The Art of Manliness - #551： Inside the Gangsters' Code

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:11.100 lou ferrante was a mobster who worked for the gambino crime family and made a trade out of

00:00:15.040 hijacking trucks loaded with expensive goods eventually the law cut up with him and he ended

00:00:19.080 up in prison there he discovered a love for reading and writing which set off a personal

00:00:22.600 transformation that led to him leaving the mafia after a stint in jail lou went on to become an

00:00:26.740 author and the host of a discovery channels documentary series called inside the gangster's

00:00:30.880 code today on the show i first talked to lou about his early life of crime and the autodidactic

00:00:34.620 education he gave himself in prison who shares the books that had the biggest impact on him

00:00:38.520 including works of history philosophy and fiction we then shift gears to discuss lou's work on inside

00:00:43.000 the gangster code the idea of honor that the mafia and other gangs share and what it means to practice

00:00:47.400 omerta we enter a conversation discussing why young men join gangs and the human needs they fill

00:00:52.340 after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is gangsters code

00:00:56.500 lou joins me now via clearcast.io

00:00:58.820 all right lou ferrante welcome to the show hey thanks for having me brett so you are a writer you

00:01:14.900 hosted a show called inside the gangster's code you're a lecturer but before that you were a member

00:01:21.120 of the gambino crime family let's start there we'll talk about what you're what you're doing now

00:01:26.120 but let's start there like how did you get involved with the mafia uh so i guess it's just to it's it's a

00:01:34.760 long evolution nobody unless you're unless your family is mafia which mine wasn't then you're brought 0.52

00:01:42.140 into the into that world and you know it since you're born with me it's a long evolution of of

00:01:47.760 criminal conduct devolution would be a better word but in the context of our conversation evolution

00:01:53.160 where i started stealing cars as a kid from there a friend of mine's uncle owned a body shop an auto

00:02:00.480 body collision shop and we started supplying him with parts from stolen cars from there we got some

00:02:06.120 more orders from different collision shops and uh then we started running a chop shop so as i'm sort

00:02:11.520 of like aging from 13 probably when i was in my first stolen car to like 17 you know i i went from

00:02:19.480 just joyriding to selling the parts to running my own chop shop and supplying most of the collision

00:02:25.620 shops around queens most of the crooked ones that is and most of them at that time were crooked believe

00:02:30.900 it or not um and from there i was in an auto body shop one day and i'm talking to this guy and i'm bs'ing

00:02:39.200 them and there was this huge tool chest next to me next to us and it was one of the you know if you

00:02:45.160 probably if you've ever been in a body shop these mechanics have these big tool chests that are

00:02:49.600 probably like shoulder height and i said wow look at the size of this baby what's this go for and he

00:02:54.420 said you know whatever five grand so i said yeah really and he said yeah the truck comes once a week

00:02:59.800 to sell tools for the for that chest and i even got a couple of the chests usually in the truck

00:03:04.280 what's the truck worth probably got about a hundred thousand worth of stuff in it so i said you want

00:03:09.340 one he said what are you talking about i said i'll take one for you if you want it you're going to pay

00:03:13.420 me and we made you know we negotiated a price and i that was the first truck i hijacked hijacked it

00:03:19.000 with friends of mine from the neighborhood and um from there we ended up figuring that hey look you

00:03:25.240 know what by time you steal a car and piece it out and you're working all all night overnight

00:03:30.840 chopping this thing down got to get rid of the chassis you got to get somebody to rent us the

00:03:35.980 building that we usually abandoned because it would be rented under a phony name and we would

00:03:40.020 like fill up a warehouse with skeletons sometimes we dump the skeletons in um in different parks and

00:03:45.320 queens and it was a lot of work so here i am hijacking a truck and a hundred thousand dollars

00:03:50.700 worth of merchandise in five minutes you know in my possession and so we did that and an interesting

00:03:56.500 thing happened with that first hijacking we we got underway you know i put a gun to the guy

00:04:02.540 took the truck my friends jumped on board after that and we were underway and we tied him up and

00:04:08.220 we were driving and at some point we were nice to him we said look you know what and look not

00:04:13.360 notwithstanding the horrible thing we were doing we weren't bad people we came from good families we

00:04:18.000 weren't like evil and malicious we didn't want to hurt the guy we just wanted the truck and we let

00:04:22.040 him know that you know you'll be home tonight five o'clock eating dinner with your family just just

00:04:26.700 sit tight and don't cause us a problem and he said to us after we had we had to drive to jersey with

00:04:32.480 the truck and so it was a little bit of a ride and at some point we loosened you know the bonds on him

00:04:39.140 we stuck a pillow under his ass we asked him if there's anything in the truck that he needed he said 0.91

00:04:43.280 there's some pictures of my family on the visor there's also a manifest sheet in a in like one of

00:04:49.180 those metal sort of like bulletin board folders and he goes can you give me that stick it under

00:04:55.200 my arm so it'll help me when I when I assess you know what was stolen so we did all that for him

00:05:01.120 and um we asked him if he's thirsty you know we could stop at a you know a quick mart or something

00:05:06.660 get him a drink we were very nice to the guy again notwithstanding that I just stuck a gun in his

00:05:11.560 mouth you know to be to be completely you know blunt and clear so he said you know you guys are nice

00:05:17.260 guys you ever think this stuff will catch up with you and it was the first hijacking that I had ever

00:05:22.720 done and that they had ever done my future you know part of these guys became my gang and it just

00:05:27.660 went right over my head you know how could you imagine something's going to catch up with you when

00:05:31.560 you're doing the first time so yeah I didn't but years later sitting in a prison cell with cockroaches

00:05:37.700 crawling all over me knife attacks um I was in Lewisburg for murders when inmates were hacked to death

00:05:44.160 with machetes you know it all came back to me and I said wow you know that that guy that guy saw my

00:05:49.780 whole future when he said if you ever thought you think this would catch up with you it was my first

00:05:53.740 time and then you know it was like that was a springboard for a whole career in hijacking which

00:05:59.120 led to armored cars which led to truck heists and you name it we stole you know safes I remember the

00:06:05.660 agents when they arrested us they said to my lawyer that I was bigger than Jimmy Burke and my lawyer said

00:06:10.380 Louie never killed anybody and he said I meant the heists and Jimmy Burke was the guy played by

00:06:15.160 Robert De Niro as Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas and another agent once said that we were like heat

00:06:21.380 and once again we if you take heat if you ever watch the movie heat with De Niro and Pacino we were as

00:06:28.220 fine-tuned as that gang we just weren't as violent we weren't killing people shooting up the streets

00:06:32.800 and now looking back you know I had time to obviously digest it all later on when I turned my life around

00:06:38.220 and I regretted everything I did I thank God that we never had shootouts in the street or anything

00:06:43.080 because it could have happened you know here's here's a bunch of guys none of us were trained to

00:06:46.940 use firearms and we're running around the streets like you know like cowboys and committing havoc

00:06:53.540 and at any at any point in time somebody could have could have tried us and it would have been a

00:06:58.220 shootout in the street and we could have not only got killed ourselves which wouldn't have been as bad

00:07:02.460 I think but maybe killed an innocent person which would have been worse so you know I mean look that in

00:07:07.640 that in relation to the reference of being like the movie heat I would say yeah you know potentially

