Becoming an FBI Informant | Locked Up Abroad

The feds were interested in taking down the whole mafia. I'm just one more guy putting a piece of the puzzle together. For him, this special agent was gonna be my handler. He gave me the small recorder, and it went into a jock strap. And he's like, "Yeah, just put it on over your underwear. You have to record everybody. There's no exceptions."

He started going over rules: can't leave the wire, no violence, none at all. Otherwise, the deal's off. He gave me my code name: Brake Shot. Brake Shot is the first shot in a pool game when they spread out all the balls, and that's basically what they wanted me to do—help smash them off into pieces.

The deal was six months to a year, but I knew my life was about to change forever. The first time I was wearing a wire, I was going to meet a cappo named Jimmy Kacchi, a very powerful captain in the Colombo family. Contrary to popular belief, there's no agents waiting in a van around the corner when I press the button. I realized that I was about to go out, and I'm going to record one of the most dangerous men in the world. I thought in my head, "This is it! This is for real!"

Wearing a wire, you think that everyone can see that thing in your pocket. "Hey Kenji, how you doing?" I sit down at the table. "So tell me, how's the business?" This woman is always sad, and in walks this big Italian guy who I've never seen before. He identified on tape. He said, "I'm a wise guy, just like Jimmy." He starts talking about the inner workings of the mafia.

He wants to propose a guy into the organization from Vegas, and I'm just sitting there still hoping that the recorder is picking up every word because I know he's a friend. Good. He talked about the organization, its structure, and this is what the FBI is after. This is the kind of evidence that they want. Then I start to feel this warm sensation coming from the recorder, but I just kind of blow it off because the guy's talking a lot.

I want to let things unfold. "All right, yeah, what they might be up to." Apparently, they're not going after us. I'm looking at him, and it's starting to get hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter. I'm realizing that this thing is starting to burn in my crotch. "You okay?"

All of a sudden, it just gets unbearable. Finally, I just told him, "I gotta go." I met up with my handler. She asked me, "So what happened?" I told him it was burning so hot I thought my nuts were on fire. He just started laughing. He's like, "Oh, I heard that sometimes they malfunction like that." But I was relieved because he told me that the tape was good. It was valuable because it would help them find the structure and figure out who's doing what.

As time went on, I started to get it down. I learned how to elicit what I wanted from other people: "Your business, you bring it to me, I get it done." "Another drink over here." But the fear never goes. You always have to worry about being found out. Almost every single person I knew had been involved in a murder at one point or another, and I was gathering intel on them for the FBI.

I started seeing that it could actually make a difference. "I'm gonna need some fake IDs, guns, bulletproof vests." That encouraged me to do more because I felt like I accomplished something. "Raise it to five." At this point, I've been undercover for six months. I was supposed to be wearing a wire, but I decided to continue on because I began to feel a lot of pride in what I was doing.

The FBI wanted me to aim higher, go bigger, and I knew that that meant the New York families. It's the epicenter of the mafia; it's where the power is. So I made a trip to New York. That's when I met Eddie Garafolo. "Good to meet you. A lot about you."

Eddie Garafolo was a Colombo associate from New York, and he was very well connected. "Jerry believes in you. I guess you're the real deal." He wanted me to move to Brooklyn and be in his crew. Being invited there was a huge step up. This was my chance to get intel on the real big fish in the mafia. "I'm honored, truly," but I had no idea what I was getting myself into.