- 6 minutes ago
Joaquin "Jack" Garcia is a retired FBI agent who worked 24 of his 26 years in the bureau undercover. He spent three years infiltrating the Gambino crime family under the alias "Jack Falcone."
Garcia talks to Business Insider about his unconventional entry into the FBI, including challenges with his weight and Cuban background. He discusses the "mob school" he attended to learn about the mannerisms and foods of New York's Italian mafia.
Garcia’s close relationship with the Gambino captain Greg DePalma and key events such as a violent assault in a Bloomingdale's led to the indictment of 32 mobsters. He recounts being proposed for membership in the family before the FBI prematurely ended the investigation. He contrasts the romanticized Italian mob with the greater brutality of drug cartels and discusses other major cases he worked, including police corruption in Hollywood, Florida, and Boston.
Since retiring from the FBI in 2006, Jack has written a New York Times bestseller, "Making Jack Falcone: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia Family."
Garcia talks to Business Insider about his unconventional entry into the FBI, including challenges with his weight and Cuban background. He discusses the "mob school" he attended to learn about the mannerisms and foods of New York's Italian mafia.
Garcia’s close relationship with the Gambino captain Greg DePalma and key events such as a violent assault in a Bloomingdale's led to the indictment of 32 mobsters. He recounts being proposed for membership in the family before the FBI prematurely ended the investigation. He contrasts the romanticized Italian mob with the greater brutality of drug cartels and discusses other major cases he worked, including police corruption in Hollywood, Florida, and Boston.
Since retiring from the FBI in 2006, Jack has written a New York Times bestseller, "Making Jack Falcone: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia Family."
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00:00My name is Joaquin Garcia, a.k.a. Jack Falcone.
00:04I was an undercover agent for 24 years.
00:07I spent nearly three years for the FBI with the Gambino crime family.
00:12This is everything I'm authorized to tell you.
00:16When you're undercover, something could just go wrong.
00:19A person may get the wrong vibe about you
00:23or may get paranoid about you for some reason.
00:26With the mob, you have to make sure your I's were dotted and your T's were crossed
00:31because once light moved, then you're in the back of a trunk of a card.
00:40They wanted me to pose as an Italian to infiltrate the Gambino crime family.
00:47I went through this informal mob school that was set up by the case agent
00:53who happens to be from Italy,
00:54and he taught me the foods and the proper pronunciation.
00:59You know, you don't look at Italian food like manicotti and say manicotti.
01:04It's manigotti.
01:05You know, it's not mozzarella.
01:07It's mozzarella.
01:08You sound like you grew up in that culture.
01:10You tasted these foods.
01:12I had no idea of how the mob culture worked.
01:15And I had to learn because my role was that my parents were third-generation Sicilian.
01:22I grew up in that culture, but yet I grew up in Miami,
01:26and I was around the Cuban criminal element,
01:31and that's mostly I've lost a lot of my Italian influence.
01:35We decide to hitch our wagon to Greg De Palma.
01:39So Greg De Palma became a captain in the Gambino crime family,
01:44which is a very high position.
01:45We knew Greg De Palma had a propensity for talking.
01:49Greg De Palma liked to talk, and we in the FBI liked to listen.
01:53So it was the perfect match.
01:55Time goes by.
01:57As slowly we go out to dinner with Greg,
01:59he's trying to get his foot on the ground.
02:01We became buddies.
02:02There were a couple of hijackings.
02:06Mostly there was the shaking down, bookmaking.
02:09There was a lot of extortion that went on when I was with him.
02:12He would be construction companies.
02:14He was very much into moving and transporting dirt.
02:18There's a lot of money in dirt.
02:19So people say, you want that job?
02:21I got to get the dirt out of it.
02:23And by dirt means every time you dig a ground or foundation or something,
02:27that dirt has to be removed.
02:28Now, of course, once you got that dirt, then you got to find a hole to put that in.
02:36If you got the hole, you got the gold.
02:39We had guys who were construction company owners
02:42that had millions and millions of dollars to contract.
02:46And why were they under the umbrella of the Gambino crime family?
02:51Because we were in the Gambino crime family, had control of the unions.
02:56So it behooved them to actually work with the mob in order to, you know,
03:03ensure that there is no problems, that things are going to flow smoothly.
03:08They're not going to have delays with anything.
03:10They have this fear intimidation that you think something,
03:14they're going to burn your house, they're going to beat you with a baseball bat.
03:17When Greg the Palmer walked into trial, he had what I call the mafia flu,
03:22where he showed up with a couple of workers from the hospital,
03:27an oxygen tank unshaven, like he was just about to die.
03:32There was a guy who was a construction guy that was being shaken down by Greg.
03:37And he's on this stand.
03:38And the defense attorney goes,
03:40well, why did you have to pay this guy all this money?
03:44Because, you know, were you afraid of him?
03:46He goes, yeah, I was afraid of him.
03:48And he said, you're afraid of him?
03:50And, of course, he's sitting in the defense table, like, crippled, you know,
03:55with a mask on and all of that.
03:57And the jury kinds of laughed.
04:00And what he should have said the kid on the stand would be,
04:05I wasn't afraid of him.
04:07I could bitch slap this kid all day and the guy all along.
04:10I was afraid of what he's capable of doing.
04:15His people are capable of doing.
04:17All it would take is an order with some subordinate guy or somebody in his crew,
04:22an associate, and say, go over there, burn his building down, beat him up,
04:26rape his wife, whatever you want to do.
04:28And they would do it.
04:29You fear him, not for his size.
04:33You fear him because he represents the mob and what the mob is capable of doing.
04:39Every day was like, let's go see this guy.
04:42He owes me money.
