Yes, look at my shoes, aren't they?

Great, my God, you look like a gangster.

Welcome to watch mojo.

And today we're looking at the shocking true story of Goodfellas, you know, you, it's just funny, it's funny.

You know the way you tell the story and everything.

Funny how I mean, what's funny about it for this video?

We're pulling back the curtain of martin Scorsese's 1990 mob movie.

What are your thoughts on Goodfellas?

Let us know in the comments at the beginning of the iconic film, Henry Hill famously claims that he always wanted to be a gangster as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster, but is that true?

Well, yeah, pretty much.

Hill was raised in Brooklyn and his house was located across the street from a taxi dispatch.

This cabbie was a popular site for new york mobsters including paul Vario Vario was a capo in the lucchese crime family who used the cab stand as a front for his criminal exploits.

A young Hill was drawn to the location and inquired about part time work and it was through this inquiry that he became acquainted with the mob.

He was in awe of paulie's money and power.

The gangster looked out for him and told anyone who asked that Henry was a relative.

Of course, Henry was only half Sicilian.

He served drinks at card games and ran small errands, nothing to bigger important paul would ask him to, to steal certain things from the grocery store including olive oil, which Henry would oblige him.

I mean he was barely out of knee pants and he began running errands for one of the strongest and biggest cruise in new york in the lucchese family, the paul Vario.

But this changed when Hill was just 14.

Then he started working as a loan shark for Vario and was given a no show job in a bricklayers union.

A favorite in the world of organized crime.

A no show job is when someone is placed on a payroll but not actually expected to show up.

Hence the name.

They get all the rewards and enact none of the labor Henry didn't realize he was becoming an involved in one of the new york mafia's most violent crews.

At this point, Hill was fully ingrained in the mob when a rival cab stand opened up across the street, he helped burn the cars.

He got into stolen credit card scams.

After a brief stint in the army, he started hijacking cars.

13, I was making more money than most of the grownups in the neighborhood.

I mean I had more money than I could spend.

I had it all.

Unfortunately, this wasn't the career path that Hills electrician father envisioned for his son and it tore at the family fabric.

His father knew the kind of work that was going on at the cab stand and he wanted no part of it.

In fact, according to Hill's sister Lucille Crisafulli, her father refused any gift that was given to him by Hill assuming that it was paid for with blood money.

My father didn't want any part of his money, never took a penny from him, never would take a gift from.

My father wouldn't open a gift if Henry gave it to him.

It was during this time that Hill met all the big players in the story.

Aside from paul Vario Hill became acquainted with James burke, a fellow mobster in the lucchese crime family, he was a maniac, he was a maniac and people knew that they couldn't cross that line.

You crossed the line when we were dead and you didn't get a second chance.

There was Karen Friedman whom Hill dated and wooed with lavish trips to the Copacabana nightclub, they would eventually marry and have two Children.

One son and one daughter, not two daughters is portrayed in the movie, she didn't know what I did in the beginning, you know, she knew that, you know, I kind of, you know, I thought I was a union delegate, you know, she was a part from that world that I was in with.

And of course there was thomas de Simone, a notoriously violent gangster and the subject of joe pesci's Oscar winning performance.

What are you looking at your, unlike in the film DeSimone and Hill did not grow up together.

Rather Hill was already in his early twenties when he met the 15 year old de Simone and he worked directly under Hill in his various mob operations.

Henry Hill was peaceful.

Would avoid violence.

Tommy DeSimone would embrace violence.

One of their biggest was the robbery of the air France cargo terminal at JFK.

According to insider robert McMahon, a large sum of cash was being held inside the terminal and the mob could simply stroll in and get it.

Henry and jimmy would come together on a given day every day.

What's the plan?

Where's the action?

Where's the score?

Can we make a score today?

So that's pretty much exactly what they did in the movie.

McMahon personally hands them the keys to the vault.

Their friends made me.

We walked out with $420,000 without using a gun and we did the right thing.

We gave Paulie his tribute in real life.

The Gangsters lifted the keys from a drunk security guard.

They then walked into the terminal, loaded seven bags of money into a large briefcase and strolled right out France was the first major cash hole.

They pulled that off very intelligently and it was all told they literally walked away with $420,000 around 3.5 million in $2021.

That is a lot of money for a kid like anybody asks you where you got it, you got it All right.

It was shortly after this, that Hill participated in the famous killing of William bent Vina, playfully known as Billy Batts, Tommy, all dressed up, all grown up and doing the town.

Look at this and Vienna was released from prison and insulted Tommy de Simone at his welcome home party, go home and get your shine box you de Simone Hill and James Burke later killed meant Vienna for the slight and it went down pretty much exactly as it does in Goodfellas.

