Speaker 1: You're listening to Law and Order Criminal Justice System, a
Speaker 1: production of Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts.
Speaker 2: In the criminal justice System, landmark trials transcend the courtroom
Speaker 2: to reshape the law. The brave men and women who
Speaker 2: investigate and prosecute these cases are part of a select
Speaker 2: group that is defined American history. These are their stories.
Speaker 2: May fifth, nineteen eighty one, benson Hurst, Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: A group of men waited inside an empty nightclub. The
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine murder of Carmi Galanti two years before
Speaker 1: had resulted in a power struggle at the top of
Speaker 1: the Banano crime family, and these men were here to
Speaker 1: sort it out. The man calling the shots was thirty
Speaker 1: eight year old Joe Messino, truck hijacker, ruthless killer, and
Speaker 1: loyal ally of Banano boss Rusty Rostelli. Messino was also
Speaker 1: one of the men responsible for Carmine Galanti's murder. On
Speaker 1: the agenda for this so called administration meeting peace talks
Speaker 1: with three ambitious captains buying for control of the family
Speaker 1: in the wake of Galante's death. With one unassuming soldier
Speaker 1: in tow, the three capos entered the club unarmed, expecting
Speaker 1: a peaceful negotiation. As they neared, one of Messino's men
Speaker 1: discreetly ran a hand through his hair. It was a signal.
Speaker 1: Four masked gunmen burst out of a closet, armed with
Speaker 1: pistols and a sawd off shotgun. The three capos they
Speaker 1: didn't stand a chance. Power was once again restored to
Speaker 1: Rusty Rostelli, while Joe Messino had amassed more influence than
Speaker 1: ever before and he was far from finished.
Speaker 3: You're not with the mob because you want to be.
Speaker 3: It's the gangster that decides whether you're his associated on.
Speaker 1: If you like your life, you will vote to acquit.
Speaker 1: I'm Anethega Nicolazzi. My father should have been a dead man.
Speaker 1: From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts. This is Law and
Speaker 1: Order Criminal Justice System. In our last episode, we brought
Speaker 1: you the story of Carmen Gallanti, a one time hitman
Speaker 1: who rose through the ranks of organized crime to become
Speaker 1: the de facto boss of the Banano crime family. That
Speaker 1: is until he was gunned down outside an Italian restaurant
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn in July of nineteen seventy nine. His murder
Speaker 1: would mark a seminal moment, and not just the history
Speaker 1: of the mob. In New York, but also in law
Speaker 1: enforcements approach to investigating and prosecuting the mafia. For nearly
Speaker 1: a century, the Five Families had used bribery, blackmail, extortion,
Speaker 1: and murder to control the city with little or no
Speaker 1: opposition from law enforcement, and by the end of the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies their power had reached new heights. But after
Speaker 1: Galante's murder, that was all about to change. Armed with
Speaker 1: what was then cutting edge technology, the FBI knew that
Speaker 1: the best way to crack a coat of silence was
Speaker 1: to infiltrate the very homes and hangouts of mobsters, eavesdropping
Speaker 1: on their conversations. To accomplish this, they would rely on
Speaker 1: an array of hidden bugs and wire taps placed by
Speaker 1: a team of fearless undercover operatives known as black bagging.
Speaker 3: We did have black bags on occasion, but any bag
Speaker 3: would work if you had to slip into some place.
Speaker 3: My name is Joseph Canta Messa. I was a special
Speaker 3: agent with the FBI for twenty two years. I retired
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1: Joe was one of the bureau's most successful tech specialists,
Speaker 1: whose work directly led to the incarceration of countless members
Speaker 1: of organized crime, but at the time of the Three
Speaker 1: Kappos murder in nineteen eighty one, Joe was a young
Speaker 1: agent working undercover as a phone repairman in Little Italy,
Speaker 1: known to locals as.
Speaker 3: Joe Aquino a q U, I n complete identity, backstopped
Speaker 3: if necessary, driver's license, vehicle registration, real true address if
Speaker 3: you wanted to check it. Joe was a phone man,
Speaker 3: but I could have been an electrician. I could have
Speaker 3: been a TV repairman. I had different identity for different companies.
Speaker 1: And much like a spy, before even attempting to bug
Speaker 1: his prospective target, Joe took meticulous care in building his
Speaker 1: backstory to establish himself as a believable and familiar member
Speaker 1: of the neighborhood.
Speaker 3: Little Literally, it's a pretty popular, touristy kind of place.
Speaker 3: There are regulars there, and there were a few social
Speaker 3: clubs there, and they pretty much pay attention to what's
Speaker 3: going on unless you're a tourist.
Speaker 1: These social clubs were members only, commonly used as a
Speaker 1: base of operations for crime families.