04:43We would go pick up money.
04:45His envelopes, he had envelopes all in his jacket.
04:49And then he cried a blues that he had no money.
04:52I go, Greg, you got at least 20 envelopes.
04:55God knows how many thousands and thousands of dollars.
04:58Anyway, one of the guys was absent.
05:00He was never reporting.
05:02And all I would hear is, this Petey chops.
05:05He don't show up.
05:06I'm going to go after him.
05:08We got to find him.
05:10And the only reason he was looking for Petey chops is because he wanted Petey chops to kick money up
05:15to him.
05:16That's what it's all about.
05:17It's money.
05:18One day he comes up and he says, I found him.
05:22I goes, you and Robert, which was another made guy.
05:26He says, you, Robert, I want you to go with me.
05:30He goes, where?
05:31He goes, he's in Bloomingdale's.
05:33Bloomingdale's in White Plains, New York.
05:35I would never forget that.
05:37I've driven by that so many times and I have to chuckle.
05:40And then Bloomingdale's says, what is he doing?
05:42Well, every Monday, he goes with his gumata, his gumata he said, which is girlfriend, and goes shopping with her.
05:52But he'll hang out at the coffee bar.
05:54There's Petey chops with the two women.
05:57So Greg gets all pumped up.
06:00Greg says to him, hey, get rid of the girls.
06:03So he goes, where the hell you been?
06:05He goes, what do you mean I'm been?
06:06And he says, hey, Greg, I'm being followed because you're being followed.
06:10We're all being followed.
06:12That's what we do.
06:13The feds follow us all every day long.
06:15You're supposed to be reporting and you haven't.
06:18Well, I can't because I'm being followed.
06:20I got a lot to lose.
06:21Then suddenly Robert comes up.
06:23He goes, hey, you're talking too loud and you're disrespecting a skipper.
06:27And he goes, who are you?
06:28He goes, who am I?
06:29And he says to the guy, go after yourself.
06:31He says, oh, yeah?
06:32He grabs this candlestick made out of solid glass called the Costa Boda.
06:40And it's kind of like a dumbbell, solid glass, grabs it, hits this guy over the head,
06:48blood starts gushing out.
06:50This guy drops down.
06:53The only thing missing were the little parakeets around his head because he was so knocked out.
06:57He's dropped down and he goes, you keep your mouth shut.
07:00And he goes to hit him again.
07:02I grabbed his arm.
07:03I says, what are you doing?
07:04He said, Robert, look, we've got cameras here.
07:07He said, oh, the hell when he's got a big mouth.
07:09The guy finally gets up.
07:10He's bleeding all over.
07:11And I'm separating them.
07:13He's saying, what did I do?
07:15What did you do that for?
07:16He goes, because you've got a big mouth and you don't show up.
07:19And you better show up first thing tomorrow, Greg tells him.
07:22He says, bright and early.
07:23The next day, bright and early, we go to the home.
07:26As I'm picking up Greg DePalma, here comes Petey Chops, all bandaged up, walking by.
07:33And Greg DePalma says, yeah, he showed up.
07:35He gave me a nice envelope.
07:37And he said he's going to show up every week.
07:39And I'm thinking to myself, that's all they cared about.
07:43A little intimidation always works with the mouth.
07:50New York is consists of five families that run the city, so to speak.
07:56And by the city, I mean they run every industry.
07:59They got the Garmin District.
08:01They got the Fish Fulton Market.
08:03They got construction.
08:04They have all their unions.
08:07They really are in control of it.
08:09And the five families are the Gambinos, the Columbos, the Genoveses, the Luccheses, and the Bananos.
08:17Everyone has their little territories.
08:20And if you infringe on that territory, like, you've got to get out of here.
08:23This is our turf.
08:24So everyone is very protective.
08:27They don't post it in classified ads.
08:29They don't say, looking for a gangster, come and apply.
08:32So what happens is you either get introduced to a guy who knows a guy,
08:37and somehow you start moving in the circles.
08:39There comes a point in time that they put you on record.
08:43And on record means now you are part of the family.
08:46You are underneath that umbrella, whatever family may be.
08:52The Bananos, or in my case, was the Gambino crime family.
08:56When I got put on record, I was given a pinky ring.
09:00That was the gaudiest thing I've ever seen in my life.
09:02I refused to wear it, but I had to wear it.
09:04It was a sign that the captain gave it to me to show that I am an associate of the
09:10call,
09:11or a connected guy.
09:12And how the mob works is you have an administration, which is the boss, the underbossed, and the concierge.
09:19Then underneath them, you have what they call captains or capos.
09:23These capos run crews.
09:26Depends how powerful you are, depending how many people are in your crew
09:31and how much money you bring that are kicked up the ladder.
09:35They had 26 captains, the Gambino crime family.
09:40Each captain had minimum of about 5 to 10 made soldiers, which are the people below.
09:47Those are soldiers who are waiting their turns to be captive.
09:51And underneath them come all the associates, all of the people who are connected,
09:57all of the businesses that are on record.
09:59Greg De Palma had several made guys.
10:02He was known as a capo decima, which is a capo with 10 made guys.
10:08So when one dies, they propose you and they put you on that list.
10:13That list is spread all around the families to see who is this Jack Falcone.
10:19Was he before with another family?
10:22Is he a guy who's been a rat?
10:25Has he done anybody wrong?
10:26And if nobody says anything bad about you, then you're told that you're going to get straightened out.
10:34And that simply means that you put on your best suit and on such and such a day,
10:41you're going to meet, usually meet in the basement of somebody's house.
10:44There you have all the wise guys, the leadership, the administration.
10:48And then you take your oath of a murtah, where you burn a saint in your hand after they prick
10:55your finger.
