Top 10 Worst Moves the Mafia Ever Made

➡ The speaker discusses the major mistakes made by the mafia, particularly the Cosa Nostra, over the past several decades. He highlights how these blunders gave law enforcement an advantage and led to the downfall of the mob. The speaker also reminisces about the time when the mob had control over certain areas, claiming that there was less street violence and crime. Despite this, he acknowledges the negative impact of the mob’s mistakes, such as the first major informant against the Cosa Nostra, Joe Valachi, who revealed the structure of the organization to the FBI.
➡ The text discusses various blunders made by high-profile figures in the mob world, such as Genovese and Gotti, which led to increased scrutiny and eventual downfall. It also highlights the effectiveness of undercover agent Joe Pistone, who infiltrated the Bonanno family and led to their downfall. The text emphasizes the importance of staying low-profile in the mob life and criticizes those who flaunt their status, as it attracts unwanted attention from law enforcement.
➡ The speaker advises young people to avoid crime, but if they choose that path, to work alone to avoid betrayal. He reflects on the changing nature of organized crime, noting that modern criminals are smarter and less visible than in his time. He discusses the flashy lifestyles of past criminals like Bugsy Siegel and John Gotti, which brought unwanted attention and led to their downfall. He also mentions the mob’s involvement in politics, including helping JFK win the presidency, and the consequences when RFK, as Attorney General, turned against them.
➡ The text discusses the complex history of the Mob, highlighting key events and figures. It mentions the Mob’s involvement with the government, including attempts to assassinate Castro and protecting docks during World War II. The text also discusses the Mob’s control over gambling, unions, and politicians, and the negative impact of drug dealing and high-profile crimes. Lastly, it suggests that the Mob’s downfall was due to not keeping up with technology and not infiltrating government agencies.
➡ The text is about a man who was involved in illegal activities and was constantly under surveillance by law enforcement. Despite being cautious, he and his associates were caught due to hidden recording devices and undercover agents. He regrets not being more prepared and proactive in countering the surveillance. He emphasizes the importance of being a good listener and being careful about what you say to avoid getting caught in such situations.
➡ The speaker discusses various mistakes made by the mafia, such as becoming too flashy or attracting unnecessary attention, which led to their downfall. He also criticizes the government, accusing them of dishonesty and corruption, and warns his listeners about the dangers of confronting law enforcement. He emphasizes the importance of staying safe and not getting involved in dangerous situations.
➡ The speaker advises people to stay safe and healthy, warning them about potential dangers. They express hope for peace and common sense, and send blessings to everyone, their families, and friends. They promise to return and ask listeners to stay tuned.

Foreign. Huge blunder. How did I leave that out? Huge blunder. We should have been ahead of them and said, you know what? We’re a powerful force in this country. They’re gonna come down on us and come down heavy. We need to prepare ourselves. We need to know what they know. We need to have our own plants, our own molds. Like, they try to have moles within us. We need to do it within them. He agreed to cooperate. Why was that so big? They never really knew the organization. They didn’t know the structure. They didn’t know it.

It was a big blunder because that’s what blew the whistle on the life. That was it. If you want to stay in crime, that’s up to you. You want to be stupid, that’s up to you. But if you’re going to be a criminal, do it alone. Don’t put your life in anybody’s hands, because one day they’ll probably give you up. The RICO act killed us. The Donnie Brascos killed us. The surveillance techniques killed us. They got us. Hey, everyone. Welcome to another sit down with Michael Francis. Hope everybody is doing well. All is very good, very blessed on this end, my friends.

And as always, I give all the praise, honor, glory, and thanksgiving to our God from that just returned from a kind of whirlwind trip from Miami, and then Cincinnati, Ohio, was there for both pizza and wine. Everything went great. You’re going to see us everywhere pretty soon. Slices pizza. And of course, friends, these wine that so many people have been enjoying over the years. We have some bottles right here on display today. I’m going to do something I think is will interest a lot of you, and I’m going to call it the. The biggest blunders in Cosa Nostra over the past, you know, 50, 60, 70 years.

Blunders that didn’t help, you know, that gave law enforcement an edge. I would say that would work to go against the mob in many, many ways. You know, some of them were not smart moves, others were just blunders, and others were just moves by law enforcement that. That went in their favor. But I think if you put them all together, every one of them really hurt the life in a big way. So some of you may say, hey, that’s great. And others may say, well, you know what? Not so good, you know, and in recent years, especially in the last couple of months, I’ve had so many people say, michael, you got to bring the mob back.

You know, the government is just as bad. And the things we’re finding out In Minnesota and now California and all this stuff going on with ice and everything else. You know, neighborhoods were a lot calmer when we were there. And that’s the truth, whether it be Chicago. There’s more killing now in Chicago than there ever was when we were in control there. No question, people are killing each other. These gang bangers every week. We would have straightened this stuff out. There was no crime in our neighborhoods. And anybody that lived through the era, my era, you can certainly corroborate that.

There was no crime in our neighborhoods. We wouldn’t allow it, and we kept peace. Vegas was a better place. You know, I’m not cheerleading for the mob. I’m just giving you the reality of the street. The street was a better place when we were around. In many ways, you didn’t have the street violence. You didn’t have. We took care of business and in that regard. But there were many blunders that really caused the mob to. To get hurt. So like I said, some of you may say, great. You know, we can go way back to the days of Al Capone, but remember, it wasn’t really organized back in those days.

So Capone, you know, getting indicted and eventually getting convicted for tax fraud and him going away, did it really hurt the life that much? No, Life still moved on. There was other things that went on. Guys took over. Wasn’t the same. It wasn’t really until, you know, the mid-40s, when Luciano organized Cosa Nostra into the families, created the commission, that we really became a real powerhouse in this country. That’s when we started to exert control over the unions, exert a lot of political control, you know, take control of a lot of businesses, take control of certainly a Vegas and the gambling in this country.

