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Benjamin "Lefty" Ruggiero (April 19, 1926 – November 24, 1994 [nb 1]) was an American mobster in the Bonanno crime family. He is well known for his friendship and mentorship of FBI undercover agent Joseph D. Pistone, who Ruggiero knew as Donnie Brasco. When Pistone's operation was ended on July 26, 1981, the FBI intercepted and arrested ...
Mirra introduced Pistone to "Lefty" Ruggiero and offered him a job handling his slot-machine route. Pistone went under the name "Donnie Brasco" and posed as a jewel thief. In 1977, [1] Mirra fled New York after being indicted for drug trafficking. The FBI caught up with him three months later and he was sent to federal prison again for eight ...
When Mirra was sent to prison, Pistone was tutored in the ways of the Mafia by Bonanno soldier Benjamin "Lefty" Ruggiero, whose captain was Mike "Mimi" Sabella. [42] After the murder of Galante, Pistone reported to captain Dominick "Sonny Black" Napolitano. [42] [41] Following the Galante hit, Massino began jockeying for power with Napolitano.
Pistone was later portrayed by Johnny Depp in the 1977 movie “Donnie Brasco," which also starred Al Pacino as New York crime family member Benjamin “Lefty” Ruggiero. The other was Gail T ...
In 1978 New York City, Lefty Ruggiero, an aging enforcer in the Bonanno crime family, meets Joseph D. Pistone, a young undercover FBI agent posing as jewel thief "Donnie Brasco". Donnie insists that a diamond that Lefty has acquired from a strip club owner is fake; when the two confront the owner, Donnie beats him up and takes his car as repayment.
He wrote about his experience in a book, which inspired the 1997 movie starring Johnny Depp as Pistone and Al Pacino as New York crime family member Benjamin “Lefty” Ruggiero.
Mirra claims he owns him since he brought him in, Lefty says he owns him because he was the first to put a claim on him, and Sonny Black as the captain says Brasco belongs to him. After six years undercover, the operation becomes increasingly dangerous. Three powerful captains are murdered; gunned down by fellow Bonanno family members.
Joseph Dominick Pistone (born September 17, 1939) is an American former FBI agent who worked undercover as Donnie Brasco between September 1976 and July 1981, [nb 1] as part of an infiltration primarily into the Bonanno crime family under the tutelage of Anthony Mirra and later Dominick Napolitano, and to a lesser extent the Colombo crime family, two of the Five Families of the Mafia in New ...