 Welcome to the original gangsters podcast. I'm your host Scott Bernstein. We are going to do a very exciting interview today on the long form episode weekly long form episode today we're going to talk about Buffalo and we're going to bring in Ron Fino who is the experts expert when it comes to Buffalo and the Dodaro crime family or the I should say the Magadino crime family and we're going to talk about some old school Buffalo stuff and give people some insight into the how that family works from from an insider's perspective. Ron's dad and uncle were both made guys under Stefano Magadino when that family was at its you know, at its apex, and just really excited to kind of get that insiders perspective thanks Ron for joining us. Thank you for having me. Ron, just give us a little background on your family and your dad and your uncle and how they got hooked up with the Magadinos. Well, my father had told me the some of the stories but also Sammy Perry would tell me about my father. He started during the days of the bootlegging. Right. He was a security guard. When they were bootlegging liquor in from Canada and sending it around the country places like that Detroit, Chicago. So he was very prominent position for him. And he eventually was brought into the family. And he was me. My uncle Nick was much later on. But my father became the actually became the acting boss of the family. Right. I was a child at the time. And the only time I ever met with the old man that meant Steve Magadino Stefano was I was a baby. And my father was in the black rock hotel, which we referred to as prison. In fact, a funny story that to interrupt but I was going out there with my mother and my aunts. And I was just a child and we went out there and be they called it the army. My father was in the army. And we went out there and who's working outside the Attica is Danny Sands and easy. Who was Danny Boots Danny Boots. Yeah, Danny Boots because he got caught stealing the boots that to unfair. And he was working outside the gate. I say to my mother, hey, my uncle Dan's in the army too. The military. Yeah, but then I got to start I want to see the old man with my mother and we had to give the gratitude he was waiting in line is that the guest went into his house out Niagara Falls, Queenstown. And I remember vaguely, very vaguely. And I remember me on the top of the head. And my mother was upset because he gave me $5. She thought that, you know, all the money that he was taken and we were poor. We're a welfare at the time of my father in jail, that he do something, but he did. There were those that did Freddie Rindachio, who I liked. I mean, I like Freddie and Freddie was a underboss, right? He was the underboss and he him and I became very close that his brother and his brother, Vic when Freddie went away. My mother, Victor, who was the head of local two 10 and I had had it out. But then we became close as well because of the so much problems with the unions things like that. Let the audience know that like, in addition to Ron being organized crime figure back in the day was a buffalo and his dad and his uncle being made guys. He was a major meaning you were a major power player in the teamsters. The labors started with the labors. Okay, labors, but I did the teamsters. I actually had to go negotiate for local teamsters. And I know, you know, I knew all the heads of the families, most of them anyway, I never knew Gotti or gigante. But I mean, we knew Carbo the boxing, you know, we were always getting together with the different families. You know, a car was very close to me. I like to, you know, Joe, we call them, you know, we call them Joe Tony. People called the car to Joe Batters. Yeah, I don't call him Batters. Joe B, but it's interesting because I hear a lot of people refer to old timers that refer to a car with Joe B. And unless you were, you know, someone that knows the language you would never know because Anthony Cardo's, you know, totally a or a, a, but because of the Joe Batters nickname, a lot of times people call him Joe B. Yeah, that's like, you know, Jack Likovelli. Right. People was very close. I like Jack too. And I like to Johnny Riggie out of Jersey. I knew most of the Jersey people, not the bosses, so to speak. But Riggie was the boss. Yeah, it was the boss of, if you want to call him that into the Decavocante family, he was the head. Right. But there was different alignments that went back and forth because Johnny would tell me everything. Johnny opened up to me at about a lot with Genevieve's, the Gambino's, the Badanos, you know, so, but getting back to Buffalo. So I'm growing up in this era. And finally, you know, I started meeting a father was in gambling a lot. He'd be able to, we'd make the rounds as he referred to him on Saturday. We'd get together with the Spanos, the Sanzities, the Atishalea, Pat Nattarelli, Freddie, you know, Freddie Rintaccio. And we'd get together on that. Then we'd go have to visit the gambling spots where they're taking the book. And they would have the door blockaded. The men would be all around in their shorts with the doors barricaded and the flashback. So that was my early upbringing into it. Later on, they wanted to have me made. Sammy Peer, he wanted me to be made. He wanted to be a mobster now. By this time, I had already started cooperating on my own. There was no twisting of my arm. As you may say, I'm a walking, but that wasn't the case. Little did I know that the FBI was grooming me. They see me as someone that is different than I didn't go to hang around with the wise guys. I had my own friends in South Buffalo. And they decided, no, they later on, I learned that they were grooming me. And it got to the point one time I'm playing tennis with this FBI agent, Ron Heddinger. And by this time I was in the union. And, you know, I was critical of him after he introduced himself. I said, you know, you guys should be ashamed that you guys and girls should be ashamed of yourself. We have worked without their suffering and you're not doing squat. He says, Ronnie, if someone like you could help, we'd be more than happy. I says, I'd be more than happy to help you except for one thing. I never, ever want to mention my father, my family or areas like that. That I will not go into. And I have to have your assurances on that, which they gave. And it started and that's how it started. And there was a time one time when I got caught with this one agent, Jack Porstall in the car by a deceased mobster who they killed actually. His daughter is a good friend of my Billy Shalino. Oh, Billy the Kid. Yeah, Billy the Kid. They killed him and the daughter is still close to me. And before I go into that. So he spots me him and this Nikki Ronaldo, who was an associate of the Daddy Sansonese. They see me in the car in the front seat with Jack, with Jack Porstall. He was an FBI agent. Now I have a problem. I have to cover it up. What am I going to do? So I explained to Jack what to do. You just dropped me off at the union hall. Leave the car where it was. And I'll come up with an answer. Well, I get called no sooner did I hear about that Sammy French aboard who was the boss of the family. The farmer farmer. Yeah, he's the boss of the family says states to me. He says, Ronnie, you know, you got to come and see Sammy or someone said to me, you got to go see Sam. So I drove out to Angola, which is on the lake was quite a ways away. And I go sit with him. He was in his garden picking his zucchini. And I go tell him, I said, Sammy, I know what you're thinking, but you have it all wrong. I says, I was standing in front of the union all in these two agents. I took a gamble and said to because the FBI normally doesn't pick up with one agent. Right. So I told him that there were two agents that come on was in the back seat. They