So that’s when it really became organized. You got to give Luciano, Maya Lansky. You got to give those guys credit for doing that. But there were some things along the way that really hurt my friends. I have a question for you. How would you like to get more of me? When I say more of me, I mean intimate phone calls, zoom calls, Q&As, questions. You can ask me anything that you want. You know, behind the scenes information. I can’t tell everything on YouTube. This is an elite group. We have over a thousand people that are involved in, not only with me, but helping one another.

It’s a great platform that we’ve created. So become part of the family. Yes. It’s an offer that you shouldn’t refuse. Michaelfrancis.com family be part of the legacy today. And I think if we want to start, we go back to 1962 with Joe Valachi. You know who he was? He was a Genovese guy that eventually became the first major informant against Cosa Nostradamus. And why did that happen? Well, you know, he was under Vito Genovese at that time. And Vito. Vito didn’t do the life any good, I got to tell you that. But anyway, he was a narcotics trafficker, Valachi was, and he got a 15 year sentence, I think, for.

For narcotics trafficking. He was in prison and for some reason he felt that Genovese put a hit on him. He was very concerned, he was very paranoid and he was a killer. So while he was in prison, he killed a guy that he thought was commissioned by Genovese to kill him. And after that, he got convicted. He got a lengthy sentence, or he was going to get convicted, got a lengthy life sentence. So he wasn’t coming out of prison. He thought while he was in there he was going to get killed. So he contacted the FBI in 1962, I believe, and he agreed to cooperate.

Why was that so big? Because until Valachi, they never really knew the organization. They didn’t know the structure. They. They didn’t know it because, remember, Capone wasn’t really structured. Those guys weren’t really structured before Luciano did it. So he blew the whistle. He talked all about the oath, he talked all about the, the ritual, he talked all about the rankings, boss, underboss, consuleri, copper regime, street boss and soldier. I say that because everybody gets offended when they call me a boss. I don’t call myself a boss. But a copper regime, for the hundredth time, is a street boss.

So it does apply in a way. Don’t get insulted. Yeah, he blew the whistle and he let everybody understand that, even Hoover, head of the FBI, who would not admit to the existence of the Mafia before that had to start to come around. No question about it. So it was Vito Genovese. Did he put a hit on, you know, on Valachi? I don’t know, you know, probably did. He was a crazy kind of guy. So maybe he did. That’s the first informant. So the first informant really did it for self preservation because he didn’t get out of jail.

He was living in safe houses and everything else, and in a different wing. I think, you know, of some of the penitentiaries that he was in, but he couldn’t get out of jail. They wouldn’t, they wouldn’t release him. But it did protect his life. So Joe Valachi, it was a big blunder because that’s what blew the whistle on the life. That was it. So let’s start with that and let’s go to another. I think I got them down, so I don’t forget. Let’s go rather to another Genovese blunder, and that’s Appalachia. Vito Genovese. After Costello was out, Luciano was in prison.

You know the story. Decided to get all of the bosses around the country and all of the made guys around the country to come to Appalachia, a little town in New York, and exercise his authority over all Cosa Nostril. He wanted everybody to know who he was. Not a smart guy, not a smart guy at all. So he brings all these people from all over the country to Appalachia. What happens? Some highway patrol people or whatever happened to see something going on in Appalachia that never happened before. It was a quiet little town, upstate New York.

And so that was when, you know, they raided Appalachia. At the time, a lot of guys were identified. And that’s when Hoover finally had to say, you know what? It does exist. He was forced. Now, why didn’t Hoover want to admit it before? Very simple. Because Hoover was a cross dresser, a transvestite, whatever you want to call him. And we, meaning Costello, had information on that, because I know this for a fact. He used to go, Hoover, used to go to the Stork Club in New York. The Stork Club, very famous nightclub. A lot of people hung out there, whether it be mob guys.

Costello owned it. My father was even there. He met Marilyn Monroe there. Judges, politicians, they all hung out. There was a very famous place and they had Hoover in compromising conversations, even in a. In a men’s bathroom there with his lover at the time. So he wasn’t about to blow the whistle. But after Appalachia, he had to. That was it. So again, Genovese, in order to puff out his chest and exert his power over all cos in Austria, in the country, caused this to really blow up. And from that point on, a lot of heat came on the life.

So Genovese, that was a major, major blunder. So two go to him, Valachi, and then Appalachia. Let’s move on. These are in no particular order, by the way. You know, I have to say, Gotti’s unsanctioned. And it wasn’t sanctioned by the Commission. Murder of Paul Castellano. I understand why Gotti had to do that because he felt that he was going to Be killed because he was doing drug business, which Castellano said, no good. Whether it was him or his crew, you know, they were doing it. And Gotti, who hated Castellano anyhow, figured, hey, I gotta go first because Castellano is going to put a hit on me and my crew and I’m not going to allow it.

So he does it. He doesn’t get sanctioned by the. By the commission. And what happens after that? He becomes boss and boom, he becomes public enemy number one. Major, major target. Did he help himself? No, because he threw his chest out. You know, he wore the fancy clothes. He didn’t do what Carlo Gambino did. And a lot of the old time traditional bosses who tried to stay out of the limelight, Guys like Gotti, unfortunately, Joe Colombo for a different reason. He was trying to do it for a good reason with the Italian American Civil Rights League.

