Quebec corruption commission

The man who infiltrated the New York Mafia and inspired the movie Donnie Brasco is regaling Quebec’s corruption inquiry with tales about his years in the mob.

Joseph Pistone, a legendary FBI agent who spent six years undercover as a Mafia associate, told the Charbonneau Commission about the inner workings of the Mob in the United States during his testimony on Monday.

The commission is looking into criminal corruption in Quebec’s construction industry and its ties to organized crime and political parties.

So far, Pistone’s testimony has been about how he infiltrated the Mob while pretending to be a jewel thief. He has also discussed the ways of the underworld, including its moral codes and its list of offences that would get people killed.

He had just begun delving into ties between the New York families and their Canadian counterparts. Pistone referred to a killing of Mafia capos committed by a hit squad that included Montreal’s Vito Rizzuto, although he did not mention Rizzuto by name.

Pistone, now 73, is testifying under heavy security at the inquiry behind a screen.

Commission chair France Charbonneau has imposed a ban on the broadcasting or publication of any image of Pistone from Monday’s hearing. The ban does not extend to photos or footage taken in the past.

His testimony has focused so far on the six years that he spent undercover running with the Bonanno crime family in New York City, an unprecedented police operation that saw law enforcement get as close as it ever has to the Mafia.

Much of his testimony has been the subject of books Pistone himself has already written, as well as the 1997 Hollywood blockbuster “Donnie Brasco.”

He was pulled from the operation just as he was about to become a made man, Pistone said, with his bosses making the call to pull him out. He said he was disappointed to see the operation suspended.

“No one had ever gotten this close to a Mafia family,” Pistone said.

“My argument that was we’re going to embarrass them by having an undercover with them for all these years, can you imagine if it comes out they inducted an FBI agent?”

Pistone’s undercover work led to some 20 trials and 200 convictions across the U.S. But the Bonanno clan continues to exist to this day, Pistone says,Choose quality sinotruk howo concrete mixer products from large database. and still has strong ties to groups in Montreal as it did when he was embedded.

Pistone’s testimony at the Charbonneau commission is intended to help the inquiry better understand the murky world of the Mafia as a whole.

Other witnesses testified last week about how Mafia families function.

Honour and loyalty are key, Pistone said. Orders to underlings are to be carried out without question — even when the order is to kill someone. There is no debating or discussing such things, he said.

“Your sworn allegiance is to your Mafia family: it’s your Mafia family, then your regular family, then your church and country,” Pistone said.

“But your first allegiance is to that family that you’re a part of.”

Pistone, who assumed the Brasco identity during his undercover days in the mid-1970s and early 1980s,The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility. is still hiding from the Mafia as a result of his old career.

A self-described “street guy” who became famous when he struck at the heart of New York’s notorious organized crime families,Purelink's real time location system protect healthcare workers in their daily practices. the former FBI undercover agent’s story enthralled moviegoers when it was chronicled in the 1997 movie Donnie Brasco, starring Johnny Depp.

Usually, Pistone shuns the limelight — and for good reason.

The Mob put a $500,000 bounty on his head after he skilfully infiltrated their ranks, posing as a bar-hopping jewel thief between 1976 and 1981.

Even the FBI, where he’s a legend, only has an old, blurry surveillance photo of him on its website where it describes his pioneering undercover work.

Pistone, who says his insinuation into the Bonanno and Colombo crime families led to 200 convictions at 20 different trials, rarely sticks his head up. When he does, it’s with his appearance altered and under tight security.

He lives under an assumed name in an undisclosed location and has a licence to pack a gun.

A consultant to the justice system, he has written several books,Find solar panel from a vast selection of Solar Panels. both fiction and non-fiction, including a novel with the son of Mob kingpin Joe Bonanno.

Pistone was such a good undercover agent that surveillance teams from the FBI and New York City police, who weren’t in the loop, had Brasco listed as an associate of the Bonannos.

The Bonanno family has been linked to Montreal’s Rizzutos — and it’s unclear whether Pistone’s testimony will delve into those ties. Quebec’s Charbonneau inquiry is examining corruption in the construction industry and its connection to politics and organized crime. Pistone began with a detailed description of how he infiltrated the Mafia and faced potential threats to his life, from the get-go.

“What I have to do is give you the mindset of gangsters,” he testified,Browse the Best Selection of buy mosaic and Accessories with FREE Gifts. “and how they operate.”

After they were arrested, Mob kingpins were stunned when FBI agents told them whom they had befriended. The man who had brought Pistone into the Mob was later found murdered.

The FBI has warned Mob chieftains that anyone who harms Pistone will face the bureau’s wrath.

“It’s not the wiseguys I’m most worried about,” Pistone told National Geographic News in 2005.

“They respect me. They know I just did my job. I never entrapped anyone, never got them to do something they wouldn’t have done anyway.