S1E68 - Louis Ferrante - Reformed Criminal and Former Gambino Mafia Family Member
Louis Ferrante, former hijacker and Mafia gangster who turned in prison to research, book writing and Judaism, talks about his life in crime and time in prison and his published history of the American Mafia from his perspective as an insider. He also talks about guilt and religion, Mafia violence, snitching and Omerta, and the Mafia's Sicilian roots, as well as The FBI and who may have killed President John F Kennedy.
Biography
Louis Ferrante is a former Mafia associate and heist expert who served eight years in prison after refusing to incriminate his fellow Gambino family members. His last book, Mob Rules (HarperCollins), was an international bestseller, and his Discovery Channel Series, Inside the Gangsters Code, earned him a Grierson Award nomination for Presenter of the Year.
Ferrante has just released his new book, Borgata: Rise of Empire, “a riveting history of the Mafia’s first one hundred years, from 1860’s Sicily to 1960’s America.
The culmination Louis Ferrante’s exhaustive research delving deep into Sicily’s socio- economic-political roots, Borgata: Rise of Empire will finally reveal exactly how and why this infamous secret society formed inside Sicilian culture. Ferrante then engages in the art of storytelling by carefully selecting stories about the mafia in Sicily that allow him to follow the main characters to America, where most arrive as fugitives from Italian justice.
Across the Atlantic, the storyline picks up in places like New York and New Orleans, where the clannish Sicilians quickly realize the importance of diversity as they forge
new alliances with other recently arrived ethnic groups as the borgata becomes the premier organized criminal network in the country. After planting their flags in cities across America, the adolescent American mafia realizes how to corrupt America’s police and political establishment, and they become experts at bribing public officials, allowing them to extend their tentacles into every level of American society. “
Conversation recorded on January 26, 2024.