It didn’t work out with Joe Colombo and then of course, Al Capone. All these guys that were so high profile, doesn’t work out for them. This is a life where you’re supposed to stay undercover. My dad, you know, even me to an extent, you know, made those mistakes. I have to admit it. If nobody knew who Gotti was, well, he would have lasted, you know, a lot longer, let’s put it that way. Of course, the RICO act was coming in anyhow, is going to destroy everybody. But he would have lasted longer, you know, even myself, if nobody knew who I was.

If I was undercover, I might have lasted a lot longer. Eventually I would have went down. No question about it. My dad, the same thing. All of us that are high profile know you don’t make it in that life. There’s no question they’re going to get you. You know, you become their target. And they love to come after us. Why? Because unlike these guys on the street, we don’t shoot back. We get arrested. We put our hands out, put the handcuffs on, go to court and bail out or stay in, whatever the circumstance would be. That’s why the FBI loved us.

And we make the biggest headlines. That’s why they came after us, because we created careers. We were easy targets. You know, we didn’t shoot back, we didn’t kill them. We were. We were the FBI’s dream targets. No doubt about it. So remember that, okay? So I’d have to say that that was a major bad move and such bad timing because that’s when the RICO act was really, you know, armed, strong. They had already used it in the commission. They were using it against everybody. So they were going to use it against Gotti, no doubt. And they did, and boom, he went down.

It brought a lot of heat. No question about it. The but again, I have to cut both ways. Gotti thought he was going to get killed, and maybe he would have. His crew was going to get killed. So he acted first. He didn’t wait for sanctioning. And what happened? He did turn some guys against him. Chin Gigante put the. Put a hit out on Gotti. You know, unfortunately for Chin and fortunately for Gotti, it didn’t work. The Chico went down instead. Mistake. He got into the car that Gotti was supposed to get into. Boom, it blows up.

Whether it was forced and had to happen or not, it wasn’t a great move. And it did cause a lot of heat on the life. So that was a blunder. Let’s put it out down as a blunder. Okay? Another one. Huge blunder. Joe Pistone, Donnie Brasco. The Bonanno’s accepting him in ruggerio. Sonny Black, bad move. Joe Pistone was a very, very effective undercover agent, a very, very effective guy in that life. He put over a hundred guys away that he testified against. He was extremely good at what he did. Sammy and I got into a little, you know, verbal back and forth over him.

Oh, Michael, you became friends with Joe Pistone? I said, what are you mad at him for, Sammy? He did better at his job than we did at ours. We didn’t smoke him out. We didn’t. We didn’t know who he was. We should have. We just let him in because sometimes money blinds people, you know? But that was a bad move because he took down a Bonanno. No question about it. So that was a major, major blunder. No question. Joe Pistone, Donnie Brasco, my good friend. Sorry, people, but I love the guy now. He’s a great guy.

I really mean that. He did his job. We don’t. You know, we always said this. My father had this, you know, mindset. I had the mindset. Listen, okay, you know who we are? We are the criminals. You are the FBI. You have a job to do. We have a job to do. If you come after us legally, you don’t frame us, you don’t harass our families, and you take us down the right way. We don’t have any beef. We may not like you, but we don’t have any beef. None whatsoever. So, you know, I don’t have a beef with Joe Pistone.

He was an FBI agent. That’s what he was sworn to do. And Then, you know, I got into this. I want you to listen to this. I get into this. What my father wants. You know, when I was a young kid, he said to me, michael, you can never be a cop. You can never be in law enforcement. And I said, okay. He said, do you know why? I said, well, tell me, dad. He said, because a law enforcement officer takes an oath that if their mother and father violated the law, they would lock them up and arrest them.

Now, would they really do that? In some cases, yeah. In some cases, no. It depends on the situation, the case whatsoever. You know, every cop out there, or even law enforcement agents is not going to lock up their parents. If their parents do something wrong, they’re going to try to straighten it out. I would hope that they would, let’s put it that way, because your parents come first in most cases, unless they’re really bad people. Okay? Later on in life, when I walked away from that life and I had a discussion with my dad, he said, do you remember what I told you? I said, yeah, but, dad, let me ask you this.

When I became a recruit, you know what Tom dibella, the acting boss at the time, said to me? He said, if you’re. If your mother is dying and you’re at her bedside and we call you to service, you leave your mother and. And you come and serve us. Because Cosa Nostra comes before anything, family, parent, anything. I said, so what’s the difference, dad? Law enforcement is going to lock up their parents. They take an oath, and we take an oath to leave our parents and make the life first. Why? What’s the difference? Well, he didn’t like that.

He didn’t like it. And he tried to, you know, justify it a little bit, but, well, you know, we wouldn’t do that. I said, well, neither would the cops do that in most cases. I mean, unless their parents were serial killers or something like that, you know, then we understand that. So that’s the mentality. But again, hey, you get us the right way, you know, we have no beef. We understand who we are. We don’t make ourselves out to be saints. At least we shouldn’t, because we’re not. All right? You get us the right way, we have no beef.

Okay? So Joe Stone, major, major blunder, all right? I went through this Gotti’s flashy movement, you know, again, people, you cannot thumb your nose in the face of the FBI. They got all the tools, they got all the money. They got all the time. They got all the weapons. They got all the laws. They’re going to bring you down. They know how to create informants. They’re going to bring you down. You can’t do it. It’s the message that I give to young people all the time. These gang bangers, you’re not going to beat them if you’re in their face.

The only way you have a shot is. The only way you have a shot is to stay undercover. Stay in the sidelines. And I tell these kids all the time, if you want to stay in crime, that’s up to you. You want to be stupid, that’s up to you. But if you’re going to be a criminal, do it alone. Don’t put your life in anybody’s hands because one day they’ll probably give you up. Do it alone or you’ll give them up. One in one way or the other. That’s just how it goes. Law enforcement’s got too many weapons.

