Original subtitles

- (grave music)

- (static crackles)

REPORTER 1: Organised crime in Philadelphia...

REPORTER 2: The head of the local Mafia...

was Angelo Bruno.

- You can hear everything if you want,

because I've got nothing to hide.

JOURNALIST: How's your health? - Not so good.

REPORTER: Bruno died from a shotgun blast

outside the door of his Southern Philadelphia home.

ROSS: KEMP: On the 21st of March, 1980,

a major Philadelphia Mafia boss was assassinated.

- (shotgun blast)

REPORTER: Several members of the family came to the scene,

in front of Bruno's row house on Snyder Street.

- One shooter. He ran across the street,

and he shot him with a sawn-off shotgun.

Shot him in the side, put a hole in his head.

REPORTER: Police are still looking for clues to the shooting.

- (siren wails)

KEMP: The motive for this brutal murder was unclear.

REPORTER: The authorities believe he made big money

from illegal gambling,

with stakes in casinos in London.

- Who did he do business with? - Ronnie and Reggie.

- The Krays? - The Krays, yeah.

KEMP: Would Angelo Bruno's death change the American Mob's

relationship with gangland Britain?

MARTORANO: When it's good, it's good.

But when it goes bad, you've got to ride with the bad.

KEMP: I'm on a journey to uncover

how far The Mafia's influence

has spread throughout the UK.

- (music crescendos)

- (theme music)

- (gunshots)

- (siren wails)

KEMP: The Mafia is one of the oldest

organised crime groups in the world.

Dating back to the 19th Century...

in rural Italy,

for two centuries, its influence has spread across the globe.

But what exactly is its relationship with Britain?

- (static crackles) REPORTER: The body was hanging

from scaffolding underneath the bridge.

KEMP: A 1980s murder in Central London

revealed the Italian Mafia were operating in the UK.

- The Mafia were clearly saying:

"Wherever you go, we'll find you."

KEMP: And my journey uncovered Mafia activity

in unlikely places. Aberdeen...

He was the head of a Camorra crime family?

- One of the biggest crime clans in the South of Italy.

KEMP: ..and Preston.

Good-looking lad, ain't he? - Very smart.

- Not a guy that you'd normally find in this location.

And discovered dark truths.

Can you remember

how many lives you've taken?

-(speaks Italian)

KEMP: I traced the US Mafia's

roots in Britian back to the 1960s...

- A lot of Mafia people came over.

They wanted to have a casino.

KEMP: ..with a link between The Mob and London casinos.

These are big members of The Five Families.

- These were the real architects of organised crime in The States.

KEMP: How did The Mob's operation in London work,

and where did it lead?

- There's only one place you need to go, and that's the US.

KEMP: I've crossed The Atlantic to find out.

- (tense, suspenseful music)

KEMP: New York is synonymous with The Mafia.

Power base of The Five Families

of the American Mob:

Infamous migrant Sicilian crime syndicates,

who built empires here.

Racketeering,

politics,

construction, the unions.

Over the course of the 20th Century,

almost no part of American life was left untouched.

- (grave music)

KEMP: Ozone Park, Queens, in New York,

was part of The Gambino Family turf.

Sal, how are you?

- Yeah, you came a long way to hear some tales. (laughs)

KEMP: In the 1970s, Sal Polisi

worked for both the Colombo and Gambino crime families.

- They just knew I would erupt at any time.

I mean, right here, in that building,

I erupted one night.

There was a big guy, six-three, 240,

killed a bunch of people, and he was abusive.

And I took him apart in there.

Wound up on that kerb, right there.

Busted his head, pulled his ear off.

I had teeth in my hand. - Knuckles.

Sal, tell me about this area. - Well, this neighbourhood,

the things we did here, it was very tight.

This was our bolthole, here.

KEMP: By the mid-1970s,

The Gambino Family was run

by the infamous Mafia don

Paul Castellano.

The Mob was powerful

and operated with impunity.

- I did a two-million-dollar robbery.

Two million in 1973,

when gold, was 60 bucks an ounce. Hello! (laughs)

KEMP: Going out and committing robberies,

that was just the done thing, right? - Yeah.

I mean, look, this was in in the 1970s.

There was no DNA, no cameras,

no informants. How easy was it?

We thought we had a licence to steal.

So, this was once called Robert's Lounge.

And of course, people would go by, and they'd think it's a regular bar.

