Joaquin “Jack” Garcia is a retired FBI agent who worked 24 of his 26 years in the bureau undercover. He spent three years infiltrating the Gambino crime family under the alias “Jack Falcone.”
Garcia talks to Business Insider about his unconventional entry into the FBI, including challenges with his weight and Cuban background. He discusses the “mob school” he attended to learn about the mannerisms and foods of New York’s Italian mafia.
Garcia’s close relationship with the Gambino captain Greg DePalma and key events such as a violent assault in a Bloomingdale’s led to the indictment of 32 mobsters.
He recounts being proposed for membership in the family before the FBI prematurely ended the investigation. He contrasts the romanticized Italian mob with the greater brutality of drug cartels and discusses other major cases he worked, including police corruption in Hollywood, Florida, and Boston.
After retiring from the FBI in 2006, Jack wrote the New York Times bestseller “Making Jack Falcone: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia Family.”