told me to get in the car. They wanted to take a ride and we're saying, you know, they were telling me, Ronnie, you're a good kid. You don't need this life. We can help you. There's a lot we can do for you. But, you know, I told, listen, if you want to talk to me, you have to talk in front of my attorney. I can't do this. Now, I'd appreciate it if you drop me off and they kept driving around trying to convince me. And then I, they finally did eventually drop you off. I said, Sammy, that's it. There was nothing that happened except that, you know, I mean, you know, I learned a long time ago. That was fun. You know, you have to learn your trade craft, especially the business that I eventually ended up in. And I learned a lot of that early. Can you explain to the audience and even to me. How. So Stefano Magadino or Steve Magadino founded the family. Well, he didn't find found it, but he can. Buffalo Bill founded. Yeah. Paul Marion. And you had the old, what's the name? J.D.'s, the Carlos. Right. But so, but, but Magadino led it from the creation of. Yeah. He was a powerhouse from the 30s. Yes. To the 70s, but it looked like in the 70s, he started putting out front bosses. And there was this. Well, we did that. That was that actually started before that was Russell Buffalino. Okay. And quite a few of them. We had quite a few. Can you explain the mindset behind that? Yeah. Because these guys were popular in their community and they were very close to the old man and the family. I mean, I knew Russell Buffalino as well as anybody. You know, we would visit with them all the time. And just call them Russ, you know, and he was a lot of times to go between between us, the Genovese family, the Cleveland family, him and. Oh, what was his name? From Cleveland became is another Buffalo game. I'll think about it in a second. Peanuts. Johnny Peanuts. He was another go between. And for example, when we go to Cleveland, a lot of times peanuts arranged at Leo or somebody would arrange it. So he did that. He gave latitude. He did this up in Canada too. He did this with Volpe up in Toronto. You're saying you're saying Russell Buffalino would buffer these? Well, not that one. That was that was buffed by other people. That was Nicoletti and Betty Nicoletti and some of the other ones that that eventually to narrow with Johnny Papalio. Right. So what it's interesting that mega Dino. Was alive until the 80s. Right. No, I think he died before that because it was taken. Well, let's see it was taken over because I know Peter real well the son Peter. Yeah. That was taken over. By the breakaway. My father Danny Sansanese. Roy Carlisi. Roy Black Sammy's brother. Black Sam from Chicago. Chicago. Yeah. Right. Carlisi's brother was Roy. Yeah. Sammy French. A few Johnny Camillari. You know, they were the breakaway back to what they did. What do you mean? Can you explain what you mean by breakaway? Yeah, they were upset because mega Dino was holding out on them. The old man was taking their money and then they raided his house and five and a half a million dollars. And a lot of other real belongings. He kept crying poverty. So they got upset. And now Freddie was in jail by this time. So as was Pat, not a rally. Who was right under Freddie. So they gave him an opportunity. To move in there. So the old man. They took over. Had a step down. And a lot of people think it was Sammy Pieri that took over. That's not true. Sammy never took over. They eventually moved by father in there. Is the fall guy. Little did my father know at the time of there's going to be a hit. That's going to be in my father later on. Sammy Pieri had told me all this by father. But they're going to try to hit him the way they hit Johnny Camillari. Well, that there was that time happened also, but this was before that this is when they were taken over from the Nagadino family. And I just looked. Stefano died in 74. Yeah. He lasted into the mid 70s. Correct. One of the spots that Vick Rondachio wanted is because my father had this stature. He wanted me in the union. So Vick says I chose the smart one. He had a choice between me and Danny Sands and he's junior. And Vick says, you know, I chose the smart one. We have this audio tape later on. And, you know, and I says, you know, Uncle Vick, I knew that that that was the smart one. I never consider. I don't put no, you know, like I screwed up enough in my life without putting any feathers in my camp. But anyway, I went in the union. You know, from day one, it was a nightmare. I could not do anything. I could not do my job. I didn't want me learning. They just wanted me to go visit jobs, talk to the stores. Don't make any decisions without Sam Bongevani or Vick Nolan. Because Vick ran the show. Sammy was the front man. He was the business manager. And then they had the Tirito, his son, and then Carol Bongevani and Pantano and Joe Latona. Now I was close with Joe Latona. And they're still close to the family. So he would tell me and all that he was glad to see me on board. He says, but this thing screwed up. Well, it got to the point. It was impossible for me. They didn't want me doing anything. And I got, I got so upset. This was after I was in there for a couple of years. I decided to run for office. My father said, Ronnie, you're going to get killed. Because my father was out of power by this day. And Sammy Frenchamore was in power. The farmer. And you're going to get killed. I'm telling you something. So he wasn't created allies with Danny Sansanis, but I had a promise Danny Sansanis get a job. And I had a promise others though. I was well liked in the union at that time. I had the American Indians, the Irish, Polish. I had so many workers that I was trying to take care of secretly because they wouldn't let me take care of them any other way. And eventually the election came down. And we won overwhelmingly more than two to one. We won because the Afro Americans and Hispanics and the Indians turned out of it in the droves. They turned out in the droves. But no sooner in my end Roy Carlisi calls a meeting. And I was asked to go to a sit down at this restaurant, Italian restaurant. And in that meeting they said, okay, you want now your cars. You were to do what we say. You are not to act on your own without that man, meaning Danny Sansanis bringing word back to us. Danny was made, the kid was made too. Little Danny. Yeah. So I'm there and I started talking up. I said, you know, I was supposed to brought a union here. Roy got tough on me. He got tough. He said, who the fuck do you think you are? Don't you ever speak to us that way? Was Roy a boss? He was powerful. Roy was always a couple. Okay. Always. He came from Chicago originally himself. He ran a dice game. They called him the clam man. He owned a lot of clam stands. And so from that day on I was controlled. So how do you think I feel? You know, I made promises to these workers. And you know, I'm going to live up to it. I'm a fighter too. And you know, when you talk about guy humans, I have them also. So I made sure I started developing my relationships with people. And one of the groups was the, you know, the bureau that they better get off their ass and start doing a job here. Because they were not doing a job. You're making lip service, but there wasn't a job being done. But Ron, I just want to add that, you know, my research, I see a big delineation. And the time period that you're talking about right now fits into that. Because you're talking about the, you know, as it's becoming the 80s. You had a big shift in priorities in the bureau in the 70s. You're in the 70s. Right. When Hoover died. Yeah. And when Hoover died, all of a sudden there, the new leadership there wanted to really focus on organized crime. And you had a full, you know, all the families, whether you're talking about