Fed Explains The Great Philly Mob War
Episode Stats
Length
2 hours and 2 minutes
Words per Minute
177.1547
Summary
In this episode of FedReacts, we cover the case of Nicole Brown Simpson and her murder by her ex-boyfriend, OJ Simpson. We cover the details of the case, the circumstances surrounding Nicole's murder, and the investigation into her death.
Transcript
00:00:00.720
And we are live. What's up, guys? Welcome to FedReacts. Today, we're going to be covering the Philly Mob you guys have been covering.
00:00:06.080
Well, actually, you guys have been asking for this one for quite a bit. I got a little new intro for y'all. Let's get right into it, man.
00:00:14.080
I'm a special agent with Homeland Security investigations, okay, guys? HSI.
00:00:18.580
Defender Jeffrey Williams and Associate YSL did commit the felony.
00:00:25.800
This guy got arrested. Espionage, okay? Trading secrets with the Russians.
00:00:29.660
John Wayne Gacy, a.k.a. The Killer Clown, okay?
00:00:31.980
One of the most prolific serial killers of all time. Killed 33 people.
00:00:35.160
Zodiac Killer is a pseudonym of an unidentified serial killer who operated in Northern California.
00:00:39.240
All these serial killers, guys, they really get off on getting attention from the media.
00:00:44.100
Many years, Jeffrey Epstein sexually exploited and abused dozens of minor girls at his home.
00:00:48.280
It was O.J. working together to get Nicole killed.
00:00:51.500
We're going to go over his past, the gang tie, so that this all makes sense.
00:00:59.660
Cool. Let me know how y'all like that new intro, man.
00:01:03.080
Made some adjustments, you know, talked about the different cases that we cover.
00:01:06.440
It's not two minutes long, so I don't want to hear any complaints.
00:01:09.520
But as you guys know, I'm here with my partner in crime as usual.
00:01:12.480
Angie, why don't you introduce yourself to the people?
00:01:21.880
I kind of want to apologize for my attitude of the last episode because I was being annoying and like corny and also moody.
00:01:31.980
I was very moody because I didn't like the case.
00:01:35.420
And yeah, I just want to apologize because I was being stupid.
00:01:43.460
Yeah, I was just being like annoying because I was annoyed with the case, which is like it doesn't have anything to do with you guys.
00:01:56.080
Anyways, in my opinion, I was just being like retarded.
00:01:59.920
And also in this internet world, you take five saves and then you take like six back.
00:02:05.860
I also want to address some rumors that you guys have been saying like I'm married.
00:02:14.760
Like that's just some stupid you guys took out of content on another video because I was saying something about my dad.
00:02:22.460
And I made the mistake of saying my has instead of saying my dad has.
00:02:42.360
Because she realizes she fucked up and she was like, yeah, let me, yeah, I gotta, I gotta make this right.
00:02:49.780
And, uh, to her defense, guys, she has been going through some things.
00:02:53.380
I'm not going to say what it is, but some personal stuff.
00:02:58.380
But, uh, but yeah, she definitely didn't mean to come up that way for you guys.
00:03:23.800
And we like making these videos for you guys, man.
00:03:25.420
And Angie does put a good amount of work behind the scenes for these cases.
00:03:28.440
So she really cares, which is why she's emotional about it at times.
00:03:37.240
And she actually, she's pretty much done translating it.
00:03:39.680
So it's going to be out in Spanish very soon for y'all.
00:03:42.140
But today, we're going to be covering something that you guys have been asking for for a bit for a while.
00:03:46.900
And this is something that she actually is interested in, which is the Italian mob out of Philadelphia.
00:03:50.200
So I got a documentary here that we're going to be playing, guys, from FBI Files.
00:03:55.980
As you guys know, it's one of my favorite documentaries.
00:04:00.740
And this covers the Philadelphia Mafia and the Philly Mob War.
00:04:04.560
It kind of wraps everything all up in one shot.
00:04:06.740
So, Angie, you got anything before I get into this thing?
00:04:11.900
And there is another one that I sent to Martin to watch.
00:04:15.040
If you guys want to check it out, it covers, like, the whole – it's in parts, though.
00:04:24.860
I think it's Mafia Crimes or something like that.
00:04:27.040
Can you find it real quick so we can put it to other people?
00:04:33.380
So you guys want to – I'm kind of sad because we're, like, finishing the series of, like, Italian mafia that we covered already.
00:04:41.020
Like, we're finishing, like, the whole playlist.
00:04:42.960
And, like, we're not going to make – I mean, we can make more if we can, like, you know.
00:04:46.680
I think maybe, if anything, I'll do one more Orion Dawson.
00:04:50.060
We'll recover the Italian mafia and intelligence agencies.
00:04:54.840
Because, I mean, how many episodes have we done now?
00:04:59.060
Yeah, and also, I'm kind of hoping that Patrick – Patrick B. Davis, we met him at the – well, I met him.
00:05:09.420
I already knew him at the Valuetainment show that we had on Friday – last Friday.
00:05:19.760
And he said, like, he could hook us up with Sammy the Bull.
00:05:22.800
So, I'm kind of hoping we can get, like, an interview with him because that would be also be so good for this channel.
00:05:28.580
Sammy the Bull is, like – it was a great – like, he was a big monster.
00:05:32.240
And we talked about him in more detail in the Gambino family documentary.
00:05:36.480
As you guys know, he was basically the underboss for John Gotti when John Gotti took over as boss for the Gambino crime family.
00:05:42.000
And Sammy the Bull famously testified against John Gotti, et cetera.
00:05:45.440
So, yeah, it would definitely be interesting to get him on as well.
00:05:50.860
Just to check – you guys should check the playlist that we have on the channel because you're still asking for the same time cases that we already covered.
00:06:04.940
Italian Mafia, 9-11, organized crime, national security cases.
00:06:13.980
So, without further ado, guys, we will go ahead and get into today's episode, which is going to be the Philly Month.
00:06:34.240
A crime family splits in two as the young and the old fight to the death.
00:06:39.420
The FBI is caught in the middle as they infiltrate the syndicate in a desperate attempt to end the brutal war raging on the streets of Philadelphia.
00:06:52.740
The FBI is caught in the middle of a bloody vendetta.
00:07:22.700
Authorities feared innocent people would be caught in the crossfire.
00:07:26.560
I'm Jim Kalsstrom, former head of the FBI's New York office.
00:07:30.300
Agents launched a complex and risky surveillance operation.
00:07:35.260
To bring down a notorious crime family and to stop a brutal turf war before more people were killed.
00:07:42.060
A quiet morning in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
00:08:00.840
South Philadelphia, born and raised in the playgrounds where I spent most of my days.
00:08:07.760
South Philadelphia, guys, if you guys have ever been to Philadelphia, it's a very strong Italian population.
00:08:22.840
So we got a guy getting wired up by the FBI in 1990.
00:08:26.820
The documentary that I was talking about is called Philly Bot Documentary, and this is on the channel Mop Talk News.
00:08:36.100
Since we're on it anyway, go ahead and pull up that Wikipedia page you got up.
00:08:40.500
Give you guys a quick little intro because Angie pulled this up.
00:08:42.860
We'll give you guys a little intro to the Philadelphia Mafia, which this documentary is going to cover in some parts.
00:08:51.840
The Philadelphia crime family, also known as the Philadelphia Mafia, the Philly Mafia, or Bruno Scarfo family, is an Italian-American mafia family based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
00:09:06.520
This is me being L, but I thought Pennsylvania was another state.
00:09:11.040
I didn't know Pennsylvania was a city in Philadelphia.
00:09:22.980
You thought Pennsylvania was a city and Philadelphia was a state?
00:09:29.120
Yeah, because I don't know, like, all the states in the United States.
00:09:31.600
Like, I knew the names, but I wouldn't know, like, the capital of each state, like, the cities in each state.
00:09:39.380
I was thinking, like, yeah, Philadelphia was another state.
00:09:41.580
Anyways, it says here, form and base in South Philadelphia.
00:09:45.280
Philadelphia, the criminal organization primarily operates in various areas and neighborhoods in Philadelphia, the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area, i.e. the Delaware Valley, and New Jersey, especially South Jersey.
00:10:01.920
The family is notorious for its violence due in particular to its succession of violent bosses and multiple mob words.
00:10:10.340
Which we're going to talk about here in this episode, guys.
00:10:13.420
So, you know, the name of Bruno Crime Family is the family of this.
00:10:16.520
And if you have anything else, Angie, like, that comes up, whatever, just let me know.
00:10:22.960
So, you guys can see here, it's 1990, and the FBI is wiring up this guy.
00:10:26.380
Let's play the video real quick, because I got some commentary on this.
00:10:29.700
He's a 20-year-old accounting student at LaSalle University, and he's in trouble.
00:10:35.540
LaSalle is a local university in Philadelphia, by the way.
00:10:38.540
I remember we raced him back at the Eastern Sprints in 2012, and we smashed him.
00:10:43.060
He's been betting on football through a mafia bookmaker.
00:10:48.460
He was winning at first, but his luck turns sour.
00:11:02.660
And as you guys know, the reason why this is very relevant, guys.
00:11:09.100
So, and the reason why this is so relevant, guys, just so you all know,
00:11:11.780
is that the mafia, right, ran gambling rings back then.
00:11:15.800
They still do now, but, you know, sports betting was a big thing.
00:11:19.600
If you guys don't believe me, watch the interview that we did with Michael Francis,
00:11:22.300
where he details this, where he was running a bunch of, he had a bunch of bookmakers
00:11:28.240
that he was presiding over that basically, you know, ran these illegal gambling rackets.
00:11:33.520
And the mafia controlled that, guys, especially in Philadelphia.
00:11:36.420
So if you don't pay the money, yeah, you know, there ain't going to be...
00:11:40.180
They're definitely going to remember it, and they're going to come after you.
00:11:44.480
And in this case, he owed $1,000 in sports betting.
00:12:21.000
I remember when I was an informant, there was so many times...
00:12:25.780
When I was an agent, informants would come to me all the time, guys, saying,
00:12:28.700
Hey, you know, this guy's going to kill me if I don't pay back this debt.
00:12:32.360
Or these guys want to get rid of me, blah, blah, blah.
00:12:34.380
A lot of the times, informants will come to you as a last resort
00:12:37.000
Through desperation that they're about to be killed.
00:12:40.200
I remember that story I tell you guys all the time about that Sicario
00:12:42.400
That talked about people that he would kill for the bosses and the Zetas.
00:12:46.540
How he would, like, you know, cut off fingers and stuff like that.
00:12:48.860
And he would get a bonus for every person that he killed.
