Hide your true identity to capture America's most dangerous criminal

Sitting around a table playing cards and smoking stolen cigarettes at the back of a shady store, a group of gangster friends from the same neighborhood in New York City, bullshit about all kinds of villainies they had committed since they were teens. Donnie, the new guy, listens attentively and laughs with them whenever crazy or silly details come to the fore out of a dozen tales of robberies, hijackings, frauds and yes, murders. He blends in quite naturally. The guys trust him because he’s smart and brings good money to the crew.

What this crowd of goodfellas ignore is that Donnie’s real name is Joseph, and he’s an FBI undercover agent trying to infiltrate deep inside New York’s Mafia, all the way to the bosses. It’s the nineteen seventies, so they have no reasons to distrust him as they would today. Instead, Donnie memorizes every detail, collects every piece of evidence, extracts any inconspicuous confession, fully aware that if he fails, he’ll get killed, shot or strangled without warning. But if he prevails, he’ll send them all to prison.