the traditional mob activity or their infiltration of the unions, they got a full court press from the government from the 70s forward. Yeah. Well, just to point out, though, that I did help the CIA prior to that, I was in front and befriended by this Alphonse Hartle who was assigned, eventually assigned to the organized crime strike force. He was an old OSS officer assigned to Russia during World War II to an April airman. He was his assistant. And he was, he befriended me. And I became close to, well, who was the prosecutor? Not Mitch Myers. That was Chicago. Chicago was Mitch Mars, yeah. Yeah. No, I was close to Mitch, too. Mitch was a great guy. I can't take his name off hand. He was a good friend of mine. Rest in peace, Mitch, but Mitch was the prosecutor on the Family Secrets case. Yes, he was. He died shortly after. Yeah. Yeah, Richard, I were close. And so I started, you know, to look into a break in at a satellite office of the CIA, that far from Buffalo, outskirt of Buffalo where someone broke it. Well, it was the SDS at that time. And I happened to know one of the people and they wanted me to find out what I could about. So I looked into it and I caught this Arnie Stan and I'll mention his name. He was there and I says, Arnie, you know, he had to talk to me. So he comes into the Union Hall and he's, he asked me, he says, well, because I was also a worker before, was at the office. And he asked me, you know, he says, I'm being followed all over the place, right? And he was, but he was in coherent. He was drugged up. He was totally off the wall. Now I could understand him being followed because I'm sure he was, but I was never able to learn anything. But it did develop a report which carried on for many, many years. Even after long after Al died, I did do work as you know in Russia, Eastern Europe. We'll get to that later on in the interview, but can you, can you just kind of maybe talking in general terms about the Buffalo organization and how, how they were viewed maybe nationally. Like when you were meeting with all these other bosses, what was their view of Buffalo? They were always respectful. They were very close. They liked the old man. The old man was a power. He had much more power than they give him credit. Yeah, I was going to say, that's why people kind of overlook Buffalo in New York. He talked about the five families, but Buffalo was a, was a juggernaut for decades. Yes, it was. Yeah, there's no question. The old man had the power that slipped a little and then there came a time after my father that my father was called to the commission and he went down with Roy Carlisi. Let's see, well, Stanley Sanzanese and Sammy Frenchmore. And the spokesman at that time was, Oh, but that was, I can't think of his name offhand, but he was speaking for the time he, I believe it was, he was speaking for the commission. It said, Joe, you got to step down. Probably Salerno. No, it wasn't Salerno. I don't know. Yeah, no, I think it was, was it Tommy Ebboli? It was Tommy Ebboli. Tommy Ebboli got killed in the, in the early 70s. Yeah, well, this was before that, because my father had to step down. So I think it was, and they told me he had to step down. So then my father defied the commission. Next thing you know, they're asking Roy Carlisi, everybody, they, well, I don't, they would go along with this decision. So my father was left all alone. So that was it. He had to step down. And what they did is they put Sammy Frenshamory in as the caretaker. Like I said earlier, my father didn't realize he was being duped when he took that position, just in case there was a hit coming out of, out of the falls or some of the old magazines. So did he, did he have it from the late 60s into the early 70s? Yeah, the late 60s to about 72. Okay. Yeah, just after I got in office, because then by that time it was okay because by that time, we had to sit down with Sammy Frenshamory was the boss when I was running and he told me, keep a clay, you know, and they allowed us to run because they were going to kill, you know, if my father was worried and he had to have people protecting me. And that's when he's making all these deals, which to this day, I wish he didn't because I had enough support. I may not have enough support against Bob, but I had enough support, you know, on the streets. Did I have to protect me? And you mentioned about how you were, your father feared for your safety. People got to know that, you know, just like in New York and Chicago and Philly, at that time period, there were a lot of bodies dropping in Buffalo. There were guys that were, you know, getting killed throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s that made that a dangerous area if you crossed the wrong people. Correct, correct. Yep. And so then I started, Sammy Peary put his hooks into me. I started a snow plow business where I was doing the Bartolos malls. You know, I knew Eddie DeBartolo. And that was it. Let people know when he talks about A. DeBartolo, he's talking about the San Francisco 49ers. Yeah, I'm talking senior now. I didn't know the son, the old man I know, and I knew Gus Regas, and Marv Rader and the whole team. That ownership group that's been in place for 30, 40 years now had, you know, organized crime ties for the 49ers just to let people know. Yeah, the Youngstown Ohio group or from Youngstown, Youngstown had the wars. And so when we went down there, we first went to Cleveland, Sammy Peary and I, this was about 75 and they had the wars going on, the Danny Green and... Yeah, about 75 to 80 in Youngstown, where it was bomb town USA. They were blowing everybody up. Yeah, so we had bodyguards. We had to go see Leo. He was in the hospital at that time, Leo McCherry. The underboss, Leo McCherry. Yeah, so we went to dinner that night with a, which we did a number of times with Jack White, Jack Wilke-Velley. The boss at Cleveland. Yeah, and Macy Rockman. No, he did have a string tie all the time. I can tell you. Macy Rockman was there, was there kind of Jewish? He was. He was married to the sister of the former Don John Scalish. He, from what I've heard, Macy Rockman used to, he converted. He was taken communion. He was a Jewish guy. Oh, I didn't know that. He was a Jewish guy. We had a guy in Detroit named Davey Boy Feldman, who did the same thing as Macy Rockman. He was a Jewish guy in order to ingratiate himself more with the Italians, converted to Catholicism. But the Italians and Jewish were always close. Yeah. You know, I mean, I've never seen, you know, I'm about to talk to Carlo Gambino because I didn't know, you know, what was going on with what's his name? Meyer Lansky. I didn't know about him, but I knew of a lot of powerful Jewish that were hooked up with the family, a lot of them. And you always would sit down with them. And you would have to work with them. And they were nice. I mean, you know, there was never no animosity there, or just a matter of, who would, Phil Manuel asked me one time, he was on the Toronto Reagan's Prime Commission. You know, what about who really runs the mob? And he says, you know, behind these people are a lot of Jewish. I said, no, you're right, Phil. You know, you never think about that. But there's a lot of the Jewish business. Yep. In every city and there, you know, in Detroit, we got a lot of them even still today. Right. So that's court service in that. Well, I don't want to be critical of them, but. No, in Detroit, you got, you know, they are the purple gang, which was like, you know, America's only real Jewish mafia that existed in. Well, I know. Yeah, I know an Italian guy that was part of their crew. And in Detroit, Rocco La Pena. Rocky was a purple gang. Yeah. The Jews and what became the Detroit mafia, the Tokos, they all worked really close together. And so a lot of the guys, even