Speaker 3: For me to be recognized, I would show up on
Speaker 3: a frequent basis in my telephone truck. I would find
Speaker 3: the closest social club, and I would park right in
Speaker 3: front of the door, and I would get out, and
Speaker 3: I would walk the neighborhood, going in and out of
Speaker 3: various front doors. You know, again, I've been ingratiating myself
Speaker 3: to the neighborhood doing favors because back then the New
Speaker 3: York Telephone and the Bell system owned everything. You leased
Speaker 3: everything from the phone company. Here I am the gracious
Speaker 3: guy who will occasionally throw a client the long cord
Speaker 3: or whatever. It took weeks for me to get recognized
Speaker 3: as somebody that belonged in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: The easiest part about fronting as a telephone repairman is
Speaker 1: that for Joe it wasn't a lie because he actually
Speaker 1: had the same job in high school.
Speaker 3: Well, I was working for New Jersey Bell Telephone as
Speaker 3: a telephone installer repairman. There were only two truly former
Speaker 3: telephone installer repairman as FBI agents in the entire organization,
Speaker 3: so we didn't have to like figure out how to
Speaker 3: look like being a phone man. We were the phone man.
Speaker 1: But given the kind of people he was up against,
Speaker 1: he would also need the ability to improvise and stay
Speaker 1: cool under pressure. One false move could mean his life.
Speaker 3: I don't always know how it's going to play out.
Speaker 3: I know what I want to try and accomplish. You
Speaker 3: had to just kind of like take what came along.
Speaker 1: Like the time Joe was installing a microphone behind a
Speaker 1: telephone wall plate. His target became suspicious and started quizzing him.
Speaker 3: The question came up as to where I was from,
Speaker 3: and I said, East Broncx, you know, right off of
Speaker 3: White Plains Road. And I started talking about, you know,
Speaker 3: my aunt worked in the Vicaro's bakery, my other aunt
Speaker 3: was a ticket taker at the Wakefield. And I'm explaining
Speaker 3: all of this pretty confidently, and then he asked me
Speaker 3: a question or make some statement about something that has
Speaker 3: nothing to do with this neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Luckily, Joe immediately realized he was being tested.
Speaker 3: I get a glance of his wife, who was looking
Speaker 3: at him, and I turned to him and I go,
Speaker 3: what part of the Bronx are you talking about? You know?
Speaker 3: He laughed, and that sort of like cleared it up
Speaker 3: right away. He was throwing me a curve, and fortunately
Speaker 3: I picked up on it.
Speaker 1: Much of Joe's success as an agent was emblematic of
Speaker 1: the changing strategy of the FBI in the fight against
Speaker 1: the mafia. The agents of the bureaus passed just weren't
Speaker 1: getting the results they wanted and that the public needed.
Speaker 1: But Joe had a natural edge when talking to mobsters
Speaker 1: because he grew up around them.
Speaker 3: My grandparents on my father's side were very strong Northern Italians,
Speaker 3: and most of my formative years were actually in New Jersey,
Speaker 3: with regular trips back to the Bronx to see family members.
Speaker 3: And while my father was a law abiding citizen, a
Speaker 3: few of our other family members got to be a
Speaker 3: little sketchy at times.
Speaker 1: After a stint in the army, Joe went back to
Speaker 1: work with a telephone company, but one of his neighbors,
Speaker 1: who happened to be an FBI agent, noticed Joe's natural
Speaker 1: ability with tech equipment and convinced him to pursue a
Speaker 1: career in law enforcement.
Speaker 3: It was a gamble for me again because I barely
Speaker 3: got out of high school, but I took a chance.
Speaker 1: And that chance paid off. Joe immediately excelled at his
Speaker 1: new gig, and it wasn't long before his unique skill
Speaker 1: set led him to the FBI Special Operations Unit, and.
Speaker 3: I became the technical supervisor for so one FBI Special
Speaker 3: operations in New York City.
Speaker 1: Joe was one of a select group of agents utilizing
Speaker 1: the full resources and technology at the FBI to accomplish
Speaker 1: one mission infiltrate and dismantle the mafia from the top down.
Speaker 1: And over the next decade, the SO one Squad was relentless.
Speaker 3: We did hundreds of surreptitious entries nights weekends when a
Speaker 3: place was vacant. Surreptitious was always the preferred method to
Speaker 3: install electronic surveillance or tracking, etc. But there were many
Speaker 3: instances where the place was never vacant. When we were
Speaker 3: confronted with that, I could create a scenario and fabricate
Speaker 3: a problem that the subject would want to invite me in.
Speaker 1: His targets some of the most dangerous and ruthless criminals
Speaker 1: in America. But before we talk about all the ways
Speaker 1: law enforcement infiltrated the Mob, I think it's important to
Speaker 1: understand a little bit more about how the commission came
Speaker 1: to be and why for so many decades authorities had
Speaker 1: been so ineffective in stopping them. By the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: New York was in trouble.