00:07:15.520 is dangerous but we weren't thank God you know the the fortune was with us in that sense where we

00:07:20.940 pulled off all our heists seamlessly got away from the crime scene went home and just like you know

00:07:25.560 congratulate each other and you know went out for a drink or something but we were able to never have

00:07:30.840 that sort of like mayhem in the street which could have happened right and so how far up did you get up in

00:07:36.440 the organization were you just a foot soldier oh yeah so that was the original question how I got

00:07:40.240 into the mob so the the hijacking trucks basically led to like the mafia is for example like let's say

00:07:47.100 you you own a store and you open up a store let's say in uh I don't know where in in Los Angeles and

00:07:54.460 you're selling surfboards you might not be selling surfboards in Los Angeles but wherever and you know

00:08:00.640 eventually you're making good money you think everything's great at some point the IRS is going to knock

00:08:05.520 on your door and say look you owe the government taxes did you know that and you know you're going

00:08:09.500 to have to start paying your taxes if you didn't know that already you're going to have to start

00:08:12.440 so the the mafia is a government within a government and if you're hijacking trucks and making a lot of

00:08:18.360 money and pulling down scores they're going to hear about you as they did with me and then they're

00:08:23.160 going to approach you you know they're they're they're the IRS of the underworld and they want to know

00:08:27.720 what's going on and how much you're going to pay and but it's not just like a one-sided

00:08:31.840 relationship because you know that if it was a lot of guys would be like you know f you and there'd be

00:08:37.220 a lot of bloodshed a lot more and there a lot of bloodshed is saved because it's a symbiotic

00:08:42.620 relationship it works for both parties because once I'm in with the mob I have tremendous power

00:08:47.360 I have much more power than I had ever had alone or with just my crew now I'm getting tips instead of

00:08:52.500 like you know one truck at a time I'm getting trip tips on a million dollar score you know I might

00:08:57.220 have to kick back to a skipper you know capo captain or whoever gave me the tip or my tip guy

00:09:03.160 but you know I'm making way more money and now I'm able to loan shark the money you know put it out on

00:09:07.980 the street once I make it so now I'm starting my own bank you know so the the benefits to being in

00:09:13.280 the mob there's no limit to it and also too they benefit by having you because you're making them

00:09:19.360 money as well the mob is a pyramid scheme you know the money flows up to the top so so that's sort of

00:09:24.780 like how that happened without giving up names of the of the original people who brought me around

00:09:29.040 but one guy led to another to another and at some point or another I was running my own crew within

00:09:34.480 the Gambino crime family and I was answering directly to the heads of my family I actually 0.64

00:09:38.580 practically lived in um Peter Gotti's house Pete was John Gotti's oldest brother he was captain in a

00:09:46.340 family and I was in and out of his house for probably about five or six maybe seven years

00:09:50.620 every day so you know that that's that was basically you know I mean that that's where

00:09:55.460 my home was so you know you could you could draw the conclusions from there I was not yet a made man

00:10:01.520 when I went away I was 25 years old I would have been made it was only you know question of time

00:10:06.800 and I got pinched and the FBI pinched me the Secret Service pinched me and the Nassau County Organized

00:10:12.060 Crime Task Force and when I went to jail I thought it was like the worst thing in the world because I

00:10:16.380 didn't get my button yet and I had friends who I did crimes with every day who were coming up to

00:10:20.820 see me on visits and saying you know I just got straightened out I got my button you'll get yours

00:10:25.160 when you come home you know and uh they were gonna put me up when I got home one of them still tried

00:10:29.900 to when I came home and I was a completely different man and you know I didn't want it and he he said I

00:10:34.780 heard that but I didn't think you were serious you know because he wanted to to sponsor me and I said no

00:10:39.880 it's legit I'm I'm really done with that you know with the life that's it but I'm jumping ahead of the

00:10:44.720 story basically um so that's sort of like where I where I sat and how it sort of evolved all right

00:10:50.020 well so let's talk about in prison you had this you know massive change that that happened to you

00:10:55.280 what was there a moment in prison where like you you could pinpoint said that was the moment where

00:11:00.860 that change started happening yeah okay what was it yeah so so I'll tell you that I'll work I'll work

00:11:06.220 up to sort of like the that monumental moment that really clicked in my head but the first thing that

00:11:12.800 was happening was I was starting to I believed in the rules of the mafia I believed in like loyalty

00:11:17.820 and the code honor omerta I believed in all those things and I thought it was the greatest thing on

00:11:23.240 earth you know to have something like that it's the same reason why young guys might join the marines

00:11:28.000 you know they want that sort of like camaraderie and and and that you know the few the proud

00:11:32.800 and that's how I thought I was in my neighborhood you know with with the same you know with the marines

00:11:37.760 of my neighborhood in my mind and uh you know not to compare us to the to to to the marines but

00:11:43.580 that's that's it's not far of a stretch in our minds and when I was in jail so first on the street

00:11:50.180 guys would sometimes disappear guy got killed and you would think that he automatically you would just

00:11:54.920 assume that he did something against the family committed some type of treason against the family

00:11:58.720 and just as if you commit treason against the country you could get it executed so that's what

00:12:04.000 happened you know you didn't ask no questions if you did people wondering why why are you asking

00:12:09.400 are you a rat why you want to know what happened to so and so you just keep your mouth shut the guy 0.93

00:12:13.080 disappeared that's the end of it or you know he was left on the street that's that or as or one of my

00:12:18.600 dear friends was in a trunk he was stinking for a week before someone found him I didn't ask any

00:12:23.120 questions but then I'm away and I'm starting to you know I'm around guys who are fighting their

00:12:28.220 their murder cases and a lot of guys that I know died I'm starting to realize that they died for

00:12:34.500 different reasons not necessarily because they committed an offense against the family

00:12:39.100 which which could imperil all of us but because one guy was screwing another you know somebody's

00:12:45.820 rather I'm sorry somebody was screwing a guy's wife and he wanted to kill the husband so he could

00:12:50.000 have the wife to himself another one was over money you know they owned a business together 0.97

00:12:54.560 and if he kills him he's worth a million dollars a year more so he killed him and you know they come

00:12:59.560 up with reasons like you know the guy's a rat I got to kill him you know so it was a lot of like

00:13:04.300 a lot of like disgusting things that I'm observing in jail you know while we're all talking about

00:13:09.780 our indictments and here I am I just got heists and hijackings you know and after the score I whacked

00:13:15.080 up the money with everybody fairly we all took our cut and went home I kicked a piece up to my

00:13:19.400 you know my boss and that was that and end of the day you know I wasn't looking to like kill

00:13:25.060 somebody treacherously to take something that was somebody else's whether it be a wife a sister or

00:13:31.140 money or a business it just wasn't in me if you gave me a billion dollars to kill somebody I would

00:13:36.120 have told you you're nuts why would I kill somebody for money but if you told me that somebody raped your 0.93

00:13:41.060 daughter I would I would have said wait for me outside I'll be there in five minutes and whoever did it

00:13:47.100 was going in my trunk you know I mean that's like what I believed in you know that was different

00:13:52.360 so so now I'm in jail and I'm so I'm like weighing all of this and then a lot of things

00:13:57.200 was sort of weighing on me and I went to the hall I was going to the hall now and then I was quick

00:14:01.560 with my hands if somebody look I got a Napoleon complex I'm like five foot four maybe five five