today, the Jewish guys in Detroit, they weren't purple gangers, but they're tied to old purple gangers. Right. Right. I know. I remember because I've been in Detroit many, but. So talk a little bit about the. The relationship between, you know, how like the actual logistics of you working in the unions and you said that these guys are telling you to like, make sure you don't do anything without our. So, so how are you logistically running that? Like you're. What I would do is do my best to weave in between. I would create laws a lot of time is that we do this for breaking the bolt neck. I'd come up with names. I don't know. There's such a thing as the bolt neck. I knew labor law. I studied labor law, but instead of, you know, just half partly or a random griffin, which I would use a lot too. Labor and management reporting act. I would use different laws that you get a check on this. And so I'd move around the country. There's this next, there's this nexus point. As you know. When you were, when you were running things that I think is pretty much gone by the wayside, it still exists a little bit, but. Throughout a big, big chunk of the 20th century, if not the whole 20th century, there was this nexus point between organized crime and labor unions that were, you know, you couldn't. Separate them. They were almost like one in the same. Not all unions, but so many. Yeah. There was so many in the building trades. We always had the teamsters, the laborers. And a few others, the painters and hotel restaurateurs. That was always controlled. There are others. I mean, I mean, in New York City, everything was dominant. I mean, that was different. And the Mason Tenders in New York, I testified in that case, which was a pretty big case against the laborers in the National Union. And a lot of them went down. I testified in the riggy case, which I had a very hard time doing. And a few people got upset with me because I called them a quiet humble man, which he was. I'm not. You're talking about John Reggie. John Reggie. Yeah. Yeah. The boss. John Ego. Yeah. I didn't know him by Ego. I just don't miss Johnny. You know, we were quite close. And I had, I bet with this kid, Manny, which I eventually testified that was down in there. The Philadelphia Cam that I can't recall another area. Do you have any interactions with the Bruno family out of Philadelphia? No, I don't. I don't. I mean, you know, and it's funny that was always kept away from that. That was kept away from me. I met with Philly people, but it's just that I never developed that association with them. Like I did Chicago, New York cities, Boston, because I knew Boston quite well too. You know, I was with Arthur Coyle there. And I dealt with others. Yeah. With the Lakers. Let's um, first of all, then I became a, I became an international trustee for the Lakers. Right. Training fund. So I was on that. So that opened up a lot of doors for me to meet people and bring my ideas. Let's um, drill down a little bit on Russell Buffalino if you can. Yeah. He was the, Joe Pesci in the movie, the Irishman. My opinion of him is, and I'll just, I want to get your take after I make this statement. Um, and then I want to get your take on him as knowing him personally, and then the portrayal of him in, in pop culture. So my belief is that in the last, let's say decade, Russell Buffalino went from the most underrated mafia boss in American history to the most overrated mafia boss in American history. Like nobody knew about him. And now because of, um, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, uh, it went from nobody knowing about him to now where, because of that movie, everybody thinks that he was this like wizard of Oz, like, yeah, puppeting the commission. Now he was a, he was a guy that was very powerful and way more powerful than you would think for a guy that was a mafia boss in rural Pennsylvania, but I don't know if the mythology that's been building is accurate either. So give me your take on him personally, how you like, or what you, uh, your insight into the film. Yeah, well, first of all, Russell was always a Magadino. Don't people that think he, he'd like a super couple. You know, they gave him, as you said earlier, Magadino gave these people their reign over their, even Chandra, though Chandra, they're all close to Buffal. Russell was a go-between on a lot of these things. If he went to the Teamsters, now I don't know the sheer and I know nothing about it. Uh, but I didn't know Joe Territol in New York. Joe Territol. But if you, you're saying that you knew Russell, you didn't know Frank, but doesn't that kind of, uh, pierce the veil that, of, of, of legitimacy that they're trying to, meaning the Scorsese and the De Niro that are trying to tell you that Russell Buffalino never went anywhere with Frank Sheeran. You're saying that you knew Russell Buffalino, but you never knew Frank Sheeran. No, I didn't know him. No, I know Bob De Niro. You know that. Right. You know Bob De Niro. But isn't that isn't this blowing their theory out of the water? If you're saying I knew Russell Buffalino well, but I never knew Frank Sheeran. So isn't that. Yeah. I mean, I knew the Teamsters quite well. I mean, you know, Provenzano and all the different people. Uh, in fact, they wanted to put me in the Teamsters. I don't know if I told you that. When I was, uh, Jack Gluckovelli wanted to be to move up in the Teamsters that back then because Presser was screwing up so much. They needed a frontman or somebody to come in. And then Mashi Rackman says it can be arranged. And they want to buckle. Jack Presser was, was cooperating. Yeah. Well, yeah. I didn't know that now. Now I know the agency would have been cooperating with, but that I did not know. I know about the Cleveland League. Just so people know, Jack Presser was a Teamsters Union president. Uh, and it went Hoffa to fit Simmons to Presser to Roy Williams. But I could tell you that's what I sat with Presser. He was a buffoon. I hate to say that about anybody because I never knock anybody's intelligence. Uh, but he really did not know anything about the working class. His father may have known and others did. And Tony Libertore was another. Now Tony, I had to testify in his case against Tony. He was a Cleveland Capo acting boss. Tony. Yeah. Yeah. It was, you know, because he wanted to know if I was paid. You know, and I had to tell him, you know, I'm not a made guy Tony. So take it easy because he's telling me all the secrets. He told me they had a leak in the office. That's where it first came out. Not from Friday. I learned about it and turned it in much earlier. But a lot of people in the Bureau didn't believe me because I thought it was an agent. Again, let's just clarify for the audience. Uh, in Cleveland FBI office of the late 70s, early 80s, a secretary. Uh, that they had to got there. The Cleveland mafia have got their hooks into and she was feeding them intelligence briefings. Uh, and it was filtering out to Tony liberatory who was then giving those documents to Jack Likovoli and other people. Correct. Correct. But Tony's telling me this. Now he was a messenger to me. If I was down in Florida anyway, they send messages through Tony to me. And I can't recall was it Cleveland or he told me this, but he says, we could over exist everything. Now I'm concerned because my name may be out there. Right. So I went back to the Bureau and eventually Jerry persona and Cleveland, one of the agents down there and I explained to him. Now I for some unknown reason thought it was an agent because I didn't realize the secretary could have that much latitude because I worked in the FBI offices. We used to have these green books with the 302 files in it. And you just don't have access to it. You know, usually they're kept quite safe. But in this