Speaker 4: Every week you would see something in the paper, a
Speaker 4: shooting between mob guys.
Speaker 1: That's Jim Kostler, a former FBI special agent, and he
Speaker 1: witnessed the violence firsthand.
Speaker 4: I was hired as a special agent with the FBI
Speaker 4: in nineteen seventy I spent eight years in Newark investigating
Speaker 4: organized crime. In nineteen seventy nine, I was promoted and
Speaker 4: sent to New York. My role was the position of
Speaker 4: Labor Racketeering Program Manager for the New York Office.
Speaker 1: Jim was persuaded to join the FBI by an agent
Speaker 1: he met at a party. Leaving behind his career as
Speaker 1: a special education teacher, he chose to serve the public
Speaker 1: in a new way. Back when Jim was starting his career,
Speaker 1: joining the FBI was the dream of every young kid
Speaker 1: interested in law enforcement. The image of the straight backed,
Speaker 1: all American g man was seared into popular culture. But
Speaker 1: the truth was that despite its reputation and resources, the
Speaker 1: Bureau was woefully behind encountering the mafia. In fact, the
Speaker 1: Bureau was still under the control of its first director,
Speaker 1: a man who for decades refused to even acknowledge the
Speaker 1: existence of the mob.
Speaker 4: You know, at that time, jag Or Hoover was the
Speaker 4: director of the FBI. It was much different than it
Speaker 4: is today.
Speaker 1: Obviously, during Hoover's first thirty years as director, not a
Speaker 1: single agent was assigned to work organized crime. Hoover even
Speaker 1: famously banned the use of the word mafia in internal reports,
Speaker 1: publicly downplaying mafia's as a mere hoodlums and a nuisance
Speaker 1: to be dealt with by local law enforcement. This resulted
Speaker 1: in what you could call a bottom up approach to
Speaker 1: enforcing crime, focusing on individual perpetrators rather than the men
Speaker 1: at the top pulling the strings. It was a never
Speaker 1: ending battle. Hoover's policy severely limited Jim's ability to fight
Speaker 1: organized crime.
Speaker 4: The mission of the FBI at that point in time
Speaker 4: was every agent was given assignments to take responsibility for
Speaker 4: and to achieve something in a given period of time.
Speaker 4: The response ability of every agent was to produce statistics.
Speaker 4: At the end of the year, when it came time
Speaker 4: for your evaluation, they looked at how many statistics you
Speaker 4: had for that year, how many people did you arrest,
Speaker 4: how many people did you put in jail, how much
Speaker 4: did you recover? You recover stolen goods, and so forth.
Speaker 1: And while handfuls of low level gangsters might be locked up,
Speaker 1: mob leadership went unscathed. At the heart of the problem
Speaker 1: was the way the FBI was organized.
Speaker 4: When I got into organized crime in New Jersey. Every
Speaker 4: morning we would come in and we would say hello
Speaker 4: to each other, and then every agent on the squad
Speaker 4: would go their own way. It was disjointed in that sense.
Speaker 4: We didn't have a plan, just a matter of go
Speaker 4: find a gambler, go find a loan shark, and you'll
Speaker 4: be successful. I came to realize that that was not
Speaker 4: a good method, another good system, because organized crime is organized.
Speaker 4: The folks that were involved in it at a structure,
Speaker 4: and they've worked under our hierarchy. We didn't work as groups.
Speaker 1: It turns out the FBI should have taken a lesson
Speaker 1: from the very men they were chasing. Translated from Italian,
Speaker 1: the term cosin nostra literally means our thing. But that
Speaker 1: seemingly innocuous designation is a ruse because that thing, the mafia,
Speaker 1: is actually a highly organized, highly regulated system of rules, ranks,
Speaker 1: and rituals that go back centuries. Much like an army,
Speaker 1: an organized crime family operates with a strict hierarchy, with soldiers, captains, underbosses,
Speaker 1: all reporting to a top boss and then as overseers
Speaker 1: of it all. The Commission, a secretive council composed of
Speaker 1: the five New York bosses. The Commission and ensured unity
Speaker 1: and coordination among crime families nationwide, usually under the threat
Speaker 1: of their iron fist, and it was this historical cooperation
Speaker 1: that gave the families their power, reach, and sense of invincibility.
Speaker 1: The Commission's origins, however, were anything but civil, so.
Speaker 5: When the Mob was first form around nineteen thirty, it
Speaker 5: followed what it was called the Castell Maurici War.