Little did they know, they had one of the baddest of bads.

All the action was in the basement.

- (eerie music)

KEMP: Sal worked out of an old bar

and gambling joint in Queens.

You were a member of The Mob for how many years?

- Pfft.15 years active.

And then, when I was a little kid, I was learning about it,

probably 15 other years.

My uncle drove a horse and wagon

in 1930 or 1929.

Around the Prohibition time,

when alcohol was illegal,

he would drive it out to the eastern part of Long Island

and there would be a ship out there,

ships from London, the UK...

and that ship would send in

cases and cases of whisky.

He brought it back to Brooklyn, and he distributed it.

- So, even then, there was a connection between...

the Italian Mob and the UK? - Right.

KEMP: So, it was Britain that supplied some of

the contraband alcohol that helped to build the American Mob.

Could Sal also shed light on the British link

that brought me out here:

London casinos run

by US mob bosses in the 1960s?

- I was in the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary in 1975,

and I got know two made members

of the Philadelphia Mob, which was run then

by Angelo Bruno,

and occasionally, they would talk about a casino operation

based in the UK...

known as The Colony.

And it was Bruno that had a piece of this operation.

- Where was Angelo Bruno based?

- Philly, Philadelphia.

KEMP: Sal may have now turned his back on The Mafia,

but his eight-year sentence has given me the next lead:

Philadelphia.

Just under 100 miles from New York,

it's one of the most dangerous cities in America.

By the 1950s,

the city's Mafia faction, The Philly Family,

had joined forces with The Five Families of New York.

Pleasure to meet you, sir.

George Martorano was a Philly Mob member.

- My street, where I was raised, was called 'Gunman's Row'.

These gunmen would be hanging there,

and a lot of businessmen would come and hire them

to go collect money, go kill somebody.

My godfather had the biggest territory of any mob boss.

His territory went from Newark,

New Jersey,

all through Philadelphia, all the way to Baltimore.

KEMP: George's godfather, Angelo Bruno,

ran the Philly Family in the '60s and '70s.

A shrewd businessman,

Bruno was reluctant to use violence,

and was known as 'The Gentle Don'.

- Gambling was a big part of my godfather's operation.

He controlled the gambling in three states.

Gambling was big, so he loved it.

- When did Angelo Bruno become interested

in the casinos in London?

- Well, you know, Ange heard about this big operation in London,

and he went for it, made a deal.

And we started business over there, money going

back and forth from The Atlantic.

KEMP: During my investigation back in Britain,

I discovered that Bruno was part of the US Mob's move

into London casinos

when gambling was legalised in the 1960s...

but no-one has ever documented

how the US side of the business worked.

- We would bring junkets over there.

We would arrange a plane to go there, with gamblers.

- (roulette pill rolling)

REPORTER: Guests included 120 Americans,

over from The States on a six-day jauntorganised by the club.

CROUPIER: No more bets.

- These guys are going to gamble, they're going to gamble.

So, you'd say: "Hey, bud.

You want to go to London, gamble over there?"

"Oh, yeah, OK."

And they would run and get their money.

KEMP: For each trip to London, the high rollers from the United States

would need to commit a $200,000 stake.

- Twice a month, we had planes

full of guys from Philly, South Jersey, New York.

30-40 big gamblers going to our casinos.

KEMP: Because Bruno and his associates operated the casinos,

they were getting a cut of their American gamblers' losses on top

of junket fees,

but The Mob's undeclared profits

were on the wrong side of The Atlantic.

- Well, we had to get our money. (laughs)

The first time we went to receive our money,

my father took my mother,

and they designed a special fur coat for her.

It had a zipper inside,

and it had all little pouches.

So, each pouch would probably hold...

10 grand, 20 grand. - Cash?

- The coat probably weighed more than her.

It could have been two-three hundred thousand that we moved, maybe more.

- 200,000? - Maybe more, maybe more.

KEMP: $200,000 in 1965

is worth nearly two million dollars today.

A lot of money to be illicitly leaving London's casinos,

without local gangland help.

Who did he do business with? - Ronnie and Reggie.

- The Krays? - The Krays, yeah.

- (heartbeat pounding)

KEMP: Most people would find it surprising

that there was such a connection

between the Philadelphia Mob and The Krays.

- We didn't know how crazy The Krays were, 'til time passed.

When we were involved with them, they were gentlemen.