case, you know, I didn't know it was a secretary, but I didn't know they had a leak. That was something that no one asked me to look at anything like that because they didn't believe me. You know, a lot of the agents didn't believe me when it took place. Would you go to visit Russell in Pennsylvania or would he come to see you in Buffalo? No, he'd come all over. We'd meet in different areas. Sometimes down in his neighborhood. You know, so Did you have any dealings with the Rochester guys in the 70s? Oh, yeah. No, I know them all. Watching them reading Pecorretto's kids. I were very close Lauren. And I, you know, I knew the volunteers. In fact, what happened is they were pulling away from Buffalo because of the problems. And my it was the Bananos. Joe and my father and John that's what that's what led to the demise of John Camillari. Yeah. He got killed in 74 leaving his birthday party. Yeah, correct. At Roseland. Roseland, yeah. Yeah. So eventually that's what led to Billy's killing. A lot of people don't know this. Billy the kids killing was tied to Camillari. No, it was tied to Rochester. They thought the mob because he was going to Rochester all the time. And they he was seeing his girlfriend. Mm-hmm. He had a girlfriend in there. But I believe the former acting boss, conciliary, Lenny Falzone was considered a suspect in the Billy the kid. No, it couldn't have been Lenny because Lenny was in my office at the time. I'm not saying in terms of a shooter. I'm talking about sending it in. Yeah, it's my muscarella and a couple others, you know, I never doubted the shoot. That's my guess. Yeah, what happened. It's funny. I'm holding agreement. Smeeting in the union hall. The very time Billy is being killed. I have contractors there. The next thing I'm being surrounded by London. So Danny Shansson he's joked at our Junior there all in the room with me. Actually, that's pretty good. In the Piares, the boys. He could be ruthless. He could be nice. I get along. He could be nice, but he could be ruthless. He'll kill you. He would go after, he would have his son, who was a paper boy, go after that $5 he was owed, just as much as he'd have to go after large bills. He wanted to take, he'd go after it himself, you know, but they stole from his kid. So he was a tough guy. He took the front, well, you know, he was a front man for Joe Tenaro, Jr. Well, just for, you know, for my own, to satiate my own interest, let's just come over to Detroit for a second. Yeah. And, you know, from my research, you had Ledpipe Joe, Joe Tenaro, Sr., and Lenny Falzone, and in some cases, Big Joe Tenaro, Jr., that were making a lot of trips to Detroit in the late 70s, early 80s. I think some of it was related to labor stuff, but other reasons what was related to Las Vegas and they were, it looked like they were jointly partnered on some Las Vegas investments. Yeah, they had, well, what they had out there is the Golden Fleece, the Flying Fleece, excuse me, the Flying Fleece. They would fly people out there, we'd put them up in the trap of Canada or some other places, but mostly the trap because we had the connections there. Right. And that's when my good friend Dennis Combs eventually became the head of the traps, the trap organization. And he was a very close. He's the one that really undercover, you know, I'd call it a scam. They were actually, well, yes, I did know that. One of the investments that Detroit and Buffalo were doing together was an investment in a hotel casino about 90 miles out of Las Vegas and Laughlin called the Edgewater. Yeah, I'm not familiar with that one. The Todoros were coming in for a piece of it, the Detroit guys were building it. And I have all these surveillance reports from 8081 of Leadpipe Joe, Lenny Falzone, coming into Detroit, getting picked up by Zerile and Toko guys at the airport, taken to the hotel, driven to, you know, meetings with Toko and Zerile and then meeting out in Vegas as well. So there was, and then actually, I don't want to speak out of turn, but I'm pretty sure that Leadpipe Joe was an unindicted co-conspirator in the game tax case that you came to Detroit for in 97, 98. Yeah, that I'm not familiar with as much as I testified in that case. I think one of the Todoros was an unindicted co-conspirator based on these Vegas dealings because even though the Detroit case came down in 96, it was a case that dated all the way back, like 30 years. So there were some guys, it's just interesting that you don't think of Detroit and Buffalo as working together. You think of Detroit and Chicago or Detroit and Cleveland, but Detroit and Buffalo were doing. Oh, no, we were always close. I recall going there all the time. You know, I was close to the Zerile's. I knew the Zerile's. I knew Jack, Toko. You know, I didn't know him that well, like I knew the Zerile's and others there and I knew, but I knew Jack and I knew he was, you know, who he was. And I had a lot of involvement with the labor unions there. We had a problem with a contractor called Phil Schwab, who was not kicking back to the Todoros. And in those days, just so you know, we call Joey, what do you call it, Big Joe? You call him Joe Pizza, right? Well, pizza. Right. That's what I, it's funny because the media nickname is Big Joe, but whenever I talk to people in Buffalo, they call him Joe Pizza. Yeah, I never knew him by that. His father was Big Joe and JT, we called. Papa Joe. You know, I got along good with the father. Yeah. I did get along good with Joe. In fact, one time we were down in the Lenovo pizzeria in the basement. I told him, I got to be honest with you, Joe, you got to get F out of this business. You got to get out of it. You're making good money. You don't need this stuff. He says, Ronnie, if I got out of this business, I wouldn't have this stuff and it'd be all taken from me. Because I did like the guy and I'm not going to lie. That's like, you know, I don't. And a lot of times if I didn't know something, I didn't want to know. I could only stay with focus. I don't want to be focused on what someone else has told me. You know, just what I know personally, I've testified in so many cases that I've learned the best thing is to do is keep it simple. Keep it truthful. Keep it focused. Don't go into other areas. So a lot of times these things would come up to me about their other activities. And I close my ears. You know, we were out there one time and Joey Mazza from Chicago. He was with the Labor's International just under. You know, Carl liked them. You know, there was a lot of Bruno Caruso. And I could tell, you know, Bruno Caruso still kicking on the south side of Chicago. He's bad at me. He don't like me. He told Frank Colada, like I was telling you, I think I told you Frank Colada and I were getting together out Vegas. And Frank says, you know, Ronnie, you're the real deal. You were running with the big shots. What are you talking about? What are you talking about, Frank? He says, because I told Bruno Caruso, you know, he told me to go fuck yourself. He told me to go fuck himself. I just, you know, quit that digression. I'm not going to name a name, but there was a pretty prominent Chicago. There was a wise guy who, when I was in Las Vegas, was sending messages to the mob museum, telling them that they didn't know what they were talking about in some of their exhibits. And it's like those Chicago guys, they don't hold their tongue. No, no, they don't. No, they don't. In fact, when I testified against the Chicago and the Labor's, a lot of the wise guys were outside greeting me. That was Roy Carlici's nephew. Yeah. When they were greeting me very nicely. Bruno Caruso, wasn't that? Well, the Caruso, I mean, the Caruso's are like, you know, a mob dynasty on the south side of Chicago. They're like royalty, you know, dates back to the, you know, the