Inside the mafia - Michael Franzese YouTube

[McNutt]

I happened upon a YouTube channel run by a former Mafia capo for the Colombo family. His name is Michael Franzese and his channel goes over life in the mob as well as reviews of mob movies and TV shows that show you how true things are. It's a very interesting dive into the life.
Franzese left the Mafia after becoming a born-again Christian in prison. I believe there was some talk about whacking him for leaving, but nothing came of it. He also proudly claims that he never testified against other mobsters, so there was little call for payback.

Things I've learned from his channel:
1. Made guys NEVER put their hands on other made guys. If you do this, you will be killed. This was stressed to Tony when he roughed up Ralph in The Sopranos.
2. You NEVER disrespected another made guy's wife/daughter. Again, you could be killed for this. Like Jonny Sac's call for justice on The Sopranos.
3. Drugs were a serious no no. If you were busted with drugs or found to have anything to do with drugs, you were going to die. The crime families did not want that additional heat on them.
4. There were a lot of sanctioned hits. If you were asked to kill someone, this was not a contract job where you were paid $X. This was the life and if you were ordered to kill someone you did it.
5. He discussed Richard Kuklinski, aka The Iceman. Kuklinski was a killer who gave two really interesting HBO interviews in prison where he talked about a lot of the mob hits he carried out for all of the families. He went into great detail and seemed to have no conscience at all. Michael Shannon played Kuklinski in the movie. Franzese said that this guy, who was definitely a killer, didn't do any of the mob hits that he claimed. First, Kuklinski said that he would negotiate hits for between $75,000 to $150,000, which Franzese said mobsters never paid for hits. He also said that no one he knew from all of the crime families had ever heard of Kuklinski. Plus, none of the supposed mob hits were ever verified by the authorities. He did kill some random people, but was most likely a sociopath who liked to lie.

If you're into mob stories, Franzese is worth checking out.

[Daehawk]

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[Blackhawk]

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[Sudy]

TIL what that annoying ability to drag selected text can be useful for....