This Is How NY Mobster Vincent Gigante Evaded The FBI For Years | Our History

[Music] by the mid-1980s five mafia families run the city of new york through their control over construction transportation and the labor unions they use extortion and violence to dominate the city's economy for years the authorities have battled against them with limited success but now the us government prepared to deliver what they hope will be a death blow the plan is bold but simple to cut off the head of the mafia snake by taking direct aim at the men who rule new york men like the colombo family boss carmine persico head of the gambino crime family paul castellano luchezi godfather antonio duxcarallo and fat tony salerno leader of the powerful genovese family together they form the governing body for the entire u.s mafia known as the commission the task of sending these men down falls to attorney rudolf giuliani the man who would one day become mayor of new york city giuliani believes that taking out the bosses will effectively destroy organized crime in the city giuliani indicted the heads of all five uh new york city crime families which was you know completely unprecedented and unheard of giuliani and his team ordered the five mafia bosses to be brought in it's the boldest move ever taken against the u.s mafia once and for all the government was saying that in new york city organized crime exists and these are the leaders of the five organized crime families so the prosecution was significant and garnered a lot of publicity and press at the time as they prepare for their courtroom showdown with the mob the government knows that the stakes couldn't be higher [Music] until then virtually most mob bosses were immune from prosecution the higher-ups didn't do any real acts they didn't pull a trigger they didn't stab anybody they didn't shake anybody down [Music] giuliani's challenge now is to make sure he secures his convictions he has a powerful weapon on his side the 1972 racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations act known as rico rico is key legislation designed to catch the big fish that until now have always managed to wriggle free but the key to the rico law was if you were a member of an enterprise and a leader of an enterprise you could be convicted and sentenced to 30 to 50 years by using the ricoh act the government no longer need to prove these top mobsters are guilty of a specific crime just proving they are in charge of the mafia will be enough to send them down as part of a mass criminal conspiracy giuliani and his team use years of fbi surveillance and witness testimony as evidence against the bosses and eventually their strategy pays off [Music] november 19 1986 a jury finds the bosses guilty of mass criminal conspiracy this is a great day for law enforcement but this is a bad day probably the worst for the mafia in a stunning victory for the government the bosses are each sentenced to a hundred years behind bars they prove the effectiveness of the ricoh law this was a big prosecution where everybody was going to do a big amount of jail time and the government scored a clean sweep [Music] with one bold move the authorities have taken out the entire leadership of the new york mafia [Music] or so they think leading the celebrations of the squads of the fbi's special mafia task force these five squads have been on the front line in the war against organized crime [Music] one of its key agents is john pritchard each squad would go after a particular family the family that i was assigned to supervise the investigation of was in fact the genovese crime family the genovese squad's target had been the star defendant in the commission trial fat tony salerno despite the apparent success of the fbi's genovese squad pritchard isn't in the mood to celebrate something about the commission trial is troubling him he has long harbored doubts about salerno's ability to head up the genovese family fat tony salerno was viewed and believed to be the head of the genovese crime family but you have to understand at that point it was just theory to pritchard the comical looking salerno never seemed to display any of the attributes of a top mafia boss and he's starting to suspect that the genovese squad may have just sent down the wrong man it's a remarkable suspicion if pritchard is right that means the real genovese boss is still at large as law enforcement continues to celebrate their victory over the mafia intelligence comes in which adds to pritchard's suspicion that fat tony salerno is the wrong guy across town vincent cafaro tony salerno's supposed right-hand man is facing a racketeering charge in an attempt to strike a deal with his interrogators cofaro decides to reveal some remarkable information he dramatically confesses to investigators that fat tony salerno was never the boss of the genovese family [Music] according to cafaro salerno was never anything more than a stooge that was a ruse to throw us off the track of ultimately who was in fact the leader of the family so just who is the real boss [Applause] the person kefaru now names takes the investigators completely by surprise it's someone they would never have suspected he told him that the real leader of the family and had been the leader for years was vincent giganti but for years the fbi had viewed vincent giganti as a bumbling madman he wandered around the city in his pajamas sometimes acting strangely and bizarrely [Music] he would do things like speak with the parking meters urinate in public how could anyone think that this person would be the head of the most powerful mobster family in