KEMP: In the 1960s,

gangster twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray

were running protection rackets at London casinos.

- They were operating for a while,

and my godfather invited Ron over here.

- So, Angelo Bruno invited Ronnie Kray

to come to Philadelphia? - Right, over here.

And as a businessman, Ronnie brought cash.

A lot of cash.

City detectives followed him from the airport

and they ran right in on them.

- So, Ronnie Kray, the biggest gangster in London at the time,

and Angelo Bruno... - Right.

- ..the biggest gangster in Philly. - They get arrested.

KEMP: Ronnie Kray soon brings the Philly Mob

unwanted attention from the authorities.

- There was going to be a tonne of heat coming down.

They were going to bring in the FBI, they were going to bring INTERPOL.

KEMP: And I discover a secret British drug pipeline

into the United States. Whereabouts in London?

- Woking, in Surrey. - Woking?

- Woking, yes. - Are you kidding me?

- (tense, dramatic music)

KEMP: I'm in the United States,

investigating The Mafia's links with Britain.

I've discovered that illegal alcohol from the UK

helped fuel the US mob's rise to power

in the 1920s.

And in the 1960s,

notorious British gangster, Ronnie Kray,

brought problems for the Philadelphia Mob.

- (heartbeat pounding)

- Ronnie Kray, the biggest gangster in London at the time,

and Angelo Bruno... - Right.

- ..the biggest gangster in Philly. - They get arrested,

and they get taken to 22nd & Jackson,

where the detectives division was.

KEMP: A godfather and a London gangster in jail

would have been a high-profile disaster.

So, Philly mobsters pressured court officials

to delay the hearing.

- They're hit, we were already...

- Out the door? - Out the door. And Ange says:

"Put Ronnie in the car. I want him on a plane, today."

- So, you managed to get Ronnie out of the US, yeah?

- Yeah, put him on a plane.

KEMP: Ronnie Kray and Angelo Bruno's run-in with the law in America

has never been documented before.

Bruno's connections to London casinos

brought 'The Gentle Don' extra unwanted attention.

- Well, after they got arrested,

we knew there was going to be a tonne of heat coming down.

A tonne of heat. They were going to bring in the FBI,

they were going to bring in INTERPOL.

That's when Ange felt that was the beginning of the end.

Even though they were making a lot of money in London,

you can't compare it with Atlantic City.

KEMP: In 1976,

a new gambling licence was issued

on America's East Coast waterfront:

Atlantic City, New Jersey.

MAN: Atlantic City, because of the casino industry,

generates huge amounts of cash.

Organised crime will be there; they're attracted to it

like a magnet. - With the casino in London,

you're probably making three-four million a year,

compared to three-four hundred million a year

in Atlantic City. So, Ange just went there.

KEMP: Bruno severed ties with London,

in favour of the more lucrative returns

he could make from casinos in Atlantic City.

- He had complete control.

He had all these other mob families wanting to get a piece of the pie.

They felt that he was stopping them

from what they wanted to do there.

So, that's how he wound up getting ambushed.

- He got ambushed where? - Right across the street,

right in front of the house.

- His own house? - His own house.

- (grave music)

KEMP: On the 21st of March, 1980,

Angelo Bruno was shot dead.

- While his wife's looking out the window.

My godmother, she's screaming.

- What happens to the Philadelphia Mob?

- Very simple.

You've got to watch your back.

KEMP: Angelo Bruno's death signalled the end of a generation

of old-school American mobsters.

Their focus on gambling and racketeering went with them.

The next generation of mafia

was selling a new vice.

- We had drugs. (laughs)

Pockets full of marijuana.

We had cash, we had coin.

KEMP: The proliferation of drugs?

- Yeah, I'm making more money with the weed.

I've got all this money, but I've never dealt with powder.

There's people in New York, Italian guys up in Harlem,

that dealt with heroin, cocaine.

I mean, millions and millions.

- They were making millions? - Oh, sure, that was the norm.

Called 'playing the game.'

KEMP: By the late 1970s,

hard drugs were being pushed by tougher,

even more ruthless mafia dons.

So, was Britain drawn into The Mafia's drug operation?

- (knocking)

- What a view.

- Beautiful, eh? - Yeah.

- They made billions of dollars

on both sides of the ocean.

KEMP: Professor Antonio Nicaso

has dedicated his life to studying

The Mafia's international networks.