00:14:06.300 on a good day with sneakers on and um I had a chip on my shoulder maybe but if somebody got out

00:14:12.700 a line I cracked them hard you know let's do this and I always was quick to fight and I'm in jail

00:14:18.780 and I'm acting the same way so I'm going to the hall now and then and then at one point I go to

00:14:22.660 the hall for something I didn't do I didn't didn't did not do and what happened was somebody it's

00:14:28.160 considered assault one of the guards the hacks on on duty called us late for our visits and everybody

00:14:33.920 was mad and it was in a holdover in MDC Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and one of the guys that

00:14:39.800 night got up out of his bunk took a apple and wung it at the guard and it you know broke apart on it

00:14:47.500 cracked him in the eye gave him a shine it broke apart on his head the guy hit the floor and next

00:14:52.360 thing you know everybody's throwing stuff at him so he was assaulted but it came from my direction I

00:14:57.180 hung out with all the old timers and it was an old-time Sicilian gangster who did it so they came up 1.00

00:15:01.940 and they figured I was the only young guy in that row so they locked me up you know they roughed me up

00:15:07.440 all the way to the hole so they're like who did it I go f you who did it my you know your sisters

00:15:12.340 did it that's who did it so you know I'm in the hole now and they strip me and they give me they

00:15:18.200 take my clothes and when they bring you to the hole they take your clothes in case you got like a razor

00:15:22.580 sort of sewn in to something or whatever and they give you clothes that are designated for the hole

00:15:27.660 that have been washed there's no way you could kill yourself or you know commit any type of violence

00:15:32.820 supposedly you know obviously there's ways convicts get around all that but they gave they're supposed

00:15:37.800 to give me another uniform for the hole like a jumpsuit they didn't and I'm naked in my cell I

00:15:43.460 didn't get my mattress I didn't get my pillow they want to know who assaulted the guard if it wasn't

00:15:47.620 me so obviously nobody can say they said I did it because I didn't so you know the guard could

00:15:53.140 have lied but he didn't he must have said it came from my direction they figured pick me it should

00:15:56.960 have been me it wasn't so now they keep saying who did it I'm I'm telling them you know go find out

00:16:01.640 yourself Sherlock so now I got no clothes no mattress no pillow eventually slowly but surely

00:16:07.480 I got all that stuff back but then the captain of the guards came down and asked me who did it

00:16:12.300 and I said I look you know that's on you but you know buddy I'll stay here all year if I have to so

00:16:18.540 you know who's gonna give first me or you he left he said no food so now I'm not eating so now I'm

00:16:24.800 like oh man I can't believe it and I'm starving and when you're in jail and you're in the hole

00:16:28.960 all you have to look forward to is the breakfast the lunch and the four o'clock dinner then you

00:16:34.200 got to make sure like after four o'clock there's no picking so whatever you got at four o'clock that

00:16:37.920 you ate it's got to last you to tomorrow at six seven a.m. so you look forward to the meals and you

00:16:44.060 got nothing else going on but staring at a brick wall and wondering at that point because I hadn't

00:16:48.900 changed yet wondering how I'm gonna avenge you know whoever's ratting on me how I'm gonna torture

00:16:53.400 them how I'm gonna kill this guy and get that guy and you know the whole thing so at some point or

00:16:59.160 another the captain of the guards the next day oh what happened was that night though first there

00:17:04.680 was a Spanish guy from south or central America who used to sweep the floor and then mop it he was an 0.99

00:17:10.520 inmate in the hole himself and he was the orderly so I go amigo amigo I knocked on this like there's

00:17:15.760 like this bulletproof glass that you could see like that's eye level with the human head and then

00:17:21.480 there's this like food slot that's sort of like waist level that you you your trays are shoved

00:17:26.480 through so I was looking through the glass banging on the glass I go amigo amigo mangiata mangiata

00:17:31.520 eel mangiata I that's Italian you know eat I figured it'll he'll figure it out in Spanish

00:17:37.120 so he goes uno momento uno momento and he comes back and he shoves bread under my door that just barely

00:17:45.120 fit under my door I had to squeeze it through so I eat this dusty dirty bread and then he shoved

00:17:49.700 these little jelly packets that he crushed and I sucked them dry and I gracias gracias 0.92

00:17:54.600 senor so now I'm like all right I got a guy to feed me you know so I ain't afraid of this this

00:17:59.920 captain of the guards once again so the next day he comes he opens the food slot he bends down

00:18:04.900 and he goes hey Ferrante so you're gonna tell me now that you're not eating whatever you're gonna tell

00:18:10.440 me who drew who assaulted the guard and I said no matter of fact I'm not I walk over food slot and I go

00:18:16.120 and another thing and I reach my hand through and I grab him by the tie the necktie and I yank it I

00:18:21.680 wanted to strangle this guy you know this SOB you know I mean you're gonna play a game with me I'm in 0.99

00:18:26.660 the hole anyway may as well assault a cop from if I'm here for one anyway so I pulled the tie off

00:18:32.860 his neck it was a clip-on so I'm like you know you dirty bastard and I threw the tie back at him

00:18:38.340 he slams the food slot he's looking at me and he goes he goes of course it's a clip-on he says you

00:18:42.980 think we'd wear real ties with you animals in here he says you're nothing but a low-life animal

00:18:47.060 because look at yourself you're in a cage he goes as if the prison ain't ain't good enough for you

00:18:51.500 you got to be in a prison inside of a prison and he was right you know I mean I remember exact words

00:18:55.820 but the context of it was just that and uh so I'm like man you know that day that was the click

00:19:03.220 that was so everything probably was building up in me already but that was the click now at that

00:19:09.540 moment I felt like an animal and I realized that my mother my poor mother who died in my arms when I

00:19:13.820 was young didn't raise me like this she didn't raise me to shoot people or stab people or punch 1.00

00:19:18.940 people or what will hijack trucks and stick guns in people's mouths my mother taught me to hold the 0.99

00:19:24.060 door for people to be polite you know to always care for the older people on my block she she taught 1.00

00:19:29.740 me you know she gave me a right a good moral code I just wasn't using it and and I my mind was all

00:19:36.120 twisted up so from that day on I had a lot of thinking to do and I did and and um everything

00:19:41.600 sort of like flipped and now it everything flipped in my mind but I didn't flip that's the key

00:19:46.420 and I don't know I don't at the risk of jumping ahead in in your story here but I never became a rat

00:19:54.240 and because I realized that what I had done was wrong a lot of rats go oh I realized what I was

00:19:59.660 done was wrong so I started to cooperate they just want the door I'm not going to dishonor

00:20:04.020 you know my my myself or or put my friends in jail because of what I did and that's what

00:20:12.120 what galls me about rats I hate them you know I mean you know I still I try not to I say I don't

00:20:17.340 anymore I like to say I don't because everybody you know God is the only judge and everybody has to

00:20:22.220 you know meet their maker one day or or you know face natural justice in this world whatever you might

00:20:27.480 believe but I do believe in natural justice and karma so I don't I like to try to not to hate them

00:20:32.540 but for me at that point I did and I wasn't going to be a rat but I was going to change my life so I

00:20:38.200 got out of the hole and I asked my buddy um fat George from who was the caretaker of John Gotti

