The Italians were the mafia contingent at FCI Loretto — and, after the Aryans, the second and far warmer alliance of John Kiriakou’s prison years.
The five families at Loretto
When Kiriakou says Italians, he means it literally: men named Gambino, Bonanno, Lucchese, Genovese — “you get the idea.”[1][2] Loretto held the boss of the Gambino family, the underboss of the DeCavalcantes, and the Genovese boss of the Port of Newark — “serious hardcore made guys from the five families.”[3] Before he self-surrendered, Kiriakou’s brother — who had rented an apartment from Carlo Gambino’s sister in Brooklyn for nine years — called with research: stay away from the Gambino boss, the man who replaced John Gotti, in on a stack of murder counts. Kiriakou did.[4][5][6]
Pete across the hall
A senior captain in the Bonanno family lived directly across the hall. Kiriakou passed him every finished book and newspaper — good for relations — until Pete finally asked: “Why do you sit with those Nazi retards in the cafeteria?”[7] Pete’s sentencing advice became one of Kiriakou’s staples: told Kiriakou had thirty months, he said, “Oh, you could do that standing on your head” — and not to tell anybody.[8] It was Pete who tugged his sleeve out of the cafeteria staredown — “are you crazy?”[9]
A later telling gives the exchange in full and supplies Kiriakou’s own answer, which was that it had never been a choice: on his first day the Aryans had simply told him where to sit and he had done as instructed. Pete’s response was the whole of the transfer — “from today, you are with the Italians” — to which Kiriakou’s reply was “it’s about time.” He describes the Italians as the smallest of the prison’s factions and the one commanding the highest respect, more than the Black or Latino groupings, and dates the invitation to a couple of months into his sentence rather than his second year; the two accounts differ on the timing.[10][11][12]
In his second year Kiriakou was formally invited over: “From today, you’re with the Italians.” They treated him very well — including via a crooked guard on the payroll who brought in pork loin, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and mushrooms.[13] The bond, he explains, was two-part: being Greek was half the battle; hating the FBI as much as they did was the other half.[14][15]
”Get off my property”
The friendships outlived the sentence — and drew the FBI to his door: agents suggested Pete, released, had taken over leadership of the Gambino family, and wanted Kiriakou’s help. “You want me to rat out a five-families boss? Get off my property.” He closed the door and called his attorney.[16] One of his best friends in the world remains Mark, an Italian from that circle.[17] Even his protection radiated outward: an Italian told a tough prisoner named Blue that his friend John lived in Central One — Blue’s answer was, “the CIA guy? I never mess with that guy.”[18]
The cafeteria order
Kiriakou describes the cafeteria at FCI Loretto as strictly divided, with African American prisoners seated on one side and everyone else on the other. Within that, the front table was occupied by white prisoners convicted of crimes unrelated to child sex offences, most of them Aryans; the next table held Italians on one side and Native Americans on the other; and behind them sat the prisoners convicted of sex offences against children, together with the informants, who were obliged to sit together.[19][20]
His acceptance was not automatic. Kiriakou reports that the group’s most senior figure repeatedly asked others to vouch for him, because he was afraid Kiriakou was a police officer, the man in question not distinguishing clearly between the CIA and the FBI. The formulation that settled it, as relayed to Kiriakou, was that the FBI are police and informants while the CIA protected us from the Muslims.[21]
Structure and standing
Kiriakou argues that Italians imprisoned for organised-crime offences are treated by the system as a gang — they even have their own suffix on the prisoner number, 047, denoting mob affiliation — and that this is not fair.[22] Accepting the classification for the sake of argument, he ranks them against the Crips, the Bloods, the Latin Kings, the Norteños and MS-13, and concludes that the Italians were the smallest and the most highly respected, hands down and without exception.[23]
They were also, he says, the only such group without a shot caller — and did not need one. At any given time there were six, seven or eight made men, who did everything by consensus; anything significant, such as a proposal to assault another prisoner, had to be agreed among them.[24] One rule he says he learned quickly was that you never wanted to be the subject of a particular dismissive phrase, because it meant you were on a list.[25]
The cross-examination
Kiriakou recounts appearing as an expert witness for the defence in a federal trial, on behalf of a defendant represented by a public defender and charged with six felonies, each carrying a mandatory sentence of life without parole.[26]
The entire cross-examination by the U.S. attorney, which Kiriakou describes as mean and aggressive, concerned the Italians at Loretto: whether he had been with them, and whether he had said they were honourable. He confirmed both. Told that they were all convicted murderers, he answered that he did not know what they had been convicted of, that it was none of his business, and that in his dealings with them they were honourable to a man — adding that he remains friends with many of them.[27]
The defendant was acquitted on all six counts, an outcome Kiriakou notes does not happen often.[28]
The four days’ notice
In a June 2026 telling, Kiriakou gives the welcome a specific mechanism and a lead time. One of the Italians saw in the New York Times that he was arriving in four days, and “took it upon himself to go to literally every one of the Italians” with a distinction drawn in advance: there is a CIA man coming, he is not an FBI agent, “the FBI are rats and cops and the CIA protected us from the terrorists.”[29] The result was that the Italians “welcomed me with open arms.”[29]
He rates that intervention above the one that came first. On his very first day two Aryans walked into his cell and he put up his fists and asked what they wanted; they had come to tell him that because he was neither a child molester nor an informant he could sit with them.[30][29] The Italian’s canvass, he says, mattered “much more importantly.”[29]
Sunday’s paper, Thursday’s arrival
A May 2026 telling supplies the calendar behind the four days’ notice. The New York Times ran the story on its front page on the Sunday before he went in, naming the Pennsylvania prison he was bound for; he self-surrendered on the Thursday.[31]
The canvass it set off is given in the same terms as his other accounts, with the Italian who ran it identified as the man who “became my best friend” at FCI Loretto. He went to “every single one of the Italians” with the distinction that mattered: there is a CIA man arriving Thursday, he is not FBI — “FBI is rats and snitches, CIA protected us from the Muslims.”[31][32]
Kiriakou’s own gloss on that formulation, offered when the interviewer pointed out that his actual record was one of protecting Muslims, was to let the useful version stand: what mattered inside was that “the Muslims thought I protected the Muslims."[32]
"From today, you’re with the Italians”
In a 2026 retelling Kiriakou names the families whose members asked him the question that changed his seating: “the Italians named Bonanno, Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese” wanted to know why he was sitting with the Nazis in the cafeteria.[33][34] His answer was that he had been told to on his first day.[34]
The reassignment came as a single sentence, delivered by “one of the under bosses of one of the five families” in a manner Kiriakou describes as “very cinematically”: “From today, you’re with the Italians.” And so, he says, “after that, I was with the Italians.”[34]