NICASO: The American Mafia created the first

international pipeline for heroin.

That was one of the major

criminal enterprises

in the history of organised crime.

KEMP: Heroin is illegal and highly addictive.

The opium needed for its production

comes from well-established poppy plantations in Afghanistan.

This was the perfect opportunity for The Mafia

to exploit its global network.

- They realised that the jackpot

was the American market.

The American Mafia and the Sicilian Mafia

put together the resources

to purchase raw opium,

refine it in the labs in Sicily...

and ship tonnes of heroin.

The Cuntrera-Caruana

were two Sicilian Mafia families.

They decide to use London

as the perfect place

to ship heroin to North America.

- So, there were boats leaving Italy

but going into ports in the UK,

and going across to The States? - Yes.

KEMP: In order to establish their drugs transportation hub in London,

The Mafia had put people in place

as early as the mid-1970s.

So, 1970s,

The Caruana Family have a representative in London.

Whereabouts in London, do you know?

- Woking, in Surrey.

- Woking? - Woking, yes.

- Woking, Surrey? - Yeah. Surrey, yes.

- Are you kidding me? - No.

KEMP: Woking is a commuter town on the outskirts of London;

an unlikely place

for The Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia Family to base its operation.

What exactly were they doing?

- Arranging shipment of heroin

to the United States.

Another Sicilian mobster,

Francesco Di Carlo,

joined The Cuntrera-Caruana in London.

- Franco Di Carlo?

Francesco Di Carlo was a name that had been

previously mentioned to me when I was in London.

- There's a guy called Francesco Di Carlo in London.

'Frankie The Strangler,' they called him.

KEMP: A mafia hitman originally suspected

of the brutal and very public murder

of Vatican banker, Roberto Calvi,

under Blackfriars Bridge.

So, Di Carlo is suspected of being the murderer?

- Yeah.

KEMP: But now, Professor Nicaso tells me that, in addition,

Di Carlo was part of a heroin-trafficking network

in the UK.

- He was the mastermind.

They were shipping furniture

to England, but that was a cover.

They made billions of dollars

bringing hashish and heroin to the UK,

and then sending it to North America.

Laundered the proceeds of crime

through the City of London.

They perceived themselves as bankers.

At one point, they were called 'The Rothschilds of The Mafia.'

- 'The Rothschilds of The Mafia?' - 'The Rothschilds of The Mafia,'

because they had to invest the proceeds of crime.

So, the first destination was London.

MAN: I remember a merchant banker

in the City of London telling me

that he loved to handle mafia money,

because it came in extremely large amounts.

KEMP: From the 1970s, Britain was a vital part

of The Mafia drug-trafficking and money-laundering operation...

pushing heroin and illegal money

into the United States.

By the end of that decade,

heroin smuggled in from the UK

was being sold by the New York Mob

in pizza boxes.

Heroin is the drug of choice. How long does that last for?

- That lasts until the '80s,

when the Medellin Cartel...

- Pablo Escobar? - ..are responsible...

- Pablo Escobar was responsible for a mass production of cocaine.

Cocaine was more social, acceptable,

than heroin.

- It's attractive to a larger universe of people.

You don't have to shoot it into your arms.

- So, with the cocaine, you could have a larger market.

Cocaine changed the face of organised crime.

Made them a big corporation

with ramifications worldwide.

- So, in the '80s, there's a major demand for cocaine.

Where does it first come into the United States of America?

- The first destination was Miami.

Miami was the Wall Street of cocaine.

- (tense, dramatic music)

KEMP: So, I head to Florida...

Dominick?

..to meet a convicted drug-dealer and killer.

- He made a bolt to run out of the room,

and I shot him in the back of the head.

KEMP: My investigation into Britain and The Mafia

has brought me to Miami.

As the centre of the US cocaine trade,

it's the best place to investigate

The Mafia's next chapter and its links to Britain.

In the 1980s,

millions of tonnes of cocaine

was flooding in from South America,

attracting the attention of the East Coast Mob.

RUGGIANO: You know, I'm walking down South Beach

and I'm looking now how different it looks, compared to the early-80s.

The town was built on cocaine money.

KEMP: Anthony Ruggiano Jr.

is a former mafia associate,

who was based in the city.

RUGGIANO: The Colombians had these beautiful apartments,

or a condo.

They would have armed guards in the hallways,

there would be prostitutes up there.

