I Led The Largest FBI Mafia Takedown in History | FBI Agent Seamus McElearney

The FBI's traditional reliance on historical witnesses providing testimony was no longer effective in securing convictions. Agent McElearney implemented a strategy to develop 'proactive witnesses' who would make consensual recordings of criminals admitting their crimes, providing irrefutable evidence.

Juries would no longer just believe that. So I had to change the strategy where I wanted more proactive witnesses. Witness who would go on the street and make consensual recordings. That's the best type of evidence that you can actually have.

Despite initial failures by professional evidence response teams to locate buried murder victims based on informant testimony, McElearney's agents took it upon themselves to dig deeper and found the body of William Culo. Later, his team also located remains of Carmine Gorggano and Paul Katz in a Brooklyn garage and Jimmy Burke's basement, respectively, demonstrating persistence beyond standard protocols.

So then one of the agents on my squad, Vincent Dagustinino, who lived out there, he said to me, 'Do you mind if we get some shovels ourselves?' And I said, 'Sure, we're not doing anything. We're just sitting around looking at the evidence response team doing digging.' So he got some shovels and we went back to the Wild Bill site ourselves, agents on my squad from C38. ... we started digging and next thing you know, we see white stuff. And what the Columbos used to do is they would kill you, bury you, and then put lime on top of the body.

By continuously developing proactive witnesses, the FBI gained real-time intelligence on the Colombo family's internal dynamics. This allowed them to anticipate who the mob would appoint as the next acting boss after an arrest, enabling the FBI to be 'one step ahead' and disrupt the succession repeatedly.

Every time we arrest an acting boss, we have a proactive witness on the street, we know who they're going to put up next, right? So we're kind of one step ahead of them, which was unbelievable.

The culmination of years of proactive intelligence gathering and witness cooperation led to the largest FBI mob arrest in history, involving 127 individuals across multiple states and internationally. This operation required taking over Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn to process the sheer number of arrests and personnel.

I spearhead the largest mob FBI arrest ever where we arrest 127 people that day across all states and internationally as well in Italy. The arrest was so big that there's a fort in Brooklyn called Fort Hamilton. We had to take over the fort.

McElearney emphasizes treating suspects and informants with respect, even when arresting them. This approach not only maintained his personal integrity but also, in some cases, fostered a level of trust that made individuals more willing to cooperate or at least not hold grudges, as evidenced by mobsters speaking positively about him on tape and former arrestees being cordial post-release.

Don't try to be a tough guy if you're not because these guys are going to size you up right away. You know, just be who you are. And the other thing I used to tell him too is you're not going to have a badge for forever. One day that badge is going to have to be turned in. So treat people like a human being. That's and that's the way that I would want to be treated if I was arrested.