People. People don’t want to go to jail for long periods of time. Face it. That’s the reality of it. Don’t let anybody tell you different. You know, the one thing I have to say about Cosa Nostra today in New York, I don’t hear about them anymore. Every couple of months you see a story about them. I don’t hear about them anymore. Smart. Are they building up? Possibly. They’re staying undercover. During my time in that life, every single day, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Long Island Press. Every day there’s a story about somebody, one of the five families, 10 guys, 15 guys who got arrested.

What story? All the time. Because we were out there. We were targets. You know, they knew who we were. Today you don’t hear much. So that’s to the credit of these guys today, if they’re functioning capably. We know we had a mob bust recently in that whole gambling situation, but other than that, you hardly hear it anymore. Not like it was in my day, in my era. Forget about it. Every day I was in the paper so much, it was terrible. Stupid. Stupid of me, I admit it. What am I trying to prove by being known to the FBI when I’m a criminal? It’s dumb.

Sorry, but that’s a no. I didn’t. I didn’t do it intentionally. I didn’t sit down for interviews back then. I didn’t do all of that. But I was out there. I was. You know, I had a jet plane, I had a helicopter. I had two boats. I had three houses across the country. I had a big crew. You know, I couldn’t help it. Not an excuse. I’m just saying that’s the reality. Did it go to my benefit? No, because I became a major target. Seven indictments, 18 arrests, five trials. What good did it do me? No good.

Can’t do it that way. Okay, so Gotti’s flashy thing. No good. Another one. This was important because it brought a lot of heat. Bugsy Siegel, Flamingo Hotel. He was another flashy guy. Bugsy Siegel used to hang out with George Raft, a big actor back at the time. He loved to be in Hollywood. He loved to sit down and do interviews and stuff like that. Very, very flashy guy. Flashy dresser, good looking guy. And created a lot of heat during that whole time when he was building the Flamingo in Vegas. And so what happened? It brought heat on Vegas.

Even though Vegas, we were still able to build that city and function there. Okay. But now they knew that we were part of it. So his flashiness at the time didn’t help. And then what happened? He gets in trouble with the family. Whether he was really skimming money, you know, the story, I’m not going to get into it or not. I don’t know if he was skimming money. They say he was. Who knows? You know, usually where there’s smoke, there’s a little fire. So it probably could have happened, you know. And what happened? He gets shot and killed.

I know very well a guy by the name of Tony Lee. Nice guy. He was the second in command of the Beverly Hills Police Department. You know, the murder of Bugsy Siegel still hasn’t been solved. It’s a cold case, you know, and they say the mob did it. I don’t think so. I think it was somebody else. I really do. Was it law enforcement? Possibly. Was it somebody he had a beef with? You know, possibly. I don’t know if it was a mob hit that was brought down. We saw that in the movie, in the movie Bugsy, that it was a mob hit.

That Maya Lancy couldn’t help him. I don’t know. It’s still a cold case. Nobody came forward, you know, as a witness, to testify or to give information on that. So we really don’t know. But the fact that he was so flashy and caused so much, you know, stirring around everything, it wasn’t good. So Bugsy Siegel. And again, it just brought heat on the life. Well, there really is a mob. Bugsy Siegel was Jewish, but everybody knew he was tied up with Luciano and the guys from New York. And remember this, the Midwest eventually became the stronger presence in Vegas.

But it was started by New York, 100%. Luciano, Mayalanski, they’re all New York guys. And Bugsy Siegel, they started Vegas. And where did that come from? It came from Havana, which is another major blunder. Now, this wasn’t the mob’s fault. We were very, very well entrenched in Havana before the revolution. And we were going to own everything with respect to gambling there. We were going to own the whole country because we had Batista at the time. He was in our grasp. We were paying him off. When I say we, you know what I mean. You know, my guys at that time, my fellow mob guys, Maya Lansky played a big role in this.

You got to give Lansky credit. I believe he helped Luciano engineer the whole Commission. No question about that. A lot of guys in the life now, my father included, didn’t like to give me, Lansky, that much credit. My dad used to say, come on, he wasn’t a made guy and, and this and that, but he was a smart guy. And you got to give the Jewish guys credit. Murder Inc. Alba, you know, all those guys, believe me, they, they were smart guys back then. They were under us, no question about it. But they did a lot to build causing Austria in this country, no question.

Remember Murder Inc. With Lepke and all those guys. There were a lot of Jews involved in that. And they were, and they were killers, no question about it. But that was a major blunder. The revolution, when Castro took over and, and chased us out of Cuba. We had to leave. He took over, you know, and, and then we came to Vegas. So that’s how Vegas came, came about. It came out of Havana. So that was a major blunder, a major loss because we would have taken over Cuba, we would have taken over that whole country with gambling because we had their leadership in our grasp.

We were paying them off, they were supporting us. It was a major blunder to lose Cuba. Another one, you know, helping to elect jfk. And there’s no question about it. Don’t let anybody tell you differently. No, I wasn’t part of it, but I was alive during that time. I had a father entrenched in the life in that time at a high level underboss of the Colombo family. He knew exactly what was going on. My dad was in touch with Chicago and in touch with various people around the country. I heard it afterwards from Joe Colombo from Persicol, from a lot of the guys that were around there, even from Fat Tony.

We absolutely, absolutely helped JFK win. Why? We handed them Illinois. Remember the race Between Nixon and JFK was razor thin. Illinois was a swing state, and we gave it to Kennedy because we had the unions. We. We really, really gave, campaigned. I’ll use that word on his behalf, and he wins the presidency. Why? Because Joe Kennedy, who was a bootlegger, I know people don’t like to admit to that. I even know that RFK Jr. He said that. That wasn’t true. It was absolutely true. Joe Kennedy, the old man, was a bootlegger. As a matter of fact, he got on the wrong side of Frank Costello and Costello wanted to kill him.