They would cook the cocaine when the cartels were down here

running the show and making all that crazy money.

KEMP: As the nearest North American port

to where cocaine was produced in Colombia,

Miami was the obvious point of entry.

But the East Coast Mob initially had little presence in the city.

In the 1980s,

New York's Gambino Family

sent Anthony's father, a made member of The Mob,

down to Florida.

RUGGIANO: My father opened up this restaurant called Danno's,

which was in North Bay Village.

You'd would walk in there any given night...

and there'd be Colombians and Cubans,

and they would have their big phones on the table.

And my father would be running around with his drink in his hand.

- The connection between The Mob and The Colombians?

- Oh, without a doubt, yeah.

You had wise-guys coming down here from New Orleans,

from Chicago,

from Buffalo, from New York.

- And spreading elsewhere, as well?

- Of course, yeah. They were moving major loads with them, yeah.

They were coming down, getting loads, bringing it to New York.

Major, major.

Down here at that time, in 1980-81,

a gram would cost $40.

You'd go to a club in New York, Studio 54.

In New York, that same gram is $120.

KEMP: Miami was a goldmine.

The Mob used their network to move huge quantities of cocaine

into their old East Coast territories.

REPORTER: Another night in the drugs war, American-style.

Drugs officers from Florida raid a house in a Miami suburb,

looking for cocaine.

KEMP: By the 1980s,

the cocaine trade in Florida was worth around

12 billion dollars a year.

Colombians, Cubans,

mob guys, all hanging out together,

making lots and lots of money.

- I was using a lot of cocaine,

and I liked it...

but it got really crazy and dark for me.

I was very violent. - You were violent?

- Yeah, I got violent. I got violent.

- (solemn instrumental music)

- What were the police doing at this point?

- Making lots and lots of money, too. (laughs)

- Really? - A lot of them were corrupt.

I mean, they were killing... There was a crew of cops here

that were killing people, they all got arrested.

The Colombians

were bringing boatloads of coke in...

and they were getting a police escort off the island.

We made a lot of money through the cocaine business.

KEMP: With the cocaine trade booming,

fresh East Coast mobsters

came down to Miami to muscle in on the action.

Is there anyone that you know

that was directly involved in that business?

- There was this guy, Dominick, from The Bronx...

who later on became a captain in The Bonanno Family.

He was involved in trafficking.

- Dominick? - Dominick.

- (inquisitive music)

KEMP: Anthony gets me a number, and I make contact.

Dominick? - Hey, Ross.

- How are you? - Pleasure. I'm doing well.

I was associated with The Genovese Crime Family,

but I didn't answer to anybody at that time.

I just did my own thing.

I got lured in by the glamour and glitz

of Florida, Miami,

where drug-dealing was just an everyday thing.

I wanted it. I wanted the money, the glitz, the glamour, the glory.

And I found it easier robbing drug dealers.

- So, you were a takedown merchant? - Yes.

- And the advantage of that is that if you're stealing

coke and money off a drug dealer, he isn't going to the authorities.

- Correct.

Cocaine was extremely lucrative.

I mean, the money that I was making, at times it was just...

- Any idea how much?

- By the time I was 18 years old, 19,

I had made over a million dollars.

KEMP: Even as a teenager,

Dominick was a self-made mafia millionaire;

buying or robbing cocaine in Florida,

and selling it at an inflated price

back in his native New York.

But the vast amounts of illegal money

caused huge problems,

turning Miami into a warzone.

Rival mobsters, drug dealers

and cartel members fought for control.

How much violence did cocaine cause in this city?

- Oh, it caused a tonne of violence. uh, myself included.

You know, it led up to the murder.

- How did you get involved in a murder?

- Well, I had my friends go rob this drug dealer.

The next day, he called me up.

He said: "Dom, I know you had something to do with it."

Of course, I denied it.

But he tried setting me up to kill me.

He offered the guy $20,000 to kill me,

and he happened to be one of my father's friends.

- Did he know he was your father's friend?

- Absolutely not. Later on that evening, they told me about it.

So, uh, we wound up luring the drug dealer into their hotel room,

and I had a gun on me.

He opened up the door.

I walked in,

I pushed him back, and I had the gun to his head.

He made a bolt to run out of the room,

to leave the hotel,

and I shot him in the back of the head...

- (dramatic beat)

- ..twice.

