Feb. 12, 1008
The Fed Who Infiltrated The Mob
TV Exclusive: Meet The Undercover FBI Agent Who Was Inducted Into The Gambino Crime Family
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Play CBS Video Video Gambino Crime Family Takes Hit Pre-dawn raids rounded up 59 members or associates of the Gambino crime family, including the top three bosses, in the largest organized crime investigation in FBI history. Armen Keteyian reports.
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Video Undercover Mob Buster In an exclusive interview with CBS News, Armen Keteyian speaks with undercover FBI agent Jack Garcia, who infiltrated New York's notorious Gambino crime family, taking down its bosses in 2005.
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He started as Jack Garcia, an FBI agent, but ended up as Jack Falcone, who went after the Gambino crime family — by doing what only one other man had done before: getting inside of the mob. (CBS)
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Interactive Mobster Madness In real life and on the screen, Americans are fascinated by the Mob. Find out more about actual dons and their fictional counterparts.
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Blog Primary Source Armen Keteyian and his investigative team keep you informed daily on their blog.
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E-MAIL US CBS News Investigates E-mail Armen Keteyian and the investigation team with your story ideas.
"I am the second law-enforcement officer ever to be proposed for membership into La Cosa Nostra," Jack Garcia told CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian.
The first, immortalized in the movie "Donnie Brasco," tells the tale of FBI agent Joe Pistone who infiltrated the Bonnano crime family back in the mid-1970s.
Now, for the first time on television, a modern-day Brasco, who still works undercover, tells CBS News how he convinced the notorious Gambino crime family he was one of their own.
"You're always so afraid for your life," Garcia said. "And anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. I mean, things can turn like this (snaps fingers)."
His riveting story begins as Garcia, a Cuban-born immigrant turned FBI undercover agent with a gift for creating characters - from a drug lord to small-time mobsters - for 20 years.
Then he went big-game hunting after the Gambinos, posing as Jack Falcone, a Miami wise-guy.
"Jack Falcone was a knock-around guy from Florida who was a jewel thief, he was a hijacker. He was an individual that was surrounded in Miami by the Cuban culture," Garcia said.
It was the spring of 2003 when Jack Falcone, a.k.a., "Jackie Boy," caught the eye of Gambino capo Greg DePalma who controlled loan sharking, gambling and construction rackets in and around New York.
"They wanted me because I was an earner," he said. "You're not a broken-down garbage can. You're a guy who makes money, and that's what the mob is all about."
Falcone eventually earned DePalma's trust by offering an endless supply of stolen goods - likes cigarettes and televisions - all provided by the FBI.
"Jack, there has to be a moment when the door opens and you realize I am in," Keteyian asked.
"I remember that day distinctively," Garcia said. "I met with him, at which time he presented me with a beautiful diamond pinky ring. He told me he put me on record with the Gambino crime family. 'You're under our umbrella.'"
Wearing a court-authorized wire, over the next two years Falcone secretly recorded DePalma - and other bosses - concocting money-making schemes at restaurants, diners, even a Jewish geriatric center … the FBI monitoring almost every meeting.
In a scene straight out of Hollywood, at one point Falcone was called upon to "talk" to a made man not paying the proper respect to DePalma. It was a meeting that took place right in one Bloomingdales' housewares section.
Things turned ugly. Falcone says he watched a mob soldier pick up a solid glass candlestick and bash the guy over the head.
"In the housewares," Garcia said. "Grabs it, hits him right over the head, cracks his head open. You hear like a melon popping; blood all over the place."
In March of 2005, the FBI swooped in and arrested DePalma, his bosses Arnold Squitieri and Anthony "The Genius" Magale along with dozens of underlings, essentially decapitating the family.
All pleaded guilty except DePalma, who insisted on going to trial, where, before his eyes, his "Jackie Boy" turned into FBI agent Jack Garcia…putting DePalma behind bars for 12 years.
Describe the look on DePalma's face, as he's staring at you when you are on that witness stand.
"It was like, if he could only get his hands around my neck," Garcia said.
Is he worried Greg DePalma wants to put him in the ground?
"What the bureau did, they went out and spoke to the heads of all five families and they told them if anything is to happen to Jack Falcone, the reign of terror will fall upon them," Garcia said.
But what motivated Garcia to put these guys away?
"I saw the faces. They're really like wolves in sheep's clothing," he said. "These are not the people that should be revered… as being these great group of guys. They're not. They're criminals."
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Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
If you read the article clearly you would see that he still does undercover work. I''m sure that has something to do with it.
In real life and on the screen, Americans are fascinated by the Mob.
Gee, I wonder why?
Like the White House, Federal Reserve, CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX... have convince Joe Dumb American, that they are one of their own.... or is that what happens when one of their own get those powerful jobs????
Keep up the good work. (This is first comment in 72 years from me.) jw
There is no difference between this and financial criminals who swindle innocent investors of their money in unregulated limited liability corporations. These swindlers feed the K street lawyers, but watch out how do you know if the F.B.I is not watching you, and then....
needs to inflitrate the White House and root out the criminals in the republican party
- by straightmate February 12, 2008 11:45 PM EST
- organized crime has to stop. We as a country cannot afford this trash. The US has been plagued all along by these vicious freeloaders. Twelve years for a boss isn''t enough to me...when he is freed he''ll most likely return to the crime life.
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