Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins and Camullis Robinson deconstruct Joe Valachi. What was his criminal background? What kind of crimes did Joe Valachi commit? Who was he connected to? Why did he think he was targeted for murder?

Joe Valachi was born in 1904. He was not the sharpest tool in the toolbox. Joe Valachi was uneducated but possessed great native intelligence and good memory for mafia stories. In 1963, he will put that memory to work for the government and gave the American public the first glimpse into the secretive world of the Cosa Nostra mafia. Unlike many of these guys, Joe Valachi’s family came from southern Italy, not Sicily. They came from Campania. The father was a brutal alcoholic. Joe left school and took to the streets and gang life. Joe Valachi earned his lifelong nickname of “Joe Cargo” as a young kid because he could build scoters from wooden crates better than anybody.

He started his criminal career with a Smash and Grab gang known as the Minutemen. He graduated to burglary and armed robbery. He served about a year in Sing Sing, where the guards assigned him to break rocks with a sledgehammer. After release, he was shot in the back of his head by a passing police officer who interrupted his gang in the middle of a burglary. They got away in a stolen car. The gang thought he was dead, so they dumped his body and fired several shots in the air to attract the cops. The gang thought the cops would find his body and believe he was shot in a gang fight. No cops showed up, and the gang returned. They noticed he was still breathing and took him to a neighborhood doc who used Scotch as an anesthetic while he removed the bullet. He later claimed all that work breaking rocks in Sing Sing made him so tough that this bullet could not kill him. He married a member of the Reina family and joined the Gaetano Reina mob family.

Please listen to this story because we will change your mind about the most famous Mafia turncoat until Sammy the Bull testifies. For example, Joe was the first man ever to reveal the Mafia induction ceremony. We know what he said was true because his description matches every mob guy’s description since that time.

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Transcription

00:00

Hello, welcome Wiretappers out there. Back here in studio gangland Noir. We have our good friend that many of you guys keep asking about when are you going to get cam back on Camilliuss “cam” Robinson welcome cam Hey Gary, how you doing glad to be here as always, hey, I get jealous of you people never asked me course I’m always here. Are you gonna have com back?