When Richie Fagan heard the name of the new man who was joining his organised crime investigations division at the New York Police Department, he was confused.
“I said, ‘He doesn’t sound Italian,’ ” he said. His division cultivated mafia informants and infiltrated New York’s Italian crime families. “All our undercovers are Italian-looking gentlemen,” he said. The new man came from a family of middle-class professionals in Queens “who didn’t want him being a cop”, said Detective Fagan. He had an excellent record in the narcotics division. “But I said, ‘We are on the Gambino team. This fellow is Jewish.’”
Read the full article by Will Pavia at The Australian (subscription only).