america agent pritchard wonders whether gigante could actually have hoaxed the entire bureau if true the squad's biggest success against the genovese family in convicting tony salerno could now be their greatest humiliation if true gigante is now the most powerful mob boss in america could this shuffling madmen really have played them all for fools for agent john pritchard one thing is clear if he's going to set the record straight he has a massive task before him he's going to have to convince the entire city that this madman is in fact a ruthless mob boss i believe that gandhi was far more powerful than necessarily than he had been given credit for now an insider claims that this bumbling madman could have pulled off one of the greatest scams in criminal history to expose it agent pritchard realizes he and his team will have to start by re-examining every piece of intelligence the bureau holds on gigante that historical information you know that was used as to bring people up to speed in terms of who this guy really was pritchard discovers that gigante first came to the attention of the fbi in 1957 only in his twenties he was given the contract to kill rival crime boss frank costello head of the le chazy family [Music] but gigante's assassination attempt failed you would think that that kind of kind of high profile failure would would doom your career but in gigante's case it really didn't seem to have that effect giganti quickly rose through the ranks of the new genovese family and by the early 60s had reached the rank of capo this was a senior position within the family putting him in command of his own crew in the mid 60s just as gigante became a contender for a senior position in the family he mysteriously falls off the radar they had really no file on giganti from like 66 which is kind of crazy when you consider that even at that point he was a well-known guy for some reason the fbi's attention shifted to fat tony salerno something dramatic had happened but what when pritchard examines the fbi's earlier investigation into the genovese mob he discovers a report that could explain everything back in 1981 the fbi decided to use giganti as the unwitting bait for a tactic called tickling the wires tickling means provoking the mob and then listening out for chatter that might incriminate them and one of the mobsters the squad targeted was vincent gigante they decided to issue him a subpoena to see how other members of the genovese family react and when the agents turn up at giganti's home the investigation stops in its tracks the agents get inside they go through the apartment and uh they go to the bathroom where they hear the shower running and uh they open the door and there's vincent giganti [Music] nude under the shower holding an umbrella i mean you know that that story went around the new york office quite a bit you know it was very humorous it's suddenly clear to agent pritchard why gigante dropped off the bureau's radar for the most part the concept or the theory the fbi had that he was a little bit of a daffy guy but he was really not that important after the shower incident the fbi stops pursuing gigante could the head of the genovese family have been faking agent pritchard worries that gigante may have been misdirecting the fbi for years pritchard turns his attention to fbi surveillance reports and the unofficial genovese hq the triangle social club in lower manhattan the genovese family would congregate there pretty much every day and play cards and and appear to be socializing one of the first things they were trying to do is identify the people in the genovese family and who was who over the years the squad employed a variety of methods to put pressure on the genovese mobsters to break cover agents openly patrolled outside the triangle club writing down the license plates of every car and in full view of the mobsters put the bar under constant surveillance and they would just have someone there with a camera taking pictures of who came in and out and that by doing that they could figure out who the hierarchy was and throughout the fbi's surveillance agent pritchard discovers that vincent gigante stuck to the same routine if you're doing fbi surveillance you're going to see every day on sullivan street vincent gigante going from his apartment to the social club once he gets there you're gonna see a procession of the family's top capos coming in and uh going out back and forth and although the so-called lunatic was frequently observed wandering the streets around the club with high-ranking mobsters despite their best efforts the fbi failed to record any conversations the geneves guys they're very close-knit and closed-mouthed group and they didn't have a lot of success the squad surveillance teams concluded that gigante was harmless a relic from a previous area tolerated by the real bosses [Music] everything pritchard reads suggests the fbi ignored giganti believing he was little more than an ex-mobster with dementia for all intents and purposes he appears to be mentally ill incapable of crossing the road let alone running a million dollar criminal empire but pritchard can't let go of his hunch what if gigante is the proverbial wolf in sheep's clothing the very fact that he continued to move in mob circles was surely suspicious there's no question about it i mean if you're in the mafia and you're crazy uh really crazy you're not gonna last in the mafia not at all agent pritchard decides to go back to square one it's time to start surveillance of his own for decades gigante has been thought of as a bit player but now pritchard decides to give