they go to their social club
every day
and you hang out with your crew.
NARRATOR: Every day he walks
a line fraught with danger.
PISTONE: They're playing cards,
they're talking about
if they got a book-making
operation going,
they're talking about
if they got a club,
a bar, a go-go joint,
all their illegal activities
that they have going on.
They're talking about problems
within the family.
How are we gonna
make more money?
To be a good investigator,
to be a good agent,
that's one of the things,
street smarts,
you have to be convincing.
RAAB: He's got to be able
to carry out the acts
that they want him,
the proof that he's a loyal,
dedicated member,
and that he'll do
what he's told.
Because one mistake,
the slightest error...
If mob guys suspect that
you're an undercover agent
or you might be an informer,
you're through.
They never hesitate to kill.
NARRATOR: Undercover FBI agent
Joe Pistone
has finally penetrated
the Colombo family ranks
under the alias Donnie Brasco.
He gets his first break with
a Colombo hijacker named Jilly.
PISTONE: When I was with Jilly
I had to learn about
how to steal cars.
I had to learn how to
get under the car,
disarm the alarm system,
punch a door lock,
punch an ignition key.
And we'd actually go on lots
and take the cars.
This was the first time that
I stole anything of high value
where I actually
stole it myself.
NARRATOR: But not everyone in
Jilly's crew likes or trusts
the newcomer, Donnie Brasco.
And his attempt to
become an associate
within the Colombo family
hits a roadblock.
PISTONE: I got into a beef
with two of these guys.
Frankie and Patsy,
they came out of the can,
they wanted to start
making money.
Being that I was a jewel thief,
they wanted some information
on different things.
They come up with some
crazy schemes to rob places.
I tell them, "Look, you got
an alarm system in this place
that, you know,
you can't defeat."
Or, "How do you expect
to crack that safe?"
I'm being negative.
I'm telling them,
"No, you can't do it like that.
You can't do this."
And this kind of
ticked them off.
Patsy was a made guy.
And Frankie wasn't.
Patsy puts a gun on the table.
And basically what
he says to me,
he said, "Donnie,
if you don't convince me
you're as good as these guys
say you are,
the only way you're going out of
here is rolled up in that rug."
RAAB: You're Joe Pistone.
And you're wise enough to know
that at any moment, any mistake,
the slightest error could be
a death sentence for you.
PISTONE: He said, "Donnie,
tell us where you were
before New York, tell us who
you robbed with down in Miami."
RAAB: These guys you're dealing
with are stone cold killers.
And they don't want to
take any chance.
PISTONE: As a street guy,
you don't give up other guys
that you did,
supposedly did scores with.
You try to turn
the conversation around.
"How do I know that you didn't
become an informant in jail?"
BRASCO: Could make
a lot of dough...
PISTONE: Finally, after about
five hours, it's all over.
As a street guy,
if I go to shake his hand
and say, "Look, you know,
I understand that, you know,
you had a concern,
but let's forget about it,"
that's a red flag
in somebody's mind.
Because, why isn't Donnie mad?
We just basically
called him out.
The only thing they understand
in this situation is force.
I turn around and I hit Frankie.
Why? He's not a made guy.
I can't hit Patsy.
Now Patsy's punching
the hell out of me,
but I can't do anything.
You lay your hands on a made
guy, that's cause to get killed.
So that's another notch
in my credibility,
because if I was bad,
you know...
I wouldn't do that.
NARRATOR: So Pistone survives
the sit-down
and successfully proves himself
to the Colombo family.
And for the first time,
an FBI agent has been
fully accepted
into the world of
the American mob.
GIULIANI: Law enforcement work
requires infiltration.
The Pistone case was
a big, big breakthrough
because it filled in
a lot of the blanks.
It identified
a lot of the people.
That's absolutely vital to any
kind of successful effort
to deal with any kind of
organized criminal enterprise.
NARRATOR: But it's only
the beginning
of this extraordinary effort
by Joe Pistone
to get inside the American mob.
PISTONE: This undercover case
was the beginning
of the unraveling of the Mafia
in America as we knew it.
NARRATOR: Now as he gets
even further inside,
the job is about to get
far more dangerous.
Even though
he's established himself
inside the Colombo family,
an even greater opportunity
opens up
in the most vicious of all
the five families, the Bonannos.
MCDONALD: The Bonanno family
controlled gambling
and loan sharking
back in the day.
But those days were over,
and they had to find other ways
of making money.
JIM WALDEN: The Bonanno family
can be fairly characterized
as groundbreakers when it came
to drug trafficking.
FAT SAL: They would smoke drugs,
rob drug dealers,
they were wild guys.
WALDEN: The Bonannos were
really, at this period of time,
the worst.
ROBBER: Get down!
ROBBER: Everybody down!
Hit the floor!
NARRATOR: The 1970s will see
the historic rise of two men
within two of the mob's
key families--
undercover agent Joe Pistone
with the Bonannos...
PISTONE: When I was told you got
the contract to kill Bruno,
I said, "Okay, Sonny,
where do you think he is?"
NARRATOR: ...and newly made man
Michael Franzese
among the Colombos.
FRANZESE: I had a jet plane,
I had a helicopter,
I had all the money I wanted,
I did whatever I wanted to do.
NARRATOR: And usher in a vicious
new era of bloodshed.
FRANZESE: Even my own father
put a contract on me.
[gunshots]