10:56And there, if you betray the family, you would have the same fate as this burned car.
11:03In other words, you're going to die.
11:05That was not a made guy.
11:07And they take that stuff very serious.
11:09Like, sometimes we would go to dinner, and another made guy come in, and once they get done,
11:15Hey, how you doing?
11:16Good to see you, Jack.
11:17Everything going well, all right.
11:18You have to excuse me for a second.
11:20They go to another table, and they whisper.
11:23Now, in the real world, you would be kind of offended.
11:26Like, you know, this guy.
11:27But you don't need to know.
11:29Because how things work is you're not a friend of ours.
11:34Let's say, for instance, I know somebody to be a wise guy with the bananas.
11:39I somehow went to a wedding, and I see the guy.
11:42I can't go to that guy and say, Hey, Joey, how you doing?
11:47It's Jackie Boy.
11:48I'm with the Gambinos, you know?
11:50You can't do that, because it's a secret criminal society.
11:53You have to find a third person who knows the both of yous who's going to make that introduction.
11:59And that would be, Hey, Joey, I want you to meet Jack.
12:03He's a friend of ours.
12:05That means that I'm a made guy.
12:07But if I said, I want you to meet Jack, he's a friend of mine, that tells you that he
12:14has, I'm not a made guy.
12:16So there's certain things you can't talk to me about.
12:19And they really subscribe to that.
12:21So you're either a friend of ours or a friend of mine.
12:23Greg DePalma would do that.
12:24He would introduce me to all these captains from other families, and he would say, This is Jackie Boy.
12:30He's a friend of mine.
12:31Luckily for me, Greg DePalma had a big mount, and he would come back and tell me, Oh, the guy
12:36wants to do this windows and this and that.
12:39So I was fortunate to have him.
12:46I drove him to every meeting.
12:48I knew what every meeting was about.
12:50That was a tough thing to do, driving him around, because everywhere we went, he had to steal something.
12:56We go to the big man's shop, because he was a big guy, too.
12:59And he'd go in, and he goes, Hey, Jackie Boy, look, in his coat, he had socks and ties.
13:05I go, What the hell are you doing?
13:06He goes, What are you talking about?
13:08He got a whole bunch over there.
13:09He's got a whole bunch there for sale.
13:11Greg, I says, You know, you never know if you're on a camera.
13:14He couldn't help himself, because this is what I do.
13:17He goes, This is who I am.
13:20To him, going there and robbing things was just a normal occurrence, because that was in his DNA.
13:27One of the things that I found out with Greg is, you've got to make yourself to be the carrot.
13:35You want him to pursue you.
13:37You don't want to pursue them.
13:40I slowly, methodically worked him, made me into something that he wanted to get his hands on.
13:47There's somebody who is going to bail him out, and somebody who's going to help him.
13:52And for me, he was going to go places.
13:54When you're in the mob, and you go to jail, and you come out, everybody gives you an envelope to
13:59get your feet back on the ground.
14:01Well, my envelope was, I gave Greg three grand.
14:04From then on, he loved me.
14:05He realized that, Hey, this guy does the right thing.
14:09He gave me the money.
14:10He's respectful.
14:12And that's what the mob is all about.
14:13They want to sink their teeth into somebody who's doing well.
14:18Because if they're doing well, you're going to do well.
14:21They want earners.
14:22They want people who are going to make money and do the right thing with that money.
14:27We were selling jewelry to the bad guys as being hot.
14:32And they would give us a good price.
14:35But of course, I would sell them maybe to the captain for like, give me $3,500 or $4,000
14:42for a Rolex.
14:43He turns around, sells it for $7,000.
14:45Now, he's making money on you.
14:47And that's always a good sign.
14:49With the mob, there is total accountability.
14:52They need to know where you're at.
14:54How come you haven't called?
14:56One time, for instance, I remember he wound up calling me.
14:59And I was busy working some other case.
15:02And I didn't return his call.
15:04Next day, he began to tell me.
15:06He goes, Where were you?
15:07I said, I was doing something.
15:09He goes, Doing what?
15:10He said to me, If I call you, wherever you're at, you better pick up that phone.
15:15Do you understand me?
15:16Because how do I know you're not locked up?
15:19How do I know you're not working for the feds?
15:21So I made it a point to answer that phone no matter what I was doing.
15:25Because if I didn't, it would have set me back.
15:33All I would do is go to Little Italy and eat like I was going to the chair.
15:37I mean, we order all kinds of pastas and this and that.
15:41Judge Hellerstein, never forget him.
15:43Very nice man.
15:44He stops a proceeding as I'm bringing these tapes in.
15:47And he goes, Agent Garcia, every tape you guys are eating, every tape you're cursing.
15:53No manners, no nothing.
15:55He goes, How much weight did you gain in this case?
15:58I said, Your Honor, I gained about 90 pounds in this case.
16:01And he looked at me, he says, I could see why.
16:04I says, All you did was eat.
16:06The next day, front page of the Daily News says, Fat fellas, they eat their way through New York, these
16:14mobsters.
16:15And then you open up to the second page and it was, he was one of the wide guys.
16:21The eating part, I think it helped me a lot.
16:24You wind up having meat, meeting for breakfast.
16:27We would meet about 9 o'clock in the morning.
16:30Then from there, we go to lunch.
16:32Of course, you know, you're eating there again.
16:34Then you go to the strip club where I was running a strip club in New York.
16:38Then there, people come in with pastries, this and that.
16:41Okay, you're eating then.
16:43Then, of course, dinner time comes.
16:44So now you're eating that.
16:47And then you go back to the club.
16:48You're drinking.
