Record
Agency history
undated
Federal Bureau of Investigation, History: Famous Cases & Criminals
FBI history: "Joe Pistone, Undercover Agent"
FBI history page on Special Agent Joseph Pistone's undercover work as "Donnie Brasco" from 1976. It says the Bonanno crew learned on July 26, 1981 that Brasco was an FBI agent and that the operation "ultimately led to more than 100 federal convictions."
- Date
- undated
- Kind
- agency-history
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-12
- Rights
- A work of the United States government, published by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Public domain in the United States. 17 U.S.C. § 105.
A page in the FBI’s “Famous Cases & Criminals” history series. It carries no date. It opens: “On July 26, 1981, he and his fellow wise guys learned that Donnie Brasco—who they knew as a small-time jewelry thief and burglar … —was actually FBI Agent Joe Pistone.” It says the role “had begun in 1976 and lasted six long years,” and that the decision to place him undercover was made by the FBI’s New York office.
The page says the operation gave the FBI “a window into the inner workings of the Mafia generally and the Bonanno family specifically … not only in New York, but in Florida, Michigan, and elsewhere,” and that “it ultimately led to more than 100 federal convictions.” It carries a photograph captioned “Special Agent Pistone (left) sits with Sonny Black (Dominick Napolitano) of the Bonanno family and unidentified woman in the 1970s,” which is filed here as its own record.
This is the Bureau’s own history essay. Pistone’s sworn account of the same work is his 1988 Senate testimony, and the court’s account is in United States v. Ruggiero.
