Joseph Pistone's Career

Joseph Pistone’s Career

Joseph Pistone was an undercover FBI agent who went under the codename of “Donnie Brasco”. Pistone is to a lesser extent known for the infiltration of the Colombo Crime Family which was one of the “Five Families” that organized crime activities in New York City (The American Mafia), and most famously known for the infiltration of the Bonanno Crime Family. The importance of his job was to earn the trust of the mafia in a 6 year operation that would lead to the arrests of hundreds of mafia members. In the end the FBI had pulled him from the operation for Pistone’s own safety.

Pistone served the FBI for 27 years and retired to become an FBI consultant. As of today, he is around the age of 60 and does interviews with

talk shows, schools, and consultants to inform people of his success in the FBI. He travels with bodyguards to keep him safe and the location of where he lives is kept a secret as there is a $500,000 open contract on killing Pistone. In 1987 Joe Pistone published his first book illustrating his life in the Mafia titled : “Donnie Brasco : My Undercover Life In The Mafia” and went to make more stories of his FBI adventures. He also helped in the making of his biopic, “Donnie Brasco” starring Johnny Depp and Al Pacino (1997).
Pistone was born in September 17, 1939 in Erie, Pennsylvania, and later grew up in Paterson, New Jersey. He went to college at William Paterson University where he graduated with a B.A. in elementary education social studies and became a teacher for one year before switching jobs to the Office of Naval Intelligence. It was later that in 1969 he switched roles to join the FBI which set him up with his future operations. During the time, the FBI set him up with an two apartments, one located in New York and one in Florida, while his family lived elsewhere in the country. His parents consisted of his father, who worked for a bar while his mother was religious and stayed at home. He has also stated that he had a brother and/or a sister but not much has been revealed to the public about them. Pistone is married to his wife Maggie and has three daughters. During his time in the FBI he was only allowed to see them once every three to four months for a day average. Divulging any missions/operations to them would be a breach of security which meant that he was forbidden to tell them anything about the infiltration of the Bonanno Family Infiltration. This obviously took a huge toll on the relationships of his daughters and wife.
He started his undercover career in 1974, where Pistone was transferred to New York and assigned to a truck hijacking squad by the FBI.

Pistone had the ability to drive bulldozers and trucks which led to the choosing of his first undercover mission. Each day there were about five to six major truck hijackings which were led by a gang stealing heavy vehicles and equipment for their own personal use. Over the course of the infiltration, he was able to account for 30 arrests which helped intelligence sources confirm that each and every one of them were tied to various mafia families. This resulted in an undercover mission known as “Operation Sun-Apple”, where Joseph Pistone received a new identity as a street burglar known as Donnie Brasco. His nickname to the mafia was “Donnie the

Jeweler”.
Before the operation, however, the FBI set him up with a class that would further educate his knowledge in precious gems and jewels that helped his alias stay true to his secret identity. The FBI thought he would be the right man to hire for the task due to the fact that he had a Sicilian heritage and was fluent in Italian. He was also very strong when it came to him being under pressure and and had been acquainted with the mob in the past while growing up and living in New Jersey. Once the operation was set in stone, Pistone’s personal information about himself and his family were erased from any records, and anybody who knew him personally could not contact him in any way as the FBI would deny any employment of a man named Joseph Pistone. This includes his wife, children, family members, friends, and anybody acquainted with him in the past. However, when Pistone did have the chance to speak with his wife and kids, it was to move them around due to their own safety. Pistone had stated that his family was moved on 3 different occasions and had to force their kids to move schools going under different first and last names.
His first task(s) were targeting bars and restaurants, where he knew mobsters frequently visited. One day he got into a conversation with a man named Benjamin ‘Lefty’ Ruggiero, who was a mobster that had worked as a loyal foot soldier for the Mafia for over 30 years. Ruggiero told Brasco that he had killed 26 people in total and had affiliation with the Bonanno Family. Brasco was able to impress him and it was then that they joined forces as business partners, with Ruggerio becoming a mentor and sponsor to him. While undercover with the mob, Brasco would check in everyday with Ruggiero (Now his Captain), and then start hanging out at a bar or nightclub trying to earn the trust of the mob and advancing up the Mafia ladder. Brasco would think of new ways to make money as he did so, and always tried to work with the same people. He never asked who other people were and what they were doing as it would bring suspicion to the mob which contributed to the longevity of the operation.
During the operation, Brasco was asked to commit around four contract killings.

He had stated before that he never had to kill a person throughout his whole operation, so to fulfill his mission, he would either manipulate himself out of the hit until a later date or have the FBI stage a fake killing if the mission deemed too difficult. It was then that on July 12, 1979 the head of the Bonanno Family named Carmine Galante was shot dead and a war broke out between rival families and their leaders. Ruggiero and the head mobster of the Bonanno Family named Dominick “Sonny-Black” Napolitano killed three of the top members of the other family during the war that took place. After that, Napolitano ordered Brasco to kill a man named Anthony “Bruno” Indelicato, who was a caporegime (a term used in the mafia for a high ranked member of a crime family who orders around a crew) for the Bonanno Crime Family. At the time, Brasco and the FBI thought the best plan would be to arrest Indelicato before the day of the hit, but they were unable to locate where he was hiding out. Due to the constant gunfire from the war and not being able to find Indelicato, the FBI decided it was finally the time to put an end to the operation. Brasco thought that it was wiser that he stayed until the end of December to finally find out his membership/rank of the family, but the FBI

disagreed.
Afterwards, it was then the FBI informed the mafia about who Donnie Brasco really was. At first, the Bonanno Family all thought that Brasco would never betray them, and that he was truly one of them. It took them several weeks to piece together the information, but they finally came to the conclusion that he was indeed a member of the FBI. The head mob also found out and put a contract up for Brasco for half a million dollars.
Two days into knowing that Brasco had been working with the FBI, the head of the mob ordered for Napolitano’s death. On August 17, 1981, he gave all of his personal belongings to a bartender (such as his keys, and jewelry) so that he could feed his pet pigeons and look after them after he had died. A year passes, and on August 12, 1982 the FBI finds a mutilated body in a creek on Staten Island, New York. At first, the body was unrecognizable and both hands were severed, while the face was horribly decomposed. Apparently, the body did infact belong to Dominick Napolitano, and that dental records had to be recorded to actually verify the identity of the corpse. It was then revealed that he was murdered by a man named Frank Lino, who said that himself and a partner both shot him with a .38 caliber more than once. Only a few days later, another Bonanno boss named Joe Massino was arrested charged with a variety of crimes. He was found guilty, and convicted in 2004 because he sent out the order to murder Napolitano. On August 30, 1981, Ruggiero was also arrested but this time for his own safety. He spent 20 years in prison but was released in 1992 on parole. On Thanksgiving Day of 1995, Ruggiero died from cancer in his New York home at the age of 72.
To this day, Pistone lives in a undisclosed location and travels under different aliases with bodyguards to keep him safe. He now lectures and teaches about his undercover techniques to law enforcement officials worldwide during his spare time. Some say that because of the operation, the mob has never fully recovered and they are now taking safer measurers to make sure that an undercover agent never gets into their ranks ever again. It was because of Pistone that over 200 indictments and 100 convictions were made. The FBI and the media will remember Joe Pistone’s triumphant operation for generations to come because of his successful and painstakingly difficult mission he had to comprehend in a 6 year long period.