16:49And then right around 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning, you shoot over to City Island.
16:54And there you're eating some again.
16:56So this was a day.
16:57I found the more I ate, the more they loved me.
17:00It was like we would order and they would sit there and it goes,
17:04Maron, Jackie boy, look at you, Minkia.
17:07How do you eat all of that stuff?
17:08Come on.
17:09Or try this.
17:10Come over to my house.
17:11My wife will cook you this.
17:13They bought it hook, line, and sinker.
17:16No one ever questioned me.
17:17They thought I was a third generation Italian.
17:20And everyone wore these Ticini training suits.
17:23But there was no training going on.
17:25Nobody ever said to me, hey, Jackie boy, I want you to go jogging today.
17:30Let's go to the gym.
17:31Gym?
17:32What gym?
17:32These guys all walked around.
17:34The surgeon Ticini's with their bellies hanging out, the crosses out.
17:38No one worked out in the freaking mob.
17:41The only thing they ran away is from the cops.
17:43That's the only time I saw any running.
17:45You had to wear your Brioni suit, your Xenia suit.
17:49Everything had to fit beautifully on you when you went out.
17:52We would spend maybe a couple of thousand for suits custom made.
17:56You would go usually to a tailor that the mob uses.
18:00Of course, you had all the obligatory four-carat pinky ring.
18:04You had the Rolex President watch.
18:06You had your jewelry.
18:07You had your cross.
18:08You had your car.
18:09Now, I drove a Hummer H2 at that time, but prior to that, it was a Mercedes, and you could
18:15eat off that car.
18:16I used to carry four to five grand a day with me, and I would have it wrapped up in
18:21a broccoli
18:22band.
18:23That's the funniest part.
18:24At the end of the case, all of that property had to be returned.
18:28So I had to return all the suits.
18:31I had to return my underwear.
18:33I mean, who the hell is going to wear my underwear, right?
18:36Listen, it broke my heart having to turn some of these suits in, you know?
18:40I went from a, you know, a Brioni suit to a, God knows, like a Corvette, you know, one
18:47of the cheap suits that I bought, a Target suit, for crying out loud.
18:51So it was tough.
18:53Then, of course, your cars have to go, and then you have to get back in a bureau car.
18:58But I was lucky, because I worked so many undercover cases that I would roll from one right into
19:04the other, where I had the ability to have nice things when I was undercover, because those
19:11are the roles that I was playing.
19:13I was a big guy.
19:19I always approach my undercover work as being inclusive of everybody, just trying to be
19:24getting along, being nice.
19:26I wasn't playing a tough guy like some of these guys play or anything like that.
19:31I was just being me, you know, the way I am now.
19:34I talk.
19:35I tell jokes.
19:36All my meetings were recorded.
19:37And then I would arrange it with the case agent to meet me either at a church, at Home
19:42Depot.
19:43We walk down the aisles.
19:44I give him the tapes.
19:47He, in turn, give me money, the cash that I needed to operate.
19:50He would give me whatever, the paperwork.
19:53And we filled out the form to say, on such and such a date, I met with such and such
19:58a
19:58person.
19:58When you're working undercover, it's very difficult trying to keep a hold of the evidence as well
20:04as your paperwork.
20:05I always believed in wearing a recorder.
20:08If I'm wearing a recorder, you're memorializing that person's conversation.
20:12It's not going to go to court, or it's going to be your word against mine.
20:17A lot of undercovers sometimes are leery about wearing a recorder.
20:20Nobody ever put their hands on me to ever search me, nor would I allow that to happen.
20:26I would just say, hey, man, what are you doing?
20:28First of all, I wouldn't let the guy do him.
20:29You know, and then I would just say, you know what?
20:32Hey, dude, I ain't got time to work with your paranoia.
20:35I'm out of here.
20:36And I would just walk away.
20:38Because no matter what would happen, whatever happened is if they do pat you down, they
20:45don't find anything, they're still not going to trust you.
20:48But again, I was kind of lucky.
20:50You know, I was, my size helped a lot because I didn't look like an agent.
20:56You command respect.
20:57You know, you also have a reputation like you're a badass.
21:02And that always goes a long way with the mob.
21:06You're not somebody who is just, you know, walking around aimlessly or as they call the
21:12mortifam.
21:13You're not somebody dying of hunger.
21:15It worked for me, but it also could have really backfired because, okay, the guy's not an
21:20agent, therefore he has to be nothing but a rat.
21:29I started the case in 2002 and we ended in 205.
21:33This operation began when there was a strip club in the Bronx that we had called Mirage
21:39International.
21:40One day these Albanians came in, Albanian gangsters, and they started roughing up some people, getting
21:47into fights.
21:48The owner and the bouncers went up to them and said, hey, guys, you can't do that.
21:52It's not the way we operate here.
21:53He goes, look, you have a horrible security.
21:56We want it to be your security.
21:58You got to pay us $5,000 a month.
22:00The owners, there was several of them, came to the FBI and said, look, man, we don't want
22:05any of the trouble.
22:06We were just trying to get this business off the ground.
22:10So we said, all right, well, let's look into this.
22:12Let's look into it.
22:14Well, sure enough, the very next day, a mob guy shows up to the club, all spiffied up,
22:20beautiful suit.
22:21And he says to the owner, he goes, hey, guys, I heard you had a problem.
22:25I says, I heard the Albanians were here causing trouble.
22:28He says, we can make that problem go away, but you got to pay us $5,000.
22:33So the guy goes, wait a minute, so I'm paying $5,000 to the Albanians for no trouble, but
22:39you want me to give you $5,000 to keep them?
22:41I'm still paying $5,000.
22:43We go back, get together and realize, they said, okay, we want to handle this.