At one point I was told this, that it didn’t happen, obviously, because they knew that it was better keeping him alive because he had aspirations of his son being in the White House. And that would be a connection. That’s why they didn’t kill him. That’s what I was told. You know, and I was told this secondhand, obviously, from people like my dad. My dad didn’t BS me, told me the truth. He knew it. All right, and then what happens? RFK becomes the Attorney General, and he said, no, he goes after Hoffa, he goes after the mob.

He. He actually pressured Hoover to go after the mob. They say, hey, what’s up here? So what happens? We cooperate with some branch of the government. I’m sure it was the CIA to kill Kennedy in retaliation, because remember, RF Kennedy went against Carlos Marcelo. He went against the guys in Chicago. He locked up Hoffa. He did a lot of bad stuff. He was going after my dad. My dad swore to me that it was. It was Robert Kennedy. And I believe it, because Hoover up until that point, didn’t want to go after the Mob guys until Appalachian 62.

But my dad was already, you know, under a lot of investigation from rfk. I told you the whole story with Marilyn Monroe. My dad was dating Marilyn Monroe. He cut it off. Marilyn Monroe was talking or whatever to RFK about my dad. And. And that put my dad in the crosshairs of Robert F. Kennedy because he was having an affair with Marilyn Monroe. And so now he orders Hoover to go after my father. But was it a blunder? Yeah, I mean, you know, because again, even though the Warren Commission doesn’t want to admit that the mob was involved in a Kennedy hit, we absolutely were.

But again, it only highlights what’s going on. That’s all it does in that life, you know? But again, it was the third or fourth time that the government came to the mob, came to my former associates for help. They did it in Cuba. They tried to assassinate Castro didn’t work, but they definitely 100% came to us. World War II, they came to Luciano and Meyer Lansky to protect the docks because they had to be concerned. We control the docks. No question about it. They went to Luciano again. Why? To help them have the Allies land in Sicily so that we can help in Europe.

No question about it. Luciano did that. We had a lot of power, A lot of power. Remember that? And then, of course, they had Greg Scarpa go down during the, you know, the racist, whole racist period to find out who, who killed those black guys, you know, so they came to us several times. The CIA are going to anybody, believe me, they’ll prosecute us, but they’ll use us when they can too. That’s the CIA. That’s what they do. So. But that was a blunder, I would say. You know, getting Kennedy elected didn’t help. Trust me. The world doesn’t need another wine.

It really needs a reason to raise a glass again. A reason that’s real. A reason that means something. Because most people, they drink to forget. We drink to remember where we came from, what we stand for, and who we still fight to become. We don’t follow trends, we break them. Our bottles don’t look like anyone else’s. Because our story, it isn’t like anyone else’s. It’s about freedom, about redemption, about family. That’s what’s inside every bottle. So to the ones who think different, who live different, who drink different. Vito Genovese, we already went down with him. You know, his.

His large scale narcotics push at that time, too. And again, people don’t come back at me when I continue to say this. Please understand this. We were not the major drug dealers in this country during my era. Now, Genovese wasn’t really my era, remember that? But he was a drug dealer, no question about it. He was pushing narcotics, no question about it. But after that, that’s when they realized. Carlo Gambino, no drugs. Paul Castellano, no drugs. Why he was going after Gotti because he believed Gotti’s crew is dealing in drugs. Colombo Persico, no drugs. Use drugs, you die.

But the fact that he was. Genovese was pushing narcotics at the time, brought a lot of heat on the life. No doubt about it. It was a blunder on his part. He didn’t need it. We control gambling through this country. We control the unions in this country. You know, we were infiltrating legitimate businesses in this country. We had politicians. Costello was smart. He didn’t want drugs. Control all the gambling control, the unions, controlled politicians. Politicians didn’t like drugs. Genovese was not bright, not at all. He hurt the life a lot. No question. Another, I guess it was a blunder because it brought a lot of heat.

The Lufthansa height, Jimmy Burke, Henry Hill, summarily involved, not as involved as the movie showed him to be. Brought a lot of heat. I remember at that time, the FBI was investigating that to the hilt, because at that time, it was the biggest robbery in the nation. I think they got away with over five or six million dollars. Huge at that time, back in the 60s. Huge. So it was a. It was a big blunder, you know, the Lufthansa heist. I remember that I wasn’t even involved in a life at that time, that much, you know.

But I understand it was huge, huge blunder at that time. So, again, brought a lot of heat. No good. But, you know, you’re going to do these things anyway, you know. You know, maybe I shouldn’t consider it a blunder. I mean, nobody really went to jail for the Lufthansa heist back then. Henry Hill didn’t go to jail. Jimmy Burke didn’t go to jail for that. You know, at that time, nobody was really indicted for creating that conspiracy and creating that. That whole heist until later on when, you know, just recently. Oh, gosh, I forget his name, just recently, a guy went to jail for that.

He went in and went out. I think he died after. I’m not sure. But anyway, up until that point. Is it a blunder? Well, it brought more heat, but it also brought a lot of money to the life. So I don’t know. You could put that in whatever column that you want, but it was okay, you know, go back to Luciano. I think Luciano’s conviction really hurt us. He was a smart guy. He wasn’t a guy that, even though he was capable of violence, he took out Maserino Mozzarella. He took out. What was the other guy’s name? Mar.