original old man Caruso was a skipper in the 50s, I think. So I mean. Yeah. I mean, I had my, you know, my people there too. I was close to a lot of Chicago people. Vinnie Solano, another guy I liked. He ran the north side. Yeah, he ran the north side. He was tougher. He was bigger, more powerful than you realize. Yeah. Because Joe, Joe Carter would always tell me, Ronnie, you gotta listen to Vinnie. Vinnie knows. He knows. You know, and this is going way back with Vinnie. So, you know, I know, you know, I know him quite well, Vinnie. We get together all the time. For anybody that's been to Chicago, that whole downtown rush street that where it's just jump in the entertainment district, the nightlife district, that was Vinnie Solano's territory for for decades. He ran that rush street area. And it's interesting how the rush street kind of ebbed and flowed how it kind of started as a really nice area then it got kind of seedy. And now it's back to being a, you know, kind of the place where you go if you got money in Chicago to go spend it. Yeah. That's right. And it's like, what's that? You know, but his kid was close to me when he's kid Anthony, I would take him golf. He was a nice kid. I don't know what's happened to him, but he was very nice. Let me throw an analogy out at you. I kind of see the Toko family here in Detroit analogous to the Tadarros in Boston or in Boston. Buffalo. There seems to be a ability, like a savviness and a, you know, you're, you're, you're feared, but you're also, you're feared on the street, but you're also feared in the boardroom or in the in the white collar stuff, because you're so dialed in and focused on your business and you're able to kind of be have one foot in one world and one foot in the other world and leverage one against the other. And in both of these cases, stay out of prison. I mean, these two, these two families have been heavily involved for, you know, half century century of mob activity and there's been very, very little prison time. But on the other side of it, there's been, dare I say, hundreds of millions of dollars made legitimately. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's true. That's like, even with the Gravano, his attorney is a friend of mine, Tommy Farinella. That's the one that got him out of jail. A lot of people don't know why he went to jail. It was because of his kids were doing drugs. Well, the second time. I'm not talking originally, but the second time because Tommy got a hold of me. And I told him, you know, you know, I wanted to see if there was something else he could use it, you know, we could use him on that he didn't cooperate. For example, in New York City, because I knew local 23 was a Gambino union and then the Mason tenders here with a few other in Jersey. But anyway, you know, that's all right, you know, what he says about Joe Tedaro is true. Joe Pete Joe would go in the water. This was a story that Sammy recently told. And there's some doc, there's some FBI documents to back it up that in 1980, I think it was early 86. A couple weeks or a month or two after John Gotti took power, assassinated Paul Castellano, that the the Gambino's had gotten word that lead pipe Joe Joe big Joe, Joe senior had been critiquing the way that that had happened. Yeah, he was upset. I recall that he was very, very upset and Sammy and Gotti called for a meeting with Buffalo that took place in Florida. And according to Sammy, they were on the beach and Joe pizza. They went out into the water. Yeah, and they, they had a turn in a certain direction, because they thought there could be like, you know, like coming in and listening to them. Yeah, they had a turn. They had their they had their conversation. That's true. That's what they would do. I remember. He would say the same thing when the tomorrow is at one time on the hotel there, you know, the Golden Strand. Right. And later on Joe, the senior would stay at the dip. You had a he had a room in the diplomat. That's where they would probably meet over there and then come across because Joey junior, I don't know what he's had by the worry where he was staying after the Golden Strand. I don't know where the junior was if he was there or not what he still spent a lot of time in Florida. I'm told. Yeah. Oh no, he does his poor wife died cookie. You know, I know her real well. She's that I put his nephew or his brother in law, Linda's husband into the labors. I had to bring him in as Joe was in there already. Everybody likes this guy. He's I've never heard of someone saying negative word about him. He's very prominent across Buffalo. His his pizza, pizzeria Lenova is has deals with the NFL and the NHL. He has no criminal record. So we should just state that his dad didn't have a criminal record either. I should say not criminal record did not eat no convictions, no convictions. And, you know, these are, you know, it's it's a there are phenomena there. A lot of it deals with politics too. Yeah. I mean, these people are very savvy. Politicians and, you know, even if it had a federal prosecutor, a federal US attorney that I criticized over this, because he, you know, and him and I had a big, big argument. I'm taking a ride with a rab line from Louis Special Agent in charge of the Buffalo office. And he's telling me, Ronnie, you got to take it easy on this guy, because I know you you're going to blow up. Now, I know you don't get along with Dennis Facco. I know you don't get along with them. I said, you know, I know how the guy got his job. You know, who was behind it and held the model, you know, who appointed him. I know the powers to be. And I've been informed like that, you know, early on by these people. And so we're going to hope we meet at a holiday and out in Hamburg, New York, South of Buffalo. No sooner does Dennis Facco walk in that I start tearing that up. He said, well, if that's the case, you're never going to fucking work in this town. You're never going to, I said, Dennis, you can't fire me, Dennis. And he can't fire me and Rob Langford. So you have no power over that. I'm coming out DC at that time. You know, I had, because I worked under personal services agreements. And that was the important Rob Langford. That's the end of that too. Well, what he did is he actually had some good agents fired. We had a lot of good witnesses. We had Samuel Legatura. There was so many of that we had. And I love canal operations that cover up at the love canal that we were working on. And Dennis refused to go along with it. He just refused. He would not do it. And eventually became US attorney for, or that he became attorney general for New York state. And he refused to do anything. He'd cover up on all the, especially the toxic waste dumping and things like that. He was, he was involved with a number of big companies. Can I throw a couple names at you and just get your take on who they were and what you thought of them. Guys that are no longer with us. Let's start with Bucci Bifalco, who I've heard a ton of very colorful stories about. This guy was a really high IQ guy, a mob guy. I wouldn't say he had a high IQ. He was an inventor. What? Yeah, he was an earner. He torched jobs. He was a torchman. That's how he started burning places down. But he, that he was married to Joe DeCarlo's granddaughter. You weren't impressed by his intelligence. I've heard a lot of people say that he was super smart. No, no, no, no. He was a bunny earner though. He was good. Him and Johnny Katz. They were brought in at the same time. That was during the Rochester wars that they brought him in and made them. And they brought Sammy from Rochester. What I forget his last name and another guy. I can't think of it off yet. What about Sonny Nicoletti out of the Niagara? Well, he was always part of the Falls crew. Sonny, it was a bunny Nicoletti. You