22:47We want to find out who, first of all, who this mob guy was.
22:50Nobody knew who he was.
22:52So they put a tail on him.
22:54He's meeting with the right people.
22:56Day or two go by, we decide we're going to go get rid of the Albanians.
23:01Let them be worked separately.
23:03And I'm introduced, and I pay this mob guy the $5,000 to assure us that the Albanians
23:13were never going to come in.
23:14So now we're working with the Gambino crime family.
23:18As we're moving along, Greg De Palma comes out of jail after his arrest for the scores
23:26and the Gold Club investigation.
23:28Greg De Palma is probably one of the most colorful mobsters around.
23:34He had a business back in the mid-'70s.
23:37It was like a concert supper club.
23:39Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Aretha Franklin, Sonny and Cher.
23:43The who's who of entertainment played at this club that was owned by the mafia called the
23:49Westchester Premier Theater.
23:51That club was under his control before he went to jail.
23:56And he drives directly from jail to the club.
24:00He's trying to get his foot on the ground.
24:02We became buddies.
24:03And next thing you know, I was hanging around with him every day at the club, 24 hours a
24:09day just about.
24:10And I became like his son.
24:17The Greg De Palma incident.
24:19The end of the case resulted in 32 mobsters arrested.
24:24Originally, the boss and the underbores were arrested.
24:27The boss wanted to do what they call a global plea, which means everyone in the case has to
24:33plea and the United States attorney will accept it.
24:37And, you know, it will help towards their sentence reduction.
24:41Well, everybody took the global plea except for Greg De Palma, who we had the most evidence.
24:47But Greg De Palma believed the old school.
24:50He was from the John Gotti school where I don't care what they have on you.
24:54You go and fight it with the feds.
24:5631 pled guilty.
24:58And Greg De Palma did go to trial where I finished testifying.
25:02And I walked by him and he looked at me and he goes, you and the judge went nuts.
25:09He says, you can't intimidate the witness and all of that.
25:12But I just found it hilarious that he was, you know, he was being a tough guy all the
25:17way to the very end.
25:19I mean, Greg, that was Greg's thing.
25:21He fought you all the way.
25:22And he believed in the mob and the mob came first to him.
25:27And I had the SWAT team take me to court because they thought there was going to be some issues.
25:33They had some guys watching over, making sure that I was going to be OK.
25:36There was a newspaper, Front Page News, that had me for a $250,000 contract on me.
25:44But, you know, it's funny with the contracts.
25:47The mob doesn't take out contracts.
25:49The mob works it.
25:49They want to whack you.
25:50The boss simply says, he's done.
25:53You know, you don't pay the guy to do it.
25:56That's just what you do.
25:57You're told by the boss to do it.
25:59You kill the guy.
25:59What do you do?
26:00You kill the guy and you go to the boss and say, can I have my $250,000 reward?
26:07You're going to wind up being killed yourself.
26:09Greg DePalm, I think, got 12 or 14 years.
26:11He died in prison.
26:13The other guys got about 10.
26:15So it was a very good case.
26:17But in hindsight, knowing that it was terminated earlier, it could have been a much better case.
26:24Similar to what I experienced, so was Donnie Brasco.
26:27He was, in the movie, he was also proposed for membership.
26:32And the Bureau decides to pull it at the last minute, which I can't understand that.
26:40When I worked drugs, we did is we find the drug dealer.
26:44We found who his supplier was.
26:46And we go up the ladder.
26:47Keep going up until you can't go anymore.
26:49Here, we're in with the ground floor.
26:52No one else thought of me being anything but Jack Falcone.
26:57Well, let's just keep going up and up and up.
27:00And it was decided against.
27:02And that was it for my career as an undercover with the organized crime family.
27:14It's unfortunate when you work your own because they tarnish the badge that we so proudly wear.
27:20You know, and when people always ask me like that, and I always say to them, look, that's our job.
27:26We have to get rid of them because that's a reflection of us.
27:28These people are out there representing us, and they're dirty.
27:33And when people know that they're dirty, they're going to think we're all dirty.
27:37You know, and it really was, it's horrible.
27:41And there's even some police departments that look at you as a rat if you work police corruption cases.
27:50A lot of these police corruption cases I've done, I've done them in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
27:55They were just as bad.
27:56I've done them.
27:57I've done them in South Carolina.
28:00I've done them in Broward Sheriff's Department.
28:03The Hollywood cops ended around 2000.
28:06There were some police officers in Hollywood that we were working with, and these guys were really hardcore thieves.
28:14They had no business being police officers, and I was playing the role of a mobster along with my partner,
28:22Dino.
28:23We were out working with them.
28:25They wanted, they were obsessed with the mob.
28:27They wanted to be around gangsters.
28:29They loved that.
28:30So what we would do is we would devise, create these crimes, like we just stole this Van Gogh art
28:38piece, and we needed transported up north.
28:42And sure enough, we would hire them.
28:44They would transport the stolen artwork up to New York.
28:48They'd give it to us.
28:49We'd spend the day partying with them.
28:51They'd go back.
28:52Then we did, we told them, stolen Kruger ants.
28:54They brought the Kruger ants, which is the gold coins, up north to us.
28:59We kept utilizing them, but as we were utilizing them, we kept growing.
29:03That led from one to two to three to four to five cops that we were paying them off for
29:09transporting stuff.
29:10We even set up an executive card game where we rented a boat, and there we brought in agents from
29:20the West Coast, and they were responsible for counting the money because it was a $50,000 entry fee, and
29:28they took care of all the security for us.
29:30We told them we were going to move to the big time of transport cocaine for us, and that's what
29:36they did.
29:37We would meet them up in Hollywood.
