Name: Joe Rogan Experience #2343 - Joe Pistone
Uploaded: 2025-07-01T17:01:09.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #2343 - Joe Pistone' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-07-01. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Joe Rogan Experience #2343 - Joe Pistone' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-07-01. Transcript available.

Joe Rogan Experience #2343 - Joe Pistone

Nice to meet you my pleasure you always wear sunglasses that the hide your
identity still
actually it's it's I have to see number one but where I where I reside now my
neighbors have no
idea that they're living next to Donnie Brasco so well you have a very distinct
voice I know I don't want
to ask where you live but you know what a wild life you've had sir well pretty
much yeah yeah
it never expected to go like that but it it took off so when you you first
started working it was
with the FBI correct well I was with Naval Intelligence for three years and
then I always
wanted to be in law enforcement and I was working in Philadelphia actually and
you do a lot of work
with the FBI because you know on the government installations government basis
so I became friendly
with some FBI agents and I figured if I you know when I get up when I finish
this tour with NIS
I'm gonna go into law enforcement so I might as well try to for the best and
the best that you know the FBI
and so how does that lead to you infiltrating the mob well you know I didn't I
didn't infiltrate the mob right from the get-go you know it
but uh look I grew up in uh in Patterson New Jersey I grew up in an all-italian
neighborhood uh
new wise guys went to high school with sons of wise guys and when you're in a
neighborhood you know you
know you know you know who the wise guys are you hang out at the you're they
let you hang out at the
the social clubs because you know you're a neighborhood kid they know it so I
knew the streets
so when I went into the FBI I was you know I was street smart basically Joe
that's what it comes
down to you know uh and uh my first assignments were bank robberies fugitives
gambling cases
and uh I started doing some uh little undercover work uh on gambling cases
because back then the FBI was
big into into gambling uh interstate gambling cases so what was your first
undercover work first was uh
infiltrating a uh a gambling house in uh Jacksonville Florida actually that's
what was my first office what
kind of gambling were they doing uh craps uh I had a regular casino going and
uh you know I felt
comfortable around that stuff because I grew up with that stuff you know I grew
up uh uh like I say in
the neighborhood uh crap games card games it wasn't was anything new to me and
being around gangsters was not
like uh intimidating because I was around gangsters growing up so uh I didn't
have any problem
you know getting into these games uh and identifying the major players uh and
who was running them and
that's basically what it was so when when you do this did you have to testify
in court with these guys
yeah later on after the case goes down but most of these guys plead guilty so
you never go to trial
uh because uh you know it it wasn't where they were facing you know 15 20 years
you know
they might get a year or two years and then you know uh get some time knocked
off their sentences
so most of it uh they plead and so you never have to appear in a court so but
was there an issue with
you being discovered and then getting found out and worrying about your safety
afterwards well not too
much with these cases no not too much with those cases and then I I worked a
lot of uh stolen art
buying you know uh buying stolen art buying stocks and bonds swag stuff like
that so for how many years did
you do stuff like that before you started being undercover in the mob uh let's
see probably uh
four or five years yeah yeah so you slowly sort of got acclimated with being
undercover you do a bunch
of cases and then how do they approach you well what happened was is that uh i'm
working out in new york
the new york office of the fbi and there's a there's a big case in uh in tampa
florida they have a case going
on uh guys that were uh stealing uh automobiles high-priced automobiles in
other words uh you go to them
and you say hey i want a cadillac okay what color you want all right what model
you want and then they'd
go out and hook it so they had uh they grabbed one of the guys uh and they they
flipped them and uh they
grabbed his son and uh they said hey look you know you help us and we'll we'll
cut your son a break
he said okay so he said look uh we want to put an undercover agent in with this
crew
they operated all up and down the east coast from baltimore all the way down to
florida
and uh the guy that uh was running it was a what we call a half-assed wise guy
out of at a baltimore
so he says all right so he introduced me to this guy and uh as a car thief but
before
uh he introduced me i said look i gotta know how to steal cars
so he gave me uh about a week's lesson on how to steal cars how to hook cars
they're hot wire this is like what year was this this was in 19 let's see 1970
maybe 73 74. so you essentially just pop in the ignition pop in the ignition
crossing wires crossing wires and some cars had alarm systems told me how to
get under the car
disarm the alarm system how to use a slim jim to get in the door and then how
to uh uh how to pop the
ignition uh and once i learned you know i figured i could do that then he
introduced me and i got in
with this crew there was a crew about he was running like five or six guys and
uh i did that for a year
and a half stole cars um stole the tractor trailers i knew how to drive i knew
how to drive uh uh
tractor trailers because i did that in college during the summer time i drove a
tractor trailer
uh during the summer so you take the cars load them on a tractor trailer no we
just stole the cars and i
bring them to you oh but i mean we stole uh rigs too oh i see because we were
dealing with companies too
got it you know these guys that uh own some some trucking companies they
so you have to trust this guy though to get you inside
right you have to trust this guy to not this up and say hey this is a car thief
