#2343 - Joe Pistone

Joe Rogan (0:03)

The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joseph D. Pistone (0:06)

Shrink by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

Joe Rogan (0:14)

Nice to meet you.

Joe Rogan (0:15)

My pleasure.

Joe Rogan (0:16)

You always wear sunglasses. Is that to hide your identity still? Force a habit?

Joe Rogan (0:20)

Actually, I have to see, number one. But where I reside now, my neighbors have no idea that they're living next to Donnie Brasco.

Joe Rogan (0:32)

Well, you have a very distinct voice.

Joe Rogan (0:33)

Yeah, I know.

Joe Rogan (0:36)

I don't want to ask where you live. But what a wild life you've had, sir.

Joe Rogan (0:42)

Well, pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Never expected to go like that. But it took off.

Joe Rogan (0:51)

So when you first started working, it was with the FBI, correct?

Joe Rogan (0:56)

Well, I was with Naval Intelligence for three years. And then I always wanted to be in law enforcement.

And I was working in Philadelphia, actually. And you do a lot of work with the FBI because on the government installations, government bases. So I became friendly with some FBI agents. And I figured when I get up, when I finish this tour with NIS, I'm going to go into law enforcement. So I might as well try to for the best and the best of the FBI.

Joe Rogan (1:34)

And so how does that lead to you infiltrating the mob?

Joe Rogan (1:41)

Well, I didn't infiltrate the mob right from the get-go. Look, I grew up in Patterson, New Jersey. I grew up in an old Italian neighborhood. I knew wise guys, went to high school with sons of wise guys. And when you're in a neighborhood, you know who the wise guys are. They let you hang out at the social clubs because you're a neighborhood kid, they know it. So I knew the streets.

So when I went into the FBI, I was street smart, basically, Joe. That's what it comes down to. You know, and my first assignments were bank robberies, fugitives, gambling cases. And I started doing some little undercover work on gambling cases because back then the FBI was big into gambling, interstate gambling cases.

Joe Rogan (2:45)

So what was your first undercover work?

Joe Rogan (2:47)

First was infiltrating a gambling house in Jacksonville, Florida, actually. That's what was my first office.

Joe Rogan (2:56)

What kind of gambling were they doing?

Joe Rogan (2:58)

Crap. I had a regular casino going. And, you know, I felt comfortable around that stuff because I grew up with that stuff. You know, I grew up, like I say, in the neighborhood, crap games, card games. It wasn't anything new to me. And being around gangsters was not, like, intimidating because I wasn't around gangsters growing up. So I didn't have any problem, you know, getting into these games and identifying the major players and who was running them. And that's basically what it was.

Joe Rogan (3:38)

So when you do this, did you have to testify in court with these guys?

Joe Rogan (3:43)

Yeah, later on, after the case goes down. But most of these guys plead guilty, so you never go to trial because, you know, it wasn't where they were facing, you know, 15, 20 years, you know. They might get a year or two years and then, you know, get some time knocked off their sentences. So most of it, they plead, and so you never have to appear in the court.

Joe Rogan (4:09)

So, but was there an issue with you being discovered and then getting found out and worrying about your safety afterwards?

Joe Rogan (4:18)

Well, not too much with these cases, no. Not too much with those cases. And then I worked a lot of us, Stolen Art, buying, you know, buying Stolen Art, buying Stocks and Bonds, Swag, stuff like that.

Joe Rogan (4:32)

So how many years did you do stuff like that before you started being undercover in the mob?

Joe Rogan (4:39)

Let's see, probably four or five years, yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan (4:46)

So you slowly sort of got acclimated with being undercover, you do a bunch of cases, and then how do they approach you?

Joe Rogan (4:54)

Well, what happened was is that I'm working out in New York, the New York office of the FBI, and there's a big case in Tampa, Florida. They have a case going on guys that were stealing automobiles, high-priced automobiles. In other words, you go to them and you say, hey, I want a Cadillac. Okay, what color you want? All right, what model you want? And then they go out and hook it. So they had, they grabbed one of the guys, and they flipped them. And they grabbed his son, and they said, hey, look, you know, you help us, and we'll cut your son a break. He said, okay. So he said, look, we want to put an undercover agent in with this crew. They operated all up and down the East Coast, from Baltimore all the way down to Florida. And the guy that was running it was what we call a half-ass wise guy at Baltimore. So he says, all right. So he introduced me to this guy as a car thief. But before he introduced me, I said, look, I got to know how to steal cars.