know, he was up in the Falls crew. They eventually came under Tommy Gitanio Michele. They originally came under Patty Nate or Pat Titters. Right. You know, and then they came under, uh, what's it about, but Tommy, Tommy Chuchwell. Talk about the Niagara Falls crew and how that played a role. Like, how was the, the, um, the family split up? Like Niagara Falls is kind of its own little thing within the thing. Yes and no. I mean, they gave him latitude. Uh, it's like, I told you, I was close to Peter, the son. I got along good with Peter. We'd be up and make a dude, his funeral home and he had Camilla winning. And he was, to me, he was always a nice guy, the kid, but he didn't have that moxie, that strength that his own man had. That's what, as I visualized looking back how it's hard. Cause I'd get, I would always be, and he was always cordial with me. Now there may be where he was at times. You know, it's like Friday, Friday could be ruthless, but Freddy was always cordial with me. Uh, so, but then you had Buddy Nicoletti. You had, uh, what's the name, uh, Sammy Peary was hooked up with them. I mean, there were so many up there, uh, Ranjator. I could go on and on through the past and then the Magadino family. And we'd get together with Sammy Peary would still stay in touch with them because he'd bring me there. Sammy Peary was more a mentor of me, not to that column, because I never went along with all he was looking was to ride the tide. Sammy was looking to take advantage of you. And in fact, we got sat down one time. We had to sit down with, uh, his brother Joe Peary was above Sammy. Uh, and then you had Sammy Frenchmore, Roy Carlisi, Joe Tedarro, senior. And, and me, not even my father was not allowed in this meeting and Sammy Peary. And we, they told him, we're trying to keep this kid clean. Now you're screwing up on a Sammy. Now it's gotta stop. You know, you got this guy running all over the place. You want him to do this, do that. You're taking part of his business. You know, you can't be doing those things because he did, you know, but Roy did the same thing. But by still plowing business, he took over. I had to put Nikki DiMaggio on to give him the money. What about, um, Dilly Spataro? Dilly was quiet, ruthless. He would kill you to hurt me, Dilly. I don't know what with him, but that's because of who I was. You got in a prison recently. Yeah. Yeah. He was sentenced to life. Uh, and uh, poor Bobby DeGiulio. Yeah. Yeah. Because Bobby was Robert Goulet. And I became close to Robert Goulet because of his. He was, he was Bob Bobby DeGiulio was the bodyguard for a lot of guys. Yeah. So I flew with Robert Goulet to New York. And he asked me seven problems up in Canada. And I'll tell him I'll look into it. No, I didn't go through Buffalo. I went through Arthur Coya. So looking at the, uh, to break a, you know, put a stop to his problem. So that helped Goulet. And Dilly was convicted of taking part in the Bobby DeGiulio. Yeah. Yeah. Murder, right? Yeah. Bobby the body, I believe. Yeah. Bobby was a nice kid. You know, I knew it was the whole Julia family. Julia was at all that, you know, I know them all. And to say, he was a nice kid. He was just making a living. But whether, you know, I'd probably do, but I know Dilly was convicted. Yeah. In the Spateros. Well, Gianno Spatero. Right. And they called him Dilly because of John Dellinger. Oh, is that right? I didn't know that. That's what I was like. Why do they call him Dilly? He was always at the clubs. He'd be playing Ziggurat. He'd be gambling. He'd be at the gambling places all the time. That's right. See Dilly. Um, why don't we talk a little bit about, uh, he, uh, Dilly was released two years, two years ago. Yeah. Talk a little bit about where you are today. You're, you're, uh, running a private investigator firm. And I do that with some other government. Yeah. Yeah. What happened is afterwards after I surfaced, which we believe came from the justice department. That's why people think the FBI and justice department, they've never gotten along. They have no choice a lot of times because of the politics that put, you know, who gets the job, things like that. Rob Langford was fired. Well, they transferred them. They made it. He was transferred to Birmingham, Alabama as a result of our episode in Buffalo. So it shows you, you know, and other agents to tell me, you know, stand your ground, Ronnie. Stand your ground against this guy. And most of them would, you know, privately, you know, I don't want to mention their names because well, most of our retired now anyway. But anyway, what happened is I was teaching down a Chronicle at the FBI Academy. And I was also teaching classes over in a satellite office of the CIA, but different classes. I was teaching on intelligence, gathering areas of, you know, my guys are by trade craft. And what I did to enter using the mob at first. You know, I mean, what I did is I always started to stay as close to the vest as possible and as truthful as possible. And also taught Russian classes because I speak Russian at the FBI Academy. I'm lousy, but I, I understand it. I'm married to a girl from Belarus. Wonderful girl, my partner. And I spent a lot of years over there. I was sent there. How that came about was Jim Moody. Jim Moody was the section chief of the FBI at that time for organized crime. And he says, Ron, he's seen me down at Chronicle. He had just come back from Moscow. He said, Ron, even sit down your ass to, you have to go back to work. So that's what they did. They talked to Stan Nye, who was being sent to Poland. And he says, yeah, you know, they want you to work this Russian mafia stuff, things like that. And so, you know, you're going to be given a cover. I didn't know what that, but then I was never given a cover. But anyway, I did go over there and I worked for a number of years, mostly in intelligence gathering. At first I was always just told, keep your eyes open, keep your ears open. Don't act. That's what they tell me. Well, of course, how do I not act? You know, in me and my big mouth, well, I work by way. And I find out a lot about arms, modeling, some of the players, how they were getting them out of Russia, Belarus, things like that. I've actually been in their houses, some of these people. As a result of my work in my way and went through it, it takes time. You just don't walk in. And here I am, you know, you have to have, you know, a valid reason. Mine was the liquor business. We were importing liquor from Belarus, white Russia. Lukashenko knows of me, you know, is the ambassador from Belarus that I were quite close. Well, I received a call. And I got to meet a lot of people out there. I learned about a lot of the terrorists operating out of Geneva, Switzerland, how their finances were being taken place, Warsaw, Poland. In fact, I'm in a Polish program over that, the arms smuggling out of Russia. Some of these are still alive. Some of these are major arms dealers that they were getting into the various terrorist groups. I probably was at a restaurant with Victor, but I'm not sure it was him. Victor Bout, you know, one of the terrorists that they just traded for Brittany Griner, who they made a movie about called... Yeah, I'm pretty sure I was. Lord of War? Yeah. Because I was told to look beyond the lookout for him. So this was in Moscow, though. But I'm in Moscow. We would go to dinner with a lot of the organized crime people. And these are young kids. You don't really... These kids are worth billions of dollars, you know, that the various groups, the CEO of Vicky. And we'd go to dinner with the different mobsters. And I had a guy by the name of Mr. Enkel, Igor Mr. Enkel. We used to always show his government ID anytime things were going on. And I never did get to see what his ID was, but we hung around