A riveting new podcast has given listeners a glimpse into the dangerous and murky world of organized crime, drug cartels and domestic and international terror organizations through the eyes of two elite undercover agents who ‘lived it.’
Hosts Giovanni Rocco and Dutch McAlpin share their own harrowing tales, life-threatening scenarios and the daily challenges they face in order to catch the bad guys in a weekly podcast ‘Inside the Life.’
The podcast, the first episode of which aired last week, is produced and filmed at The Mob Museum, officially known as the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The show features a variety of guests from the crime world from informants to law enforcement officials – including Frank Panessa, former DEA agent who infiltrated the Sicilian Mafia, also known as Cosa Nostra, in the infamous ‘Pizza Connection’ heroin case in the early ‘ 80s.
Rocco spoke to DailyMail.com this week about Operation Charlie Horse, the federal undercover operation that brought down 10 high-ranking members and associates of the New Jersey DeCavalcante Mafia Family that was the inspiration for hit drama ‘The Sopranos.’
Over the course of the probe, he had a team working on the case conducting surveillance, and often relied on fellow agents like Dutch McAlpin to help when necessary.
Rocco led the infiltration into the mafia’s ranks and was the only deep relationship cover agent who had an ongoing with Charlie ‘the hat’ Stango, aka Charlie ‘the beepers’ Stango, and other members of the DeCavalcante crime family.
Rocco, who spent years working as an undercover agent, said it initially did not start out as a Mafia probe.
He recalled, it was mid-2012 when he showed up for a drug deal they were doing in Atlantic City. They were investigating a guy by the name of James ‘Jimmy Smalls’ Heeney, a coke dealer from Elizabeth, New Jersey, who had ties to the Bloods street gang whom the FBI wanted Rocco to engage.
‘I showed up for that, and then, it just kind of took a life of its own,’ he said.
It wasn’t long before he had a new identity, Giovanni Gatto, who had a criminal past, served and some time in prison.
He remembered that Stango was the target of an investigation. Their relationship was like a father and son, although Rocco did not necessarily perceive Stango to be a father-figure, he did treat him like a son.
‘I told them I didn’t know too much about the mob, and made them explain the life to me, the inner-workings.’
He ‘would explain it to me… for evidence purposes.’
Rocco, who is Italian-American, was familiar with the mafia and its culture prior to the case.
Stango took Rocco under his wing, unknowingly providing him with intelligence that would ultimately help the government’s case against the crime family.