Mar. Mar. Whatever his name, he took him out. So he. He was capable of violence, but he also knew that it wasn’t the best way to go. He knew the Mob had to be run like a business, and he promoted that. It’s why he created the Maranzano. I’m sorry. Okay. That’s why he created the Commission. He knew we had to run this like a business. And his conviction, his sentencing to 40 years in prison, his deportation, really hurt. I think had Luciano not went to jail and been able to operate like Carlo Gambino or like these guys, like these guys that lasted all that time.

Had he been able to operate like that, I think we still might be in existence. I don’t know. RICO came along and did all that damage, but that really hurt. It really hurt. The timing was bad because he had just created the commission. He was just getting the Mafia, you know, in this country really organized. And everybody looked up to him and respected him. He had the respect of everybody in the, in the country at that time. My dad told me that. Well respected guy, very smart guy. So him getting convicted, going to prison, getting deported, huge blow to the life.

So, you know, I don’t know if you want to use the term blunder or blow or mistake or mishap or something that really damaged the life. I don’t know. Some of these things were dumb. In Genovese’s case, dumb moves, really dumb moves. In the Bonanno case with Bastone, dumb move that. They didn’t really look into this guy, you know, look into his past, really do a job on him because he, he infiltrated that life for six years and they never knew who he was. Six years, Come on. That’s a bad mistake on our part. Bad mistake.

Remember, he didn’t start out with us. He was, he was established when he got in. When he infiltrated us, it wasn’t like we knew him from the neighborhood. We knew him as a kid. No, we really didn’t. All right, Big blow. So him going down, terrible. Okay, this is another thing that I say, and I’m probably gonna, gonna end it with this. The reason the life went down the way it did is because we didn’t keep up with their technology. I’ll tell you what we should have done. You know, when I look back on it, hindsight is always what, 20, 20? What we should have done.

We should have realized that, hey, we’re huge targets. Government knows who we are. They’re going to continuously be looking for ways to take us down. We have to be one step ahead of them. What we need to do, we need to hire our own investigators. We need to infiltrate like they infiltrated us. We need to infiltrate them. We need to raise up our informants and put them in the Department of Justice, put them in the, the FBI. We need to do that. We need to be smart enough as a criminal enterprise to look for self preservation and have our homegrown people infiltrating the government.

That’s what we should have done. We weren’t that far advanced in our thinking. We thought we had it Going on, you know, the, the loyalty part. Well, you know, we took an oath we’re not supposed to betray. We didn’t foresee rico, we didn’t foresee these bugging devices that they have. You know, I don’t want to get into who it was, but there was an informant that had a bugging device in his Yankee hat that was, I mean, this big. You couldn’t see it. And it’ll pick you up from, you know, 10 yards away. The conversation. They had equipment that when they were on Mulberry street and they were, you know, looking at us, from what I understood, that they could aim it at you from a block away and hear what you’re talking about.

We should have been ahead of them and said, you know what, we’re a powerful force in this country. They’re going to come down on us and come down heavy. We need to prepare ourselves. We need to know what they know. We need to have our own plants, our own molds. Like they try to have moles within us. We need to do it within them. We weren’t ahead of the game at that point. We weren’t one step ahead of them, I like to say, in the gas business, through the system and operation we had, we were always one step ahead of the government.

As far as them coming down on us and learning our system. We always anticipated what they were going to try to do next. And when they tried to do that, we had another system in place that could take over. We should have done the same because we were too powerful a force in this country. And we had to realize that they were going to come at us with, with everything in their arsenal and they were going to create new tools that in the toolbox. But we didn’t do that. We didn’t do that. And so the RICO act killed us.

The Donnie Brasco’s killed us. They got us. The surveillance techniques killed us. I told you about the guy, you know, on, on trial with me, with Giuliani, union guy. We laughed about it. But think about this union guy. We’re on trial for several months. In the opening statement, they mentioned his name. He was one of my 15 CO defendants. And the opening statement, they mention his name. This guy never had a record, nothing. But he was a union guy. Through all those months of testimony, they never mention his name again. The day they’re going to sum up the case, you know how it goes.

The prosecution sums it up and then the defense sums it first, then the prosecution, then it goes to the judge who charges the jury. Then the jury gets it. Well, what happens Just before they’re ready for the summation? The prosecutor says, I have one more tape to play. They play the tape, it was against this union guy. You know what the tape says? It was a surveillance. It was a tape recording. They had the room bugged, the conference room. And this guy is in the conference room, this union guy, talking to a bunch of his people.

And on tape, as clear as day, he says, listen, what we are doing here is criminal. We are committing a crime. And if this room is bugged, we are all going to jail. It was a 10 minute tape. That was it. Convicted. He got seven years. I was acquitted in that case. He got seven years because of that one surveillance tape. So what? We weren’t prepared for this. Gotti went down. How many tapes that were on Gotti? Hundreds of hours. Bad, you know, Angelo, Crack, quack, Ruggiero. Bad tapes. So many tapes have brought so many people down.

I’m going to be honest too. I had a big undercover investigation on me. The, the FBI undercover agent had 83 tapes on me. He had a Nagra tape, it had to his back. But you know what? I have to say this in my defense. Not one of those tapes was he able to use to convict me. Because to, to, to get me to say something. Because I was very careful with him. Why? Because my father brought me up that way. If you don’t know somebody, be careful what you say to him. Be very, very careful. I can tell you another incident.

I was in Howard Johnson’s restaurant in Syosset, Long Island. I was sitting down with somebody I didn’t know he was an undercover informant. He had a van outside, he was wired. They had a van outside listening to the whole conversation. But you know what? I wired myself too, because I didn’t trust this guy. So when they told me, you know, that that place was wired, I said, well, whose tape do you want to use? Mine or his? I didn’t say anything at that time, people. I’m not saying I’m that smart. Don’t get me wrong. I was just a good listener.

