WEBVTT - 10 - The Last Don - Part One 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:06.320 You're listening to Law and Order Criminal Justice System, a 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:10.320 production of Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts. 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:17.239 In the criminal justice System, landmark trials transcend the courtroom 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:20.680 to reshape the law. The brave many women who investigate 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:23.560 and prosecute these cases are part of a select group 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:32.920 that is defined American history. These are their stories. August seventeenth, 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:36.440 nineteen eighty one, Eltingville, Staten Island. 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:42.440 The pickup was scheduled for just past nine sunny. Black 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:45.720 Nepolitano placed his keys on the bar, along with his 0:00:45.880 --> 0:00:47.599 prize diamond pinky ring and. 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:48.440 A wat of cash. 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:52.960 He told the bartender he had a sinking feeling that 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:57.640 he wouldn't be needing them anymore. Sonny got into a 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.000 Lincoln town car which took him over with the Verizano 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:05.240 Bridge to a small house on Staten Island. For years, 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:08.000 he had been a good earner for the Banano family, 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:12.600 but he made one unforgivable mistake. He vouched for someone 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:15.000 who turned out to be the enemy. 0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:18.440 One of the closer Austra rules is if you vouch 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:20.600 for a guy and he turns bad, it's on you 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:22.559 and the penalty could be death. 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:27.440 Sonny knew the score. As he descended the stairs to 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.840 the basement, the door slam shut behind him and he 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:32.000 was shoved to the floor. 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:35.679 There was a setup crew, there was a murder crew, 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:40.160 and there was a cleanup crew, so multiple people involved. 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:44.600 The first shot grazed his ear, then he heard the 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:48.720 gun jam. Sprawled on his knees, Sonny looked up at 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:52.160 the gunman and said, hit me one more time and 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.880 make it good. The second gunman fired. 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:08.880 You're not with the mob because you want to be. 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:12.040 It's the gangster that decides whether you're his associated on 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:13.520 If you like. 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.000 Your life, you will vote to acquit. 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:18.560 I'm aniseg and NICOLASI. 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:20.640 My father should have been a dead man. 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:25.679 From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart podcasts. This is law and 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:33.239 order criminal justice system. 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:36.840 I didn't get hired as an FBI agent. What I 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:41.519 got hired as was a grade to file coler, which 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:46.040 was a position that doesn't even exist anymore. And my 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:49.400 very first job in the FBI was filing fingerprint cards 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:50.480 in alphabetical order. 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:54.639 Extremely exciting work, but I. 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:56.560 Managed to work my way up through the ranks. 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:00.639 You can blame it on the hardy boys or shirlofe homes, 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:04.680 but Jack Stubing, like many of us, developed a passion 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:07.960 for crime solving at a young age. He just happened 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:10.600 to make a career of it, first as a file 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:14.600 clerk and then eventually as a supervisory special agent at 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:15.359 the FBI. 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:20.239 The first actual organized crime book I ever read was 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:23.960 about the Banano family. When I became a supervisor, I 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:27.360 tried to instill in young agents that you should know 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:30.280 the history of these things because it's all about human 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:33.799 relationships and how we got to where we are. And 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:36.560 it's one of the reasons that at West Point they 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:40.160 study battles that happened a thousand years ago, because the 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:44.920 technology may change, but human beings remain human beings. And 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:50.960 part of success in organized crime investigations is the ability 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:54.520 to predict the future, basically, and you want to predict 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:56.720 what's going to happen before it happens. 