Speaker 1: That's former Prosecutor Ron Goldstock, who at the time was
Speaker 1: the director of the New York Organized Crime Task Force
Speaker 1: and fair warning, We're going to be throwing a lot
Speaker 1: of names at you in the next couple of minutes,
Speaker 1: but I promise there won't be a quiz. The Castela
Speaker 1: Maurici War was a bloody power struggle between two rival bosses,
Speaker 1: Joe Massarea and Salvator Marenzano, both born in Sicily, both
Speaker 1: notoriously ruthless, but a cunning and ambitious young gangster by
Speaker 1: the name of Charles Lucky Luciano had his own eye
Speaker 1: on the topso in April of nineteen thirty one, Luciano
Speaker 1: conspired with Marenzano to take out the competition, and so
Speaker 1: at a card game in Coney Island, Luciano casually excused
Speaker 1: himself from the table right before four gunmen entered the
Speaker 1: restaurant and opened fire, leaving Joe Massaia dead on the floor.
Speaker 1: As a result of the brazen hit, Luciano inherited all
Speaker 1: of Masaria's rackets. Marenzana then called a meeting with Luciano
Speaker 1: and the heads of the three other mafia factions to
Speaker 1: establish the Five Families, but Marenzana wanted to retain ultimate power.
Speaker 5: In order to deal with problems that came about because
Speaker 5: of competing interests of the families. He created a position
Speaker 5: for himself as Boss of All Bosses, the Boss.
Speaker 1: Of Bosses, but Marenzano's reign was short lived.
Speaker 5: Luciano then had him killed just as he was plotting
Speaker 5: to have Luciano killed, but Luciano was quicker.
Speaker 1: In a plot befitting of Marenzano's nickname of Little Caesar,
Speaker 1: four men disguised as fedes raided his office and stabbed
Speaker 1: the boss multiple times before shooting him in the head
Speaker 1: for good measure. Now with an opportunity to reign over
Speaker 1: the entire mafia, Lucky Luciano faced a critical decision.
Speaker 5: Luciano recognized that the position of boss of old bosses
Speaker 5: was problematic. He just created enemies because whenever you would
Speaker 5: rule on anything, you are always going to rule against somebody,
Speaker 5: and so you needed another vehicle for dealing with each
Speaker 5: of the family's competing interests. And so what he did
Speaker 5: was to create the Commission.
Speaker 1: Five seats, with each seat establishing equal representation, and to
Speaker 1: prevent the war from continuing, Luciano offered a commission seat
Speaker 1: to Marizano's underboss, Joe Banano, seeing it as the path
Speaker 1: to peace. Banano accepted. Luciano held a national conference in
Speaker 1: Chicago with the heads of the five New York families
Speaker 1: and over twenty other mafia leaders from around the country,
Speaker 1: and it was there in Chicago that Luciano instituted many
Speaker 1: of the rules and traditions that would govern organize crime
Speaker 1: for decades to come.
Speaker 5: So he established the position of consolieri counselor, which meant
Speaker 5: that the kap regime, if they had a problem with
Speaker 5: the boss, could go to somebody as an ombutzman deal
Speaker 5: with him, rather than having to confront the boss straight on.
Speaker 1: As a trusted confidant to the boss, Consiglieri became one
Speaker 1: of the top three administrative positions, usually equal in rank
Speaker 1: to the underboss. With its rigid chain of command and
Speaker 1: sworn oaths of fidelity, the modern American mafia was born.
Speaker 1: It would enjoy unrivaled prosperity for decades. Crime boss Joe
Speaker 1: Banano later described this period in his memoirs, writing that
Speaker 1: and I quote. For nearly a thirty year period after
Speaker 1: the Castella Morasi War, no internal squabbles marred the unity
Speaker 1: of our family, and no outside interference threatened the family
Speaker 1: or me. Everything would change in nineteen fifty seven, when
Speaker 1: three major events thrust Cosinostra out of the shadows and
Speaker 1: into the glare of the public spotlight. The first was
Speaker 1: the attempted assassination of Luciano family boss Frank Costello by
Speaker 1: up and comer Vincent the Chin Giganti. As Costello walked
Speaker 1: through the lobby of his apartment building, Giganti snuck up
Speaker 1: behind him and said, this is for you, Frank. A
Speaker 1: hit that incredibly Costello survived the bullet just grazing his forehead,
Speaker 1: but the real marvel is what happened next. Given the
Speaker 1: opportunity to identify his shooter in court, Costello refused to
Speaker 1: name Gigante Here's defense attorney, James Leonard.
Speaker 6: During the trial, something right out of a movie. When
Speaker 6: Costello was asked if he recognizes person's shot him, clearly
Speaker 6: he knows who shot him, clearly, he knows who Giganty is.
Speaker 6: Because Giganty is connected to Genevies, he says he can't identify.
Speaker 1: It was a striking example of the Mafia's infamous code
Speaker 1: of silence. But Omerta, as it was known, was not
Speaker 1: just an oath of loyalty. It was the mafia's single
Speaker 1: biggest defensive weapon against prosecution, denying law enforcement of cooperating
Speaker 1: witnesses in any potential trial, and in the case of Giganty,
Speaker 1: it likely saved him from a life in prison. In
Speaker 1: another scene worthy of a movie, Giganty leaned towards Costello
Speaker 1: while he was leaving the courtroom and whispered thanks a lot, Frank.