29:39We would have a tractor trailer pull up.
29:41They would load the tractor trailer with cocaine, and then we would drive up north.
29:46There was one time when we came in to see them to arrange another dope.
29:50There was a leak, and we couldn't find them.
29:54They weren't there, and they were always picking us up at the airport, and it turned out that there was
30:00a leak within the Hollywood Police Department that found out because the FBI met with them because they were partners
30:08in their terrorist investigation and told them that we had this ongoing police corruption case and that we had just
30:15flipped one of the cops to work internally.
30:18Well, the chief of police, he didn't like that, and next thing you know, some words got to the subjects
30:27that we were dealing with, and they put in their retirement paper, so this way guaranteeing that they were going
30:35to get paid for the rest of their lives.
30:37We wound up arresting all of the guys.
30:39I think we arrested five or six cops, and what surprised me about that case, the cops were such nice
30:45guys.
30:46I mean, they were the kind of guys you wanted to sit down and have a beer with, which just
30:50baffled my mind how they decided to do this.
30:57When I came from Cuba, I was nine years old and came to America.
31:02I was a big kid.
31:03We lived in Washington Heights, New York, and then from there, my parents were able to move to the Bronx,
31:09where I grew up.
31:10When you're in New York, it's funny.
31:11You know who the mobsters are.
31:13I mean, you know the guys, like a Vinnie Bagadone, it's in Joey Pots and Pants.
31:17These are the guys, street corner, they hang out, they've got their Cadillac, you know, and they're all shiny.
31:24They always have people coming up to them, giving a envelope.
31:28You kind of respected them, and you left them alone.
31:31They weren't celebrity mobsters like John Gotti.
31:35They weren't celebrity gangsters like Joey Merlino.
31:38No one knew who they were.
31:39Yeah, you assume who they were, because, you know, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what this
31:45guy does.
31:46It's a secret criminal society, and they stuck to those ethos.
31:51But we recognized that we respected them, and we left them alone, and, you know, we had nothing to do
31:58with them,
31:58because once they got you, you know, you were done.
32:03And some of my friends that I grew up with unfortunately fell into that in helping them out,
32:10carrying discs, getting them coffee, wash their cars, and then from then on as they grow up,
32:15they start hanging out even more.
32:17Next thing you know, you've got a gangster in your hands.
32:20My freshman year, when the football coach walked around, and he saw this big Mama Luke, me, walking around,
32:26and he says, hey, kid, you know how to play football?
32:29I call football with soccer.
32:30Because in Cuba, we don't play football.
32:33You know, it's baseball, our sport.
32:35From then I was, I started doing well enough to get an old conference, old city,
32:41and wind up getting a bunch of scholarships.
32:44And then they changed the coaching staff and went to a junior college and won the national championship,
32:49and then from there went to the University of Richmond.
32:53I was a defensive tackle, and we had a great season.
32:58My junior year, we were 8-2, ranked 20th in the nation during the sixth week.
33:04We would go before the games to watch a film.
33:07The coach got us all together to keep us out of trouble.
33:10So we went to see the movie Serpico with Al Pacino.
33:14Now, I finished watching this, and I go, oh, my God, this is what I want to do in life.
33:19I mean, here's this cool-out Pacino, long hair, undercover, good-looking chick, lived in Greenwich Village, drove a motorcycle.
33:27And to add to that, he had a sheepdog.
33:30And I said, this is what I want to do.
33:32So I applied for the FBI and, of course, didn't hear anything.
33:36Called the FBI.
33:37He said, let me get back to you.
33:38Gets back to me, and he says, problem you haven't heard from us is you're not a citizen.
33:42I became a citizen in the bicentennial year of 1976.
33:48And right after I got that, I went right to the FBI, and I told them, I said, look, I
33:56took the test.
33:57I'm now a citizen.
33:58Let's get my application processed.
34:00Four years it took me to get in.
34:01And when I finally did get into the Bureau, I filed for a Freedom of Information and Privacy Act for
34:08my file.
34:09And I saw so many communications from the CIA saying, inasmuch as he is from Cuba, the possibility could be
34:19is that he is a mole that could be planted into the FBI.
34:23And it is not our recommendation that he'd be hired.
34:31I was a police officer with the Union County Prosecutor's Office.
34:35And in 1980, I received my appointment letter to report to Quantico as a special agent of the FBI.
34:44The FBI Academy kind of works with three components.
34:47There's the physical, where they have you running and doing push-ups and all of these timed events that receive
34:55points.
34:56Then there was your fire ops.
34:58And number three that I found tough was the academics.
35:02So my studying skills were really lacking.
35:06And I was just barely graduated from the University of Richmond, where I went to school.
35:11In fact, I even go as far as saying I probably ranked last in my class.
35:15So when I go to the FBI Academy, I really had to hunker down and learn how to study.
35:21I was able to pass.
35:23The minimum grade you need at the FBI Academy is 85, which is pretty high.
35:29Below that, it's a failure.
35:31And if you have two failures in any kind of academic class, you're gone.
35:37It was very difficult for me because I had to go through a second process at the Academy.
35:44Due to the fact that the first one, there was this assistant director who didn't take a liking to me
35:49and was very upset about how much I weighed and I didn't fit the Bureau standards.
35:55And I was kind of given an ultimatum.
35:58I either resign and lose the weight and come back to the Bureau and I'll be accepted.
36:03And if I did not resign, I would be fired.
36:06When I did leave, I was at a loss.
36:11I got a call from the counselor of my class and said, hey, lose the weight.
36:15Come back.
36:16We need you.
36:17And sure enough, it was like the Rocky song came out.
36:20I started running, working out, got into shape.