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:03.760 Know your history. Predict all easier said than done, especially 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:07.400 when you're dealing with an adversary as unpredictable as the 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:14.520 American mafia with the mobs elaborate org chart of bosses, underbosses, capos, 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.640 and soldiers. Keeping track of the nicknames alone would test 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:23.400 even the most dedicated of crime solvers. Thankfully, Special Agent 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:26.880 Jack Steubing loved a good mystery, and he had his 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:31.960 sight set on a big one. Throughout the second half 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:34.960 of the twentieth century. The rise and fall of the 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:38.560 Banano crime family had more twists and turns than an 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:41.520 act at the Christie novel, and in the years after 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.000 the Commission trial, Jack was tasked with taking them down 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:46.400 once and for all. 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:50.560 The Bananas were an absolute mess. To put it bluntly, 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.920 they had had problems going back to the nineteen sixties. 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:59.720 Joe Banano was the founding member of the Banano family, 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:03.960 but he was also the youngest member of the Commission 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.400 at the time because he was a young, wise guy 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:10.680 from the Old Country. And even though that he was 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:16.159 on the Commission, he was trying to gather support from 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:19.800 some of the other families to institute himself as the 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:24.640 Boss of bosses. Despite the Commission. Commission got wished to 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.120 this thing before he was able to make his move, 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:30.280 and they chased them out of New York. The titular 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:33.839 Boss was now living in Arizona having been chased out 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:37.240 of New York, and they were rutorless. There were these 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:42.680 constant factions within the family that led to the assassination 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:47.359 actually of Carline Gallante and the rise of Joe Messino. 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:53.719 The rise and reign of Joe Messino, perhaps the most 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:57.719 ruthless and resilient of the New York bosses, a man 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:00.839 who would become known as the Last Don. 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:06.640 He was a hijacker. He was not an educated man, 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.920 but he was a smart man. He was very clever, 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:16.360 very street wise. Obviously, he was brutal, reputed to do 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:19.560 his own work. In other words, he wasn't afraid to 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:22.919 use violence as a tool against somebody personally, wouldn't just 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:27.560 order somebody else. He would participate in acts himself if necessary. 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:31.800 By the time he was in his thirties, Messino had 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:35.920 earned a coveted role as protege to Rusty Rostelli, who 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:39.560 in nineteen seventy three had taken over the top spot 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:44.400 in the Banano family. Messino's appetite also earned him the 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:46.040 nickname Big Joey. 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:51.120 He was a good earner and he was very interested 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:54.640 in food. He ran a catering business back in the 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:58.000 day before there were the kind of sophisticated food trucks 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:00.440 and stuff that they have now that go to fairs 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:04.000 and that kind of thing. There were essentially pickup trucks 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:07.839 with stainless steel bodies on the back of them, and 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:13.080 they sold sandwiches to construction sites and places where people 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:16.640 were working out in the field. And in Joe's case, 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:20.680 these trucks were also used there's good mechanisms for taking 0:07:20.760 --> 0:07:26.040 bets and making loan shark loans, and conducting other business 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:30.280 that generated more income for him than selling sandwiches. 0:07:31.560 --> 0:07:35.800 After the Bananas got burned by undercover FBI agent Joe 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:40.320 Pistone aka Donnie Brasco and were banished from the Commission, 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:44.120 the family was forced to pivot into new illsicit markets, 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:47.880 and during that time Joe Messino crew in status. 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:52.920 As the years went by, he grew in power within 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:56.920 the family and became a captain and had his own crew. 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:01.720 He rose through the ranks through guile violence, basically to 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:06.280 head the family after the death of Rusty Rostelli. 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:10.320 A position he secured in large part thanks to the 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:15.120 nineteen seventy nine assassination of rival Carma Galante and the 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:18.120 triple murder of the three Capos in nineteen eighty one. 