00:12:51.400
But either way, he came to us providing information
00:12:55.820
So, sometimes you get some of the best informants
00:13:03.800
That's a great situation for you to be as an agent, as a controlling agent.
00:13:07.380
Maren, so, now that we're talking about your experience
00:13:10.480
A lot of people have been asking me to break down, like, a case of yours.
00:13:16.540
I've just been kind of waiting, because one of the cases that I have
00:13:20.000
It's actually going to get a Department of Justice award from the Attorney General very soon.
00:13:25.640
I'm going to reach out to one of my old colleagues and see if I can do it.
00:13:41.660
Yeah, yeah, it's a National Security Sri Lankan case.
00:13:43.720
So, I got to make sure that it's all good and stuff, but it's a really fucking cool case.
00:13:53.900
Then I got another one where, like, I investigated a criminal organization
00:13:56.500
that was using Border Patrol cars to smuggle illegal aliens in the United States.
00:14:00.640
And then I got another one that was a big drug trafficking case
00:14:02.980
that had corrupt police officers in it and shit.
00:14:10.620
I got some really cool stories that I'll cover.
00:14:17.200
We do everything the FBI does, to be honest with you.
00:14:20.400
The only thing that the FBI does exclusively that we're not going to do
00:14:28.640
Like, when it comes to, like, National Security or whatever,
00:14:31.760
It's going to always go to FBI if it's terrorism.
00:14:33.320
So, those are the main differences between departments?
00:14:43.720
and then the main agency underneath it that does law enforcement functions
00:14:52.780
you got the main law enforcement agency as the FBI.
00:14:55.300
There's other agencies, like ATF and the U.S. Marshal Service and other stuff,
00:14:59.960
but the premier agency under the Department of Justice is the FBI.
00:15:02.980
And then the premier one under the Department of Homeland Security
00:15:06.340
And we have a lot of overlap, like, FBI investigates drugs, so do we.
00:15:10.440
FBI investigates national security cases, so do we.
00:15:14.400
You know, we have a lot of different overlap in cases,
00:15:17.260
but the one thing that the FBI always takes a lead on is terrorism and espionage.
00:15:22.940
And then they also do public corruption as well,
00:15:24.940
but we can do public corruption if it interferes with, like,
00:15:31.320
a politician is involved in, like, smuggling, drug smuggling.
00:15:34.160
Well, it's going to be us because they're involved in a crime that we also do.
00:15:40.040
It's really up to you, right, as a case agent, right?
00:15:43.160
So, I think to kind of not deal with problems later on,
00:15:46.280
you should bring them on board because, like, you know,
00:15:49.940
The prosecutor might say, no, you should involve the FBI.
00:15:52.400
But would it aid the investigation to get them on or no?
00:15:57.980
You want me to give you the politically correct answer or the real answer?
00:16:02.300
The politically correct answer is it should aid because you're bringing in the FBI
00:16:07.080
and they have resources and they get a lot of funding and, you know,
00:16:13.720
But nine out of ten times, is it going to help?
00:16:17.580
Because what ends up happening a lot of times is if the FBI is the lead agency on it,
00:16:23.240
If you're not the lead, they're not going to put their full effort in.
00:16:25.840
So, whoever's lead is typically going to care more.
00:16:28.800
And this is, like, the political side of doing law enforcement.
00:16:33.000
The lead agency is typically responsible for the case that gets the credit most of the time.
00:16:38.760
But at the same time, the other agencies that are involved,
00:16:45.460
Or are they actually going to help a little bit at least?
00:16:49.640
Working with the FBI, usually what they do is they kind of come in, they help,
00:16:53.280
and then when it's time to make the arrest, they make sure they put their ray jackets on.
00:16:56.960
And everyone thinks of the FBI case when it wasn't.
00:17:01.880
It's something that's, like, very well known in the law enforcement community.
00:17:13.040
When you do your arrests, right, when you do all your arrests,
00:17:16.960
they're going to be there with their ray jacket,
00:17:18.580
and they're going to assume, the public and the media is going to assume that it was an FBI case,
00:17:27.360
So, and I'll give you guys an example here right now, right?
00:17:29.420
So I'll show you real quick how to tell who the lead agency is on a case.
00:17:42.580
So I'm going to go ahead and share screen with y'all real quick and show you all this.
00:17:46.720
I'm going to teach you guys how to be able to tell who the main agency is on an investigation.
00:17:59.200
This is the Department of Justice article, like main article, right?
00:18:05.680
So you got recording artists and performers, Tekashi69, five other members and associates
00:18:10.720
of violent New York City gang charged them in Manhattan Federal Court with racketeering
00:18:17.120
You come in and you look at the official thing, right?
00:18:25.540
Jeffrey S. Burman, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
00:18:34.180
Angel M. Melendez, who actually know who this guy is.
00:18:36.580
He was the special agent in charge for Puerto Rico.
00:18:39.500
But he says, special agent in charge of the U.S.
00:18:42.040
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, HSI, of HSI, and then Ashton Benedict, special agent
00:18:48.100
in charge of the New York Field Office, Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco Farms, that's ATF.
00:18:51.300
And then James P. O'Neill, commissioner of New York City Police Department, right?
00:18:54.400
Announced the unsealing today of an indictment charging six members and associates of the
00:18:59.200
The lead agency, guys, is the agency that is mentioned first.
00:19:04.120
That's how you know when you do, when you look at the U.S.
00:19:07.280
That is the secret sauce to find out which agency ran the case.
00:19:10.720
And, but then that shows also, can you go back?
00:19:13.960
That shows also that they are working together, like the FBI and also the NYPD.
00:19:23.880
So the three main agencies, yes, they're working together.
00:19:26.300
So HSI was lead, ATF was working with them, and so was NYPD.
00:19:29.380
But it's funny because everyone keeps saying, Tekashi got arrested by the FBI.
00:19:34.880
And I know this for a fact because I was in the office the day after they grabbed him.
00:19:42.320
They arrested him, I think, like November, not the day after.
00:19:54.280
I was there in January, like the first week of January I was there in New York City.
00:20:09.840
And then it says here, Mr. Berman, right, praised the outstanding efforts of HSI, ATF,
00:20:15.660
So the first agency they mentioned is a lead agency.
00:20:20.080
And then here's the people that they charge and everything else like that.
00:20:23.120
And then here's the indictment here, et cetera.
00:20:25.340
And then the other way to tell who the lead agency is.
00:20:37.360
I'm trying to think of a case that I can give you all an example of.
00:20:39.580
The other way to tell if the, so you could go with the DOJ press release.
00:20:43.340
And then also look at the AFI on a, on a criminal complaint.
00:20:51.800
So, for example, this guy just passed away and I did a case on him, actually.
00:21:08.680
But he gave sole secrets to the Russians, right?
00:21:30.740
Obviously, we know it's the FBI because we're on the website.
00:21:39.240
I, Stephan A. Pluta, being duly sworn to pose a state as follows.
00:21:42.700
I am presently employed as a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI.
00:21:48.000
So, that's how you know the FBI is the lead agency.
00:21:51.020
Because, typically, whoever writes a criminal complaint, nine out of ten times is the lead agency.
00:22:00.780
And the next ones that are the ones that work together.
00:22:03.340
He's not even going to, he's going to mention, let me see here.
00:22:05.120
He's probably going to mention other agencies that were involved, but I think, in this case,
00:22:13.660
The agencies wouldn't be there, like, right next to the FBI?
00:22:18.900
No, because the affidavit is him simply just...
00:22:37.540
We're getting what you guys have been asking for.
00:22:46.600
This is the Sri Lanka case I told you all about, right?
00:22:54.120
I'm in Special Agent for Homeland Security Investigations and have been so employed since 2013.
00:22:58.240
I'm currently assigned to the Human Smuggling Group in the HSI Miami Field Office where I'm
00:23:01.360
responsible for conducting, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
00:23:04.960
So, in this case, right, I think I'm going to mention other agencies that I worked with.
00:23:13.120
The statements that contain this affidavit are based on my personal knowledge as well as
00:23:16.020
information provided to me by other law enforcement officers and law enforcement personnel
00:23:19.060
because this affidavit is submitted to the purpose of establishing probable cause for
00:23:23.580
It does not include every fact known to me in connection with this investigation.
00:23:27.420
And I go into all the facts here because I actually did this case with...
00:23:43.900
And I remember I actually, because it was during COVID, I actually called in on a FaceTime
00:23:56.580
Typically, an affidavit, you should put who you're also working with in the affidavit.
00:24:00.240
In this case, I had foreign law enforcement agencies because I did this case with Turks
00:24:04.260
and Caicos Police Department and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
00:24:07.660
And I also had CBSA involved, so I didn't put them too, too much in here.
00:24:10.800
But you typically put the other agencies that you're working with.
00:24:15.080
Basically, if you want to find out, because I don't want to digress too much here.
00:24:20.300
If you want to find out who is the lead agency, go to the U.S. DOJ press release, come down,
00:24:27.540
and then the first law enforcement agency that's mentioned is the lead agency.
00:24:43.900
Because someone, like, leaked it when they tried to dox me, which ended up creating this channel.
00:24:50.920
Former co-owners of Minnesota Vikings sentenced to 75 months in prison for providing shadow
00:24:54.740
banking services to cryptocurrency exchanges, right?
00:24:58.780
We want to see, okay, who's the lead agency in this?
00:25:00.540
This literally just happened today, June 5th, 2023, right?
00:25:05.540
Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Sundance in New York, announced today that Reginald Fowler
00:25:10.540
was sent to 75 months in prison for arranging the process of more than 700 million, blah, blah, blah, right?
00:25:14.860
So, now we're going to go ahead and scroll down.
00:25:20.660
So, you're going to come down to the bottom, right?
00:25:24.020
The prosecution in this case overseen by the Office's Money Laundering and Transnational Criminal Enterprise Unit.
00:25:29.800
Okay, Mr. Williams praised the outstanding effort, investigative work of special agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigations,
00:25:35.560
New York Money Laundering Investigation Squad, and special agents from the IRS.
00:25:39.220
Now, you know, the lead agency in this was FBI and IRS.
00:25:45.480
So, if it's not put here in the beginning, right?
00:25:48.980
Then you're going to come down, and the U.S. Attorney typically is going to congratulate agents.
00:26:01.580
Armed Security Guard at 26 Federal Plaza indicted for violating the constitutional rights of an individual through forced sexual assault.
00:26:06.460
So, I already know this is going to be FBI here.
00:26:08.240
Because FBI typically does constitutional rights.
00:26:16.900
Because FBI does a lot of the time, like, if you violate someone's, like, constitutional rights.