And when my father prepared me, I listened. My father used to hold the phone and say, see this? This is a cop. It’s a cop. Don’t talk on it. Bad. I can’t tell you before cell phones how many times I would run to pay phones. Oh my gosh. Take my dad to a payphone, run to a payphone. Me, myself. We had a beeper at the time. We didn’t talk on phones. I told My whole crew. I said, if you get caught on a wiretap, you’re going to be in trouble. Another incident, I’ll give you. My friend Frankie Sestaro picks me up.

I get off my plane. I’m coming from Florida, right? He says, we got to go to meet. What was his name? Jewish guy. I forget his name at the time. He was a gas guy. He said, we got to go meet him. You know, we got a dispute over the gas. He explained it to me. I said, all right, I just got home, but let’s go. We get to the offices in Amityville, Long island, right? And I said, where are you going? He said, well, we got to go up to his office. I said, you know what? I’m not comfortable.

I don’t want to go in his office. I said, bring him down here. Let’s go into the cafe, okay? So I go into the cafe, I’m reading the newspaper, and I’m waiting for Frankie to come down, right? He don’t come down. Half an hour, 45 minutes, an hour. I’m not going up there. I just did not have a good feeling, okay? He comes down. As a matter of fact, I called at the time. It was taking so long. I called Louis Fenz up. I said, louie, come and pick me up. I don’t know what the hell Frankie’s doing up there, but I’m not going in the office, okay? So in the interim, Frankie comes down after an hour and a half, I said, what are you doing up there? He said, don’t worry about it, Chief.

I settled everything. It’s all good. No problem. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I said, all right, but I told you, don’t. I didn’t feel good about the. Ah, no, it’s all handled. Don’t worry about it. Cut to later on. I’m on trial. The discovery comes up, right? In the Giuliani case, what do you think happened that day? Number one, they had bugs. They had cameras in the trees walking into the office, right? The office was bugged. Not only that, there were two undercover agents, the FBI agents. Well, I don’t know if they were undercover, but they were sitting in the same cafe as I was.

This meeting was all set up, all set up. They were sitting in there, watching me, watching me. So what happens? Here’s what’s. Here’s how they tried to portray that whole scene. Oh, Michael didn’t go up. He was waiting downstairs. Frankie negotiated it for him. But then Frankie came down and filled him in on everything. That’s what the agents were going to testify to. That’s what. That’s how it was. So we didn’t keep up with this stuff. Now, was I that smart? I’m not saying that, but I was a little alert to this thanks to my father and me being a good listener.

All you people out there, you know something that I teach when I mentor people. Be a good listener. Don’t run off your mouth. That’s why so many times people. When people say things on social media, I listen. I’ll use it later on. I’ll use it to my advantage, but I’m not ready to speak about it right now. When you open your mouth, make sure you know the timing is right and you know what you’re going to say. Don’t make it get used against you. Trust me. Be a good listener. Don’t run off your mouth. So what happened because of that? When Frankie and a few guys got indicted with me, and I said, we’re going to take a plea.

It was going to be tough to beat this gas case. Oh, we don’t want to take a plea. Blah, blah. Because they had never been in prison. Okay? After those tapes came down, I said, what do you want to do now, Frankie? You put me in trouble with this. Because if you’d have listened to me, we wouldn’t have had any trouble here. You would have told the guy to come down and we would have sat and talked about it. The, the table we were at wasn’t bugged. We wouldn’t have this trouble or you didn’t listen. Then they took a plea.

I got 10 years. They all got five and under. So anyway, these were some of the blunders. So let’s go over them again just to. Just to, you know, summarize everything. Number one, Valachi. Bad Genovese again. Hit on Valachi. What does Valachi do? He decides to become an informant. Self preservation. At the time, it wasn’t that any. He felt he was going to be betrayed. He didn’t want to get killed. He didn’t get out of prison. But he became the first major informant and blew the whistle on Cosa Nostra. Bad Genovese again. Dumb move. Dumb move.

Blunder. Appalachia didn’t need it wasn’t necessary. He wants to throw his chest out and exert himself. Didn’t have to do it. Bad blunder. Cuba blunder. Not on our part. We got chased out after the revolution. Wasn’t our part. We would have. We would have really controlled Cuba for quite some time. Till the US Government Stepped in. Who knows, they would probably got us there also. But, you know, that was a major hit on our operation. Getting thrown out of Cuba. Vegas. Bugsy Sigum, bad move. Too flashy. Flamingo Hotel didn’t go right. You know, hurt us a lot in that regard.

But again, we were still able to build and dominate Vegas for quite a long time. And everybody through that era, everybody, everybody that knew when we ran Vegas says Michael. It was so much better at town when you guys were there. Absolutely. No question about it. It was better. So we got ran out. Now you got Vegas. Everybody’s leaving that town. It’s. It’s not the same. Beautiful hotels, but not the same. Trust me on that. Okay? Lufthansa heist, great for the mob, but again, brought a lot of heat. So look at it whatever way you want because it was so out there.

They’re still talking about it. I’m talking about it. So it was big. Okay. Gotti flashiness didn’t work. No good. Oh, before I do that, let me, let me put the final nail on the coffin. Was rico. No doubt about it. That’s what brought us down. That’s what really, really did the damage. Rico give Giuliani the credit because he used it effectively. Oh, let me tell you another thing I left out. But let me bring it back. Joe Bonanno, sorry, a big fool, writes that book, tries to make the mafia look like this. Grandiose, wonderful, you know, philanthropic operation.