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:23.040 And remember, the Bananos had been left largely unscathed by 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.080 the Commission trial, so by the end of the eighties, 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:29.840 as the other families were weakened by prosecutions and a 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.480 revolving door of turncoats, they were poised to fill that 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:47.880 power vacuum. As the new head of the family. Messino 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:52.040 was becoming arguably the most powerful mafia leader in the country, 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:56.400 not to mention the only full fledged New York boss 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.719 who was not in prison or dead. 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.560 Messino, you know, I mean, he's been referred to as 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:08.040 the last Godfather. He was the force to be reckoned with. 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:11.679 He really was de facto the boss and bosses by 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:12.439 this point. 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.560 And he aimed to keep it that way, determined not 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:19.760 to make the same mistakes other bosses had made that 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:21.880 exposed them to federal prosecution. 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:27.320 Messino was pretty sophisticated in a street wise way, but 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:32.199 also he sort of had a fondness for technology. He 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:37.600 sometimes used the walkie talkies on his operations. He would 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:42.160 have electronic sweeps of his social club to detect bugs. 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.480 There's a famous story that they had installed a bug 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:48.200 in one of his clubs and he managed to find 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.200 it within two days. So he was somebody who was 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:55.600 constantly on guard against infiltration. 0:09:56.360 --> 0:10:00.760 Just as Vincent Gigante was called the Chin earned a 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.319 similarly descriptive nickname, he was known as the. 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:08.520 Ear It's like Valdemort, he who must not be named. 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:13.880 The ear Thing was partially this myth that Messino created 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:17.720 for himself, where he was everywhere and all seeing and 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:22.319 would hear you know if anything was amiss within his empire. 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:28.080 But Messino's greatest advantage over his predecessors. After watching the 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:31.480 government round up his rivals, he had gotten wise to 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:32.240 their playbook. 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:37.520 We had a case where we had infiltrated one of 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:41.840 their clubs. We were able to install bugs and CCTV 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:46.800 inside the club, and we could see on the CCTV 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:49.440 that when they were talking to each other they would 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:53.320 be whispering in each other's ears. They just assumed that 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:55.680 the place was bugged, and a acted accordingly. 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:59.800 These bugs had been the hallmark of the Commission case, 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:04.280 but in many ways, federal law enforcement had been a 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:08.680 victim of their own success. Decades of black bag ops 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:12.760 and surveillance had served to strengthen those mobsters that had 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:13.840 managed to survive. 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:18.520 This combination of factors that no one within the family 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:22.640 had turned. Our informant coverage was spotty at best. They 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:27.400 were very cautious about electronic surveillance. We just weren't making 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:28.000 any headway. 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.480 So for this next chapter in their spy versus spy 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:36.439 battle with the mob, the FBI needed a new game plan, 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:39.640 a whole new type of agent. They would have to 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:47.080 be sophisticated, fearless, and most of all, relentless. Enter the accountants. 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:52.640 In the mid nineties, I went to my ASAC, the 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:57.080 Assistant Special Agent in charge of the Organized crime branch 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:00.199 in New York, and I said, you know, everything we 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:03.160 have tried has not worked. Now, I've been toying with 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:07.200 this idea that maybe if we could get some forensic 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.839 accountantcy in here, maybe they could make some headway where 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:14.520 we can. My ASAC said, all right, well, let's see 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:17.800 what I can do. He obtained for me two forensic 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:21.840 accountants by the name of Jeff Selette and Kim McCaffrey, 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:30.680 and they were both brand new agents. They were eager, enthusiastic, smart. 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:34.600 And their real superpower each was a whiz with numbers. 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:39.360 So my name is Kimberly McCaffrey, and I started in 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.600 New York. I spent nine years there working organized crime. 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:47.560 Like many agents, Kim McCaffrey had grown up familiar with 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.440 some of the faces and names of organized crime. 