00:26:26.100
Uh, Twinsson and Loa Cartel Associates sent us to 38 and 30 years of prison for a point of 1,000 kilograms of narcotics.
00:27:12.100
Normally, when people are importing drugs, it's HSI all day.
00:27:17.500
But, what ends up happening sometimes is DEA takes importation cases and then we take distribution cases.
00:27:24.380
And what I mean by that is, like, technically, HSI shouldn't be doing drug trafficking cases in the United States that don't have an international nexus.
00:27:33.160
And technically, DEA shouldn't be doing drug trafficking cases that involve importation because that's HSI.
00:27:41.600
Like, where there's times where we'll do a domestic drug trafficking investigation and HSI will be the lead.
00:27:46.740
And then there's times where DEA will do an importation case and they'll be the lead.
00:27:55.340
When I was an agent in Laredo, I was one of the few agents.
00:28:00.320
We had 100 agents, HSI, and I think maybe, like, 30 agents, DEA in Laredo.
00:28:04.440
I was one of maybe five guys that worked with the DEA.
00:28:11.880
Out of, like, 60 to 100 agents, I was one of five agents that worked with DEA and got along with them.
00:28:17.000
I was one of the few people that would let come into the office.
00:28:20.220
But why HSI and DEA, since they, like, share, like, similarities in their cases, don't work together?
00:28:29.160
Because the agent, now, that sounds, you're right.
00:28:32.880
The reason why is because everyone wants to be the lead agency.
00:28:37.300
You don't want to work with someone else if you can get all the credit for yourself.
00:28:40.380
Because at the end of the day, you want to be able to finish the year and be like, we seized this much drugs.
00:28:45.460
We arrested this many people so that you can get more funding.
00:28:48.160
The agencies are very competitive with each other.
00:28:53.880
It's like they're sizing their dick to see who's larger or, like, who gets the ego, like, bigger.
00:29:01.120
Well, law enforcement is a very A-type personality.
00:29:03.900
Everyone wants to be the one that gets the credit.
00:29:10.780
So the agencies, like, work hard and, you know, it's competitive.
00:29:15.920
I can't tell you how many times I've fought with DEA agents, FBI agents.
00:29:21.120
And what is the benefit besides the credit to get, like, I mean, what did they gain besides the credit?
00:29:31.020
I'm about to go into some, like, detail here that, like, no one really knows.
00:29:39.340
I thought you guys, this is what we've been asking for.
00:29:43.480
So people aren't going to like this, but I'm going to say it.
00:29:46.840
So, and you're only going to know this if you work in law enforcement.
00:29:49.660
So I need y'all to like the video right here, right now, because no one's going to give you guys the sauce what I'm about to tell y'all.
00:29:54.160
This is the truth that only if you work in federal law enforcement, you'll know this shit.
00:30:00.180
So when you work for the government, there's something called the GS scale.
00:30:04.560
And when you're getting paid on the GS scale, the maximum is something called a GS 13.
00:30:11.040
A GS scale is like how government employees are paid.
00:30:14.480
So in the special agent position, the max that you can do is a GS 13.
00:30:20.020
And a 13 is basically the highest you can get before you become a manager or a supervisor, which is a GS 14.
00:30:28.140
Now with FBI, HSI, ATF, and a bunch of different agencies, you get that 13, something called non-competitively.
00:30:39.240
Basically, three to five years, you're going to have your GS 13.
00:30:45.840
So, for example, I got hired at like a seven, a GS seven.
00:30:53.900
I went from GS seven to GS nine to GS 11 and then GS 13, right?
00:31:03.520
HSI goes by seven, nine, 11, then, then, do you hit 12s?
00:31:20.380
Depending on if you have a master degree, you'll get hired on as a nine.
00:31:40.620
So, HSI, DEA, ATF, most agencies, IRS as well, you get your 13 just by showing up to work every day.
00:31:49.580
You know, every year, you're going to get your grade bump, right?
00:31:54.220
Because from a 12 to a 13 is typically when you hit six figures.
00:32:00.780
You'll go from making like 80K per year to making like 110K per year.
00:32:15.780
Since you have to earn that 13, you have to do something called a 13 package.
00:32:21.800
You have to put something together called a 13 package.
00:32:25.080
You have to show how many wiretaps you've done.
00:32:27.520
You have to show how many informants you control.
00:32:31.040
Basically, you have to say, this is why I deserve a 13.
00:32:35.540
I've shown that I can run a complex investigation.
00:32:40.280
I've done this many OCDF cases, which is an organized crime, drug enforcement, task force case.
00:32:43.720
You have to show all these things that you've done as a special agent.
00:32:50.280
You show it, like, basically right up, like, a report, essentially.
00:32:54.140
Then you have to submit that to your special agent in charge, your SAC.
00:32:56.960
And then he gives you the yay or nay on your 13.
00:33:01.420
Now, with that said, if 10 guys are competing for 13s, well, guess what?
00:33:19.860
But the point is, is that they have to articulate why they deserve a 13.
00:33:24.480
So if you know that to get your 13, you have to do all this shit, you're not going to share information with other agencies.
00:33:31.360
You're not going to share information with other agents that you even work with.
00:33:36.380
And there's a significant financial incentive to it.
00:33:38.700
So the reason why DEA agents are so cutthroat, guys, is because they, their 13 is competitive.
00:33:56.040
You get it just by being, just by staying four or five years on the job.
00:34:02.480
One of the few agencies where it's competitive.
00:34:04.160
It used to be, we really want to go history here.
00:34:07.300
It used to be when you were a customs agent, it was competitive.
00:34:14.300
But, because, because, because HSI used to be two different agencies.
00:34:21.700
And then they formed, after 9-11, 2003 Homeland Security Act, they formed together INS and
00:34:28.740
So you had INS special agents and you had Customs special agents.
00:34:37.220
U.S. Customs special agents maxed out at a 13, but it was competitive.
00:34:40.600
So when they merged the two together, they made it a non-competitive 13.
00:34:45.320
So, in your department, like, if anyone, like, if anyone were, like, to get, like, a 13, they
00:34:55.820
No, all HSI, all HSI special agents get a 13 automatically after four to five years.
00:35:03.700
Basically, just, just, just, just go for, just work for four to five years and you'll
00:35:08.280
You'll get your competitive 13, you'll make $100,000 plus a year.
00:35:10.740
But DEA is not that way, which is why DEA agents are so fucking cutthroat.
00:35:15.580
I've seen DEA just damn near want to fistfight each other in parking lots, guys.
00:35:22.880
But then these agencies won't take you guys seriously.
00:35:25.940
They will see you, like, oh, you guys are not, like.
00:35:28.600
Because you didn't, I mean, the way you mentioned this, the way you're saying this, it's like,
00:35:34.140
these other agencies, because you are not competing for this, right?
00:35:38.040
For this J13, you're, you're not fighting for it.
00:35:41.920
Like, they are, you're not putting as much effort as they are.
00:35:44.300
No, DEA is one of the few agencies that's competitive.
00:35:49.740
DEA, to my knowledge, I think is the only agency that's competitive, that's a competitive
00:35:56.520
But that's crazy, though, because then these agencies.
00:36:01.580
Or a GL10, and then it goes, after you pass 10, it goes to GS scale.
00:36:05.960
I don't want to get too much in the weeds here, but, but yeah.
00:36:09.200
But this, then this agency must think that it's the best of them all, because it's like,
00:36:13.320
it's literally fighting way more than these other agencies, then.
00:36:17.340
I mean, DEA is one of the few, put it this way, DEA is a very cutthroat culture agency.
00:36:29.160
Now, with that said, the competitive 13 is gone, you know, for DEA.
00:36:34.960
I say all that to say, to say it's gone now, when I, right before I left the government,
00:36:39.320
they, they were talking about getting rid of it.
00:36:41.640
So I don't think that is still required, but you have to be a GS12, I think for two
00:36:47.440
And, and it's either you can, and you can try to get the 13 in one year, or you could
00:36:53.240
just wait the three years and get it non-competitively.
00:36:55.320
So I think now, if I'm not mistaken, someone in the comments, if you're a DEA agent or, you
00:36:59.340
know, for sure, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but when I last checked, it's a non-competitive
00:37:05.260
13 now, but you have to be at 12 for three years.
00:37:07.700
And then if you don't write the package and get it, you can go ahead and get it after
00:37:12.620
three years, or you can go ahead and do something called an impact 13, which is you've been a,
00:37:17.620
you've been a 12 for only one year, but then you've done a lot of work and you can go and
00:37:20.640
write your package up and get your 13 that way.
00:37:23.220
In the comments below, if you're, if you're a DEA guy or if you work for DEA or someone
00:37:27.980
But I'm almost certain that's what it is now, but it forever, it's been a competitive
00:37:32.520
So you could go your entire career and be at 12 and not make that a hundred grand per
00:37:36.740
This is very important that you mentioned this because it's very understandable now.
00:37:43.000
I mean, if I would be competing for my, my stuff, for my records and shit, like I wouldn't
00:37:49.780
It's, it's from, you're going from making a $80,000 a year to like a hundred something
00:38:05.900
And that's something that you would not know unless you were an agent and you worked with
00:38:11.940
I know the reason why I know this guys is because I worked, I worked drug cases and I
00:38:16.920
had good friends that were DEA agents and I know their agency in and out.
00:38:21.140
I know how, fuck, I even know what the reports are called.
00:38:24.980
Are you even allowed to share this information?
00:38:29.520
But, but yeah, but like, uh, well, uh, well, I don't know if it's public that the, the way
00:38:35.260
they get paid about competitive thirteens or whatever, but that's not, that's not like
00:38:40.360
Like that's like, you could look that up and you could find it on the internet if you
00:38:43.440
were, if you were to search it, but, but yeah, DEA is a competitive 13 still guys
00:38:47.940
Um, and then you could do something called, like I said before the impact, the impact
00:38:54.460
You guys, you see, this is why you need to subscribe.
00:38:57.780
You ain't got to get sauce like this nowhere else, man.
00:39:03.440
Like guys, I know y'all, you know, you know, be interrupted a little bit because she was
00:39:06.480
being, um, annoying the other, the other day, but Angie really does care.
00:39:10.760
She asked really good questions and she really does care.
00:39:13.600
I watch a lot of movies, like I watched, like I've been researching myself here and
00:39:22.300
Like, um, DEA works very hard because, um, their job, you have to work weird hours.
00:39:27.820
You're following drug dealers around, et cetera.
00:39:35.940
Um, DEA agents are by far the hardest working agents by far.
00:39:42.160
So I always loved working with DEA because they wouldn't care about going out late at
00:39:48.640
They always had task force officers that were down.