00:20:42.640 social club I asked him to he had tattoos all over his body and I go yeah he had all biblical verses

00:20:49.120 and stuff written on his body he was covered from head to toe in tattoos a 400 pound man you can imagine

00:20:54.160 how much art was on him and I go you know hey fatso I called him up hey fatso you know you got

00:20:59.180 stuff written all over your body do you read he says yeah I read so I couldn't send me some books

00:21:04.140 he goes yeah what kind of books you want you know big big boobs fat asses what are you into I go no 1.00

00:21:08.920 no a book to read and I want to read something oh okay what do you want to read I go I have no idea

00:21:15.480 you know go to the bookstore tell whoever's working all about me maybe to have some ideas I just want to

00:21:20.280 just clear my head get it away from all the stuff in here and this is when I got out of the hole by the

00:21:24.520 way and when I got out of the hole everybody greeted me like you know because I did the honorable

00:21:30.320 thing I didn't rat for something I didn't do I did the time while I didn't even do the crime

00:21:34.120 so everybody was greeting me like you know a hero and it just didn't move me anymore normally I would

00:21:39.600 that would have pumped up my ego you know I would I would have felt proud of myself and you know I did

00:21:44.540 my time in the hole for somebody else yeah you know they make you a dish of pasta you know everybody's

00:21:49.920 you know really kind to you when you get out of the hole and I didn't even care I was like I just want to

00:21:54.360 get away from these guys now and just think so fat george sent me in uh he sent me in three books

00:21:59.620 I was playing pinochle when I got the books my partner was the boss of the colombo family 0.97

00:22:04.840 at the time vic arena and uh vic goes where you going I go I got go to the package room and that

00:22:10.720 was the last time I ever played pinochle I got my books came upstairs oh it's kind of funny so he

00:22:14.800 sent me um I opened up I opened a box and he sent me caesar's gallic wars napoleon by vincent

00:22:22.640 cronin and mein kampf but adolf hitler so I'm like oh man what the what the f is this

00:22:27.600 so I call up george and I go hey fatty I go well I got the books but where'd you get them ideas he

00:22:33.340 goes like from the girl he goes you told me go to the bookstore I told the broad all at the bookstore 1.00

00:22:37.400 all about you and she gave me those books I go what'd you tell he says I told her you were short

00:22:41.680 and bossy so she was she picked three dictators so that was my first the first books I ever read and

00:22:47.640 I almost understood nothing of what I was reading but the fact that I was like really a determined guy

00:22:52.860 all the time I always I always persevered if I was going to do something I stuck with it I read the

00:22:57.400 books cover to cover and I I understood almost I mean what the hell who the hell who the hell could

00:23:01.120 understand hitler's national socialist movement even today you know like what the hell he was talking 0.68

00:23:06.340 about if you go back today and read mein kampf you're like what is this moron talking about you know 0.78

00:23:10.720 and and so imagine me trying to understand it after hijacking trucks you know I just totally was

00:23:15.720 I didn't understand anything to give you to give you an idea of how distant I was from history at

00:23:21.780 that point and how little I understood a mobster at some point years later I became like the guru

00:23:28.060 for like questions about anything history philosophy science you name it they came up to me I was like

00:23:34.240 google in jail some a couple of gangsters were arguing and they came up to me and they go hey Lou you

00:23:39.180 got to settle this beef for us who won when Napoleon fought Caesar I go it was 1800 years apart you know

00:23:47.200 like who do you mean who won but I laughed but meanwhile that I wouldn't have known before I read

00:23:51.780 before I understood history how do you know these things so you know it was like that began though the

00:23:56.940 journey for me for education that's that was the start and that was the monumental to get back to your

00:24:01.940 question that was the monumental moment in which my mind just like totally like and then I had nothing

00:24:07.140 but time after that hit me when after I pulled the cop's necktie off I had nothing but time to sit

00:24:12.960 in my cell and think in that in that hole until I was released which which was a benefit you know God

00:24:18.560 works in mysterious ways I don't know all your listeners may or may not believe in God I believe

00:24:23.440 there's a higher power and or I believe in fortune or fate if you don't want to if you don't want to

00:24:27.540 attribute it to God but something leads us along this journey here on earth we're not just like dumped out of

00:24:32.840 the sky you know there's something there's a plan and I think you need to follow it and and I was

00:24:37.860 happy that at that point in my life I noticed that there was a path for me and I followed it and it

00:24:42.400 was a life-changing decision and and I would just counsel any of your listeners that if you if you have

00:24:47.880 that wake-up moment don't discard it you know think about it dwell on it and go for it don't don't

00:24:52.880 discard it there's there's there's meaning behind it and as long as it's leading you in a good way a good

00:24:57.180 path do it you know if you if you have this mind if you have this big moment where you think you know

00:25:02.440 oh God just told me to kill my neighbor so they shut the music off so I could sleep it that's not

00:25:08.240 coming from God I can't imagine that you know but if it's a good thing follow it well I'm curious more

00:25:14.000 about your readings I know our listeners are readers oh good so the first three books you read

00:25:18.220 were biography Napoleon the Gaelic Wars and Mein Kampf like what did you start reading after you

00:25:23.900 started reading those books so what I did was those were really hard for me and at some point

00:25:28.720 you know I probably should have been reading like the adolescent version of Hawk Finn you know I mean

00:25:34.560 something like really you know really like rudimentary for like I don't know what I should

00:25:39.540 have been reading but not those books so at some point what I did was I realized that I liked history

00:25:45.160 and and so I gravitated towards history and biographies but I probably you know took a step back

00:25:53.300 and you know picked easier books to get through so I started reading like biographies and history

00:26:00.180 were my favorites and how I taught myself how to write is by I would read like the I fell in love

00:26:06.500 with the masters of 19th century fiction like Gustave Flaubert Tolstoy Dostoevsky Thomas Hardy the

00:26:14.380 Englishman Tom even 20th century Thomas Wolfe the American the early American Thomas Wolfe you know

00:26:19.960 can't go home again the Bronte sisters George Eliot you name it I read it Stendhal you know I just I

00:26:27.800 couldn't get enough of those books and I couldn't digest them quickly enough and I fell in love with

00:26:31.720 them because there were stories where they were easier for me to sort of like follow a story and

00:26:37.460 in the beginning my vocabulary really sucked so I bought a dictionary for a stamp in jail it was

00:26:42.900 missing like xyz so my vocabulary was a little weaker in that area but every every word I couldn't

00:26:48.580 I didn't understand I looked up and then I used to make I used to write across from the words I

00:26:53.160 probably remembered this from like little school or something I used to write the definition and

00:26:56.920 then study it every night before I went to bed in my cell so that's how I've expanded my vocabulary

00:27:01.300 most of the words I had by time I wrote a novel in jail myself most of the words that I had I was

00:27:07.400 writing and using in my mind regularly I had never even heard spoken you know I would hear a word my

00:27:13.080 lawyer would say a word and I'd say what the hell did he just say and it was a word I knew but he had

00:27:16.700 he he had pronounced it differently than my mind pronounced it because I had never ever ever

00:27:21.780 seen these words other than in print I never heard them rather so so that was interesting but um at

00:27:27.900 some point I started to say to myself in the midst of reading history biographies and I started to

00:27:33.620 realize that there was a bibliography in the back where you could use one book to find others so that