Yes, that includes the vicious beating stopping at de Simone's mother's house, killing bent Vana after realizing that he was still alive and burying him upstate, we had a, we had a serious problem with Billy Batts.

This was really a touchy thing.

The only difference is the planning of bent Diana's death in the film.

It's portrayed as more of a reactionary outburst from Tommy in real life.

The killing was meticulously planned.

Not only did it come two weeks after the initial insult against Tommy, but it was also partly orchestrated by jimmy burke who feared that bent Vienna would take over his loan shark operation.

Billy Batts had just come home from prison.

He had all the Sherlock business there, The bookmaking business and jimmy, you know when he was away, he took it all over basically and jimmy knew he had to kill him eventually after a four year stint in prison for assaulting a man named Gaspar Chako hill entered his most prosperous era, going against strict rules of lucchese crime family, halen burke started trafficking drugs including cocaine and Quaaludes.

It was too easy, you know what I mean?

Henry was now concealing his part in billy Batts death and his drug dealing from his mob bosses and he was getting hooked on the drugs.

He was secretly selling the operation while frowned upon by the higher ups made Hill extraordinarily wealthy.

It was around this time on december 11th 1978 that the family enacted the famous Lufthansa heist like air France before it.

This one also occurred at john f Kennedy international airport jimmy Burke organized the robbery and lucchese associates walked away with $5 million in stolen currency, making it the largest cash robbery in american history.

I mean there wasn't a wise guy that didn't know that we didn't do it, you know what I mean?

And the feds, however, Burke grew incredibly paranoid about being implicated in the heist and he had nine associates killed to ensure their silence, anybody who had information or anybody who wasn't trusted was executed.

So that kind of dried up our witness pool because people we wanted to talk to and get to cooperate were dead.

The heist was a major turning point for the lucchese family and with it, everything started to fall apart.

Burke didn't trust anyone and was killing people left and right Tommy de Simone went missing about a month after the heist and it's widely believed that he was whacked in retaliation for the killing of William bent veena in that world.

you know, the rules that they follow, he sort of got what he deserved and Hill was going down for his drug empire.

One of Hill's smugglers went to the authorities and told them all about Hill's operation and mafia connections.

He was finally arrested in 1980 this event was the main catalyst for the downfall of the lucchese crime family.

He got caught, he got caught, the guy who thought he would never get caught, they'll get you following his arrest, Hill grew unbearably paranoid, many people around him were being killed and Hill was afraid that he was going to be another body in the pile, Not only had he been arrested, but he was also addicted to drugs and could be implicated in the Lufthansa robbery.

You're the scene from scarface al pacino's going like this with all of the, the cook that was Henry at that stage of his life, he couldn't get enough of it.

According to Hill, he was going to be one more victim of the relentless jimmy burke, Henry knew jimmy was extremely paranoid, he also knew that he killed everybody involved in the Monza host Henry also heard the wiretaps of jimmy planning to kill him, had Vario sanctioned a hit, Henry too, joined the paranoia club in the end, Hill wasn't killed but arrested as a material witness with the prospect of a lengthy prison sentence and his paranoia, getting the best of him, he'll decided to finally turn against the mob and act as an informant.

He knew that life was spiraling out of control.

There was no way to turn.

He hit a brick wall before we continue be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to get notified about our latest videos.

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He entered witness protection while 50 associates were arrested and convicted on his information of those arrested were Hill's longtime associates, jimmy burke and paul Vario the same man who introduced Hill to the life of crime.

Back when he was a teenager, I beat him to the punch.

You know what I did?

Burke had issued a multi million dollar contract on Henry Hill's life.

Goodfellas doesn't go into much detail regarding Hills post mob life, but that alone deserves its own film.

Right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce and I got egg noodles and ketchup.

I'm an average nobody get to live the rest of my life like a schnook Hill living as martin Lewis met a woman named Sherry Anders and married her despite already being married to Karen Friedman, he said, not to worry, I married her under my new name So therefore I'm not committing bigamy is a drunken fling.

This was likely a major factor in Friedman filing for divorce in 1990.

He'll continue to traffic drugs while in the program and he was convicted of the crime in 1987 as punishment.

Hill was kicked out of witness protection.

Finally, they just pulled the plug and he said, Look, this guy is not somebody who is dependable in any way.

He's reckless in his behavior and you know, we're not protection in the program anymore.

He would battle substance abuse throughout the rest of his life and faced numerous arrests for drug possession and public intoxication.

Hill died of heart disease just one day after his 69th birthday on june 12th 2012.

He was the last of the so called goodfellas.

Henry died in his bed the night after a great birthday party Is an extraordinary, successful life for a man that was Henry Hill Paul Vario passed away from lung failure in 1988 and Jimmy Burke died of cancer in 1996 at the age of 64.