00:39:51.160
Um, you know, it's a fun, it's a fun, uh, you know, um, crime to investigate, uh, drug
00:39:59.480
Uh, you're dealing with a lot of different conspirators.
00:40:05.460
But the thing is, is that like, you know, yeah, a lot of them are cutthrows.
00:40:09.980
The best thing that I would do is I would always work with DEA agents that were already
00:40:15.300
You always want to work with DEA agents that are already thirteens because then it'll make
00:40:17.940
it a lot easier for you or task force officers.
00:40:20.420
So, um, because they're not paid by DEA, they're paid by their agency and then they're,
00:40:26.120
So they're actually incentivized to work overtime because their department doesn't pay for it.
00:40:30.880
So I, uh, I'm very interested in this because I actually, I don't know if you know this.
00:40:35.280
I did my internships in the, in a department that was called CEI CBC, which is like a police
00:40:41.360
department that covers, I mean, in my city, we have this thing that covers everything from
00:40:51.740
So I was like doing my internship in the forensics department because I wanted to be, I kind
00:40:57.240
of wanted to do a, like a postgrad in like, uh, criminal psychology or like forensic psychology.
00:41:03.860
I always wanted to be like a forensic and yeah, you'll see like these kinds of cases and like,
00:41:09.500
you'll see like a lot of like sauce going on in that department.
00:41:12.940
So you have like a child's being like from, from child's being like raped by their, by
00:41:19.900
You'll see like dead people that got killed because of a cartel or something.
00:41:25.180
So yeah, I, I got to learn a lot by working with my, with my supervisor, with my, um, the
00:41:30.880
lead agent that was my, like helping me with my internships.
00:41:35.380
So yeah, that's why I'm so interested because in here in America, it works a little bit
00:41:40.120
different, but it's kind of like the same thing.
00:41:41.720
Um, yeah, I mean, it's competitive between law enforcement agencies for sure, but like
00:41:45.560
yeah, here, um, yeah, that, that's, that's, that's kind of why DEA has a blood, um, the
00:41:51.800
blood culture that they have, you know what I mean?
00:41:53.500
And it's very competitive, but it's good if it keeps all the agencies honest and hard
00:41:57.520
working, but yeah, FBI agents are pretty fucking lazy.
00:42:03.540
DEA agents, a lot of the times, um, most of them are hard workers cause they want to get
00:42:11.560
They, they, they, they, they're a lot of FBI agents don't do shit guys.
00:42:13.660
I'll be honest with y'all because this is such a big agency.
00:42:17.000
There's only a couple of them that like really are go-getters that do big cases, but most
00:42:25.700
The kind of place where you want to cross the mob.
00:42:28.540
Anyway, going back to what we're saying, going back to regular schedule programming here,
00:42:35.880
So you got this guy at a LaSalle university accounting student owes a thousand bucks to
00:42:39.340
the mob because he, you know, decided to play some bad bets.
00:42:41.640
And as you guys know, the mafia is notorious for running bookkeeping operations.
00:42:44.920
So he decides to come to the FBI, uh, in 1990 and, uh, basically be an informant.
00:42:55.100
La Casa Nostra, the Italian syndicate of organized crime families runs a profitable and bloody
00:43:02.460
For years, South Philly was run by Angelo Bruno, known as the gentle Don because of
00:43:32.460
The man suspected of being behind the hit was Nicodemo Scarfo.
00:43:40.120
He was a cold hearted killer who ruled the city by violence.
00:43:48.800
The FBI wants to find out who is running the Philadelphia mob while the boss is behind bars.
00:43:57.080
Andruzzi's problem with the loan shark gives the FBI the perfect opportunity to collect new
00:44:11.940
He plays his part perfectly and is introduced to Salvatore Sparaccio, a known member of the
00:44:18.300
The FBI special agent Jim Marr was the case agent on this investigation.
00:44:29.920
And as you guys know, the case agent is the guy that runs the investigation.
00:44:33.000
So one thing I really like about this documentary is that they give you insight from the actual
00:44:39.560
So you guys get a more in-depth look at the investigation.
00:44:42.020
I didn't make any overt threats, but the implied threat, I'm the boss of the family, you got
00:44:53.280
Although the mob is charging little more interest than a credit card company, the penalty for
00:45:01.620
For the next 10 weeks, the FBI gives Andruzzi the money to make his payments.
00:45:15.440
And each time he takes the money to the bookmaker, the FBI records the conversation, building their
00:45:26.280
Each payment is evidence of the crime, of racketeering.
00:45:29.320
But the FBI is not interested in making low-level gambling arrests.
00:45:40.180
The ultimate goal is to destroy the Philadelphia Cosa Nostra family as a crime problem.
00:45:49.800
The tactics we use are to attack the hierarchy.
00:45:53.960
The structure is the target, and we attack the target through the hierarchy.
00:46:06.240
So on Christmas Day, when they know it will be closed, the FBI breaks into the bakery shop.
00:46:12.640
We proved to the judge that gambling activity and loan shopping activity was taking place in
00:46:24.440
For the next several months, the FBI records the conversations inside the bakery.
00:46:28.700
We began listening to conversations of Salvatore Sparaccio, who was claiming to be the boss of the
00:46:41.080
Although Sparaccio claims to be the head of the family, the FBI wire soon makes it clear
00:46:46.360
that Sparaccio is not one of the big Philadelphia mafia bosses.
00:46:49.920
He is little more than an employee, but the FBI doesn't know who he's working for.
00:47:03.720
Thinking he can lead them to his boss, the FBI surveillance tracks Sparaccio to a law office
00:47:10.580
Just so you guys know, Camden is extremely dangerous, consistently in the top 10 most
00:47:20.900
It's right across the bridge from Philadelphia and Pennsylvania.
00:47:33.220
He works with other members of the Philadelphia mafia, including one man well known to the FBI,
00:47:44.100
John Stanfa is a Sicilian immigrant and a maid member of the Sicilian mafia.
00:47:49.740
He worked as a driver for the late Angelo Bruno, a.k.a. the Gentle Don, former.
00:47:54.500
And just so you guys understand, we break down what a maid guy is, La Cosa Nostra,
00:47:58.520
or Merta, we break down all the terminology and the phrases in the first episode that
00:48:05.600
So please go back and watch that if you haven't already.
00:48:07.840
So all this will make a lot more sense to you because the mafia definitely uses a lot
00:48:12.180
of different terms and vernaculars that you may or may not be aware of unless you're
00:48:21.740
If I'm not mistaken, Stanfa was the first Philadelphia maid guy.
00:48:26.900
If I'm not mistaken, I think Stanfa, this guy that I mentioned right now, was the
00:48:34.680
He got maid in the 50s and then, yeah, he got killed in 80.
00:48:39.380
If you know guys like maid guy, it's a guy that belonged to, I mean, that became a
00:48:49.020
The former mafia boss in 1981 and was apprehended in Maryland.
00:48:53.640
Actually, um, a maid guy is somebody that, uh, uh, signs the Umurta.
00:49:06.040
And we talk about the ritual as well, guys, in that first episode, what it takes to be
00:49:09.560
a, you know, what the ritual is, all that stuff.
00:49:11.360
So we're going to assume you guys already know all that and continue on.
00:49:16.360
If you don't know what we're talking about, please.
00:49:18.200
He was convicted of timestamps are in there and everything too.
00:49:22.620
Perjury in his testimony before a grand jury that was probing Bruno's death.
00:49:31.640
When he was released, the Philadelphia mafia put out a contract on his life for the killing
00:49:37.480
Now, special agent Fred Walsh is a member of the FBI's organized crime squad.
00:49:43.520
Only through the intercession of his Gambino associates up in New York, the contract was
00:49:51.760
And just so you guys know, the organized crime squads for the FBI are the ones that are
00:49:57.100
You know, they're terrorism squads, they're JTTFs, they're espionage squads, etc.
00:50:04.200
They're not hitting action like that because espionage and terrorism is foreign people
00:50:08.080
So the organized crime squads is where you want to be at.
00:50:10.400
The agents that do them, that are working all the time are the bank robbery squads.
00:50:14.260
And I know some of you are saying like, wait, what the hell are you talking about, Myron?
00:50:20.120
Are working because they get called all the time.
00:50:22.600
And surprisingly, people still rob banks in 2023.
00:50:27.820
And to this day, I still ask him, people still rob banks?
00:50:30.600
And he's like, yep, dude, people still fucking rob banks.
00:50:32.560
So, yeah, the guys that I would say they're probably working the most hours and out there
00:50:38.420
the most are guys in bank robbery squads and guys that are in organized crime squads.
00:50:43.000
But the rest of the FBI, man, a lot of them ain't doing shit.
00:50:47.500
They're probably working a good amount, too, because you guys would be surprised at how
00:50:51.100
often you can, you know, be doing search warrants and arresting people for CP.
00:51:01.440
We HSI definitely does way more child exploitation cases than the FBI does nowadays.
00:51:09.920
He went to work in the construction business and laid low for a while.
00:51:17.560
So when he started to come to power and we started to notice he was making a name for
00:51:21.900
himself, it came as a kind of a surprise to us.
00:51:24.020
Thanks to the cooperation of the young college student, the FBI has now identified the man
00:51:30.440
they believe is running organized crime in Philadelphia.
00:51:34.360
We had put away the previous boss and most of the hierarchy of the family.
00:51:39.080
We felt if we could put Stanford away that we would go a long way towards the ultimate
00:51:44.220
goal of eliminating the Philadelphia family as a crime problem.
00:51:48.300
On the street, informants confirm the FBI suspicion that John Stanford is the new boss of the Philadelphia
00:51:58.720
Once you determine that an individual like Stanford is taking the family over, you want to see
00:52:05.100
Contact your informants, see what they can provide.
00:52:16.540
He engages in traditional mob activities such as loan sharking, gambling and extortion.
00:52:28.120
The FBI wants to find out where he is conducting business.
00:52:32.800
According to FBI informants, high level secret mafia meetings are being held in the lawyer's
00:52:39.080
The informants told us that that's where they were meeting, that they felt secure there.
00:52:45.520
Since it was a lawyer's office, they felt secure there from FBI eavesdropping.
00:52:52.340
Guys, the reason why they feel secure, and I'll break it down a little bit further for
00:52:55.720
y'all, is because typically conversations between a criminal and their lawyer is called
00:52:59.840
privileged information, which means, you know, if I have a lawyer, right, and I want to tell
00:53:09.180
That's considered a privilege and can't be used against me, okay, because the discussions
00:53:13.760
between you and your attorney are supposed to be, you know, obviously sacred.
