National Geographic - The Mafia HD (2005) 3 The Great Betrayal

THE SOPRANOS WAS FICTION - THIS IS ALL TOO REAL. Discover 1950s home movie footage that reveals mob family life. Encounter interviews with surviving gangsters and join them in visiting locations that still bring a shudder of fear. Witness interviews with the FBI agents who risked their lives to break the mob, examine rare surveillance footage, hear taped conversations that took the Dons down, and more. This is a history of the Mafia that has remained shrouded by its code of honour until now. Features interviews with Bill Bonnano, mobster-son of Joe Bonnano, the longest-serving New York Boss of all time; Henry Hill, mobster who became the subject of the movie Goodfellas ; Joe Pistone, undercover agent best known by his undercover name, Donnie Brasco; gangsters Dominick Montigilio and Frank Culotta; former Mayor of Palermo Leoluca Orlando; Town Councillor of Corleone in Sicily Dino Paternostro. These and more reveal - from firsthand experience - the rituals and structure, the murders and corruption that make up the business end of organised crime and the secret world of THE MAFIA.

Produced & Directed by Charlie Smith ; Produced by Wall to Wall Ltd in association with Five and NDR for National Geographic Channel

Part 3 The Great Betrayal

How did the mafia evolve from gangs into a multi-national organisation run as efficiently as a legitimate business? In 1931, legendary mobster “Lucky” Luciano formed a mafia board to establish policy among the families. The first of a four-part series on the American mafia reveals how the FBI ignored their existence until a meeting in a sleepy upstate New York hollow showed them something they couldn't deny. In the 1950s, America was booming. The economy was flourishing and the population was basking in post-war prosperity. Capitalising on all this prosperity was organised crime, run by Italian mobsters known as the Mafia. Run from the top by a board of directors, it had its fingers in many pies - including the unions, gambling, prostitution, the building industry and the waterside. The law enforcement authorities however, denied their existence, preferring to focus attention on the 'red peril' of communism. But a meeting in November 1957 in the sleepy town of Apalachin, upstate New York, attended by dozens of Italian businessmen in fedoras and sharp suits, aroused the suspicion of local police. When they went to investigate, the party guests tried to flee. The police had unwittingly stumbled upon the leadership of the entire American mafia, who had gathered to discuss the introduction of heroin smuggling from Sicily to the US. The crime fighters could not ignore them any longer.

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