exactly that's got to be hair racing well it is because you know the guy's an
informant and
and he's already in trouble he's in trouble uh but he was in his basic reason
for for getting me in
was he wanted to get his son out of trouble so you know we we had about a short
hairs there that uh hey
you know if this goes good your son is free we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna
cut your son free so
that's what happened so i did that for a year and a half and uh uh i get back
to new york we
they make the arrest uh i went to trial in that case but that case was in uh in
florida uh
and uh a funny story on that case is uh if you want to hear it that's right
we said we had uh i hooked one hooked a mercedes and delivered to this guy
and uh go to his house and he wasn't home but his wife was there
so i said hey you know i'm delivering this car for your husband and she says oh
okay
uh yeah give her the keys and because he had already paid and so me and the
other guy we leave
fast forward now to court i'm going i'm sitting in the uh outside the court
getting ready to testify
and there's this lady uh she looked familiar it was two two ladies and uh so uh
she walks up to me she says uh
aren't you donnie i said yeah
she said uh you delivered a car to my house right i said yeah
she said we know my husband's on trial now i said yeah i know i'm going in to
testify
she says after he goes to jail you want to go to dinner
dirty lady i said no thanks she might poison you yeah so i get back to new york
and uh
i had a real great supervisor up there was she hot i can't remember joe so long
ago i would have
remembered that part if she was i would have remembered yeah you probably
remember it so uh
i get back to new york and i had a real good supervisor uh named guy barata it
was an italian
guy from uh from the bronx good street agent um and uh he was a supervisor the
truck hijacking squad
and back in the day they were hijacking and all these hijackings were orchestrated
by the mob
the mafia and uh they were probably doing you know eight to ten hijackings a
day which was big time money
because they were pharmaceuticals uh high value uh food items like lobsters
coffee you know you're
talking about the 47 foot trailers so you're talking a lot of money but they
were all run by the mob
so he uh i get back to new york i get to new york and uh he says hey i'm
thinking about doing this
undercover operation uh see if you know we can get something going with these
uh these truck hijackers
so the idea was you know nobody had ever infiltrated the mob before you know
actually the mafia mafia
hadn't had had some informants in in with them but nobody had actually gotten
in
so the idea was let's let's try to hit the fences fences are the you know the
guys that uh that sell
the goods sell the swag and sell the goods so you know you need to have a
profession i mean nobody's
going to do anything with you without a profession and it has to be one that's
attractive to them
and plus in the government you're if you're going to go undercover your
profession can't be one of
violence so who's not violent jewel thief so i figure okay i'll go in as a
jewel thief well
if you're going to go in as a jewel thief what do you have to know you got to
know diamonds and precious
gems right
all right so i went to i went to school i went to diamond school diamond and
precious gem school
oh so you have to be able to identify yeah i mean use a lens well that's how
you're going to get that's
how you're going to get caught right right right right is if you get into a
conversation you don't
know what the hell you're talking about right right how long is the school for
i went i think for a
couple months until i got you know where i was comfortable now take it another
step further if you're
a jewel thief what else you have to know you gotta know how to get in places
right so pick locks i had to
learn how to pick locks right what else you gotta know crack safes you gotta
know about safes yeah you
gotta know about alarm systems so i had my guys when i say my guys our guys you
know our tech guys
school me on lock picking different types of safes and alarm systems so all
that took a few months
before before i felt comfortable you know and then i went out and on this
operation we didn't do anything
with contacts that was everything i did i did under donnie brasco i was i
rented an apartment
i bought a car uh utilities you know phones everything everything as a as a
citizen
in quotes donnie brasco they get you a social security number and the whole
deal social security
everything but you know i don't want to get into how they do that but you know
nothing could be
at that time they couldn't they couldn't uh uncover anything so once i got my
apartment i bought a car
i had all that set up uh and again you have to know the mafia you have to know
new york city
uh you don't just walk into a place you know and say hey you know i'm a jewel
thief right
doesn't work that way you gotta you gotta get seen you gotta be around
uh so i moved out of my residence uh of course my family wasn't wasn't in uh in
new york anyway
but i had to move into my apartment uh and we had certain bars and restaurants
that we knew these
fences and wise guys hung out in and the idea was just go in get my face seen
and hopefully get into
conversation with somebody uh how do you go and get your facing you just show
up by yourself just show up
is that suspicious though a guy shows up by himself not from the neighborhood
no well that's the thing
because i couldn't say hey i'm from brooklyn right from manhattan i'm from the
bronx because
these guys have the contacts everywhere right so it was up to me if i got into
conversation with anybody
my story was and then again you have to you have to you have to know your enemy
okay and the enemy was
the mafia so you have to know about the mafia you have to know if you do get
into conversation with these
guys and they're trying to check you out what's your backstory where you're
from my background was i was
an orphan okay and i moved between florida and california why an orphan because
then i wouldn't have to
produce a mother and a f