Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Deep Cover- The Real Donnie Brasco: Legendary FBI Undercover Agent Joe Pistone Plays Undercover Tape of Mobster 'Lefty Two Guns' Ruggiero


When I first interviewed legendary undercover FBI Agent Joseph Pistone some years ago, he sent me a DVD of some of the undercover taped conversations he had with the New York mobsters he investigated when he spent six years undercover with the Bonanno Cosa Nostra crime family in the late 1970s. 

It made for interesting listening. 

Now one can listen to a tape of the late Bonanno Cosa Nostra soldier and hitman Benjamin “Lefty Two Guns” Ruggiero talk crime shop with Joe Pistone in his undercover role as “Donnie Brasco” and another undercover FBI Agent, on an episode of the podcast Deep Cover – The Real Donnie Brasco. 

Pistone notes on the podcast that he played the tapes of Ruggiero for actor Al Pacino, who portrayed the mobster in the film, Donnie Brasco

You can hear Ruggiero on the tape state his ludicrous claim that he is "known all over the world," which Pacino repeats in the movie. Thanks to the popular movie, Ruggiero is now in fact known all over the world.   

The podcast, hosted by actor Leo Rossi with Joe Pistone, can be heard via the below link:

Deep Cover: The Real Donnie Brasco | Podcast on Spotify

You can also read my Philadelphia Weekly Crime Beat column with Joe Pistone:

Paul Davis On Crime: The Real Donnie Brasco: My Philadelphia Weekly Crime Beat Column on Legendary Undercover FBI Agent Joe Pistone

And you can read my Philadelphia Weekly Crime Beat column with Leo Rossi (seen in the above photo on the left with Robert De Niro and Pat Cooper in the film Analyze This) via the below link:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Philadelphia Weekly Crime Beat Column On Philly Native Leo Rossi And His ‘Deep Cover’ Podcast With Joe Pistone, '10th & Wolf,' and Other Crime Films 

Note: The top photo is of Ruggiero and below are photos of Joe Pistone and Ruggiero, Johnny Depp as Pistone and Al Pacino as Ruggiero in the film Donnie Brasco, and a photo of Pistone undercover and a photo of Depp and Pistone:   

       


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