Speaker 1: The second landmark event of Mobler from nineteen fifty seven
Speaker 1: occurred a few months later, when mob boss Albert Anastasia
Speaker 1: was shot and killed mid shave in a Manhattan barbershop.
Speaker 1: It was more fallout from the Boch Costello hit, and
Speaker 1: the very public midday murder was plastered all over every
Speaker 1: front page in New York. Unwilling to retaliate for the headshot,
Speaker 1: and perhaps fed up with a treacherous mob life fall together,
Speaker 1: Frank Costello decided to go into early retirement, relinquishing full
Speaker 1: control of the Lucciano family to his scheming underboss Vito Genovese. Then,
Speaker 1: seeking to legitimize his power and rebrand the family name,
Speaker 1: Genovis called for a national meeting to be held in
Speaker 1: a sleepy farming town in upstate New York, which brings
Speaker 1: us to the third major mob event of nineteen fifty seven.
Speaker 1: Here's former prosecutor Guild Childers on what would prove to
Speaker 1: be a devastating mistaken by mob leaders.
Speaker 7: It was a national convention of lacos andostra at a
Speaker 7: guy's house in Applelach in New York. Nice house in
Speaker 7: a rural area if everyone thought it was out of
Speaker 7: the way and safe and no one would find out
Speaker 7: about it. But a couple of the local policemen, two
Speaker 7: of them started noticing that there were a lot of
Speaker 7: out of state license plates driving through town.
Speaker 1: Authorities ran the plates on a bunch of expensive cars
Speaker 1: and quickly learned that this convention wasn't your typical farmer's expo.
Speaker 1: So they set up roadblocks and descended upon the appalak
Speaker 1: And estate.
Speaker 7: And they all fled like cockroach just wanted to turn
Speaker 7: the light on in a New York City apartment.
Speaker 1: Dozens of middle Agian elderly mobsters in suits and dress
Speaker 1: shoes fled into the surrounding woods. Over sixty bosses, underbosses, consiglieries,
Speaker 1: and capos were eventually arrested. Troopers found it embarrassed Joba
Speaker 1: running through a nearby cornfield.
Speaker 7: That scene was comically captured in the movie Analyzed This,
Speaker 7: where it shows a couple mob guys writing a tractor
Speaker 7: all the way back to New York City to escape
Speaker 7: the cops from the time.
Speaker 1: But more importantly, the Appalachan meetings signified actual proof, both
Speaker 1: to the public and the government, the existence of a
Speaker 1: nationwide criminal network. These were not just a random assortment
Speaker 1: of local hoodlums as Hoover had described them. This was
Speaker 1: an organization. Here's Ron Goldstock.
Speaker 5: Federal government was not involved in the investigation and prosecution
Speaker 5: of organized crime until the seventies, and it was only
Speaker 5: after the Appalachian Meeting that the federal government first started
Speaker 5: to take a look at it.
Speaker 1: Soon, local, state and federal law enforcement agencies would launch
Speaker 1: a new line of attack against organized crime.
Speaker 5: The FBI began to use electronic surveillance to investigate the mob,
Speaker 5: and they began to learn through the taps and bugs
Speaker 5: they had put in a great deal about the mob structure.
Speaker 1: Armed with modern technology and a deeper understanding of their
Speaker 1: opponents and their weaknesses, small and nimble teams of undercover
Speaker 1: officers and agents began to infiltrate the dark underworld of
Speaker 1: Cosa Nostra, heralding the biggest defensive against organized crime the
Speaker 1: nation had ever seen. After that almost laughable roundup of
Speaker 1: mobsters in Upstate New York, public awareness of the mafia
Speaker 1: had reached new heights. Here again, its defense attorney James Leonard.
Speaker 6: When we get to the Bobby Kennedy era, it's a
Speaker 6: very different time. Now we know about the mob, we
Speaker 6: know that the mob exists, and ironically, one of the
Speaker 6: main reasons that we know about the Mob is from
Speaker 6: a defector from within the Genevese crime family.
Speaker 8: What is the name of it.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 8: Causing in Italian, causing nostra in Italian, our thing and
Speaker 8: our family In English?
Speaker 3: That is an organization?
Speaker 1: Is it that requires The defector's name was Joseph Flacci.
Speaker 1: He was a Genevieve soldier who in nineteen sixty three
Speaker 1: became the first major violator of the Mafia code of silence. Oh, Marta,
Speaker 1: that's right, yeah.
Speaker 8: Why do you feel like it should be destroyed? First
Speaker 8: of all, I want revenge. The second of all, they've
Speaker 8: been very bad to the soldiers. They've been thinking for
Speaker 8: themselves all through the years. As the senator put it before,
Speaker 8: what did I get out of it? Why do you
Speaker 8: get out but misery.