36:23I'm six foot four.
36:25They wanted me to weigh about 200 pounds.
36:27I think I was 200 pounds when I was 12 years old.
36:31So it was a very tough thing.
36:33And it got me down to 240.
36:35But even for me at 240, that was kind of very light.
36:38The FBI Academy surprised me, first of all, that I made it.
36:41That was my big surprise.
36:42I think I was 26 years old.
36:45And it was such an exciting thing.
36:48I know my parents were not too crazy about it because of the young knowns of the FBI.
36:55But for me, it was probably one of the greatest moments of my life.
36:59I didn't quite fit the bill throughout the career.
37:02I mean, the way I looked, I'm a kid from the Bronx, from Cuba.
37:06The Bureau early on in the 80s still had the remnants from J. Edgar Hoover.
37:12So the demographics, you know, it didn't really mirror the demographics of our society, of our society.
37:20Everybody looked like an agent.
37:22You know, they wore three-piece suits.
37:23They wore their wingtip shoes that we used to call them Thousand Eyes
37:28because they had the little perforated holes.
37:31And everyone was either from the Midwest.
37:34And here comes, here I come from the Bronx, you know, a kid who grew up in that area.
37:41I just didn't, you know, belong in there.
37:44And I think because of that, people realized that this is maybe the opportunity
37:49for me to have worked undercover because I could blend with a lot.
37:54I've grown up with all types of races.
37:57I've been around people and I'm able to feel comfortable around people who are not like me.
38:04And I think that's where I owe my success in why I did so many undercover cases in my Bureau
38:12career.
38:17If I had to name the most fearful types, it would have to be the Mexican cartel,
38:23the Colombian cartel, would be my toughest group.
38:28And very violent because they come after your family.
38:32There's a lot of stuff that they do where they make sure that if you screw them,
38:38they'll end up killing your family, letting you live, and then at the end they'll kill you.
38:43I worked some big cases even in Miami with Los Muchachos, the Willie and Sal.
38:49These guys were huge dealers.
38:51I wound up going after the jury foreman who admitted that he took a million-dollar bribe.
38:57And we got in for 19 years.
38:59And then I wound up getting two other jurors that we got.
39:03Once they identified those who will be testifying against Willie and Sal,
39:07they wound up being killed, blown up in cars.
39:11Any cocaine that came out of Florida or even the United States at that time,
39:17Willie and Sal owned it.
39:18I mean, there are legends down here to this day.
39:21Willie and Sal were characters and wound up, I had to testify two weeks in his trial.
39:27I actually felt good about them even though, you know,
39:30they did have the connections for wiping people out because that's what they did.
39:34I think at that time they had resigned, that they were pretty much done.
39:38I know they made a lot of offers to the government, something to the effect of,
39:42we'll give you tons and tons of coke and millions and gazillions of dollars
39:45if you just cut us loose.
39:47But we didn't do that.
39:49Most of my career was done through drugs.
39:52Because I speak Spanish formally, I worked pretty much as a doper.
39:56I was a drug trafficker.
39:58I was an importer.
39:59I was a money launderer.
40:01And the money that's made from cocaine and heroin,
40:04the mob doesn't even come close to any of that kind of money.
40:08They make more money than the mob.
40:09They're more brutal.
40:11But yet, they're not as romanticized as they are with the mob.
40:16One that was really a pucker factor.
40:18And that was like the Queen's Mall, near the Queen's Mall,
40:21that was the Peachtree Diner, I think it's called,
40:24that was dealing with these gangbangers from Harlem.
40:26And they were going to sell me nine keys of coke.
40:30And we had it all set up for the next day.
40:33This has got to be 2000 and probably year 2000, 2001.
40:39We had all our agents, our crew guys are out in the car,
40:42in the parking lot.
40:43My back was covered.
40:44So in comes the gangbangers and I go,
40:46hey guys, you ready to, let's get this thing done.
40:50And the guy goes, well, you got to wait a while.
40:52We got to wait for these other guys to come.
40:54We're waiting a little while.
40:55We're talking.
40:56All of a sudden, another car pulls up.
40:58Now we're up to nine guys that are just floating in this drug deal,
41:03right outside the diner.
41:04So I got to think quickly on my feet.
41:08So I said to the guy, guys, I'm not comfortable doing here.
41:11He goes, don't worry about it.
41:13I says, they got a house down the block.
41:16You can go in nice and comfortable.
41:18We'll count the money out.
41:19We'll check the dope, make sure everything is fine.
41:22Whoa, whoa, wait a minute.
41:23I'm not going anywhere.
41:24And he says, well, why not?
41:25I said, I went to my santera yesterday, you know, like in Witchcraft Santeria.
41:30I said, she told me, do not leave this place.
41:34This is where the god, the orishas, the gods are watching me here.
41:38And if you go, it'll be different.
41:40So he goes, I said, I got to call her.
41:43So he says, go ahead, call her.
41:44I walked to the lobby area of the diner, called the office.
41:51He goes, I got two carloads of guys here.
41:55And they are just badasses as they look, boy.
42:00We got to pull it down.
42:01And we're going to pull it down now.
42:03Next thing you know, people scattering, running down Queens Boulevard,
42:07which is a very traveled area, locked up the nine guys,
42:11bring them down to the station, and there they admit that they were going to take me hostage
42:17and take my money, and they were going to take the Colombians who had the dope,
42:23take their money as well, and they're dope.
42:26In the car, we found tech nines, nine millimeters.
42:31There was all kinds of tape.
42:33There was rope.
42:34There was all admitted to wanting to, you know, take care of me.
42:41And that was about as close as I came to it.
42:44Being targeted, all my undercover roles, I like to do them publicly.
