By Robert Riggs – True Crime Reporter® Podcast
The Real Mafia Was No Movie
Forget the suits. Forget the code of honor. Forget what you think you know.
I’ve interviewed enough insiders to recognize that the mob mythology sold by Hollywood is far removed from the brutal, backstabbing reality.
During my True Crime Reporter® podcast, I sat down with retired FBI Special Agent Mike Campi, a relentless investigator who helped bring down the Genovese crime family—the oldest and most secretive of New York’s Five Mafia Families.
His new book, Mafia Takedown, does more than lift the veil. It rips it clean off.
“There’s some evil people,” Campi told me. “Others just get involved in the life—and before they know it, they can’t leave.”
“Smile First, Knife Later”
Campi didn’t step into organized crime enforcement with illusions. He joined the FBI’s New York Organized Crime Squad in 1985, midstream in a federal onslaught against La Cosa Nostra. What he discovered beneath the surface of the Genovese family shocked even him.
“They threw him out of his house,” Campi recalled of one victim. “They sexually abused his daughter—in front of the family.”
That associate would later testify for the government.
The Genovese family’s power was absolute—anchored in racketeering, loan sharking, gambling, and iron-fisted control of the waterfront through the International Longshoremen’s Association.
At its height, the family moved everything from fish to fear across Manhattan’s docks.
Bugs, Bank Robberies, and a Van Full of Gangsters
The key to breaking them? Listening.
Campi and his team planted FBI bugs inside their inner sanctums—none more valuable than the social club at 171 Mulberry Street, once operated by Matty “The Horse” Ianniello and later by Jimmy Ida.
“One night I’m sitting in a van outside, two in the morning,” Campi said. “These guys walk out, leaning against my van, talking about robbing an armored car. ‘We need a van like this,’ one says. I’m in total darkness, scribbling notes.”
Weeks later, Campi spotted the same mobsters casing an armored car delivery near Tribeca—ironically, at a bank below Robert De Niro’s penthouse.
They called off the robbery. But the surveillance footage and tapes had done their job. Probable cause was established. Arrests would follow.
The Crumbling Code of Silence
Campi dismantled the Genovese family from the inside out. But what shocked him most wasn’t the violence—it was the hypocrisy.
“The Genovese were supposed to be the most sophisticated,” he told me. “But they’d spill everything to a guy they’d just met.”
One of those guys was Michael “Cookie” D’Urso, a young mobster who went from rising star to secret informant. Shot in the back of the head at Mafia social club, D’Urso survived—and decided to take the mob down from within.
For three years, D’Urso wore a wire, capturing real-time conversations with mobsters discussing hits, extortion, and racketeering—unaware they were being recorded.
“They even floated his name as the next boss,” Campi said.
The Boss in the Bathrobe
At the top of the pyramid stood Vincent “Chin” Gigante, the elusive, bathrobe-wearing boss who shuffled through Greenwich Village pretending to be mentally ill. It was an act—a successful one, until Campi pulled his prison phone calls.
“He was talking like a regular guy,” Campi said. “On 9/11, he called his family and told them to turn on the TV. He was totally coherent.”
Eventually, Chin pled guilty—finally unmasked. His son Andrew, implicated in Florida-based extortion schemes, joined him.
George Barone: Mobster Turned Marine Turned Witness
One of Campi’s most compelling informants was George Barone, a stone-cold killer who had once stormed the beaches of Iwo Jima as a Marine. Barone returned to found the Jets–a street gang later immortalized in the 1957 Broadway production West Side Story.
Barone transitioned from patriot to predator, tightening the Genovese family’s grip on the New York waterfront.
He was suspected of personally murdering 20 people. As vice president of the ILA, he oversaw union rackets that generated millions. When the family turned on him during a Florida dispute, Barone flipped.
“I’m an old man,” Barone said on the stand. “I took the easy way out. I was broke.”
Campi said the man had a dark sense of humor. “He didn’t know he was Italian until he was eight,” he quipped. “He looked like a harmless old man. But people had no idea about the treachery beneath.”
What Happens to Loyalty in a World of Betrayal?
Campi exposed the very contradiction that fuels organized crime. Mobsters call it “family,” but when push comes to shove, self-preservation always wins.
“Your crime family is supposed to come before your blood family,” he told me. “That notion is so flawed.”
The FBI’s use of informants—some loyal soldiers, others betrayed insiders—exposed this truth.
Whether it was Jimmy Ida, the consigliere of the Genovese crime family going down for life while Chin played crazy, or D’Urso risking his life daily while rising through the ranks, the facade of unity cracked wide open.
Beyond the Silver Screen
I asked Campi what he says to people who are romanticized by Hollywood’s mob portrayals.
“It’s entertaining,” he said. “There is humor. But there’s such dysfunction. And once you’re in, walking away is dangerous.”
He’s right. Mafia Takedown isn’t just a story of law enforcement success. It’s a dissection of a system built on fear, vanity, and betrayal—wrapped in silk suits and cloaked in silence.
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