Speaker 1: Lachi's testimony of mob life was unprecedented. He detailed the
Speaker 1: induction ceremony of new members. He confirmed the existence of
Speaker 1: the five families, their leaders, their structure, and he even
Speaker 1: name dropped the commission.
Speaker 8: What are the different physicians or ratings or ranked in
Speaker 8: that organization? Starting at the top, what do you have?
Speaker 3: We have.
Speaker 8: What we call agunliasium in English, she would express it
Speaker 8: as a commission.
Speaker 1: The hearings capture the nation's attention and the term Cosonostra
Speaker 1: cemented itself into American vernacular.
Speaker 6: All of a sudden, the mob is in every living
Speaker 6: room in the country, and we start to see things
Speaker 6: like the Kennedy assassination and then the knee jerk reaction
Speaker 6: was well, that was the mob, right, and the mob
Speaker 6: did that for whatever reasons, again not proven but speculated.
Speaker 6: So organized crime, the mafia really comes into our lexicon
Speaker 6: in the mid sixties, and it's cemented forever in the
Speaker 6: early seventies with the Godfather movie. That's it, and once
Speaker 6: that happens, there's no turning back.
Speaker 1: But while the mafia's power and notoriety was reaching an
Speaker 1: all time high, a counter attack was developing over at
Speaker 1: the FBI. The bureau's tallest hurtle out flanking the mob's
Speaker 1: fortress like code of silence their solution technology seventies style
Speaker 1: special agent Joe Cantamsa, who we met earlier, used his
Speaker 1: guile and experience as a former telephone repairman to talk
Speaker 1: his way into the homes and hangouts of several suspected mobsters.
Speaker 1: But the most notorious and most dangerous was a Banano
Speaker 1: captain named Alphonse in Delacado, known on the street as
Speaker 1: Sonny Red. Sonny Read was a ruthless Kapa regime about
Speaker 1: as violent as they come, and his rank in the
Speaker 1: Banana hierarchy made him a very high value target for
Speaker 1: the FEDS, and since Joe had already established himself as
Speaker 1: a local, now he needed to make contact with Sonny
Speaker 1: red sister Marie.
Speaker 3: In Marie's apartment at one seventeen Elizabeth Street, she was
Speaker 3: always home or somebody was always in the apartment. Sonny
Speaker 3: would come back late the night, early morning, and you know, crash.
Speaker 3: I mean, I want to get into her apartment. I
Speaker 3: want to kind of take a look and see what
Speaker 3: it looks like, and I want to try and figure
Speaker 3: out if I could ever get a microphone in there.
Speaker 3: But I got to get in there first.
Speaker 1: And so Joe came up with a little ruse involving
Speaker 1: a series of prank calls utilizing one of the FBI's
Speaker 1: Chinese translators.
Speaker 3: Translator comes down to her name is Ming. She obviously
Speaker 3: knows English very well. I explained to her, I want
Speaker 3: her to call this number right in front of me,
Speaker 3: and I wanted to start talking Chinese, ask for somebody,
Speaker 3: and then be a little bit stubborn about you know,
Speaker 3: not getting cooperation. She does that, Marie hangs up the
Speaker 3: phone on her I go, we'll wait a minute, and
Speaker 3: we call back again. She makes the second call, Marie
Speaker 3: hangs up again. This is two times. Marie's getting annoyed
Speaker 3: that she's getting these calls. She calls a third time.
Speaker 3: I'm looking straight at her. Her eyes get real big.
Speaker 3: She drops the phone and runs out of my office.
Speaker 3: Well that was good enough for me. Marie is going
Speaker 3: to remember this phone call. The next day, I show
Speaker 3: up and knock on Marie's door New York. Tell we
Speaker 3: got a report of a crossed line. Have you gotten
Speaker 3: any calls? And she lights up like a oh yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, and then she starts complaining to me. I go, listen,
Speaker 3: I'm just here to see where the line is crossed. So,
Speaker 3: you know, she calms down.
Speaker 1: And just like that, Joe would soon be up on
Speaker 1: Sunny Red's phone. He was able to discreetly survey the
Speaker 1: apartment for the ideal location to install a miniature transmitter,
Speaker 1: commonly referred to as a bug.
Speaker 3: You had to pay attention, but you couldn't pay so
Speaker 3: much attention it looked like you were paying attention.
Speaker 1: And if you play it cool. Sometimes you even get lucky.
Speaker 1: After Joe explained the so called crossline problem.
Speaker 3: Marie asked me if I could put her phone in
Speaker 3: for an extension. Well, that's what I was waiting for
Speaker 3: her to ask, I said, but this is the only
Speaker 3: place I could put it in, which was in the hallway.
Speaker 3: There was a little table there pretty close to where
Speaker 3: the room was that Sonny would conduct his business perfect,
Speaker 3: I said, well, I'll have to come back. We'll take
Speaker 3: care of it.