00:53:19.040
So also spousal privilege is a thing where your wife is under no obligation to testify
00:53:26.700
So, you know, so it's smart that these guys, right, would conduct all their criminal activity
00:53:33.400
and their meetings at a lawyer's office thinking, yo, you know, the FBI wouldn't think to bug
00:53:38.640
a lawyer's office because if they do, then they're going to have to do something where
00:53:42.500
they get a taint team to listen to all the recordings.
00:53:44.900
There's going to be a lot of bullshit involved with, you know, bugging a lawyer's office.
00:53:50.880
You're going to need the highest levels of Department of Justice approval to do it.
00:53:56.060
Also, you guys, you got to remember, I don't know if I mentioned this before, but you guys,
00:53:59.560
I mean, got to remember that for mafia informants or mafia guys that wanted to work with a
00:54:11.160
Yeah, or a prosecutor, a lawyer, or just work with the law enforcement.
00:54:17.960
And for the mafia members or for the, yeah, for the mafia, it's like, basically it's been
00:54:27.240
So it's not also like front upon, it's just like, they also get like extremely rejected
00:54:38.500
I mean, I don't know how to say this, but like.
00:54:44.260
That's basically what she's trying to tell y'all.
00:54:45.520
She's going to leave a crew, snitches get stitches.
00:54:52.580
Agents prepare an affidavit to wire the premises.
00:54:58.460
And remember what I tell you guys, an affidavit is the agent, you know, preparing all the
00:55:02.220
facts, writing it down, why he needs to wiretap or listen to individuals real time for a
00:55:09.060
And that's going to be tough because you're going to need to get an informant and there's
00:55:11.860
somebody to establish that the establishment is being used to conduct criminal activity
00:55:18.720
Oh God, that's, that's going to be, I could already see the nightmare that would be, because
00:55:22.680
you're going to need the highest levels of the Department of Justice to like approve
00:55:26.100
You're going to need a tank team to listen to all the recordings.
00:55:28.500
Then they go ahead and give you what actually is criminal information.
00:55:31.340
And they go ahead and take all the privilege information out because they're not involved
00:55:35.000
And the case agent can't hear privilege information because it's going to fuck them up.
00:55:37.320
So many different, you know, nuances that could cause issues.
00:55:41.320
So, um, the mafia was smart for using, or in this case, the Philly mob was smart for
00:55:47.300
I guess that's probably why they decided to do it in Camden, shitty ass Camden.
00:55:50.860
We recognize that intruding into a lawyer's office was extraordinary.
00:55:55.540
The affidavit had to go down to the FBI headquarters.
00:56:00.400
The director of the FBI personally signed off on it.
00:56:03.020
Not only that, it's got to go up the Department of Justice through the U.S.
00:56:10.680
Cause I've, I know this because I've done a wiretap myself.
00:56:19.400
Wiretap is when you're listening to, or a title three in this case, the proper way to
00:56:23.040
call it as a title three, a title three is when you're listening to oral or verbal communication
00:56:27.680
that's coming in or text communication coming in real time.
00:56:31.300
So what that means is as the target is receiving the information, you're receiving it too.
00:56:37.200
Like you, you plant a microphone or somebody or.
00:56:40.440
It could be you plant a microphone at, in their house.
00:56:44.920
It could be you're intercepting their text messages.
00:56:49.620
But the point of title three is you're receiving the information real time.
00:56:53.820
As the criminal's getting it, you're also getting it.
00:56:56.080
I mean, and question, like, how does that work at all?
00:56:59.080
I remember once you said that the DEA is experts in like, uh, planting, uh, title threes.
00:57:10.500
Because I, I've seen plenty of Marvin movies and they, that's how they get like all this
00:57:15.280
evidence against these people is that there will be like planting microphones and like
00:57:20.500
putting microphones in like their houses and stuff.
00:57:22.980
How does that, like, how do they really want me to go through it?
00:57:27.440
I can, I can explain if you want me to, I really want to know because I don't really,
00:57:31.720
I mean, these guys, even Michael French said it, like he, he, uh, they will like, when
00:57:36.520
he got arrested, I think he mentioned that they had a lot of like conversations that
00:57:47.600
I think they wiretapped other people that talked about him.
00:57:49.940
Yeah, probably, but also, um, these guys, these mafia people will have terminology only
00:57:57.600
in case the, the law enforcement will have like information against them that they will
00:58:06.640
Like how law enforcement will be like, they'd be like what, but like bad boys be faking.
00:58:10.980
Like they are like, uh, I don't know if you see the movie, but they will be faking of
00:58:15.120
being like the play guys to check on the house and they'll be planning like microphones and
00:58:20.440
So I'm going to go ahead and explain this, but I need you guys to like the video.
00:58:23.520
Because this is, um, I mean, you don't have to explain it if you don't, if you don't
00:58:28.780
It's just that it's, it's a little, I'll try to do it quickly.
00:58:32.000
So, um, so this is how it works for you to get a title three.
00:58:37.720
So if you want to wiretap someone's phone, for example, right?
00:58:42.540
Let's say I know that Tom is the head of a drug trafficking organization, right?
00:58:48.700
But I know he is, but I don't necessarily have evidence yet.
00:58:55.480
That's a, that's a, a regular guy that sells drugs, right?
00:59:00.500
So what I do is I arrest that guy for selling drugs, his, his lackey, let's say his name
00:59:08.420
And I'm like, listen, John, I know you work for Tom selling drugs.
00:59:15.720
Either a, you're going to work for me and you're going to help me get Tom, or you're going
00:59:20.460
to go to prison and you're going to take an out.
00:59:30.580
You're going to call Tom right now and say, you need a kilo of cocaine and you're going
00:59:37.820
I'm simplifying this for you, by the way, guys, you would never say you want a kilo of
00:59:40.780
You would say maybe an ounce or whatever, because you don't want them to be scared, but I'm making
01:00:01.300
I have him on surveillance with my other people.
01:00:05.300
He picks up the kilo of cocaine from him and he comes out.
01:00:13.520
I have this informant that's been talking to him.
01:00:16.480
Now I'd say, okay, John, I want you to make a phone call as well and order more.
01:00:23.380
John says, yes, I can go ahead and get you more drugs.
01:00:34.220
Isn't this guy, John, getting like more charges to his like sentence?
01:00:37.560
No, because I'm directing him to commit criminal activity.
01:00:44.200
You can commit crime as an informant if I'm directing you to do it.
01:00:49.220
He's basically working off the charge that I got him for.
01:00:52.740
So now I, now I go to the prosecutor and say, Hey, listen, prosecutor, I need to listen to Tom's phone so that I can see who he's getting the drugs from.
01:01:02.780
Because obviously Tom has a connect who's getting him large quantities of drugs.
01:01:10.620
And I'm going to write how, uh, John, my informant talks to Tom on the phone.
01:01:16.720
And this phone that John talks to Tom on is used to commit criminal activity.
01:01:22.200
And I need to establish that my informant is committing criminal activity with this bad guy.
01:01:28.280
I need to listen to this phone so that I can identify other conspirators.
01:01:36.160
I need to write why I need to, you know, and here's the other thing too, with the affidavit, you have to establish that you exhausted all other investigative steps.
01:01:56.140
I cannot do anything else to exploit this organization unless I do this Title III, which is fairly easy to establish because, to be honest, you know, watching a guy all the time, you're going to get burned.
01:02:09.420
Trash pulls aren't helpful like that, which is basically when you go pull the guy's trash.
01:02:13.560
You know, you can only get maybe one informant in.
01:02:15.360
Getting an undercover agent is very difficult and dangerous sometimes.
01:02:18.080
Do you need permission by somebody or, like, a court or something?
01:02:31.620
You've exhausted all the other investigative options.
01:02:42.040
And then you turn it on and you can finally start listening to the guy's phone.
01:02:44.580
And then as you listen to the guy's phone, guess what?
01:02:48.060
You listen to him talking to Timothy, fucking Jamal, another guy from all different parts of the country getting this cocaine.
01:02:57.820
Now what you can do is you can write wiretaps for all their phones, too.
01:03:01.860
And then you go ahead and you do a big conspiracy case.
01:03:08.620
There's more with, like, toll analysis and everything else like that.
01:03:11.720
But in general, that's how you get a wiretap going in a drug investigation.
01:03:16.640
I did it off a drug investigation because that's the easiest way to articulate it.
01:03:25.560
Who else is going to teach you guys how to do a fucking wiretap or how a wiretap works anywhere else on YouTube?
01:03:32.380
I mean, that's how they got the Black Dugger family.
01:03:34.760
Remember that they got a bunch of informants to get it.
01:03:39.300
And also, yeah, it's pretty much like the movies then.
01:03:42.540
It is, but it takes a lot of probable cause to get up on a wiretap.
01:03:47.760
That's the one thing that the movies think is easy.
01:03:52.100
But you don't need, like, an order from somebody then.
01:03:58.700
Once the AUSA says it's good, he's got to send it to the USA in charge of his area, who's presidentially appointed, by the way.
01:04:05.740
Then from him, it's got to go to a district – it's got to go to OEO, which is Department of Justice, for another review.
01:04:11.760
Once that's approved, then it goes to a district judge.
01:04:15.460
Then you go to the district judge and you sign it.
01:04:17.360
And the district judge might still say, I need some other – more shit.
01:04:20.280
It has, like, four levels of people it goes through.
01:04:24.240
Yeah, but, like, how long does that take to get approved then?
01:04:29.320
I remember when I did my affidavit, I was going back and forth, like, for a month.
01:04:37.500
Like, it took me, like, a month to write the affidavit.
01:04:42.560
And the bad guy was switching his phone number in between.
01:04:45.240
I had to keep updating the new phone number and the phone calls.
01:04:48.460
But then, I mean, in this month or whatever time, this guy, John, can be killed for even, like, suspicious – yeah, like, getting the suspicion of working with you guys.
01:04:59.540
Yeah, I mean, that's why, you know, you got to do everything in your power to make sure that your informant is protected and you're not making it too hot.
01:05:06.320
You're only making dirty calls when you need to, so it's not too easy.
01:05:15.200
But, yeah, wiretaps, everyone thinks it's easy to get a wiretap.
01:05:21.280
And I'm talking to you guys as someone who actually wrote a wiretap.
01:05:26.100
90% of federal agents have never done a wiretap in their life.
01:05:33.360
90% easily of special agents have never done a wiretap in their life.
01:05:47.980
Because the only agency that really does wiretaps, there's only, like, three or four agencies
01:05:56.660
DEA agents, a good percentage of them do wiretaps because they want to get to 13.
01:06:09.740
Everyone used to get mad at me, though, because they're like, bro, you're making us work.
