Former mob boss who made $10 million a week for seven years reveals what he learned about doing business in the criminal organization

A former mob boss who earned $10 million a week for seven years shared what he learned about doing business within the criminal organization.

New Yorker Michael Franzese, who served as a caporegime within the Colombo crime family, spoke candidly about the criminal organization and life afterward with Steven Bartlett on his podcast Diary of a CEO.

The father of seven, who has since rebuilt his life after a stint in prison as a motivational speaker and TV personality, explains how he followed in the footsteps of his father John Franzese, a high-ranking ‘underboss’ of the Colombo family.

The 73-year-old explained how a particular mafia tactic could be applied to “civilian” companies and that he said it was “great” in business negotiations.

He said, “Sometimes you can walk into a room and be the smartest person in the room – you don’t want anyone to know that, you just want people to talk. Throw them a bone and they’ll come back and talk, so you get to know the person’s personality.

New Yorker Michael Franzese, who earned $10 million a week for seven years, revealed what he learned about doing business in the criminal organization

“You can learn so much from people just when they’re talking and you can keep your mouth shut. There are other times when you’re not the smartest person in the room – and by keeping your mouth shut, no one knows that.

‘It’s a great technique and in that life it was extremely valuable to me. I was always the last to speak. It helped me to master that art because you had these guys [in the mafia] who were very smart. If they had not been successful in that life, they would have been somewhere else.’

Elsewhere he argued that as a boss you can’t manage down to the last detail what your staff does. You can’t say, for example, ‘I’ll do what I do best, delegate the rest.’

He said, ‘You can’t micromanage, because when you micromanage, you’re taking away from your best talent. I’ve always said, “Do what I’m best at, delegate the rest,” and then hopefully you’ll have the talent to motivate people and get the most out of them.

He added: ‘I always tell people to get their personal life in order, because normally your work is somehow a reflection of your personal life. You can’t do one well and not do the other well, because they influence each other.’

The former Colombo family member once earned as much as $10 million a week over seven years through gasoline taxes and shell companies in Panama.

During this period, while the authorities tried to collect taxes, his company went bankrupt. This tactic was repeated from 1985 to 1992.

This arrangement cemented his status as one of the most successful mob moneymakers since Al Capone.

Michael, who served as a caporegime in the Colombo crime family, spoke candidly about the crime organization and life afterward with Steven Bartlett (pictured) on his podcast Diary of a CEO

Michael said of the 29 months of solitary confinement that “three words” were crucial to his survival.

“You know, my dad taught me again. He said, ‘Mike, I’m going to tell you three things that are going to help you when you go to prison, because one day you’re going to go there.'”

“He said three words that are going to go a long way – ‘please, thank you, excuse me.’ And he said the reason for that, he said all those guys in prison that never got respect on the streets, they all want it there.

“They want to show that they’re human, you know, that they’re tough guys or something. You walk up to someone, ‘Excuse me’; you want to cut someone off in line, go eat whatever, and say, ‘Do you mind?’

You know, “Excuse me, can I come see you for a minute?” Never just stand in front of them… and somebody hands you something… ‘Hey, thank you, thank you.’ Be cordial.

He described the experience as “rough” and “not easy,” and noted that he saw others who “didn’t do well” under such conditions. Michael voiced his opposition to solitary confinement for juveniles, calling it a “form of torture.”

He justified the way the Mafia kills people by saying that they “only kill their own people,” meaning people within the organization.

He said, ‘People think that when we take the oath of omertà, which is an oath to remain silent, it is not an oath to lie, steal, cheat and kill, but does that happen as part of that life? Yes, but we are told it outright.

He claimed that there is an induction period that lasts for a few years, during which bosses test potential recruits by giving them tasks

“You come into that life and you’re told right in your face that we have rules and that you can never violate another man’s wife, daughter, sister or girlfriend. It will never get you killed.”

‘In my time we weren’t allowed to deal drugs, if you deal drugs and you get caught, you die. If you’re not honest with people, you show disrespect to someone, you hit another protagonist, you die.

“Now we understand that and they tell you that your best friend can be the one who pulls the trigger, because life comes before everything else. You can’t break the rules. That’s how we keep control of this life. That’s how we’ve lived for 100 years and that’s how it will continue.”

Michael said there is a lot of ‘nepotism’ in the life of the mafia. He said that fathers usually involve their sons in the organization.

He claimed that there is an induction period that lasts for several years, during which bosses test potential recruits by giving them tasks.

He said, “For two and a half years I was in a period where I had to do everything I was told and prove that I was worthy.

“There was a lot of authority, a lot of perceived respect. If you had a meeting at 8:00 and you weren’t there by 7:30, you were late. In that life, you can never be late.

‘Drive the boss to a meeting, three, four, five hours in the car, God forbid you leave, you go to the bathroom, get a paper, he comes out and you’re not there, oh my god, we could have been in trouble.’

Elsewhere, Franzese tells how the sight of the dead body of a loved one changed his life forever.

He explained that after his father was sent to prison, a man who had become a sort of “second father” to him and was known as “Arty the Animal” was murdered.

He said, ‘I was 19 or 20 And I walked into the funeral home, I’ll never forget his sister coming up to me and hugging me, and she said, “You’ve got to come with me, you’ve got to see what these animals did to my brother.”

“I will never forget those words. The coffin was closed and she opened the coffin and he was unrecognizable. There was a man I loved. I didn’t faint, but it affected me, it really affected me. I had never seen anything like that in real life, certainly not with someone I really cared about, someone I really loved. It definitely affected me, that’s for sure, but somehow I got over it as a young person.”

“That was a defining moment in my life, where I was able to move on and get on with my life, because I said this was part of it.”

Today, Michael is the best-selling author of books such as Blood Covenant and I’ll Make You an Offer You Can’t Refuse: Insider Business Tips from a Former Mob Boss.