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:55.880 I grew up in southern New Jersey. Obviously it was 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:58.200 on the local news all the time. I would always 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:00.880 see John Gottie. I would always see how he walked 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:04.760 with a swagger. Even as a kid, I never quite understood. 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:07.840 I'm like, guys, if we know he's the head of 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:11.439 a mob family, why can't we arrest him. I didn't 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:14.720 understand how he could just walk around when we all 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:16.160 knew he was such a bad guy. 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:21.680 But Kim's path to crime fighting was not a direct one. 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:26.600 I started as a phyzed major and changed my major 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.840 three times till I finally graduated with an accounting major. 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:33.600 I majored in accounting not because I thought I would 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:37.960 have a great fulfilling career as a CPA. I majored 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:41.760 in accounting because it actually came naturally to me. It 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:44.440 was fun going through all the numbers every day. But 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:48.079 I really did want to use my accounting skills. It 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:51.280 sounds so cliche, but to change the world to make 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:52.000 things better. 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:57.240 So after getting her degree, Kim stopped buy an FBI 0:13:57.360 --> 0:13:59.720 field office and filled out an application. 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:03.880 On my first day, one of my supervisors when I 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:06.120 first got to the New York office, said Hey, if 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:09.120 you had your dream career here, what would it be? 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:11.600 And I was like, you know, I would love to 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:17.400 use my accounting skills to combat organized crime. He said, Oh, 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:19.600 do I have the perfect person for you to meet. 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:25.160 That person was Jack Steubing, who had the novel idea 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:27.800 of recruiting CPAs to combat the mob. 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:31.720 At that point, I was slated to go to Squad 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:34.800 C ten in New York to work the Banana organized 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:39.160 crime family. Jeff and I became partners, and the rest 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:40.280 is history. I guess. 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:45.080 So, how would this work? How would a few accountants 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:48.760 accomplish what it had taken hundreds of FBI personnel to 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:50.240 do before them. 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:55.960 The idea of forensic accounting isn't just crunching numbers. That's 0:14:56.160 --> 0:15:00.960 what regular accountants do. What the forensic accountants do is 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:08.320 put those numbers into the organized crime context. What here 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:11.400 is legitimate money, what is bad money? 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.640 And if the numbers added up, the results would prove 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:18.840 to be even more reliable than human witnesses. 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:23.480 Bank records don't change. You can kill an informant, you 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:27.840 can bribe people, you can do all manner of things, 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:30.920 But you can't change the records that are in the 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:34.480 banking system. They're always lurking there, and many of them 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:37.880 you don't even know exist, And it's great evidence. 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:42.360 The fact is that at its heart, the mob is 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:46.120 all about money, and who better to trace a money 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:47.440 trail than an accountant. 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:52.040 One thing Jeff always said was what do financial records 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:54.880 tell you? Well, they give you leads like cut off 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:57.680 the numbers, and it gives you a pattern of life, 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:00.840 Like if we look at any one of our statements, 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:04.840 it's a financial surveillance, like, oh, you like to go 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:08.360 to Chipotle, you shop at Target, this is where you vacation. 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:10.960 Who are you getting money from and who are you 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:16.040 sending money to? And why look at someone's tax returns, 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:19.720 especially a mob boss. Why are they getting W two's 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:24.760 from particular corporations they're clearly not working there. Look at 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:28.920 the in and outflows of money, and then understand the 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:33.040 people behind them, and then you look into those people 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:36.520 and figure out who will actually talk to you, look 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:37.480 for the weak link. 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:42.320 And the plan was to deploy these methods against the 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:46.560 boss of bosses, Joe Messino. But even Jack had to 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:49.360 admit this was a bit out of his wheelhouse. 