01:06:13.440
Because wiretaps need a lot of surveillance and shit.
01:06:22.200
But there was also some, like, violence involved and shit like that, too.
01:06:25.000
So, but, yeah, it was a drug slash organized crime case.
01:06:34.840
But, like, but, yeah, like, and I'm sure the audience probably has these questions, too.
01:06:39.120
But, yeah, it's, yeah, easily, 90% plus of special agents have never done a wiretap.
01:06:48.720
They can't because only under, okay, now we're, yo, this is probably going to be one
01:06:53.060
of the most informative episodes of FedReacts you guys have ever seen.
01:07:12.740
I kind of wonder if, like, planting, like, wiretaps, wiretaps something.
01:07:19.080
A house or, like, somebody, like, a mafia boss, like, you know, the Bad Boys movie.
01:07:26.560
Like, you have to go, like, undercover and do it.
01:07:35.480
It's, um, the definition statute found in 18 U.S.C.
01:07:39.020
Section 2501 defines the terms wire communication, oral communications, state intercept, electronic,
01:07:43.820
mechanical, or other device, person, uh, investigate, or law enforcement officer.
01:07:48.720
Content, contents judge of competent jurisdiction, communication, et cetera.
01:07:58.560
Only certain 1811s or only certain special agents can even apply for a wiretap.
01:08:16.700
I know DEA, HSI, FBI, those three agencies can do it.
01:08:40.640
But not every single 1811 or special agent can actually do it.
01:08:48.540
Oh, do you think we can find that in the internet?
01:08:55.780
Let's add it to a miscellaneous provision of the Violent Crime Control Act.
01:09:05.980
Yeah, there's a lot that goes into wiretaps, guys.
01:09:10.720
Like, wiretapping someone's phone, it's actually very difficult.
01:09:14.080
And the reason why it's so difficult is because it's the highest level of invasion on someone's privacy when you're listening to their phone calls.
01:09:20.200
And you've got to keep in mind, when you're listening to their phone calls, you're listening to everyone that's calling them.
01:09:33.500
Like, answering Angie's annoying questions about law enforcement in America.
01:09:41.720
It's got to be a district judge, by the way, guys.
01:09:43.320
It's a federal district judge, not a regular magistrate.
01:09:50.980
Agents install a hidden video camera outside the law office so they can monitor anyone who enters or leaves the building.
01:10:00.100
You don't need anything for that because that is considered a public area.
01:10:05.220
So, you can put a poll camera and watch them, no problem.
01:10:10.020
But, like, from inside, how do you get a camera or a microphone inside a house?
01:10:14.900
So, what they do is they wait when no one's there and they'll do it surreptitiously.
01:10:21.200
Or, they'll pose as, like, a cable company or something like that.
01:10:27.920
But, they have to have the court order to do so first.
01:10:31.860
A special FBI entry unit will install a hidden microphone inside the law offices.
01:10:42.700
Normally, it's better to do it under a disguise.
01:10:45.280
But, other times, you don't have that opportunity because they might not have work coming in or whatever it is.
01:10:49.180
Like, they might not need electricity done or redone or a plumber or any of that.
01:10:53.580
Like, so, they just go in at night late when no one's there and they break in.
01:10:59.840
This is also done a lot in national security cases where someone is, like, a spy or something.
01:11:03.580
They'll go in there and they'll break in and put cameras in.
01:11:09.060
Now, when you go through a FISA court, that's completely different.
01:11:13.620
You could violate all kinds of rights when it comes to espionage and national security.
01:11:17.520
When it's just a criminal case, you need a lot of probable cause.
01:11:19.600
When it's national security, that Patriot Act, they don't give a fuck.
01:11:23.040
Make a surreptitious entry into the second floor suite.
01:11:25.600
In terms of the actual entry into the premises, it's what I regard to be one of the most dangerous things the FBI does because you're burglarizing someone else's property.
01:11:39.860
Although you have authority to be there, the person, if you encounter someone, he doesn't know that you have authority to be there.
01:11:47.060
Inside, the agents fear they've been discovered.
01:11:53.760
An armed deputy sheriff is inside the building.
01:11:56.480
The night before we went in, the re-elect the sheriff campaign moved into the ground floor.
01:12:03.940
The agents making the entry were surprised by a deputy sheriff.
01:12:07.720
Fortunately, they were able to conceal themselves.
01:12:10.760
He got in and got out before there was any problem.
01:12:13.140
The technicians install a microphone in the conference room.
01:12:35.940
The surveillance agents will first try to identify each suspect and determine their roles in the organization.
01:12:43.140
There's 18 FBI agents who do nothing but physical and photographic and video surveillances.
01:12:50.700
Most of their work they did for the organized crime squad.
01:12:56.080
And we've got people who know how La Cosa Nostra works.
01:13:00.520
And we can a lot of times figure out a hierarchy just by watching the way that they behave towards one another.
01:13:07.360
That coupled with information coming from informants can tell us who the hierarchy is.
01:13:14.620
Agents monitoring the conversations have to match the voice on the wire to the face in the video surveillance.
01:13:25.180
So it was very easy to figure out when he was speaking.
01:13:31.620
The conversations we intercepted in the office indicated to us that they were leaving the conference room and going somewhere.
01:13:40.360
After going to all the trouble to plant the wire, the mob boss moves the meetings.
01:13:46.540
The surveillance agents will have to find out where the meetings are now taking place.
01:13:52.680
A few days later, the FBI learns from an informant that a high-level sit-down is about to take place at the law office between John Stanton and several associates.
01:14:11.540
They need to get the new bug in place before the meeting.
01:14:16.300
But they don't know where the meeting will be held.
01:14:18.560
Agents dispatch an undercover detective to follow Stanford into the office.
01:14:25.200
Philadelphia detective Mark Pinero gets the job.
01:14:28.980
We tried to come up with a reason to actually go into the law firm to get a closer look at what was going on.
01:14:38.920
So we had come up with a cover story utilizing a name of an attorney that we knew had left that firm.
01:14:51.000
This unknown individual held the door for me to go in first, which kind of set me back because I wanted to go in second.
01:14:57.800
I wanted to see where they were going before I was attended to.
01:15:02.700
But I was relieved when I walked in and the receptionist greeted John Stanton and John Stanton told her, let him know I'm here.
01:15:13.720
And the receptionist immediately keyed her intercom and let the lead attorney of this law firm know that John was there and to send him in.
01:15:27.480
So not only was able to get her to identify John Stanton, I was able to stand there and watch him go down to the actual office of this lead attorney at this law firm.
01:15:39.700
With this information, a federal court approves an affidavit for a second break in at the office.
01:15:50.080
Agents install hidden microphones in the attorney's office.
01:15:52.900
Shortly after the new bugs are placed, agents hear some alarming news on the wire.
01:16:04.520
The mob bosses are afraid they are being watched.
01:16:08.060
They hire a private counter surveillance contractor to sweep the law offices for bugs.
01:16:12.900
If he finds a listening device, the entire operation could be destroyed.
01:16:25.180
The FBI in Philadelphia is closing in on mob boss John Stanton.
01:16:30.520
They learn he is conducting mob business in an attorney's office.
01:16:47.040
Agents watch as the sweeper enters the building.
01:16:53.980
Their entire case could collapse if he finds their bugs.
01:17:05.580
But after a few tense minutes, the private contractor completes his sweep without finding anything.
01:17:15.120
It sort of brought a smile on everybody's face because they basically brought in an expert who didn't detect anything.
01:17:24.140
So that would bring a sort of a feeling of ease on their part.
01:17:28.620
And I guess our expectations were that they would be even more at ease to discuss further criminal activity.
01:17:36.380
Now, with microphones in the conference room and the lawyer's private office, the information begins to come in.
01:17:43.340
The FBI learns that John Stanton is having problems with a group of young mobsters.
01:17:48.640
Born and raised in South Philly, their allegiance is still with Nicky Scarfo and the mafia regime before Stanford took over.
01:18:01.400
As far as they're concerned, Philadelphia is and always has been their turf.
01:18:05.860
And the Young Turks deserve to be running the crime family, not newcomer John Stanfa.
01:18:24.900
Joey and Michael have known each other since grade school.
01:18:27.620
FBI Special Agent Gary Langdon is the co-case agent.
01:18:36.040
They didn't like the fact that John Stanfa, who they considered an outsider, would come in and take over the mob family.
01:18:45.200
And the co-case agent, guys, is the guy that also runs the investigation with the main case agent.
01:18:49.820
And typically, you know, when you have a case big like this, you're going to need two, three co-case agents a lot of the times.
01:18:55.400
So, and when you got like a case like this, it's going to be mafia, whatever.
01:18:59.220
You're going to need as many people as you can.
01:19:01.120
So a case like this is being worked with by the entire squad.
01:19:03.860
All 10, 15 agents are all working one big case together.
01:19:07.900
And the case agents are the ones that are dictating the case.
01:19:10.280
Because you can't write all the affidavits yourself.
01:19:12.140
You can't be dealing with all the informants yourself.
01:19:13.820
You need someone else that also has a strong interest in the investigation being done correctly alongside you.
01:19:21.280
So, yeah, big cases, at least two to three case agents easily, sometimes even more.
01:19:27.120
I remember when I had my big OCDF case, I had a case agent from DEA, I had a case agent from ATF, I had a case agent.
01:19:33.200
Obviously, I had two case agents myself from HSI.
01:19:40.260
And when you have big cases like this, it's a lot of manpower, guys.
01:19:42.680
We're trying to organize them all in a group, even though they were part of the overall picture.
01:19:54.860
Informants tell the FBI that the young Turks are not taking orders from John Stanford.
01:19:59.540
I don't care what you kind of believe about what they have, right?
01:20:03.840
They bragged about who they were and who they were aligned with.
01:20:08.720
Bragged about how they were going to take the city over.
01:20:10.500
They were the legitimate successors to the previous mob members under Nikki Scarfell.
01:20:18.120
They were going out and shaking down bookmakers, drug dealers, and even shaking down legitimate businesses
01:20:27.620
and weren't sharing the profits, you know, kicking upstairs to Stanford.
01:20:32.680
The young Turks feel they're entitled to run the city and the Philadelphia Mafia.
01:20:47.740
The aging John Stanford, the old world's Sicilian boss, resents the ostentatious lifestyle of the young Turks.
01:20:55.160
The young Turks, if you will, were very, very flamboyant.
01:21:02.500
They'd go into the clubs on Delaware Avenue, throw their weight around, push people around,
01:21:08.580
trade on the fact that they were connected to the local Cosa Nostra family,
01:21:12.380
and, in general, call attention to themselves, which is not a good thing.