And then we got cleaning materials, um...

wrapped him up, and we took him from the third-floor motel room

to the trunk of the car, to Palm Beach County,

where he was discovered about a month later.

KEMP: During his time in The Mafia,

Dominick was charged with two murders.

- You know, I talk about the murders,

but everybody who I was involved in

in killing in my life, they were all part of the life.

These are guys who would kidnap kids.

They would kill me in a heartbeat if they had the opportunity.

They hit me with a first degree murder charge.

I'm facing the death penalty or life in prison,

and they offer me a plea agreement,

which came out to I wind up doing 17 months.

- So, hang on. You shot someone in the head,

killed them, and you did how long inside?

- I did 17 months, and I was free.

KEMP: 17 months was an extraordinarily

light sentence for murder,

but he was about to do far more time

for a lesser crime.

You get out of prison,

you've done 17 months for a murder.

- Yes.

- But the DEA are waiting for you.

- I got caught up in a low-level transaction

and they found me guilty of conspiracy

to distribute two-to-three kilograms of cocaine.

- So, you went to prison for how long?

- That was a ten-year sentence. I did nine years in prison.

- It's quite odd that for a murder, you got 17 months,

and for conspiracy to supply, you got ten years.

- As funny as it sounds, yes, it is.

KEMP: Something had changed.

In the early 1980s,

President Ronald Regan

and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

had come to power, almost simultaneously,

in the US and the UK.

RONALD REGAN: Drugs are menacing our society.

They're killing our children.

KEMP: They shared a determination to stop the illegal drug trade.

MARGARET THATCHER: The pursuit will be relentless.

The effort will get greater and greater.

KEMP: Margaret Thatcher focused on the UK's issues with heroin.

The Cuntrera-Caruana Clan,

with its base in Woking,

had their smuggling pipeline taken down

by international law enforcement...

while The States turned their attention

to their cocaine epidemic.

Mike?

Ross. Nice to meet you. - Ross, nice to meet you.

- At the time, bodies are dropping,

kids are dying.

You know, it was an epidemic.

KEMP: Mike McGowan joined the FBI in 1987.

- Everybody in America wanted cocaine.

OK, college kids were chewing it up, daily.

Everybody was experimenting with it.

It just flooded the country, I don't know how else to explain it.

You know, we were putting our fingers in the dyke,

trying to stop it.

The US government said, basically:

"This is getting out of hand. You've got to do something.

FBI, do something."

- (dark, inquisitive music)

KEMP: As the primary dealers of cocaine inside The United States,

The Mafia were the number one target for federal law enforcement.

In particular, John Gotti,

head of The Gambino Family,

who was well known to the British underworld.

You met John Gotti and people like that?

- Yes, I was introduced to John Gotti.

MCGOWAN: When I came in, it was '87.

That was the heyday of organised crime.

- The Mob's power? - Power, and...

almost every one of the undercover operations involved cocaine.

KEMP: So, Mike went undercover inside The Mob.

- This is the first time I've sat in a bar with my back to the door.

KEMP: And The United States' war on drugs

pushed the cocaine cartels into new territories.

- As far as I know, they went to Europe.

And to your country, the UK.

- (tense, sinister music)

KEMP: I'm investigating Britain's links with The Mafia.

The Mob's involvement in racketeering and casinos

in the US and the UK

brought huge profits,

but their trade in illegal drugs

brought government crackdowns

on both sides of The Atlantic.

In 1987,

former FBI agent Mike McGowan

was sent undercover inside The Mob.

MCGOWAN: When I became an undercover agent

in the FBI, there was no training.

So, I learned, basically, on the street, trial and error.

KEMP: To get inside the Mob, Mike had to use

what's known as 'cold infiltration;'

spending time at mafia hangouts

and slowly winning their trust.

It is a bit like becoming an actor, isn't it?

It's an act; you have to take on a facade.

- I always argue with actors about this, because we don't get Take 2.

KEMP: If you do a bad performance, you might not get any applause.

You do a bad performance, you could end up...

- Well, we... we joke about it, but there's no Take 2.

The biggest fear I had when I worked mafia,

was getting caught up in a beef between two different factions.

- Yeah, collateral damage. - Yeah.

You know, we're sitting in here. You don't... The door opens.

I can tell you, this is the first time I've ever sat

in a bar with my back to the door, because I can't see what's coming.