00:27:39.700 was nice because I would read something in a book maybe I was reading um Winston Churchill and they

00:27:44.580 referenced Pit the Elder or Pit the Younger you know maybe he had a picture of him in his room or

00:27:48.920 something I don't know just hypothetically and then I would say oh who's Pit the Elder or Pit the Younger

00:27:53.620 and then I would look for him and then read about the pits and and things like that would would would

00:27:58.480 sort of like lead me from one direction to another and I realized that although I wasn't the type

00:28:02.620 to sit in a classroom I hated school never went to college I did graduate high school because I promised

00:28:07.520 my mother who I loved that I would and she died shortly after but I cheated my way to high school

00:28:12.400 my friend Jorge Avila used to help me cheat he used to slip the answers to me or write them on his wrist

00:28:16.760 and put his hand behind his back Andrea Angela they people did homework for me but now I hated school

00:28:23.520 but now here I am and I'm and I'm I can't get enough education I'm absolutely in love with books I'm and

00:28:28.460 I'm reading 18 hours a day the muscles in my eyes would ache by time I go to bed and I'd start first thing

00:28:33.760 in the morning once again and I realized that I did love education it was just I loved sort of like

00:28:38.940 the free networking of education like you know the free association just go where your mind takes you

00:28:44.020 and that was the best thing for me it wasn't where I could sit in the classroom and you know

00:28:48.200 you know some some I don't know some teacher who maybe I don't connect with you know is trying to

00:28:55.240 tell me you have to do this and you have to do that and I want to see it and then he judges my work

00:28:59.220 and who you know who is this my attitude would have been then who the hell is this guy to judge me 0.50

00:29:03.700 you know what what are you doing you know who are you you know big cheese did you think you're gonna

00:29:08.000 you know think you're gonna judge me that was my my sort of like attitude at the time but I loved

00:29:12.920 reading I loved I fell in love with education so at some point the books I was reading the the

00:29:19.100 non-fiction I was learning I was learning about science philosophy I went back to the uh early

00:29:24.080 philosophies I read the you know the ancient Greeks I read the plays I read you know the up until

00:29:29.200 rather the Romans then up through the enlightenment philosophies the French philosophies you know and

00:29:35.680 I fell in love with all that stuff but besides that I was teaching myself how to write by every

00:29:40.120 time I picked up a novel I would read let's say it was Tolstoy's Anna Karenina I would read it but I

00:29:47.060 would take meticulous notes in the margins and like how did Tolstoy introduce a character how did

00:29:53.540 how did he weave his plot how did he develop his plot how did he exit a character how did his chapter

00:29:59.900 begin and end I would take meticulous notes so sooner or later these great authors whoever they might

00:30:06.380 been Jane Austen who knows Charlotte Bronte they they were it was everything they know everything

00:30:12.620 Charlotte Bronte knew about writing is in Jane Eyre right so if you take that one single masterpiece

00:30:18.620 it's a it's a university lesson times a million in writing because no professor has ever achieved

00:30:25.980 what Charlotte Bronte has in the field of writing and everything she knew was dumped into Jane Eyre so 0.86

00:30:31.420 if you know how to dissect what she's doing and basically take it apart and teach yourself it's a

00:30:37.180 course in writing so every then book that I read thereafter whether it be let's say Thomas Hardy

00:30:43.600 Tess of the D'Urbervilles whatever I was reading after that became my university lesson in writing

00:30:49.900 and I was you know I had the luxury of isolation which at first killed me you know I wasn't the

00:30:56.820 kind of guy I was a social character I was very gregarious all my life and now here I am trapped

00:31:01.600 in this cell but once I was learning and educating myself in writing I realized that isolation was was was a

00:31:09.000 blessing and this was a good thing you know this this wasn't such a bad thing after all and you know

00:31:14.760 to be able to and then also to you know now you know nowadays I write my last book was the best

00:31:20.580 international bestseller in 20 languages but you know I have to discipline myself and lock myself in

00:31:26.300 a room but I also have to come out of that room now and then and pay the bills and figure out how I'm

00:31:30.480 going to get through the month and through the year and you know that's sort of like a big burden on

00:31:34.500 any writer's shoulders unless he or she is living on a trust fund and most people aren't so I was I

00:31:41.140 had that that sort of like luxury also of I'm living in a cell but I'm being fed my meals three times a

00:31:48.320 day while all I have to do is read for 18 hours so I kind of like shifted the whole torture of prison

00:31:54.360 and again I I say again by the grace of God or what have you something in my life had changed

00:32:02.000 and I think whenever we change our lives sort of like you know the tragedies become blessings

00:32:08.220 and that tragedy of prison and the isolation and and the torture of prison because prison is torture

00:32:14.260 it's you know it just became a moderate light torture to me you know and but ignorance is a

00:32:19.140 heavier set of chains than than prison and I was I was I was enchained in ignorance before I went to

00:32:25.120 prison so now here I was and I had escaped my ignorance but I was in a prison cell but I'd rather

00:32:30.080 escape ignorance and be in a prison cell than than be be free and being chained by ignorance so you

00:32:37.120 know I I saw the blessing in having nothing to do but just teach myself how to write and I and I I fell

00:32:44.080 in love with books and I I thank God for that and I just kept writing I love that story your have books

00:32:49.980 contributed to your transformation and so you you educated yourself and part of your education you

00:32:55.220 actually appealed your own conviction you learned the law and you get out and you you made the decision

00:33:01.400 while you're prison you didn't want to go back to to life so you decided what was your plan like what

00:33:06.080 was your plan after you got out when I went to my final team meeting they have team meetings in prison

00:33:11.760 where they bring you into this room and the prison administration is is around this big table and they

00:33:18.260 ask you what you're up to and they want to know when you're ready to go home what your plans are

00:33:23.400 and the system is disgusting by the way it's horrible they really don't prepare people for 0.61

00:33:28.580 the outside world most people just vegetate in front of a television they commit violence they

00:33:34.020 do drugs everything is available in prison and then they're ready to be just tossed out onto the street

00:33:38.840 and they're asked a few sort of like rote questions that there's you know as long as they push you know

00:33:44.120 back the right answers to this administration they're let out and told oh sounds good you know a guy could

00:33:49.760 go oh i'm gonna be uh an electrician okay sounds good talk to you later next you know so i went in

00:33:55.600 front of this team meeting and they asked me how are you mr ferrante very good thank you yeah what do

00:34:00.940 you intend to do when you when you go home i'm gonna be a best-selling author ah ha ha they were

00:34:05.920 hysterical around the table so they said no for real what what do you have lined up and i said no no for

00:34:10.900 i'm gonna be an author hopefully best-selling ah ha ha hysterical again so i said well that's that's

00:34:17.020 really all i have planned you know i can't tell you i'm gonna go into construction i really don't

00:34:20.720 have any interest in it my family was in construction by the way my grandfather and my

00:34:24.540 uncle drove bulldozers that was supposed to be my trade before i started hijacking i was on a

00:34:28.920 bulldozer from when i was a kid a backhoe i drove all kinds of operating engineering equipment and you

00:34:34.920 know i never i didn't like it so you know i didn't want to bounce around on on on gravel you know

00:34:40.080 digging holes in the street so you know not not to take away from anybody who does i think it's a

00:34:45.140 great job if you if you if you like it i didn't i just wanted to do something different so i told