him the attention he deserves they were very intent on on doing what had not been done in a long time which was to get vince giganti indicted in a courtroom this time the squad keeps their presence discreet secretly setting up round-the-clock surveillance of the triangle club it isn't long before agent pritchard sees evidence that his hunch about gigante is right i was participating in a surveillance one night and uh saw him with the usual ratty bathrobe that he wore and all of a sudden he had taken off the bathrobe and he had a very well-tailored sharkskin soup on it just further cemented for him that they were after the right guy because it just showed me or convinced me that whole thing was an act it's the moment pritchard has been waiting for now he presses the button on a new investigation into gigante he had this great fear of going to jail being prosecuted [Music] but pritchard needs more than a hunch he has to prove gigante's mental illness is a deception he returns to the case files he eventually comes across a report from 1970 it reveals the very moment that gigante came up with the idea for his perfect cover he was accused of bribing it sounds crazy but bribing the entire police force of a new jersey town that he lived in which you know he didn't consider to be anything more than kind of a gesture of goodwill but local prosecutors decide to make a case against him and trapped in a corner giganti tries something extraordinary he checks himself into a hospital and convinces psychiatrists he is schizophrenic his lawyer came to court and said my client is mentally unwell and he's actually in a mental hospital this is 1969 1970 the idea of an insanity defense really hadn't been broached anywhere he was cunning and he saw a dodge that he took or attempted to take to get out from under the thumb [Music] giganti's strategy works at trial he's acquitted of all charges and over the next decade giganti meticulously embellishes his role building a convincing picture of a mentally disturbed man a tactic that was paying dividends there's a developing sense that that hey this is not a bad way to approach these things and he decided to go big with it every couple of months he would go in for what was known as a tune-up he would actually check into a mental clinic it became almost like a vacation like if i would go to disney world he would go to the saint vincent's mental hospital the orchestrated visits give gigante virtual immunity from prosecution so he takes the idea further taking the charade out onto the streets it takes him out of the fbi's firing line gigante plays the harmless old man among a family of killers and for decades the shuffling old man act appears to dupe the fbi but now agent john pritchard has to find a way to expose giganti as the fraud he suspects he is [Music] first he has to blow the crazy act wide open and then prove he's the real boss of the murderous genovese family pritchard pours more resources into his investigation he increases surveillance on gigante and targets his known associates it only needs one conversation to reveal him as the real boss and he immediately becomes responsible for every crime carried out by his organization [Music] we were going after people that we felt could draw gigantic into a conspiracy involving a rico case and in fact that was the emphasis we knew that eventually if we kept after him that we would be able to show that he in fact was the leadership of the family [Music] the squad now has growing evidence that behind his act giganti is sane [Music] but lacking anything concrete the team are in danger of losing momentum but if he ever needed convincing pritchard discovers just how important his investigation was in january 1986 two of his detectives anthony vendetti and kathy burke were on a routine surveillance operation they're watching one of gigante's mobsters a fellow by the name of fritzi ginaveli fritzy was a capo that answered to giugiani it was a routine surveillance and it wasn't one that you know you would think was be particularly dangerous when their shift ends the detectives head home but they've been spotted by their mark and unknown to them they're now being followed the detectives decide to stop for a coffee vendetti heads into the diner while burke waits for him in the car giovannelli and his crew decide to strike burke spots the danger and tries to stop them but she's not quick enough the mobsters shoot her then vendetti burke is seriously wounded and tragically tony vendetti lies dead it was emotional for me because i had lost a friend uh a detective that worked for me on the squad agent pritchard's investigation just got personal and he decides it's time to enter the lion's den knowing that gigani was the head of the family he took on far more importance because of their shooting myself and another agent uh went to interview him at the triangle club giganti is ordered to step outside and according to pritchard when confronted about the shooting completely drops his act he saw that we were serious and he was very lucid there was no doubt in my mind having this conversation with him that he was as sane as i am back at the squad's hq pritchard gathers his team the shooting means bringing giganti to justice is more urgent than ever it's now clear their target isn't just sane he's dangerous so far though the squad has failed to get any tangible evidence against giganti and now he's been inside the triangle club pritchard knows why i'm probably one of the few agents that have been inside the triangle social club there was a sign up on the wall over the pay phone that this location is