Flipping Capo - by Seamus McElearney & Barbara Finkelstein (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Séamus McElearney's early days on an FBI organized crime squad were full of grunt work.

For months he was mired in administrative tasks, including the transcription of secret recordings of the DeCavalcante and Bonanno crime families. Eighteen months later, McElearney assisted in his squad's arrest of thirty-nine Mafia suspects; he led the team arresting Anthony Capo, a DeCavalcante soldier linked to stock fraud and conspiracy to commit murder.

Barely a week after Capo's arrest, McElearney accomplished what no other law enforcement agent had ever done in the hundred years of the DeCavalcante crime family's existence: he flipped one of their made men. Anthony Capo confessed to dozens of illegal activities, including two murders and eleven murder conspiracies, and agreed to work with the government to bring down his former family.

What followed was a spiral effect of cooperation as McElearney and colleagues flipped three more DeCavalcante associates, one captain, and an acting boss. Flipping Capo resulted in the Bureau solving eleven murders, convicting seventy-one defendants, and dismantling the DeCavalcante crime family.

Thanks to the redemptive relationship he built with Capo, McElearney helped unmask a criminal network that led to the RICO convictions of the entire DeCavalcante hierarchy, just as the world was coming to know them as the "real Sopranos."

Review Quotes

"Séamus McElearney delivers a powerful and unflinching account of one of organized crime's most complex figures. Through the life of Anthony Capo--a made member of the DeCavalcante crime family turned FBI informant--McElearney exposes the brutal inner workings of the mob, the loyalties that bind men to silence, and the moments that fracture those bonds forever. As someone who has lived and operated in this world from the other side of the law, I found this book to be both authentic and chilling in its detail. It's a gripping narrative that pulls no punches and offers rare insight into the dark reality behind the myth of the Mafia." --Giovanni Rocco, former FBI undercover operative and coauthor of Giovanni's Ring: My Life Inside the Real Sopranos

"Flipping Capo provides a consistently entertaining insider's take on how the FBI manages again and again to convince full-time sociopathic criminals to turn on their felonious brethren in the hopes of redemption and maybe a little less time spent inside a federal prison cell." --Greg B. Smith, author of Made Men

"Forget The Sopranos. Bronx-bred FBI agent Séamus McElearney takes us into the lives of the DeCavalcantes, the real mob family whose organized criminal operations stretched from Jersey to Florida. McElearney gives us a gripping tale that begins with the DeCavalcante soldier he flipped--and ends with the near-total eradication of the New Jersey Mafia." --Larry McShane, author of Little Vic and the Great Mafia War

"If you're a fan of The Sopranos, you've got to read Flipping Capo. Unlike the TV show, this book is the real deal. Agent Séamus McElearney recounts the complex investigation he and his squad undertook to dismantle the violent New Jersey-based Mafia. I couldn't put the book down. . . . This is a great story by one of the FBI's all-time top organized crime agents." --Joaquin "Jack" Garcia, retired FBI agent and author of Making Jack Falcone

"This is the true story behind the takedown of the 'real Sopranos, ' the DeCavalcante crime family of New Jersey. Page after page, it unravels the unlikely story of how a young, bored Irish American bank auditor joined the FBI and soon persuaded a killer to cooperate with prosecutors and unmask his bosses. With the killer's testimony, the former auditor, legendary investigators, and prosecutors put away dozens of criminals." --Charles Bagli, author of Other People's Money

"Flipping Capo is much more than a typical true crime release. This work stands out not just for its law enforcement perceptions and memorable courtroom moments, but for its profoundly human insights." --Douglas Schofield, coauthor of Giovanni's Ring

About the Author

Séamus McElearney joined the FBI in 1998 as a special agent initially assigned to investigate organized crime at the local, federal, and international levels. For the next fifteen years, his tactical and strategic decisions led to the takedown of the DeCavalcante, Bonanno, and Colombo crime families. In 2011, McElearney--then a supervisor--spearheaded the largest Mafia arrest in FBI history, comprising 127 defendants across the United States and Italy. The record holds to this day. McElearney is a subject matter expert for New York City reporters who write about La Cosa Nostra criminal activities in the northeast United States. In 2013, McElearney was invited to the White House as a Service to America Medal finalist for leading "lengthy undercover investigations that have severely disrupted two of New York's notorious and violent organized crime families." McElearney retired from the FBI in April 2019. He is now global head of corporate security at a major financial institution. Barbara Finkelstein is the author of Summer Long-a-Coming, a Harold U. Ribalow Book Prize nominee, and a feature writer and book reviewer for the New York Times, AARP: The Magazine, Newsday, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and many other media outlets. She has also worked as a corporate staff writer and as a longtime ghostwriter for the Michael Levin Writing Company.