What did six years undercover in the Mafia actually cost the man who did it, and who got rich off the story?
In this video, we break down the complete economics of Donnie Brasco: the price the mob put on Joe Pistone’s life, the fortune Hollywood made from his story, and why the FBI operation that started it all recovered almost none of the money.
Discover how a federal agent on a government salary infiltrated the Bonanno crime family for nearly six years, how a soldier named Lefty Ruggiero underwrote him inside the family, how the operation produced more than two hundred indictments and cost the Bonannos their seat on the Mafia’s ruling Commission, and how the same story that carried a five hundred thousand dollar contract on Pistone’s head became a film that grossed almost a hundred and twenty-five million dollars worldwide. Then we get into Hollywood accounting, the reason no honest profit number exists for a movie that big.
▶ The companion documentary covers this on YouTube
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