00:34:50.000 them i'm not going to tell you a lie i'm not going to you know i'm going to be an author and they let

00:34:53.880 me it's okay fine let him go next you know and that's what i became so you know i guess i had the

00:34:59.520 last laugh in that sense yeah you did exactly what you said you'd do you got out and you wrote a

00:35:04.940 best-selling book it was mob rules and other opportunities came out of that including and this is how i first

00:35:10.580 learned about you hosting a show on the discovery channel called inside the gangsters code where you

00:35:15.740 travel around the world to the world's most dangerous gangs to see what they're like and it's

00:35:20.340 just so fascinating because you get up close and personal with these guys so for those who aren't

00:35:25.220 familiar with the show what sorts of gangs did you go and visit and interact with yeah so i'm glad you

00:35:31.340 saw the show too and you liked it thank you inside the gangsters code was was a was a one-of-a-kind show

00:35:38.340 at the time nobody had done really anything to that level and the access we had was incredible

00:35:44.340 for example we traveled to el salvador and we met with the 18th street gang who sort of controls

00:35:53.260 el salvador along with um ms 13 they're basically the two gangs that have control of el salvador in so

00:35:59.860 many ways you know really really if you ever go to el salvador you would see how powerful they are

00:36:05.040 in the country and we we were able to get into the jungles and go to the prisons that were hidden

00:36:10.520 away in the jungles and lock in with the most vicious gangsters you know who who had murdered

00:36:14.340 one of the one of the prisons i locked in with the with the gangsters and lived with them in there

00:36:19.540 right before we got there they had murdered a guy in the corner of the of the yard right where i was

00:36:23.980 standing with them because they found out he was a snitch and that was it the boss said you know cut

00:36:28.500 him up and that was the end of him they hacked him up right in the corner and then another prison i was

00:36:32.480 in actually in bilibid in the philippines which was a crazy prison it was a world within itself you

00:36:38.440 know hustling bustling world of its own with a wall around it it was like escape from new york if any

00:36:43.820 older viewers remember the movie with kurt russell it was like that and right after i had left a guy

00:36:50.440 got shot right where i was standing a gang leader inside the prison meaning that there were guns in the

00:36:56.940 prison you know they they had machine guns they had handguns inside the prison and one of the gang

00:37:02.080 leaders told me that off camera he said look i can't say it on camera but you know we're fully

00:37:06.080 armed in here and then shortly after i had left that prison right right right after i left a guy

00:37:11.240 got killed what i love about the show uh it is it's it's entertaining but it's also like you it's like

00:37:16.680 you're so you're being a sociologist or anthropologist when you're talking to these guys

00:37:20.620 and so let me let's talk about the idea of the gangsters code when you've gone and you've visited

00:37:25.560 all these different types of gangs and even your own experience being a member of a gang

00:37:30.220 does that code pretty much stay the same across gang yeah i mean it's not like really like

00:37:36.280 it's not like a catalog of rules you know people are intrigued by there were a lot of like so in

00:37:42.980 the mafia which probably has a lot more rules than regular gangs in the mafia there's sort of like this

00:37:47.460 oral code it's almost like this homeric this homeric epic where all these stories about past mob

00:37:54.580 life are always retold and you know how so and so got killed and how so and so did this and that

00:37:59.880 was sort of like what my my book mob rules was based on it was sort of like that homeric mafia code 1.00

00:38:05.560 or talmudic i should even say uh where they where they go back and forth with how they should do

00:38:11.020 something so that you know there's like you're not but but the basic thing you know aside from like

00:38:16.380 the minutiae of how to handle certain beefs or how to introduce yourself the basic code of the

00:38:23.320 mafia is honor honor your your your fellow thieves which is you know the twist of it and

00:38:31.580 you know you can't go with somebody's wife you can't go with somebody's sister without permission 1.00

00:38:37.300 you know those are punishable by death a ratting snitching obviously is punishable by death

00:38:43.480 here's a story for you that goes back to the homeric code right the mafia's homeric code like

00:38:48.540 homeric epic code but let's say let's call it for the for the moment my friend was in a beef with uh

00:38:54.300 his sister got cut at a park with a bottle by another girl so when he she came home bleeding

00:39:00.320 all over the place he ran to the park and beat up the girl and he figured if she could cut my sister 1.00

00:39:05.500 with a broken bottle and act like a man then i could treat her like a man and hit her what he did 1.00

00:39:10.300 was wrong because it was a mobster's daughter and you can't beat up a mobster's daughter and you can't 0.91

00:39:15.000 beat up a girl those are against the rules so the mobster the father when he heard about it he went

00:39:20.480 to my friend's house and he uh banging banging on the door with guns a couple of friends they had

00:39:26.060 guns and the mother answered the door and had a fight with him on the porch and she's wrestling 0.99

00:39:29.600 with him on the porch and told him to get out of there so when they went to the sit down it was

00:39:34.460 ruled that my friend was wrong for beating up the girl even though she was wrong for cutting his

00:39:38.540 sister with a bottle he should have went to the father and let the father discipline her

00:39:42.440 then by the father going to the house the house is sacred and it's off limits so nobody's supposed

00:39:50.260 to go to somebody's home so by him going to somebody's home which he did and offending the

00:39:56.000 mother then it was a wash so the beef was squashed and that was it so those are the rules in the mafia

00:40:01.760 how they're applied and you know i say the home is sacred now it's after the reign of like gas pipe

00:40:07.300 casso in the 90s the lucchese family they killed a guy they killed somebody from my family bobby

00:40:13.220 boriello in front of his house there was another guy in the colombo war during the colombo family

00:40:17.680 war in the early 90s he was hanging christmas lights in front of his house he was shot in front

00:40:22.120 of his house but before that it was off limits to go near someone's house that's the degenerative

00:40:27.860 sort of like slide the mafia has been taken in over the last couple of decades where they do go to

00:40:33.640 somebody's house now but back then i wasn't allowed to go to your house if let's say for example you

00:40:38.740 brett owed me a hundred thousand and i knew where you lived i i could literally be killed if i went

00:40:46.260 banging on your door demanding my money because i'm offending whoever lives with you including your

00:40:51.000 mother or your wife or your daughter or your sons or whoever and by doing that i'm offending your

00:40:56.920 family and family honor is everything and that's what it's supposed to be about now i could catch you

00:41:02.540 down the street and run you over with my car and the family the same family i don't want to offend

00:41:07.660 has to visit you in the hospital and bring you flowers and get you know buy you food from the

00:41:12.340 outside because hospitals food stinks etc etc but i have to follow the code i'm allowed to i'm allowed

00:41:19.340 to kill you away from your house but i can't do it when you're at home so i believed in those little 0.81

00:41:24.200 things i thought that that was sacred and for many decades mafias mobsters rather no matter in the midst

00:41:30.400 of the most brutal savage wars where where the strife was was you know you was so it was so it

00:41:38.520 was like you know fallujah when the marines went in in iraq you know it was like so tense they they

00:41:44.780 could come and go in their houses and they knew that they could they could sit in front of the

00:41:48.060 television with the window open and watch tv because nobody would attempt to go near your home

00:41:52.400 and that's that's eroded so those are how some of the rules have eroded as well over recent years

00:41:58.000 so it's this sense of honor that that's that's the code that's like sort of that's it that's that's