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:54.560 I mean, I had taken some accounting classes in community college, 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:56.640 but I was no forensic account and I didn't know 0:16:56.680 --> 0:16:59.800 what I was looking for when I subpoenaed bank records. 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.600 Unless it said in the memo loan shark payment, I 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:04.320 would have had no idea what it was I was 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:04.840 looking at. 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:10.439 Luckily, his agents were experts in decoding the secrets in 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:15.040 the stacks of checks, bank statements, and shady receipts that 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.359 had accumulated from years of property seizures. 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:23.320 As I recall, Jeff was the first to arrive, and 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:26.040 I had a box of these checks that from when 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:28.560 I was a case agent. Well, he opens his box 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:30.600 up and starts going through the box, and he goes, oh, 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:33.280 this is evidence of structuring. Oh, this is evidence of 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:35.960 money learning. Oh this is evidence of tax of asion. 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:36.520 Oh. 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:39.359 I don't, Frank, I'm looking at the same stuff he said. 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:42.480 He is, Hakim, I don't see what he sees. I said, 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.439 I'm going to take whatever's in my head about the 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:48.359 Banano family and put it in your head, and you 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:51.080 mix it up with your accounting skills and see what 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:51.679 you can do. 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:57.040 Armed with pencils, paper and their trusty Excel spreadsheets, Kim 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:00.679 and Jeff got to work sorting through thousands of documents 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:04.800 in putting the pieces together. The endgame, follow the money 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:06.080 and hit them where it hurts. 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:10.959 Traditionally, an organized crime, you sort of expect to go 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:14.200 to jail at some point in your career, but what 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:16.560 you don't expect is when the government takes your money 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:20.080 away while you're in jail. So that was what we 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:23.280 had planned. Not only do we want to put them 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:25.119 in jail, but we want to take all their money, 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:28.560 or we want to have that hanging over their head 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:31.119 that maybe they will talk to us for the first time. 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:35.200 They decided to start right at the top with Joe 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:39.159 Messino and his underboss, sal Vitali, who was also his 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:39.960 brother in law. 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:45.280 They had the same CPA. So the first thing we did, 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:50.960 as our nerdy accountant selves, was we subpoenaed their accounting records. 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:57.080 Not wiretaps, not stakeouts of smoke filled social clubs, receipts, 0:18:57.600 --> 0:19:01.879 stacks and stacks of receipts. Safe to say, this was 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:04.200 a whole new side of the FBI. 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:08.680 I always kind of laugh because you had some old 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:11.719 school agents on the squad who were going out on 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:15.040 surveillance every day or doing old school type of things. 0:19:15.160 --> 0:19:18.160 And how excited were Jeff and I when we brought 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:22.119 back nine boxes of financial records and were filling in 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:23.359 Excel spreadsheets. 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:25.640 I'm shaking my head because I would have walked by 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:26.719 your office so fast. 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:29.800 I was like, and that's exactly what most people did, 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:33.520 but to us, like, we're so excited, So I don't 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:36.240 think anyone wanted to be on our team at that point. 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:40.800 And the gangsters themselves weren't their only targets. It was 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:44.840 also their facilitators, the network of people who were helping 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:48.760 them move their money and attempt to disguise it as legitimate, 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:51.800 which led to the uncovering of one of the more 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:56.639 novel laundering schemes in criminal history. If you actually believe 0:19:56.720 --> 0:20:01.520 their tax returns, Messino, Vitally and their respective wives were 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:05.960 among the luckiest people in New York. Why they were 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:10.280 reporting thousands and thousands of dollars of lottery winnings. 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:16.320 Yeah, we see that on their tax returns. Joe, sal Josie, Diana, 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:20.560 They're all winning the lottery at various points. Anyone around 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:23.840 Joe Messino is winning the lottery all the time. We 0:20:23.920 --> 0:20:26.879 knew that really wasn't real. That was a way for 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:30.119 him to launder his money. It would have been clever 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:33.239 if maybe they just won it once, but with the 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:38.640 volume of times that they and their friends or family 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:42.159 members won it, it just obviously became a red flag 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:42.960 for us. 