Got in the crosshairs of Giuliani. He’d tell you the story. He said that’s how you present the criminal organization. Bonanno. What did he have to do that for? He’s the boss. He’s in Phoenix. He didn’t need to bring that kind of heat and make us sound like saints. Was stupid. Was dumb. So what happens? Giuliani looks at that, and out of that book, he gets the blueprint to go after the commission using the RICO act. Huge blunder. How did I leave that out? Huge blunder. Huge. So called Joe Bonanno a fool for doing that. Dumb. We can put dumb on that.

Dumb. Really dumb. That book. I forget the name of it. Stupid. Okay, no need for. What do you need to write a book for and make us look like saints? We weren’t. Saints was dumb. You know, the CIA getting involved, the Kennedy assassination, all that kind of stuff, just no good. These were things that really highlighted and hurt us eventually. So listen, I hope you enjoy it. You know, I. I know many of my followers love to hear the mob stories. People and Remember this. I’m not the hero of every story. I’m not going to make things up.

But when something comes to mind that I think will be entertaining and enjoyable, and for many of you that really follow the genre, the mob genre, you know, I’m gonna bring it up because, you know, look, I, I built a channel on that. You people supported me on that. Some of you say, Michael, you know, we hate when you get into politics, people. I hate politics. I hate it. I despise it. But listen, please understand this. When politicians are lying to you, lying to your face, and as a result of lying to you, your life is, is really hurt.

I just want to bring that out. It’s not politics. It’s trying to make you aware what we have to preserve this country. When I see them acting like crooks, which they do all the time, Minnesota, California, you name it. Thieves, Pelosi, a thief, abusing the system, all of these people, I just want to bring it to your attention because I’m into crime because I was a criminal. And I recognize it. I know it. Remember, I had politicians on a payroll with my gas business. I watched them get envelopes. I gave them envelopes. I understand this. These people, many of them are thieves.

They’re crooked. But when they’re thieves and crooked, it hurts you. I just try to bring it out. So I’m still talking about criminal behavior. And listen, I labeled, I labeled the, the government in, in Washington. They’re the mafia. Mafia democracy. It’s my book. They are the mafia right now. Trust me, they do kill people or they cause people to get killed. No question about it. You think Biden bringing these criminals over the border that raped and murdered our girls, that’s not just as bad as me putting a gun to the back of somebody’s head. Why not? At least if we were killing somebody, we’re killing our own.

These people are getting innocent people killed for political reasons. They deserve to go down for that. I’m sorry. Bad people. Bad people. So understand, there will always be mob stuff on my channel. I will not abandon it, I promise you. But stick with me on the other stuff because it’s information that you need to know. That’s why I do it, people. You need to understand it. I’m not trying to attack people. I will attack the government because they are attacking you. You just don’t know it. And what do we need to do? We need to clean up this country.

We need to get these people out. And I’ve told you, I am a Trump supporter because I Support his policies. If Trump all of a sudden would do something that I think was really detrimental to these people, I’ll bring it out. Well, what about the tariffs? I don’t know. He thinks these tariffs are bringing a lot of money into this country. Until I see different, I have to support it. What can I tell you? You know, so don’t. Don’t give me that. This isn’t about Trump or any other thing. This is about preserving our country. I’m not for socialism.

Come on. All right. I’m not going to go any further now. I just want you to understand. So, yes, we’re going. And I like to. I feel like talking to you, like talking to my friends. I really mean that. And of course I’ll get comments and all this kind of stupid stuff, but it’s okay. It’s okay. People are allowed to express their opinion. And you know, this funny thing, people. Or the sad thing when people get personal and start attacking you because they’re not intelligent enough to dispute your argument or to diff. Or to have a difference with you in an intelligent way, and then you hear the name calling and the stupid thing.

And with Israel, you’re taking 7,000. So stupid, you know? So most of the time, if I ever respond to somebody like that, I’m only bringing out your stupidity. That’s all I’m doing. But intelligent discourse and dialogue and differences. I welcome it. I love it. You know, it’s what Charlie Kirk was all about. Let’s debate. Bring it on intelligently. But you get stupid about it, you know, not most of the time. We’ll just block you or will respond to. Let other people know how ignorant your statement was. That was it. So, my friends, I hope you enjoyed this today.

How do I always leave you? Same way. Be safe. What’s going on in this country now. And listen, I’m going to say it again. I’m going to say it again. Do not challenge people with a gun. Do not challenge ICE agents with a gun. Law enforcement with a gun. FBI with a gun. Do not challenge them, berate them, get in their face, get physical with them, because they can kill you. And for all you guys out there, do not allow or let your ladies do it. They’re not supposed to be doing it. Don’t let these government cowards.

I was going to use a different word with a P, but I’m not going to. Do not let these government cowards use our women to fight ICE agents to deflect off of their fraud and their inability to protect you. That they’re cowards. They’re not men. They allow women instead of telling the women their constituents. Ladies, do not go up against these guys because they can kill you like they killed that woman. Don’t do it. They’re cowards. They’re a bunch of bums, in my opinion. So, ladies, be safe. Stay off the street with these. Don’t do it.

Even if you’re getting paid for it. Make money another way. Really? You’re better off on Onlyfans than. And I don’t say that. Proud. I understand how. How drastic. I’m saying at least you’re not going to get killed on Onlyfans. You’re going to get beat up or killed by one of these agents if they feel that their life is threatened. Use your head. Be safe. Be healthy. I’m not going to expand on that. And I will say this. God bless each and every one of you. God bless this country. That we get some peace here, that people start to use common sense.

God bless your families, your friends, your loved ones. And yes, people, I’ll see you next time. Please stay tuned. Thank you, Sa.
[tr:tra].