together. I got to meet a lot of the mobsters. And eventually I got to meet a lot of the politicians. There's not much of a difference, right? Well, I mean, some of the politicians weren't bad. Alexander Arloff, the deputy foreign minister, and I were quite close. I liked it. I got along good with Alexander. In fact, he helped me with the Jack Platt story. Jack Platt, the Get OuttaVest lingo case. He was one of the people I became close with. Timothy Borden. He was assigned to the American Embassy for your economics here, sent back to Russia. We get together on top of Skyola. So that's the bank's drag, going to the Kremlin. And we go up to the Ukrainian restaurant and have a good meal. I take a firm meal and I would get... I asked him to help, too. Well, a lot of this turned out that, you know, I developed a lot of rapport. And I learned a lot. And I had a lot of friends within the Kremlin. You know, plus the Bob. You know, I got to normal. So by front, at that time, or one of the things I was doing is I was going to help him get stilich in a vodka bag. And so I had to meet with all the different people, log it off, all the people that ran that operation. So it was Platt-O-Inport with the Bissino. So just as we... I could go on and on. I could go on. I want to tease this, though, because as we wrap here, it looks like you're going to be a character, possibly, in a big Hollywood film that's being developed right now with Bradley Cooper and Christian Bale. It got announced in the last month in the Hollywood trades. It's a true story. Two of my contemporaries, authors that I have so much respect for, Gus and Eric, wrote a book called The Best of Enemies. It's about two spies, an American spy and a Russian spy, and their relationship. And Ron played a role in the story. And Bradley Cooper looks like he's going to be writing this and directing it and starring in it. And it could be a pretty cool project for us to see you on the big screen. Have George Clooney playing Rod Vino. Yeah, I'll tell you. It was tough. It was much more difficult because I had the Russian mob get involved. Yes. Somehow, that may have been my fault. I was talking to this Georgio Adremis, who had a lot of connections with judges up in Russia. And somehow, I think this Fadi Darwish, who was a terrorist, learned of it. I get a phone call that they weren't going to meet somebody up in Moscow. And it turns out to be this Timor. I know Timor. Timor is a flake. He's a killer. And who's there with a Fadi Darwish? They say, I understand you're willing to pay. They even knew the amount I was willing to pay. So they're pretty good at their intelligence, too, to get them out of jail, to do what we can. We can do it. We can do it. And I told them, I can't do that. I explained to them, I could not do that. And I let Jack Platt know that Timor had contacted me. And I explained to him, I couldn't do it. But what they did is they went around my back and went to get out his kid. And they forced him to go in and they stole money from him. They took his money. I learned about it. There was things that happened as a result. I wasn't able to get Fadi, but things were done. There was a couple of them involved. Some action was taken. And it was by friends of mine in Russia that did it. Now, you got to realize, too, I was close to the PLO. I had a lot of PLO people that were providing me with information that wanted to become aligned with us. Today, they're either in jail or they're dead. So it's changed that when I go over there, I don't want to tell the whole story, because it's going to be in a movie. But it was a tough racket. You're putting your life on the line. And I got a bribe of judge. I know the law. Did I violate the law? Yes. Because we have international treaties that protect it. But, you know, I have no choice. This guy's going to get killed. They're going to kill this man. Jack was communicating with me daily. And the problem was, I had to wait until I got back to Germany before I could, you know, Frankfurt or one of those places before I could communicate with them. Because, you know, over there, you know, it's not like the movies. You're not wearing disguises. You're out there in plain sight. You know, you don't hide in the shadows. You're out there in the open. And you've got to have a mouth. You've got to have the proper handle on it. So you try to stay with the truth as much as possible, because they're not stupid. They're better trained than we are. Take my word for it. They're good. So I was close to them. I was close to Belarus. Belarus still has the Belarusian KGB. And I was close to them. You know, I had my friends because, you know, when I tell them some of the things I found out about the arms and how the problem is, Lukashenko was involved in it, too. But I'm showing my character, because they're going to trip you up. They're too good at it. You know, we see these guys wearing disguises. I've been sure there are some trade cramps that I'm not going to go into. But I just say them with mine, I kept it as what I had learned through the years with the mob and carried it forth into Russia and other places. Out to Siberia. I've been there with, you know, the Bagadan, Kamchatka, the Habras. You know, we've been all over because of the seafood. We know how the seafood was coming in. You know, how they're selling it in the Korean situation. There was a lot. You've done it all. You've said it all. I'm not saying this just because you're on the show with me and I'm talking to you. But your life could easily be a movie or a television series. I would be a rabid consumer of that because Well, De Niro said that to me. He was too busy wrapped up in other movies but he wanted to see a movie. I mean, that's amazing. Thank you so much for coming on here and shedding some perspective on the buffalo underworld and the labor unions and obviously the last 10, 15 minutes talking about your work for the CIA in Russia. This was a great interview. Thank you so much for joining us, Ron. You're welcome, Scott. People to know where they can find you. Yeah, you can always... I mean, I wrote a book. That's what I'm saying. I want to promote your book. Yeah, I wrote that Mr. Undercover that's available on Amazon. I just don't build myself up as much as it sounds like it. I'm really not a horrible, humble person. Well, I had to... Yes, I will... I will vouch for that. You would never know just talking to Ron or getting to know Ron a little bit. I know that this is... that he has such layers to his story. There are other people that, before you even can get a word in edgewise, they're trying to tell you about all the craziness that they've lived in their lives. Ron, you kind of have to peel back the layers and earn his trust for him to tell you all about it. Yeah. Well, thank you, Scott. Everybody, let's hope it's a better new year than what we've had. Yes. Let's hope it's safe because, you know, I don't know if I told you that. That means a week. You know, I have many friends in Israel. The late General Mota Gord, the organizer of the Raider and Tubby was very close. So I know the problem with terrorism because I worked it. I can't understand people that they're grasping on. That's because of the educational system today. They're teaching these people it's okay. And Osama bin Laden was a good guy. I mean... This younger generation that's getting their history back, there's no context. It's scary. Sure, it's scary because we're destroying our country. We're destroying it. Ron, have a great new year and hopefully we'll bring it back on and maybe you can do a second part and talk a little bit more just about your PI work and your CIA work and it could be an episode on its own. Well, it sounds great, Scott. Thanks, Ron. Be good. And for OGPod I'm Scott Bernstein. We'll see you next week.