01:21:18.800
If you're running a Cosa Nostra family, you should be low-key.
01:21:26.440
The young Turk boss, Joey Merlino, has a different idea of how a Cosa Nostra boss should live the life.
01:21:33.100
He was the kind of guy who felt that when he went into a restaurant, because...
01:21:38.100
And remember, guys, you know, this contradicts the omerta, or the code of silence, all right?
01:21:43.340
And we go about this in more detail in the first episode of the Italian Mafia.
01:21:48.920
They don't understand the rules that you're supposed to...
01:21:56.000
It's the last thing the Mafia wants when it comes to the Cosa Nostra family.
01:22:01.840
Because he has a lot of influence of Angelo Bruno, which was the guy, the Mafia boss, that
01:22:07.300
kind of like, among all the Mafia bosses, he was the one that wanted the peace.
01:22:18.640
He would be trying to negotiate the peace in between.
01:22:23.420
And he's smart because violence, what does it do?
01:22:29.960
But, you know, when he was in rule, you know, he was keeping things nice and quiet, which
01:22:35.160
is why, if you think about it, the Philadelphia Mafia lasted a lot longer than the New York
01:22:43.740
Which, I mean, hell, you could tell they were powerful because you guys have been asking
01:22:50.640
This was easily adopted by his entourage, and they became a problem for everybody.
01:22:55.400
There was, there were fights, there were shootings, there were, it's just not the way to run a
01:23:05.460
Attracting all that attention to yourself, the police begin to know then where you are
01:23:10.260
and who you are, and it's just not a good thing.
01:23:13.480
John Stanford was particularly angered by the Young Turks' involvement in the sale of
01:23:20.340
That was the wave of the future, the easy way to make money.
01:23:25.420
Traditionally, the mob frowns upon having its members engaged in drug dealing.
01:23:33.520
They get around that by having an associate or something deal drugs, and then they'll tax
01:23:39.380
that individual and take a percentage of it, but Stanford, you know, he thought drugs were
01:23:43.920
a dirty business, and it draws a lot of attention, again, to the family, and he didn't want to
01:23:50.800
And this was confirmed also, guys, by Michael Francis when he brought him in.
01:23:54.660
The old school guys almost always stayed away from drugs, and if they did, if they were
01:23:59.980
involved in drug trafficking and they got caught, it was something that was punished by death
01:24:04.080
because the mafia looked at it as a very dirty business, a lot of snitches, a lot of rats
01:24:08.620
brought attention to you, and guys, back then, drug trafficking got really high sentences.
01:24:14.880
So it's one thing to get arrested for maybe some tax evasion, maybe some fraud, maybe some
01:24:23.500
You take a Pinterest, they would call it, right?
01:24:27.400
But you go down for 10 kilos of Coke, you're going to do some time.
01:24:30.300
And not only that, every agency investigates drugs.
01:24:39.240
John Gotti, et cetera, famously was involved in drug trafficking, but they did everything
01:24:43.120
in their power so other people wouldn't know about it, right?
01:24:45.120
And they caught that, and they knew that he was supposed to be drug trafficked because
01:24:47.300
when they listened to him on wiretaps, he would talk about, hey, we can't be talking
01:24:50.580
about drugs like this, blah, blah, blah, because if their family finds out, it was what
01:24:53.460
So it's something that the guys did on the side to earn, but if you got found out or caught
01:24:58.140
for it, you definitely were going to get it, get whacked.
01:25:00.160
But these new school guys, they wanted to get involved in drugs when the old school
01:25:05.700
Not to be confused with the Sicilian mafia, who they were definitely involved in drugs.
01:25:09.300
The old, you know, the original town guys, old town guys, yes, they were involved in
01:25:13.340
drug trafficking, which you guys go ahead and watch our podcast on the Banano Crime
01:25:16.200
Family, where we talk about that in more detail.
01:25:18.800
But the American Italian mafia did not participate in drugs overtly.
01:25:23.900
And if they did, it caused serious consequences, man.
01:25:26.540
They were more concerned with other ways to earn.
01:25:30.540
So go ahead and watch that podcast on the Banano Family.
01:25:32.860
We talk about Banano and obviously the, um, uh, goddammit, um, Joe Pistone, right?
01:25:44.160
Um, cause the Bananas were involved in some drug trafficking cause they had a tight connection
01:25:49.720
But, uh, but yeah, the American Italian mafia did everything in their power.
01:25:54.960
Some guys were involved, but it was not supposed to be done guys.
01:25:58.280
Once we heard that there was friction developing, we were looking to see how Stanford was going
01:26:10.460
Was he going to be aggressive and, uh, you know, take extreme measures?
01:26:15.140
Or was he going to try and mollify these people and to quiet them down and get them under his,
01:26:25.520
But Joey Merlino isn't going under anyone's wing.
01:26:32.480
73-year-old Joseph Gatone is one of Mafia boss John Stanford's most loyal employees.
01:26:42.220
Gatone is a bookmaker, a collector of street taxes.
01:26:46.620
Four gunshots shattered the daily routine of Joseph Gatone.
01:26:50.180
The old man's blood marks the beginning of a deadly civil war.
01:26:58.340
The FBI and the Philadelphia Organized Crime Task Force surveil top bosses of the Philadelphia
01:27:06.240
Friction between feuding factions of the crime family increase and a bloody civil war breaks
01:27:12.080
Philadelphia police officers arrive at the scene of the shooting.
01:27:18.180
The victim's keys are still in the ignition and the engine is still running.
01:27:31.080
A fourth grazed the bridge of his nose and shattered the passenger side window.
01:27:35.880
When Agent Marr arrives on the scene, police have already checked the registration of the car,
01:27:48.560
Agent Marr recognizes the victim from previous investigations.
01:27:54.120
Gatone is a longtime member of the Philadelphia crime family, currently under the leadership
01:28:01.560
Several of Gatone's neighbors witnessed the shooting, but no one can identify the lone hooded
01:28:07.000
Special Agent Jim Marr suspects Joey Merlino's young Turks are behind the killing.
01:28:15.620
Where he was killed, the manner in which he was killed indicated to me that the Merlino
01:28:20.780
faction was sending a message to Stanford and his people.
01:28:42.700
Initially, at the time that this bookmaker was murdered, we weren't sure who was involved.
01:28:48.420
There was nothing definitive on the wire after the bookmaker had been murdered.
01:28:56.180
There was a reference to the fact, but nothing that would indicate to us that Stanford had
01:29:00.340
a belief someone had done it or someone hadn't done it.
01:29:03.680
Investigators are certain the murder is mob related, but they have no proof.
01:29:07.540
When they speak to Stanford himself, he claims to know nothing.
01:29:16.780
Five weeks after the murder of John Stanford's bookie and tax collector, Michael Changlini,
01:29:22.260
the young Turks number two man, is coming home after a basketball game.
01:29:43.580
Yeah, we're just going to go ahead and shoot broad daylight.
01:29:47.780
When you're in the middle of a gang war and you're intercepting stuff on a phone,
01:29:51.060
that's a nightmare for you because if you get information that someone's going to be killed,
01:29:56.540
Matter of fact, John Gotti would be dead if it went out for the FBI, guys.
01:30:01.220
The FBI actually notified John Gotti when they were going to try to whack him after he took power
01:30:07.620
because he actually killed the boss prior, which was a big no-no for the mafia
01:30:13.960
where you would go ahead and kill a boss without certain approval.
01:30:17.380
And it was, goddammit, the chin, the mob boss, the chin,
01:30:23.100
who actually wanted John Gotti gone, but the FBI notified John Gotti
01:30:27.080
and he was able to evade a certain meeting where they were going to kill him at,
01:30:32.780
So go back and watch that episode on the crazy Don, the chin.
01:30:35.480
Somehow, Changlini, his wife, and two children were uninjured in the attack.
01:30:49.300
Investigators recovered 12-gauge shotgun shells from the front yard
01:30:52.800
and shotgun pellets from the ceiling of the living room and dining room.
01:30:56.400
Despite the brazen attack on Changlini and his family.
01:31:12.580
I don't know if it went exactly like that, but yeah.
01:31:24.600
Now, Umerta, of course, he's not going to say nothing.
01:31:31.800
They feel they're going to handle it themselves.
01:31:37.160
So you're not going to get anything out of them.
01:31:43.400
But the FBI suspects the attack is payback for the murder of John Stanford's bookie.
01:31:48.100
After the bookmaker's murder and then the attempt on Michael Cinglini, we believed that we were
01:32:01.320
Fearing this, the FBI petitions a federal court to expand the eavesdropping.
01:32:12.560
Translation, they write more affidavits to rationalize having more bugs on the premises.
01:32:20.060
Agents place bugs in seven new locations, including lawyers' private offices, the law
01:32:25.540
library, the television room, and the lunchroom.
01:32:28.860
Yeah, that's crazy if they were able to do that.
01:32:31.300
Since they were able to go ahead and put it in a lawyer's office, guys, that tells me
01:32:35.580
And what a taint team is, guys, is a team that purposely is going to listen to information
01:32:40.560
that more than likely isn't going to be usable for a criminal case.
01:32:43.500
And they're going to filter out the stuff that is pertinent to the case and the stuff
01:32:47.100
that isn't pertinent, they're not going to use.
01:32:48.920
And these are agents that are not involved in the investigation at all because the case
01:32:51.860
agent can't hear information like that because it's going to taint him.
01:32:54.980
This is also the case when you deal with classified information.
01:32:58.720
No, I'm just shocked that they actually went into the office and planned it like microphones.
01:33:04.240
Yeah, because basically what they're arguing is that they're having meetings at different
01:33:09.600
So the only way that we're going to hear all the conversations is if we put bugs everywhere.
01:33:15.440
They're not saying this in this documentary because they don't want to put you all to
01:33:17.480
sleep, but I already know that they have a taint team in place.
01:33:21.620
A taint team is a group of agents that listen in and anything that's privileged or classified
01:33:27.600
or something that isn't supposed to, the case agent isn't supposed to hear, they're
01:33:31.820
going to listen to it and then they're going to give the case agent the stuff that is a
01:33:34.840
part of the case and then they're going to go ahead and deal with everything else that's
01:33:41.520
Oh, there are other agents, but they're agents that are not they're not into case agents.
01:33:46.780
So, for example, when they raided Trump's house, they knew a bunch of the information was
01:33:51.000
going to be co-mingled with lawyer information.
01:33:53.160
So a taint team went in, looked at it first, and then they gave the actual search team the information
01:34:04.180
The entire field office was probably involved in this.
