Louis Ferrante

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte used the episode as a propaganda tool to gain and maintain power in the country. Time Magazine's World Desk interviewed Ferrante and covered the story on August 10, 2017.

Ferrante is an award nominated TV host who also works behind the camera. He is co-creator and executive producer for the television series, The Diamond Collar, which aired on Oprah Winfrey's OWN Network in early 2014. Ferrante appeared with actors Al Pacino and James Caan, and director Francis Ford Coppola in the anniversary documentary, The Godfather Legacy.

In 2013, Ferrante made the final shortlist of nominees for the Grierson Trust Documentary Television Awards in the United Kingdom. Ferrante was nominated for Documentary Presenter of the Year for his show, Inside the Gangsters' Code.

Ferrante's television series, Inside the Gangsters' Code, premiered on February 27, 2013. Each hour-long episode follows Ferrante as he explores different gang cultures around the world. Inside the Gangsters' Code aired on Discovery Channel in over 195 countries and in multiple languages. Ferrante wrote, hosted, narrated, and co-produced the series.

The 2013 episode "The Commandos" which exposed the luxurious prison cells owned by gang leaders controlling the Philippines' largest maximum security prison became the subject of a drug smuggling and bribery scandal and investigation at the House of Representatives of the Philippines.

On September 15, 2011, Ferrante spoke at The Economist's Ideas Economy: Human Potential Summit in New York City. On October 21, 2014, Ferrante spoke at the CEO Global Leaders Forum in New York City, hosted by billionaire businessman Leonard Lauder.

Mob Rules was a 1-800-CEO-READ 2011 Business Book Award nominee, and was one of Forbes magazine columnist Marc Kramer's World's Best Business Books.

Ferrante was recognized at a ceremony at Number 10 Downing Street, where he received the Celebrity Reading Hero Award, given to him by Sarah Brown, wife of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, in 2009.

While in prison, Ferrante hired and fired a number of attorneys before successfully appealing his own conviction, a case that is cited in courtrooms across the country. He was released in January 2003, after serving eight and a half years. In addition to law, Ferrante (who was raised Catholic) studied many religions and chose to convert to Judaism, becoming an observant Jew.

The law caught up with Ferrante and he became the target of three separate investigations. He was eventually indicted by the FBI, the United States Secret Service, and the Nassau County Organized Crime Task Force. The main informant against Ferrante was entered into the Witness Protection program. Another informant against Ferrante was William Degel, now the host of Restaurant Stakeout on Food Network. By 1994, and facing a life sentence in prison, Ferrante wrote and distributed a rap song defending infamous Gambino Family Boss John Gotti. Ferrante hired controversial civil rights attorney William Kunstler to defend him. In court, Kunstler claimed that Ferrante's song aggravated law enforcement agencies who'd convicted Gotti and that the massive resources used to indict Ferrante multiple times were part of a government vendetta. Ferrante's defense was defeated in court by prosecutors and Ferrante was convicted. In Ferrante's second case, he was forced to plead guilty to a thirteen-year sentence, with his third case running concurrent with the first two cases. Ferrante refused to cooperate with the government and did not inform on former associates of the Gambino family. He was sent to the maximum security prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania to begin his sentence.

Ferrante was born and raised in Queens, New York. As a teenager, he made his reputation as a gang leader. Ferrante and his crew hijacked delivery trucks all over New York and he soon gained the attention of the infamous Gambino crime family. By his early twenties, Ferrante headed a crew of older armed robbers within the family. Newspaper articles from the 1990s referred to Ferrante as "Gotti's pal" in reference to Gambino boss John Gotti, Senior. Another article referred to Ferrante as a "crony of John (Junior) Gotti." On one occasion, Ferrante and his crew flew from New York to California to hold up an armored car. His plans were foiled by the FBI, although there was insufficient evidence to charge Ferrante and his crew with a crime. During this time, he was suspected of masterminding some of the largest heists in U.S. history.

Louis Ferrante (born May 13, 1969) is a former Gambino family mobster who, after spending eight and a half years in prison, successfully appealed his conviction and became a bestselling true crime, business, and science writer. He hosts his own show airing on Discovery International in 195 countries and was nominated for a Grierson Trust Award which is the highest documentary award in the United Kingdom, known as "the Oscars of the documentary world." He has also appeared on television stations such as MSNBC, Fox News Channel, BBC, PBS, Comedy Central, and The History Channel.