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:47.240 Here's the scheme, as Messino and Vitally imagined it. You 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:50.240 have a lot of cash from a legal activity, and 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:52.480 you need to clean it to make it look like 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:53.960 it was earned legitimately. 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:58.280 And in New York there's a lot of bodegas. The 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.040 owners of the bodegas, these are the people selling the 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.520 lottery tickets. So I have a lot of cash and 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:07.800 I tell the owner, Hey, if someone wins the lottery, 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.159 I'd like to buy their ticket. Because that legitimate person 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.000 who wins the lottery, they have to claim it, they 0:21:14.040 --> 0:21:16.480 have to pay taxes on it, and that's less money 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:20.919 for them. But if Joe Mosino buys your lottery ticket 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:24.200 from you, you get more money. You don't have to 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:26.920 claim it on your taxes. He doesn't care about paying 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:29.280 the taxes on it because he has so much cash 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:31.960 that he needs to legitimize. And that's sort of the 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:33.040 way the scheme worked. 0:21:34.520 --> 0:21:38.280 But their lucky streak would eventually run out, partly due 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:43.400 to the FBI's work with an unlikely partner, Barry Weinberg. 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:48.879 He was our first big break. Barry Weinberg was the 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:52.920 owner of several parking lots in Lower Manhattan. His name 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:56.359 was nowhere on the Banana Org chart, but it kept 0:21:56.400 --> 0:22:00.840 popping up on checks to and from Messino and wives. 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:06.000 We're just wondering why the boss and the underboss' wives 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:12.919 are receiving income from parking lots in Lower Manhattan. In particular, 0:22:13.040 --> 0:22:15.760 we're wondering why a man by the name of Barry 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:21.399 Weinberg is receiving checks from Messino and Vitally. Let's figure 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:23.520 out who he is and what he's all about. 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:28.640 Well, it turns out that Barry was a character almost 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:31.640 as colorful as the gangsters he was in bed with. 0:22:32.880 --> 0:22:39.080 Barry Weinberg was a very successful businessman who was infatuated 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:44.240 with the mob. He was an associate of Richie Cantarella. 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:50.400 Richie Cantrella was a Banano captain and confidant of sal Vitally. 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:57.760 Barry Weinberg owned parking lot leases all over Manhattan, super wealthy, 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:01.760 and he was pretty much extored out of a portion 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:06.600 of those leases and forced to sell to the wives 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:10.840 of Joe Messino and Salvatally so that they could legitimize 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:11.520 their income. 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:17.040 So Weinberg was a victim of the bananas, but also 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:21.080 an accomplice who walked the fine line between the legitimate 0:23:21.160 --> 0:23:23.359 and criminal worlds of New York City. 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:29.560 In vision like an older, wheeling, dealing guy in Lower Manhattan, 0:23:30.160 --> 0:23:35.160 chain smoking, super nervous, always had a cigarette in his hand. 0:23:35.680 --> 0:23:40.600 He once described W two wage earners as schmucks, and 0:23:40.640 --> 0:23:44.240 then Jeff and I just looked at him, like, you 0:23:44.600 --> 0:23:47.479 do realize that we are W two wage earners And 0:23:47.520 --> 0:23:51.480 he's like, oh, sorry, sorry, you know, very fast talking. 0:23:52.119 --> 0:23:56.760 He was just a character. And in addition, Barry had 0:23:56.800 --> 0:24:00.520 an achilles heel that Kim and Jeff were happy to exploit. 0:24:01.760 --> 0:24:06.679 Barry's downfall was that he liked really young women, and 0:24:06.800 --> 0:24:08.840 he had a lot of ex wives, and he had 0:24:08.840 --> 0:24:11.040 a lot of children, and he didn't like to pay 0:24:11.080 --> 0:24:15.639 his taxes. I think he had evaded close to fourteen 0:24:15.880 --> 0:24:21.560 million dollars in income taxes with his various businesses. 0:24:22.400 --> 0:24:25.760 Money that largely went right back out the door in 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:28.160 the form of alimony and child support. 0:24:29.240 --> 0:24:31.560 We sort of assessed that Barry Weinberg was not the 0:24:31.600 --> 0:24:33.879 type of guy who was willing to go to prison. 0:24:34.359 --> 0:24:38.680 So our plan and our hope was to arrest Barry 0:24:38.840 --> 0:24:43.879 in a covert way without anyone in the family knowing 0:24:44.080 --> 0:24:47.879 about it, and to have Barry make a decision whether 0:24:48.480 --> 0:24:51.320 he wanted to go in front of the magistrate judge 0:24:51.359 --> 0:24:55.880 that day for his tax evasion crimes, or he wanted 0:24:55.920 --> 0:24:59.919 to go along his normal daily activities but wearing a 0:25:00.119 --> 0:25:01.800 wire for the FBI. 0:25:02.800 --> 0:25:05.520 And so Kim and Jeff partnered with the n MIPD 0:25:06.080 --> 0:25:09.800 to affect a car stop of Weinberg's Mercedes, careful to 0:25:09.880 --> 0:25:12.880 do it far from the prying eyes of Banano spies. 0:25:14.320 --> 0:25:17.679 We were close behind in a van and then they 0:25:17.720 --> 0:25:19.840 asked him to get out of the car and they 0:25:19.920 --> 0:25:22.119 put him in the van and he met Jeff and 0:25:22.160 --> 0:25:24.560 I for the first time. He was pretty surprised to 0:25:24.560 --> 0:25:27.840 meet us that day. We just introduced ourselves and we 0:25:27.920 --> 0:25:31.240