00:42:02.680 it yeah that's it in a nutshell yeah omerta omerta was originally supposedly also too this is an

00:42:08.460 interesting word omerta omerta wasn't just silence we we look at it today as americans we look at the

00:42:14.580 word omerta and we say you keep your mouth shut you know don't don't rat on people be quiet like or

00:42:19.740 if you know people come from neighborhoods italian neighborhoods when i was young if there was like

00:42:24.560 somebody was shot on the block all the neighbors even if they were legitimate people knew to keep

00:42:28.880 their mouths shut they understood omerta the cops came anybody see anything everybody said no and

00:42:33.580 the cops got in the car and went home you know that was just the way it was but omerta the original

00:42:38.120 meeting of omerta in the sicilian form from sicily originally when the mafia first formed in sicily

00:42:45.020 omerta meant being a man and doing something yourself so for example if i'm in jail and let's say you

00:42:51.980 double crossed me and you're outside and you're not giving me the money that's due to my family

00:42:56.380 you're supposed to drop off money at my house and give my family money that's due to me while i'm in

00:43:00.880 jail but you're not doing that so i'm mad at you now if i have to do 20 years omerta means i have to 0.64

00:43:07.220 i have to handle things on my own i have to wait the 20 years come out and then see you and take care

00:43:12.220 of you or get my comrades on the street to go to go find you but i don't rat and get the police to help

00:43:18.180 me get you but nowadays people don't follow omerta they say okay brett's not paying my family i'm going

00:43:24.540 to rat brett out i'm going to become a confidential informant or i'm going to become i'm going to the

00:43:29.200 witness protection program and i'll give brett 20 years what you're doing is you're enlisting the

00:43:33.240 government or the police force to be your your co-conspirators and punishing your your your sort 0.66

00:43:39.420 of like enemies that's not omerta that's why the sicilians never went to the police omerta means

00:43:44.740 if you somebody shot my son yesterday i don't go to the police and this was the old mafia you don't

00:43:52.020 go to the police you take care of that justice yourself you find out who shot your son and you

00:43:56.500 find the guy and you take care of it yourself it was being a man and it originated in sicily because

00:44:01.820 sicily couldn't rely on the police you know here in america we can rely on our police we can rely on

00:44:07.340 the fbi they do a darn good job you know in keeping the streets clean it's why we could you know

00:44:12.520 notwithstanding some neighborhoods in this country that are very dangerous for the most part america

00:44:17.680 is a place where you know your daughter could run out for milk and come home without anything

00:44:21.260 happening to her and i feel bad for the neighborhoods where that can't happen what can't cannot but in

00:44:27.200 sicily you couldn't rely on the police force to have the streets you know kept lawful or or the

00:44:33.280 government you couldn't rely on the mafia did that the piazza don the don who hung out in the piazza

00:44:38.360 all day controlled what happened in that neighborhood so if something happened to your

00:44:43.080 daughter while she went out to buy milk you didn't call the police because they weren't around they

00:44:46.760 couldn't be relied on what are they going to do you called the piazza don and you said something

00:44:50.880 happened to my daughter yesterday he puts word out and next thing you know whoever the culprit was is

00:44:55.440 brought to justice so that's sort of where it came from and it's obviously it's obvious rather why the

00:45:01.760 why the word has lost its meaning in america because we have a strong society that we don't you know we

00:45:07.780 don't rely on the piazza don for justice but in the small italian neighborhoods when i was growing up

00:45:12.920 that were very highly you know it was it was a dense like for example let's say not even my neighborhood

00:45:19.120 my neighborhood was my particular neighborhood where i grew up was a mix of german irish jewish italian

00:45:24.300 but let's say corona corona was a very small italian enclave and that that enclave they relied on

00:45:33.120 interior internal justice rather when like when i was a kid if you did something wrong in corona

00:45:41.180 you didn't have to wait for the cops you were you were getting you had to look out not for the not

00:45:46.500 for the plymouth with a red light on top you had to look out for the the cadillac with tinted windows

00:45:51.640 that's who was coming for you so so again you know things have changed now neighborhoods are more

00:45:57.900 diverse where that strong italian culture that came from sicily or even naples isn't necessarily

00:46:04.840 around as much nowadays so the word has deteriorated along with sort of like the you know the the less

00:46:11.720 and less of a need for it right and i imagine the the countries where gangs are prolific they're the

00:46:17.420 government's typically weak there and so people like that's that's the alternative there you go i mean

00:46:22.260 you just said it so i kind of like summed it up when i was talking about sicily el salvador they can't

00:46:27.400 rely on the police the soldiers the the the the federal or state police the soldiers they can't rely

00:46:33.760 on them for to keep them safe from the gangs the gangs have overcome the streets so if you're gonna

00:46:41.660 if you open up a mcdonald's in el south in san salvador for example if you open up a mcdonald's you

00:46:47.800 need to pay you need to pay one of the gangs either 18th street or ms 13 depending on whose

00:46:54.560 territory that is and if you say to them well why don't you go to the police they're gonna look at

00:46:59.200 you like you have two heads because are you are you asking me to kill myself you know there's a story 0.68

00:47:04.400 way back when i don't know if you some of your listeners may remember there was an old chain

00:47:09.480 supermarket chain in queens when i grew up i don't know how far it stretched across the country if at all

00:47:15.240 but it was called wall bounds w-a-l-d-b-a-u-m-s if i'm not mistaken wall bounds was like a supermarket

00:47:23.120 chain started by a family and ira wall bound i think was the sort of the the patriarch of the

00:47:28.700 family and at one point or another he was told to you know hope to sell castellano paul castellano

00:47:36.160 the mafia gambino family mafia boss to sell paul castellano's chickens or else so wall bound puts

00:47:42.600 castellano's chickens on the shelves obviously and he says you know what am i what am i going to do

00:47:46.800 fight with paul castellano if he wants his chickens on my shelves i'll put his chickens on my shelves

00:47:51.380 so the fbi went to ira wall bound and asked him at that time back in whenever it was the 70s

00:47:56.480 and said to him hey ira why don't you wear a wire and why don't you tell them no and why don't you

00:48:04.140 and he looked at them and said why don't you protect me from them if you can't keep them away from me

00:48:10.080 then don't expect me to keep them away from me in other words you can't rely on me to do it

00:48:15.840 you know you have to do that if he doesn't exist paul castellano then i don't have to deal with him

00:48:21.520 but as long as he exists and he's pointing a finger on my chest telling me i have to have his chickens

00:48:26.100 then i have a problem with him and the best way to compromise that problem is to is to acquiesce

00:48:33.780 so i mean you know there's a good example of you know that's just and nowadays obviously the fbi is

00:48:40.660 strong enough to keep the paul castellano out of the usually you know they still have a hold in

00:48:45.900 some places the mob but they're not as powerful as it used to be i don't believe they control the

00:48:49.520 chickens anymore in new york but they did at one time so the more and more the fbi and and the uh

00:48:55.320 new york state organized crime task force for example gets a hold of what's going on

00:48:59.700 the less and less people who are in business have to deal with mafia elements my friend was a union

00:49:04.780 boss i could i think i could say his name he died anthony kalagna he was a lucchese member

00:49:09.500 he was a leader of a union and he was a great guy and they loved him you know he negotiated he got

