Original subtitles

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]