01:34:15.740
Early in May of 1992, FBI cameras catch Stanford arriving at the law office with his conciliary
01:34:22.160
and Joseph Changlini, brother of the Young Turks second in command.
01:34:26.900
Inside, John Stanford angrily announces that he knows the young Turks are looking for him.
01:34:37.120
He wants to make one last attempt at diplomacy.
01:34:44.380
I guess he thought, as a concession to them, he would be able to control them.
01:34:56.360
There's a saying, keep your friends close, keep your enemies even closer.
01:35:01.820
But we fully anticipated that we were going to see an increase in violence.
01:35:10.360
Informants tell the FBI that Stanford invites Joseph Changlini's younger brother, Michael,
01:35:15.420
and the young Turk boss, Joey Merlino, to a secret meeting.
01:35:19.600
Here, Joey and Michael become made members of La Cosa Nostra.
01:35:23.960
You have to swear to place the family before anything else in your life.
01:35:32.640
God, your own personal family, your mother, your father, your wife, your children.
01:35:43.120
Now, as made members of La Cosa Nostra, the two young Turks enjoy special privileges.
01:35:48.960
The benefits that come with that are that you can conduct your rackets, whatever they may be,
01:36:03.000
without fear of interference from someone who is not a member.
01:36:07.820
The family in a dispute will always decide in your favor if you are a member and the other person is not.
01:36:15.260
A member cannot be killed unless the boss of that family to which he's a member approves.
01:36:26.720
For John Stanford, promoting the young Turks is his final act of diplomacy.
01:36:31.740
The FBI and the Organized Crime Task Force will keep a vigilant watch to see if Stanford's bold move stops the violence.
01:36:45.460
But agents still need to collect more information about the crime family to shut them down for good.
01:36:50.840
To an informant, they learned the law office is not the only place where Stanford and his associates are congregating.
01:37:07.080
We found out that Stanford had opened up a dinette next to another business he owned, which was a food distribution business.
01:37:13.740
And surprisingly, Stanford actually worked at this place every day.
01:37:22.860
Citizen, he would go to work and he actually worked there.
01:37:24.900
You see him out there sweeping and cooking and handling stuff.
01:37:29.220
But he was also meeting his family members there and discussing mob business.
01:37:33.660
So the next step logically is to attempt to get a Title III bug installed in the dinette so that we can listen to it.
01:37:52.040
Conversations he's having with these members and associates of the family.
01:37:56.720
Once the microphone is installed inside the dinette, the FBI hears that an angry John Stanfa is still having problems with the young Turks.
01:38:09.320
He requests a final sit-down with Joey Merlino.
01:38:14.880
Joey Merlino and Michael Canglini pay a visit to Stanfa.
01:38:18.520
Gamblers are complaining that the young Turks are not honoring their bets.
01:38:29.600
Merlino assures the boss he'll fix the problem and make good on the debts.
01:38:44.160
Early in March, FBI surveillance agents observed Joseph Canglini and a waitress opening up the Stanford dinette.
01:39:01.320
It's almost exactly one year after his brother Michael was nearly gunned down at his home.
01:39:17.120
But on this morning, Joseph Canglini's routine takes a terrifying twist.
01:39:26.380
Four men pull up and open fire on Canglini and the waitress,
01:39:30.540
reigniting the bloody war between the old and the new mafia of South Philadelphia.
01:39:45.360
underboss Joseph Canglini and a waitress opened John Stanfa's diner.
01:40:03.120
The surveillance agent alerts FBI HQ and calls 911 for an ambulance.
01:40:10.520
The FBI agent on surveillance arrives on the scene.
01:40:16.300
Joseph Canglini has been shot repeatedly in the head, neck, and chest.
01:40:22.160
Canglini has somehow managed to survive the deadly attack.
01:40:39.980
And even if he knew who did it, he wasn't going to implicate anybody.
01:40:43.080
He was part of the mob, the Omerta, the code of silence.
01:40:51.360
We suspected that it was a group from the Young Turks.
01:40:58.880
But he basically told us he didn't know anything.
01:41:02.480
Now, I remember, guys, this is the 1990s, okay?
01:41:11.600
You ain't going to be able to get, like, the best type of quality off of fucking VCR, VHS, okay?
01:41:17.480
It's not like nowadays where you can, like, zoom in and get this best, you know, type technology.
01:41:27.480
But in the early morning darkness, the images are too dark to identify anyone.
01:41:37.760
It was very hard to identify with any kind of particularity of features where you would recognize who actually went in.
01:41:49.340
Then you go to the audio and you hear screaming and you hear shots.
01:41:58.000
And then they exit the place and they drive away.
01:42:04.420
You couldn't say with any reasonable certainty who actually went in there and shot Joseph Cinglini.
01:42:10.620
But agents are still surveilling the law office.
01:42:14.440
In the listening post, wiretaps record a chilling conversation between Stanford and a mob associate.
01:42:20.780
John Stanford suspects Michael Cinglini is behind the attempt to kill his own brother, Joseph, at the restaurant.
01:42:29.620
Yeah, Michael and Joey were on the opposite sides of internal war within the Stanford family.
01:42:42.040
He thought his brother, Joey, was on the wrong side and he's going to take him out.
01:42:51.960
So he starts to recruit his own muscle to send them out and to start stalking these Young Turks
01:43:01.720
and trying to kill Joey Merlino, Michael Cinglini and the people associated with him.
01:43:09.360
Undercover FBI agents deliver a warning to Merlino and Michael Cinglini.
01:43:20.960
When we're aware of the fact that violence is going to occur or may occur,
01:43:26.960
and we think we know who the violence is going to occur against,
01:43:32.800
John Stanford is sending hit teams into the streets with orders to gun down Merlino and Cinglini.
01:43:44.240
Even though they know their lives are in danger, they refuse to cooperate.
01:43:52.160
The Young Turks should have listened to the FBI.
01:43:56.760
A Stanford hit team tracks them down and opens fire in broad daylight.
01:44:02.800
Michael Cinglini is shot in the heart and dies on the street.
01:44:11.620
It is clear to the FBI that John Stanford means business.
01:44:20.320
He's taken up the challenge and he's retaliated with a lot of force.
01:44:27.820
We believe that Stanford is responsible for it.
01:44:32.800
Three hours after the shooting, South Philadelphia police officers respond to a burning vehicle.
01:44:44.400
The car matches the description of one seen by witnesses at the shooting.
01:44:51.960
A common tactic after a vehicle is used in a, obviously, a violent or serious crime burned down, you know, to destroy evidence.
01:45:01.200
Learned that it was leased to a member of the Stanford crime family.
01:45:04.240
That night, police questioned Phil Coletti and his wife.
01:45:20.840
The FBI views the couple's alibi with skepticism.
01:45:26.440
Coletti becomes the first suspect in the shooting murder of Michael Canglini.
01:45:30.240
Several days later, the FBI gets a lead on the second shooter.
01:45:37.400
The FBI had received a call from a physician who said that he had treated an individual who came in with burns.
01:45:50.280
He, too, is a known member of the Stanford crime family.
01:45:57.060
And he says he had an accident with his barbecue grill.
01:46:06.280
His hand was burned when he spilled lighter fluid.
01:46:17.580
He says he knows nothing about the murder of Michael Canglini in the shooting of Joey Merlino.
01:46:21.900
But when investigators check out the grill, they discover it runs on propane,
01:46:30.240
which conflicts with Vesey's story that he was using lighter fluid when he burned himself.
01:46:36.660
It aroused our suspicion and kind of pointed us toward Vesey more so than anybody else.
01:46:43.100
The FBI suspects two members of the John Stanfa crime family in the murder of Michael Canglini
01:46:48.840
and the shooting of young Turk boss Joey Merlino.
01:46:53.720
But before the FBI can bring the shooters to justice,
01:46:57.560
Joey Merlino and the young Turks try to get their own revenge.
01:47:02.740
John Stanfa is riding in a 1976 Cadillac Seville.
01:47:07.740
He's headed south on the Schuylkill Expressway with his son Joseph and a trusted driver.
01:47:21.160
Two gunmen thrust nine millimeter machine pistols through portals cut in the side of the van.
01:47:28.420
A full-scale mafia civil war rages on the streets of Philadelphia.
01:47:38.300
Violence explodes with a brazen rush hour attack on Sicilian mob boss John Stanfa.
01:47:44.800
The gunfire misses John Stanfa, but his son Joseph is hit in the face.
01:47:50.440
Stanfa's driver rams the van, forcing it off the highway.
01:47:53.500
What was really brazen about it was on a highway like that,
01:47:57.880
random shots could have struck and hurt, even killed any innocent people who were on there.
01:48:04.580
Investigators have no doubt the attack on Stanfa is Joey Merlino's revenge for the murder of Michael Canglini.
01:48:11.660
Showed you the extent of the violence these people were willing to employ
01:48:22.400
Despite the brazen attack on him and his innocent young son,
01:48:27.140
the Cosa Nostra boss claims he has no idea who tried to kill them.
01:48:31.840
And of course, it's the old, I don't know who would have done this to me.
01:48:42.680
It is only a matter of time before innocent civilians get caught in the crossfire.
01:48:47.180
And it's time to turn up the heat on the warring mob.
01:48:56.240
Any known Stanfa or Merlino associates seen driving around South Philadelphia
01:49:05.240
Authorities arrest eight mobsters for carrying weapons.
01:49:08.160
They confiscate .380, .45, and .38 caliber semi-automatics.
01:49:13.720
The FBI has no doubt the young Turk's boss ordered the hit on John Stanfa.
01:49:28.060
The FBI arrests him for a parole violation of a 1990 armored truck robbery.
01:49:43.280
it is now time for the FBI to focus its sights on John Stanfa's crew.
01:49:53.360
The professional hitman is one of John Stanfa's soldiers.
01:49:59.900
But tonight, thanks to a New Jersey firearms violation
01:50:12.040
And he did some construction work as a hired laborer
01:50:15.760
for John Stanfa's brother-in-law, who was in construction.
01:50:34.120
Now he claims he feels the weight of the murders he committed.
01:50:37.060
All these things, plus the fact that his brother,
01:50:49.040
His brother convinced him that he should cooperate.
01:51:06.320
or you cooperate and try to give another life for yourself
01:51:09.800
with the government versus going to prison for the rest.
01:51:15.600
but it was like a coup force that he came on board.
01:51:21.960
Vesey quickly becomes comfortable wearing the wire.
01:51:27.540
but the conversations don't provide any new evidence
01:51:35.200
I think he met with one or two people, nothing great.
01:51:41.460
that he wasn't getting the conversations he wanted to.
01:56:24.600
that's going to definitely be evidence right there.