00:49:14.840 them the best deal when he inherited the job there was he walks into an office and sits down and he

00:49:21.020 told me this story himself he says lou day one on the job these envelopes are coming on my desk

00:49:26.000 guys are bringing 5 000 10 000 and they're dropping me off envelopes all week and you know it's built

00:49:32.040 into the desk you know and i just inherited it it wasn't something that i worked you know it might

00:49:37.720 have been started by tommy lucchese three three fingers brown lucchese decades before anthony

00:49:42.900 kalagna ever came into the picture but when he took over now i'm not giving i'm not saying he was an

00:49:47.720 innocent man he knew exactly what he was doing you know but i'm just trying to make the point that

00:49:53.960 when things are infiltrated if there are innocent people and and anthony wasn't he was a gangster but

00:50:01.520 if there are innocent people sort of who you know there could be a secretary in anthony's office who

00:50:06.260 just goes to work nine to five you know it's up to law enforcement to keep those people out in places

00:50:11.100 like el salvador they haven't reached i think the level that we have with regard to law enforcement

00:50:17.140 law enforcement united states is much stronger than the countries i went to the camora in naples i went to

00:50:22.420 visit the camora in naples the camora in naples controls naples you know the the police are doing

00:50:27.980 a darn good job as best they can but they don't have a hold of it you know they're they're pretty

00:50:31.940 much running naples if you go to naples and you said i'm going to build a nice hotel over here on

00:50:36.500 the waterfront you're going to get a knock on your door and the camora is going to tell you i don't

00:50:40.400 care if you go to the police or not we're going to chop you up and put you in a barrel and dump you 0.98

00:50:44.140 out to sea unless you do what we tell you to do i'm curious in all the gangs you visited

00:50:49.400 what do you think what what like human needs were these gangs fulfilling so obviously they were like

00:50:55.860 an alternative to government yeah this is a great question like what but why why did what drew i mean

00:51:00.820 typically young men were the ones that are joining these gangs like why yeah why that i wanted to great

00:51:05.300 question i wanted to create a show my my idea was to create a show that has some educational value i don't

00:51:12.500 want to just do i get contacted all the time hey louie you want to do a mob show hey vinnie papa what

00:51:18.560 are you doing over here hey go down see gino i don't want to do those shows i want to do something

00:51:23.740 that helps people where just like my books if i write a book i want it to help people in some way

00:51:28.420 the same thing with my shows i wanted to go inside the subculture of the gangs and find out what made

00:51:33.940 them tick so just in answer to your question the best question that is illustrative

00:51:41.940 of of what makes these guys tick is el salvador the gangs in el salvador i went in there and these

00:51:49.920 guys love their families and yet they were all killers every single one of them had to kill to

00:51:55.700 get initiated into the gang every single one of them was a tried and true killer and they killed a

00:52:00.020 guy as i said right before i got there so what what was behind these guys they love their families they

00:52:05.880 couldn't wait to get visits from their mothers and their daughters and their wives hugging and kissing

00:52:10.400 them you know that's sort of like that they had that spanish like which is very like italian the

00:52:16.740 warm culture where we kiss and hug a lot kissing and hugging on visiting day i was there for visiting

00:52:22.140 day what made them tick what happened was there was a story behind it and it was very interesting

00:52:27.120 when el salvador got sucked into a civil war a lot of the fathers were killed or fled the country or

00:52:36.740 disappeared and a lot of the sons had single moms and a lot of the single moms desperately tried to 1.00

00:52:43.980 keep the family together by working two jobs three jobs some of them fled to the united states and would

00:52:49.200 send money home and it became a very sad picture for these single young men these young men who were

00:52:55.460 basically orphaned and they needed family and the gang became their family and they look at each other

00:53:04.040 as family just like the mafia it originally started as family this is you know la familia la cosa

00:53:10.980 nostra la familia it's the same thing when el salvador it was the family that was behind this and and the

00:53:18.360 the the need for family it was fulfilled by the gang these are my brothers these are my family you'll see

00:53:26.120 that over and over in the el salvador episode these are my brothers these are my family and when they get

00:53:31.240 visits from the women they love them they kiss and hug them they love their mothers they love their

00:53:36.660 wives they love their daughters they're not insensitive men they're not monsters and i wanted

00:53:42.220 to show the human side of them and i did that i think i successfully did that i cried with one of the

00:53:46.880 guys at the end of the film i mean there's no way you know i i thought i got to the heart of their

00:53:52.500 humanity there are heinous criminals there are heinous crimes those people should be punished you know i'm not

00:53:58.060 i'm not a softy i understand you know that we we have to keep society safe from certain people

00:54:03.460 for a time i thought society should be kept safe from myself you know i'm the first one to admit it

00:54:09.040 you know i'm running around the streets with guns what am i doing so but but in another sense i had

00:54:14.520 humanity in me obviously i'm talking to you now and i hope your listeners could hear it

00:54:18.220 they did too no one's a lost cause we're all we're all god's children and i wanted to show that and

00:54:25.680 i'm not saying people shouldn't be public punished and people should be let out of jail you deserve to

00:54:29.940 be punished for what you do but don't forget that people are human and and that's what i think i

00:54:34.380 achieved in that in that um you know look in the end at the end of the day this country is torn apart

00:54:40.660 right now so badly our country the united states you know with this with this with the political and i

00:54:47.000 don't want to get into politics obviously but with the political you know division here i think the film

00:54:52.580 from sort of like from a left point of view it was like we can't show gangs period we can't show

00:55:00.720 people who are evil and people who are bad and from a right point of view we can't side the we can't

00:55:05.800 show the good part of them we can't show the good side of them because then we'll think you know people

00:55:10.140 like that who are bad are really good so i think i got caught in a crossfire where both both political

00:55:15.360 sides you know found wrong in the films but look i'm not going to stop going out and doing what i think

00:55:21.100 i do best which is educating people as to sort of like you know these subcultures in society well

00:55:27.120 where can people go to learn more about the the work you do i guess the best thing you know my i

00:55:31.860 haven't updated my website in years i should i'm in the midst of writing a new book right now and i'm

00:55:37.340 tweaking my the last edits on my novel that i'll be coming out with also beginning of next year

00:55:41.640 hopefully but you could go to my website lewisferrante.com l-o-u-i-s-f-e-r-r-a-n-t-e.com

00:55:48.500 if there are any questions you could drop me an email through there there's a contact sheet i will

00:55:53.660 get the email that's the best place it shows my books and some of the work i've done but i need

00:55:57.760 to update the site there's a lot more i've done that's not on there at some point i will i just

00:56:02.100 been like totally dedicating all of my time to writing my new book which i'll hopefully be done

00:56:07.300 with next year uh and and have it out next year as well hopefully fantastic well lou ferrante thanks

00:56:11.640 for your time it's been a pleasure thank you brett uh absolute pleasure thank you my guest name is lou

00:56:16.200 ferrante he's the author of a few books check out his books unlocked about his time as a mobster

00:56:20.580 also mob rules about business lessons you can learn from the mafia you can also find out more

00:56:24.680 information about his work at his website lewisferrante.com also check out our show notes

00:56:29.000 at aom.is slash gangsters code where you find links to resources we can delve deeper into this topic

00:56:33.640 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website at

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The Art of Manliness - October 14, 2019

#551： Inside the Gangsters' Code

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