bugged you know don't say anything in here that's criminal they actually had that written on the wall it's clear that wherever gigante is doing his business it isn't at the triangle club the boss must have another secret hq the squad decide to escalate their surveillance and eventually they get a break as the fbi increased its surveillance of uh of the chin they came to realize that sullivan street was not the be-all and end-all of kind of his existence as as they initially thought every evening at the same time giganti is picked up by a driver from his mother's apartment building on sullivan street and he doesn't reappear until the next morning so where does he go richard's team focused their efforts on following giganti's car tailing him is easier said than done because wherever he's going he doesn't want to be followed for weeks gigante's drivers expertly navigate the city's streets shaking off any fbi tales the squad don't give up and eventually they discover where giganti has been hiding they finally traced him to a home on the east side [Music] we realized that that it was being used as a place for him to hang his hat if you will the apartment belongs to gigante's mistress olympia esposito it's a well-chosen location making a clear line of sight for prichard surveillance teams difficult but they find a safe position on the roof of a local school [Music] one of the agents on the squad uh really did a herculean job in terms of at night all sorts of weather crawling out on this ledge to observe what was going on [Music] within giugiani's residence over the next four months the agent painstakingly records giganti's behavior inside the apartment and at last they have visual evidence that gigante isn't mad they could see how well dressed he was how he acted normally how people came he had conferences he actually had people there for meetings we saw him in conversation at the table we observed him you know counting money and things like that what the fbi saw confirmed everything that they had believed that this was a this was a mob boss he was he was not a mental patient to prove gigante is the genovese boss in a courtroom they need him on tape so far the mobster has no idea the squad are onto him richard now knows just how paranoid gigante is any mistake they make could blow the entire investigation and months of work will go down the drain to reduce the risk of discovery pritchard decides to use some expert help it was a really rare opportunity for the fbi to to have recordings of this guy and they brought in a fbi specialist who had this special drill and it was supposed to go just so far into the wall and then it would sense where the other side was and stop unfortunately the installation of the device didn't go particularly well and in fact it was discovered we tried things that were unique and sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn't the botched attempt to install the bug tips off gigante he immediately resorts to his tried and tested fallback plan and books himself into a mental institution [Music] with giganti's deception successfully resurrected the odd father believes he is safe [Music] but pritchard's investigation will yet come back to haunt the great illusionist a lot of stuff that was developed over the years just doesn't die it sits there as evidence so eventually some prosecutor or some agent down the road is going to be able to use that earlier evidence two years later lawyer greg o'connell picks up where pritchard left off his challenge is to prove on the record that giganti is sane and in charge but o'connell has found a way to succeed where pritchard's squad had failed he's managed to get a genovese associate to cooperate with his investigation the investigation into vincent giganti grew out of a federal organized crime narcotics investigation where we placed the wiretaps on a couple of significant organized crime players o'connell's investigation quickly exposes a major drugs ring trafficking heroin and cocaine in the heart of the city armed with damning evidence the authorities quickly shut down the narcotics operation arresting its members they're big players in the new york mafia and o'connell discovers that one of them might be able to give him something which has eluded the fbi for decades direct access into ducante's inner circle bobby faranga is a genevieve's family associate but facing life imprisonment he's also the ideal candidate for o'connell to turn informer so his investigators now turn on the pressure [Music] he decided to cooperate and he opened our eyes to a world well beyond the narcotics investigation that we were conducting investigators discovered that ferranga's involvement in a major narcotics ring didn't end there he's also carried out far more sinister tasks on behalf of the genovese mob helping get rid of their competition some of his buddies were knocking off these were mob wannabes or low-level mob guys they were committing murders and they needed a place to dispose of the bodies ferranga knew where the remains of several homicide victims were and that evidence enabled us to to actually conduct digs exhume remains verify the identities of the victims all these victims have been disposed of on business premises and warehouses belonging to the genovese and for anger reveals that all these locations are all owned by the same person it's a lead which blows the case wide open it turned out that he was a guy who was on record directly with vincent giganti it's a huge break in the case faced with ferranga's statement o'connell's latest suspect also decides to cooperate with the investigation [Music] and testify that vincent gigante is the genovese boss his informer's name is peter savino [Music] i would look at that as the milestone event peter savino were directly on record with vincent giganti he had met with giganti dozens and dozens of occasions so savino was absolutely critical to our investigation we had him wired up against numerous organized crime figures in new york for a year and a half the ricoh act means o'connell doesn't need direct evidence to put gigante away he only needs to link him to a conspiracy and thanks to savino he thinks he's found a way throughout the 1980s the five mafia families formed a cartel to muscle in on one of new york's biggest maintenance contracts replacing windows in the city's housing projects generates over 170 million dollars for the mafia and the man chosen by giganti to represent the genovese family's interests is peter savino peter savino was a major earner for the the crime family he was a guy that knew how to make money but because savino was the geneves crime family representative in the window replacement business that gave us a a focus for our extortion uh charges savino agrees to testify that gigante is a key member of the windows cartel proving beyond doubt the gigante is capable of running a complicated criminal scam o'connell feels this case is solid enough to put gigante in front of a jury on may the 30th 1990 the authorities make their move gigante is arrested as he's led into court prosecutors know he will play the insanity card for everything it's worth but stalling the trial is something o'connell and his team can't afford the real key to it was peter savino and savino by this time was dying of cancer if savino dies before he has a chance to testify the case against gigante crumbles giganti kept up his usual ruse muttering to himself sometimes looking with his head down as a hang dog looking around paying no attention to what was going on gigante tries to convince the court that he's schizophrenic and unfit to stand trial it works the case is on the verge of collapse but this time they're prepared they've got a second witness to testify to gigante's sanity and now they play their trump card a secret star witness sammy the bull gravano as former underboss of the gambino family gravano had meetings with gigante and in march 1996 he testifies that on those occasions the genovese crime boss had been perfectly lucid he was able to describe in a very meaningful and impactful way the role that giganti played in his own organized crime life giganti is declared competent to stand trial by the judge and o'connell and his team have the green light to present their case it includes more than 250 exhibits including much of the evidence from pritchard's investigation having an fbi agent sit on the witness stand and testify in great detail about the normal nature of his second life was really crippling to the defense it's now time for peter savino to put the nail in the coffin for the prosecution terminally ill with cancer savino is unable to attend the trial in person so he testifies via cctv from his secret location on the witness protection program it's a devastating blow for gigante's lawyers if a defense attorney could pick the most difficult person to challenge in terms of credibility would be somebody dying of cancer from testifying from his deathbed despite his pain savino makes it through the cross-examination and on july 25th 1997 giganti is found guilty on eight counts of racketeering and conspiracy and being godfather of the genovese family giganti would have died in his own bed if it hadn't been for peter sabino his evidence was devastating [Music] sentenced to 15 years behind bars giganti's health starts to decline this time for real with the writing on the wall he finally drops his guard he decided to lighten up and he was chit-chatting with the nurses acting normally and looking to enjoy his remaining days and when news of this came out that he had shed his act the eastern district u.s attorney's office decided to indict him again on obstruction of justice on december the 19th 2005 vincent gigante dies age 77. for over two decades his cat and mouse game with the authorities kept him one step ahead of justice allowing him to retain absolute power over the new york mafia and govern his criminal empire with impunity inside the mafia the most respected feared cunning and tyrannical leader was vincent chin giganti no question about it giganti's elaborate charade failed to last and thanks to the stubborn pursuit of investigators like john pritchard the odd father of organized crime is finally taken down there are two decades of of efforts by some of the best fbi agents that we had that ultimately succeeded in taking him down off his throne he engendered so much fear in people because if you made a mistake that would be enough for him to eliminate you i feel personally good that we were able to take giganti and take him down [Music] you

Channel: Our History

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Keywords: our history, documentary, world history documentary, documentary channel, award winning, life stories, best documentaries, daily life, real world, point of view, story, full documentary, history, historical, history documentary, vincent gigante, crime documentary, fbi documentary, true crime daily, fbi files, investigation, crime stories, new york crime, crime families, solved, fbi files full episodes, unsolved, true crime, full episode, prison, criminal, new york, police

Id: I6_6cv0fSoQ

Length: 42min 30sec (2550 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 27 2021