42:48I do them in a public forum, in a parking lot of, let's say, where there's Home Depot
42:54or inside a restaurant to talk about it.
42:57You feel more in control.
43:05The mafia has morphed itself many times over.
43:08They learn from all of our successes, and they, of course, try not to duplicate them
43:13in kind of ways.
43:15But the unfortunate thing is the FBI has an investigative priorities of very violations
43:21that they work, and the mob organized crime has just kind of dwindled.
43:28They've actually cut the five squads that they had down to one squad.
43:33So what does that tell me, having worked organized crime and having walked among them,
43:38is that these people are going, doing what they're supposed to do, live a quiet life under
43:44the rocks.
43:44They're still out there.
43:46They're still growing in numbers.
43:48They just, we are not working because we are sidetracked with other things.
43:52You know, of course, important matters, you know, cyber and terrorism and whatever you
44:00want to go.
44:01But you can't let go of the mob.
44:03Mobs are like weeds.
44:04They're growing out there exponentially.
44:07And the only way you got to maintain are taking care of them.
44:10You got to make sure that they stay where they're at.
44:13Otherwise, they're just going to grow.
44:14I mean, they're always looking to make money in any type of capacity.
44:19They just want to get their claws into people.
44:21And as long as people are romanticizing and love them, they'll do it.
44:25They'll get in.
44:26People have this fascination with being around these criminals.
44:32It's romanticized, especially in the New York area.
44:35It's like, hey, I know a guy who knows a guy who's connected.
44:39Like, I'm a connected guy, you know?
44:41Like, give me a break.
44:43And if you see a bunch of guys, too, you go to the casinos, a lot of guys dress up
44:46like
44:47the gangsters.
44:47You notice how they wear?
44:49Sometimes their suits are all dressed up with the hair, and they're talking, hey, how
44:53you doing these and those?
44:54You know, you get to a point, it's like they always say, everybody's a gangster, and so
44:59a gangster walks in the room.
45:01Then it's a whole different ballgame, you know?
45:03I mean, I know now there's a lot of cop shows, you know, there's FBI, there's some
45:08that, and all that.
45:09But somehow, every mob story is the same.
45:11I mean, you look at The Godfather, The Godfather 1, 3, Bronx Tale, Goodfellas.
45:17He can go on, and it's always some kind of romanticized, where it's cool, like this
45:26pious, fedora-wearing guys with 45s, it's cool, you know, killing somebody, and Robert
45:33De Niro in his roles, and all of that.
45:35It's just that, it's criminal.
45:37It really bothers me that the media does that.
45:40I retired in 2006, and I was hired as a contractor.
45:44And I was towards that end to work that case.
45:48And then they wanted me to do more undercover as retired, but I did, you know, I did 26 years.
45:55I said, you know, enough is enough.
45:56I wanted to do 20.
45:5720 led to 25.
45:5925 is going for 30.
46:01And then I got a year for my sick leave.
46:0325, and then I said, what am I going to do here at 30?
46:06At 30, they give you like a 10-carat gold little tiny ring kind of thing with a cubic zirconia.
46:1630 years for that.
46:17I said, I can get whacked anytime for that, you know.
46:20And no gold watch, you know, no thank you very much, no pat on the back.
46:26But I left.
46:27I figured it's time for the new blood to work undercover.
46:31I also, do I miss the job?
46:34Absolutely.
46:35I mean, there's no better adrenaline rush than sitting across the street from across the table from a bad guy.
46:42And you're toasting something, and you erase your glass, and you look him in the eyes, and your hands are
46:47not shaking, but his are.
46:50That doesn't come any better than that.
46:52I did some contract work with the Boston case, but, you know, it was time.
46:59I wanted to spend time with my daughter.
47:00She was young.
47:02My daughter at the time was six years old when I retired.
47:05And I drove her all over the place, and it reminded me of driving the captain of the Gambino crime
47:11family.
47:11And it was kind of like the same.
47:13You know, hey, Daddy, get me some ice cream.
47:16Hey, Jackie boy, let's go over here.
47:19Let's get some ice cream, something to eat.
47:20So it was like the same thing almost.
47:24And it felt good to just be around family.
47:28And I survived.
47:29I'm a survivor.
47:30Nothing happened to me.
47:31I've known a lot of, I've been to funerals of undercover police officers and agents.
47:36And it's a saddened thing that it happens.
47:39It's just so many police officers who have died doing this.
47:44And I wish the same for all my brothers and sisters out there who are working undercover.
47:50When I was the mob guys, man, I walk in.
47:53The waiters trip over themselves, getting a table for you, whatever you need.
47:58You don't even look at the menu.
48:00The chef comes out.
48:01He'll tell you what he's made or whatever you want he'll make.
48:05Oh, God, I miss that tremendous.
48:07Because now they put a reservation, you got to wait on line.
48:11Then you got to sit in the bar area.
48:13You got to wait about a half hour before your table's ready.
48:16Then you come in.
48:17It's like, you know, all of that panache, all of that thing is gone.
48:24I mean, it's no longer now.
48:27Before, I used to carry such a bankroll.
48:29Now I got, I don't even have cash now.
48:31I got a credit card.
48:32Yeah, I wrote the book.
48:33My book I wrote after I retired.
48:35The title of the book is called Making Jack Falcone.
48:38It was a New York Times bestseller.
48:40So there's snippets of some of the hundred cases that I work.
48:43If I was called to do an undercover case, I would do it.
48:48That's how much I love the, I love the action.
48:53It's a tremendous action.
49:00Hi, I'm a producer and authorised account.
49:03If you enjoyed this video, then please subscribe and comment with more topics that you'd like us to cover in
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