Speaker 1: Oh and while he was at it, could he also
Speaker 1: stop by her sister in last place too?
Speaker 3: She tells me that her sister in law lives at
Speaker 3: one fifteen, and you know, could I go up and
Speaker 3: see what she needed? And it turns out, unbeknownst to me,
Speaker 3: this is Sonny Red's brother JB in Delicato.
Speaker 1: JB. He was another mobster the Feds are keeping an
Speaker 1: eye on, and while not Joe's target, when opportunity knocks,
Speaker 1: you go ahead and answer. But still the risk of
Speaker 1: being made was ever present, and sometimes it came from
Speaker 1: the most unexpected places. When Joe arrived, JB asked him
Speaker 1: to install a new touchdown phone to replace his old
Speaker 1: rotary one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I could throw a touchstone in there for a
Speaker 3: couple of bucks. I made an appointment to go back
Speaker 3: and do that. I come back later, and now I'm
Speaker 3: bringing with me one of my associates, John Kravic, because
Speaker 3: I want to show him because when it comes time
Speaker 3: to do this, I'm going to need more than one
Speaker 3: person to do this.
Speaker 1: Marie directs him to her mother's ground floor apartment for
Speaker 1: the access that Joe said he needed to get their
Speaker 1: job done.
Speaker 3: I knock on the door. It's like nine o'clock in
Speaker 3: the morning. The door opens and there's a woman about
Speaker 3: four foot ten. I tell her I was just next door.
Speaker 3: We got to get in the courtyard. We're walking back.
Speaker 3: She stops dead right in front of us, turns around
Speaker 3: and points to both of our faces and says, I
Speaker 3: know you. You're the FBI. You come tap of the
Speaker 3: phones in broken English. I look at John, and I
Speaker 3: look at I go, Grandma, who cares what you say
Speaker 3: on the phone? She paused, and she laughs, and then
Speaker 3: everybody laughs.
Speaker 1: Joe was working in the Lions then. Opportunity and life
Speaker 1: threatening danger was literally behind every door.
Speaker 3: John is in the basement. I'm kneeling on the floor
Speaker 3: behind an open door, drilled a hole in the base board.
Speaker 3: The door swings and it knocks me over, and I hear,
Speaker 3: who the fuck are you.
Speaker 1: Looming over? Joe was the mob captain himself Sonny read
Speaker 1: In Delocado, and Sonny was not happy to deflex suspicion.
Speaker 1: Joe reverted to his roots and actually being from the Bronx.
Speaker 1: He was a natural.
Speaker 3: And as I'm getting up, I'm going, who the fuck
Speaker 3: are you? I go, I'm doing something for Marie. I said,
Speaker 3: I don't know you.
Speaker 1: And with some quick thinking, Joe diffuses the situation with
Speaker 1: one of his tried and true methods, convincing Sonny red
Speaker 1: In Delocado to actually help him install the very wiretap
Speaker 1: that Joe was hoping to use to bring him down.
Speaker 3: I go, well, listen, if you give me a hand
Speaker 3: for just a minute or two, I'll find out where
Speaker 3: the guy is downstairs and I'll get out of here.
Speaker 3: He goes, what do you want? I go? I want
Speaker 3: you to come right here and bang this little thing
Speaker 3: on the floor and I'm going to go down the
Speaker 3: basement and find out whareness. He says, okay, he comes
Speaker 3: over starts tapping it. I go out, go down the basement.
Speaker 3: John is walking around the flashlight in a completely wrong spot.
Speaker 3: I tear down a piece of old sheet rock sort
Speaker 3: of stuff. I grabbed the thing I got. I holler up,
Speaker 3: I got it. He points, Who's that? I say to John,
Speaker 3: it's sunny. John's eyes get this big. But nonetheless I
Speaker 3: go back upstairs. I put my little connector block in.
Speaker 3: I dropped the wire down, we make the splice, and
Speaker 3: we're out of there. Perfect install.
Speaker 1: It was one of the more daring wire tap installations
Speaker 1: of his career, because little did he know that across
Speaker 1: the river in Brooklyn, trouble was brewing and Sonny Red
Speaker 1: was right in the middle of it. A day or
Speaker 1: so later, Joe returned to install the requested touchdown phone.
Speaker 3: I'm feeling pretty good the case. I'nt happy. The microphone's
Speaker 3: in and working. I trot upstairs to JB's apartment. I
Speaker 3: knock on the door and there's a little bit of
Speaker 3: a pause.
Speaker 1: The usual time it took to answer the door had passed. Eventually,
Speaker 1: JB's wife called out, who is it.
Speaker 3: I go, it's Joe, Joey the phone guy.
Speaker 1: After another pause, Joe immediately has the thought that every
Speaker 1: black bag agent has that his cover had been blown
Speaker 1: and there was no telling who might be on the
Speaker 1: other side of the door waiting for him. JB's wife
Speaker 1: finally opens the door, and.
