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In 1970, Congress passed the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which everybody refers to as the “RICO” statutes. For the first time we could go after “an enterprise” engaged in a “pattern of racketeering.” If we could show people involved in an organization whose purpose it was to commit crimes, we didn’t have to show that each member of that organization actually committed each crime.
    We had the law we needed against the Mafia.
    In this case, with a new type of undercover operation, I and the supervisors would be able to plan and steer the operation the way we wanted it, doing the thing ourselves without a lot of help or intervention from anybody else.
    Berada was at that time one of the most imaginative supervisors. We had to get some good targets, and it had to be a feasible plan to sell to headquarters, something that would work, because like most bureaucracies, most people in ours didn’t want to put their necks on the line for something new and risky.
    There was a lot of research to do before I could go undercover. Even the research was done discreetly. Only four or five people were involved in the entire matter. In the beginning only my supervisor, Berada; the Special Agent in Charge of the Criminal Division of the New York Office, Ted Foley; and the guys who would be my case agent, Joe Connally, and my contact agent, Steve Bursey, were in on it. I went through old, closed files, old reports, and talked to guys who were on the squad, guys I could trust, pumping them for all the information we could get on the fences that we were targeting. For the most part we knew who the fences were. It was just hard to get anything solid on them. So now, for the first time, we would try to plant one of our own men—me—to live and work among them. I gathered names, looked at mug shots. We wanted to know who their mob associates were, who the hijackers were, where they hung out, where they worked out of, what their habits and personalities were, what they looked like—anything that might help me navigate in their world.
    In developing the plan and the proposal, there was a handful of people involved, from both New York and Headquarters. Eddie O‘Brien was the supervisor at Headquarters who handled undercover work in its infancy. For the proposal we identified some targets that were top fences, and some areas of the city that I would be going into, such as Little Italy in Manhattan and certain parts of Brooklyn, and restaurants and clubs where I might hang out. We left enough leeway so that in case we got other openings, we could take them.
    It occurred to us to duplicate the New York plan in Miami, with another agent, the two to work in conjunction with each other. Miami had a lot of wealthy residents and vacationers, and a lot of con men and thieves who were specialists in jewels and stocks and bonds. So there were also a lot of big-time fences who dealt with the Mafia. We could target those fences down there as well, and the agent assigned to that end and I could back each other up.
    The Miami office liked the idea. Berada and I went down to help them design the same type of proposal that we had for New York.
    Then he and I discussed who I would feel comfortable with as the undercover agent in Miami. Anytime you’re working undercover, who you bring into the operation is a crucial choice. It has to be somebody you can trust with the job and your life.
    At that time I didn’t know anybody from the Miami office who was available. The guy I decided on was a friend whose undercover name was Joe Fitzgerald. He was from Boston, stood about 6’5”, was a former defensive end for Boston College. I picked him because he was a good bull-thrower, sharp on his feet, and could really handle himself. He was basically a street guy. He had been in Miami enough to know his way around. So we brought Joe Fitz down to Miami and filled him in on the whole operation, and he accepted the job.
    We would launch the