KEMP: Mike connected with low-ranking mobsters,

but his undercover investigations

were back by a powerful law.

- The US Congress passed the RICO Statute,

The Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Statute.

KEMP: Can you tell me how RICO works?

- You can target an organisation, as opposed to an individual.

So, if you have the top dog,

and I'm talking to one of his

soldiers, or one of his capos, or one of his underlings,

depending on what the specific crime is,

if you can gather evidence of that violation...

that can be used

against the top dog.

That's the difference.

Basically, it was the ultimate gamechanger

as far as targeting organised crime.

KEMP: For years, The Mafia's leadership

had been insulated from prosecution.

If they didn't directly commit a crime,

they weren't culpable.

But with RICO, evidence gathered from junior mobsters

could incriminate a boss purely by association.

- You've got to understand, when you go into an investigation,

you've got to go find it out, go find shit out.

That's what you have to do.

I've been to weddings, I've been to christenings,

I've been to burials with the wise-guys.

You're in the lion's den,

and it's a rush that very few people have ever experienced.

Undercover is an ultimate act of betrayal.

You gain their trust,

you get them to tell you things

they shouldn't tell anybody,

and then you betray them.

And if you can't do that, you shouldn't be an undercover agent.

And I've never betrayed anybody

who didn't commit a serious crime.

So...

- Did you ever feel guilty about putting anyone away?

- No, never.

KEMP: By the 1990s,

Mike and the FBI had gathered

enough evidence to incriminate entire wings

of the American Mob,

including godfathers like John Gotti.

- It got us extensive criminal sentences,

severe financial penalties,

the seizure of assets. You take their money.

For a lot of them, that's the biggest bitch.

They don't mind going to jail, but when you take their homes,

their cars, their money, what do they have left?

KEMP: And that led to more people

giving up the bosses? Cooperating? - Cooperating.

Yeah.

KEMP: President Reagan had given the US courts

the power to pass lengthy sentences for drug crimes.

You could be sent down for 30 years.

In combination with the RICO Statute,

it took a wrecking ball to The Mob.

- Nobody wants to rot in prison,

and they don't have any money if they're on the outside.

It got us cooperators.

There's hundreds of mobsters. Mob bosses have cooperated.

KEMP: The combination of the RICO Act

and lengthy drugs sentences

would change the American Mob forever.

My first contact out here, Crazy Sal Polisi,

was arrested on drug charges and faced years in jail.

He cooperated and gave evidence

against his former bosses.

Anthony Ruggiano Jr.

testified in six mafia trials.

Kray contact, George Martorano,

was sentenced to 32 years for drug offences;

the longest ever custodial sentence

for a non-violent crime.

And Dominick Cicale,

mob drug dealer and hitman,

faced a new murder trial.

CICALE: I wasn't going to cooperate.

I was taking my lumps, but finally I'm like:

"You know what? I'm tired, I'm tired."

The life makes you believe it's glamorous.

Hollywood makes you believe it's glamorous,

when it's the most treacherous,

contradicting life

you would ever get involved in.

And that's when I decided to cooperate with the government.

I went like this, Ross: "I'm done.

I'm done with the life."

- (heartfelt music) - (bird chirps)

- (waves crashing)

- (tense, dramatic music)

KEMP: The impact of RICO on the American Mob

was also felt outside the US.

The Colombian drug cartels had lost their trusted partners

and The Mafia's distribution network.

- So, we had all kinds of drug squads focused on Colombia,

where the majority of cocaine was coming from.

- (explosion)

MCGOWAN: Just as we were told to knock out The Mob,

now we're being told: "Knock out the traffickers,

the cartel leaders." - Right.

- And force them either into jail or to go elsewhere to do business.

- And where else did they go?

- As far as I know, they went to Europe and...

they went to your country, the UK.

KEMP: On The Mafia and Britain next time...

I join the Colombian Army on an operation

to destroy a cocaine lab...

If the locals find that we're here,

the cartels surround the soldiers

and kidnap them.

..and discover how a Colombian cartel

connected with the Italian Mafia...

- My father made some ‘business’

with this Italian Mafia.

The Cali Cartel and The Mafia?

..to bring cocaine into Europe and Britain.

How much money do you think The Cali Cartel made

from transporting cocaine to Europe?

- Billions. - Billions, yeah.

- Do you have any idea how much of the cocaine that you exported

ended up in the UK?

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