Speaker 3: I could see she's been crying. I go okay, and
Speaker 3: she because yes, and I'm thinking, all right, whatever's going on,
Speaker 3: it ain't me. I walk over to the kitchen. Over
Speaker 3: to my right on the couch, JB waves. I go over.
Speaker 3: I changed the kitchen phone. I picked up my twenty
Speaker 3: dollars tip.
Speaker 1: I leave and he leaves in a hurry.
Speaker 3: As I make the last turn to the foyer, all
Speaker 3: I see is a soaking wet face and hair, and
Speaker 3: then I realize between me and that face is a
Speaker 3: large barrel revolver right in my face. That I did
Speaker 3: not see.
Speaker 1: On the other side of the revolver was a man
Speaker 1: in obvious distress, scared, breathing heavily, and looking like he'd
Speaker 1: been running for quite some time.
Speaker 3: I go, okay, everything's cool, everything's good.
Speaker 1: But the man would not lower his gun. Then a
Speaker 1: miracle as help came in the form of a nosy
Speaker 1: neighbor who recognized Joe as the phone guy.
Speaker 3: He's okay, he's okay, it's Joey, he's okay. Sally, who
Speaker 3: is one of the women I got friendly with in
Speaker 3: the neighborhood, is yelling at this person who I don't
Speaker 3: know who it is, that everything is okay. So he
Speaker 3: puts this gun back in his waistband. I walk out
Speaker 3: the door onto Elizabeth Street. I turned towards Grand and
Speaker 3: my heart rate jumps from normal to one hundred and twenty.
Speaker 3: So it was a delayed reaction to what might have happened.
Speaker 1: All those weeks Joe spent establishing himself as a local
Speaker 1: likely saved his life.
Speaker 3: I walked down to the closest payphone. I called the office.
Speaker 3: I asked for the supervisor, Damon Taylor. I go, Damon,
Speaker 3: I just left Elizabeth Street, and Damon says to me, oh,
Speaker 3: I forgot to call you. Forgot to call me and
Speaker 3: tell me what There was a hit last night. Sonny's dead.
Speaker 3: They're hunting for Bruno, his son. I go, well, I'm
Speaker 3: pretty sure I just ran into Bruno.
Speaker 1: It turns out that the night before Sonny red in
Speaker 1: Delakado was one of the three capos gunned down in
Speaker 1: Bensonhurst at the hands of Joe Messino and his son
Speaker 1: Bruno and Delacado had every reason to be running for
Speaker 1: his life. If there was ever any doubt that Joe
Speaker 1: had penetrated the very center of the New York mob world,
Speaker 1: it had vanished with Sunny Red's murder. The only problem
Speaker 1: the bug planted in in Delocado's house was now worthless.
Speaker 1: Sonny was dead, but the fight wasn't because, as it
Speaker 1: turns out, Joe and his fellow Feds weren't the only
Speaker 1: ones in town getting eyes and ears inside organized crime.
Speaker 2: Next time on Law and Order Criminal Justice System.
Speaker 6: We are going to utilize this to dismantle organized crime
Speaker 6: by cutting off its head.
Speaker 4: I dream of the day that you guys put all
Speaker 4: the bosses of the families in jail in one place.
Speaker 3: You had to be capable, confident, and dedicated to the mission.
Speaker 3: I worked literally one hundred hours a week.
Speaker 5: Where like a battleship, it takes us forever to turn
Speaker 5: the ship around, but once we get where we're going,
Speaker 5: we can knock out anybody in sight.
Speaker 2: Law and Order Criminal Justice System is a production of
Speaker 2: Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts. Our host is Anna Sega Nicolazi.
Speaker 2: This episode was written by Chandler Mays and Anna Sega
Speaker 2: Nicolazzi Executive produced by Dick Wolf, Elliott Wolf, and Stephen
Speaker 2: Michael at Wolf Entertainment on behalf of iHeartRadio. Executive produced
Speaker 2: by Alex Williams and Matt Frederick, with supervising producers Trevor
Speaker 2: Young and Chandler Mays and producers Jesse Funk, Nolms Griffin,
Speaker 2: and Rima Olkali. This season is executive produced by Anna
Speaker 2: Sega Nicolazzi, story producer Walker Lamond. Our researchers are Carolyn
Speaker 2: Talmage and Luke Stents. Editing and sound designed by Nomes Griffin.
Speaker 2: Original music by John O'Hara, original theme by Mike Post,
Speaker 2: additional music by Steve Moore, and additional voiceover by me
Speaker 2: Steve Zernkelton. Special thanks to Fox five in New York,
Speaker 2: ABC and CBS for providing archival material for the show.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio and Wolf Entertainment, visit the
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 2: favorite shows. Thanks for listening.