The Joe Rogan Experience never ceases to intrigue people as the host invites guests from across all walks of life. From space exploration to artificial intelligence, the 55-year-old’s podcast is a goldmine for people who share similar interests. Recently, though, the focus shifted to a Mafia-related angle, as Rogan hosted American undercover cop Joe Pistone, who has a movie based on his life.

Remember Hollywood star Johnny Depp‘s portrayal of the titular role of Donnie Brasco? That movie earned an Oscar nomination, as the name of the movie was the alter ego of Joe Pistone back in the late 70s and early 80s, when he disguised himself as a jewel thief. That was a part of a bigger operation to take down the Colombo Crime Family, which was one of the five mafia families in New York. And guess what? Pistone had plenty of stories for Joe Rogan.

Joe Pistone recalled the first time he interacted with a member of the Colombo family, which was in a bar near his house in Yorkville. Apparently, it was his attempt to connect with, as he put it, one of the “wise guys,” who often come to feast there with their spouses and partners as well. Pistone spoke about a lady who was a regular but didn’t have her partner there one day. Surprisingly, she’d come over to him and greet him, which he never expected.

“I used to go to this one place, and, actually, this place wasn’t too far from my apartment up in Yorkville. And wise guys would come in there… with their girlfriends for dinner. And, I always would sit at the bar,” Joe Pistone told Joe Rogan on the #2343 JRE episode. “One day, I go in there and the wise guys are there, one of the girlfriends, but there’s one guy missing. So I’m at the bar, and I guess she gets up. She goes to the ladies’ room. She comes by, and she says, ‘Hello.'”

Well, the natural response from the undercover Joe Pistone was to greet her back. However, he had to make sure he didn’t step over any of the mobster’s authority, and so he’d clear the air with the bartender, claiming that he didn’t mean to strike up a conversation with the lady. He made use of some mobster terminology to give them the hint that he and they are not worlds apart.

“And I just said hello. Now, again, knowing your enemy, knowing how they operate. So the first thing I do is I call a bartender over… Now I know his name, but I don’t call him by his name because I was never introduced to him. So I just said, ‘Sir,’ I said, ‘I want to go on record’. That’s a mob term. ‘I want to go on record. I didn’t ask that young lady to stop and say hello, and he just nods and that’s it. Well, fast forward, this happens, like, three or four different times.”

Well, Joe Pistone’s undercover plans would start taking motion as the hellos from the lady kept becoming a recurring occurrence. It was then that he came across the first person associated with the Colombo Crime family. Here’s what he had to say.

Joe Pistone recalls the exact moment he met the Colombo family’s ‘Charlie’

Joe Pistone claimed that he never proceeded to do more than simply greet the woman every day in response to her. However, in one instance, a man, going simply by the name ‘Charlie’, would come over to him, revealing that the lady’s partner had been removed from the equation, or in Mafia terms, “whacked.” So, if he wanted to approach her, Pistone would have had no issues.

“About the fourth time, the same thing. You know? She would come over, and I would call him over. So finally… he said, ‘If you wanna talk to her, go ahead. Her boyfriend went bye-bye’. He didn’t go to Disneyland, Joe. He got whacked,” Joe Piston further told Joe Rogan. But the first interaction resulted in many more thereafter, and they soon started talking about the more normal things in life. Eventually, Joe Pistone would build a close enough relationship with Charlie to reveal to him his name, but not the whole thing. Why? Well, Pistone told Joe Rogan that people in the Mafia choose to use their first name or a nickname. That was the foundation of his infiltration of the Colombo Crime Family.

“He knows that I’m a street guy. So he, now he comes over to me, and now we start talking. Talking about baseball, talking about how screwed up New York City is at the time. And, finally, he says, ‘Hey. My name is Charlie. I said, ‘My name is Donnie,'” Joe Pistone added. “Now that’s another thing. These guys don’t introduce themselves like normal people… It’s nickname or first name. So that’s another notch with him that this kid knows something.”

Amid this, fan communities on X and Reddit have flocked to the real Donnie Brasco story, drawing parallels with classic underground infiltration narratives. On Reddit’s r/MafiaHistories a user noted, “It’s wild to hear Pistone casually saying ‘whacked’ like it’s small talk…that’s the kind of access you never get in mainstream interviews.” That kind of insight shapes how fans are reacting; many are now exploring vintage court transcripts and the original FBI files, turning this episode into a small viral dive into mafia history.

Well, it’s safe to say that Joe Rogan was pretty intrigued to hear the whole story from the real-life Donnie Brasco himself. But what do you think? Drop your comments below.