Scott Curtis
 
 
 
 
 
Eliot Ness-like. . . extraordinary and devoted leadership, relentless pursuit of justice, and unwavering dedication to protecting our community.
— U.S. Attorney's Office Award citation, Eastern District of New York
scott-curtis-former-FBI-agent.jpg
Your tremendous work has resulted in the dismantling of an organized crime family responsible for numerous murders and other crimes.
— U.S. Attorney's Office Award citation, EDNY

Most recently, Curtis has worked on the national Opioid Task Force in concert with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey, the FBI, the DEA, the IRS, Homeland Security, and associated agencies investigating multi-ethnic criminal groups conspiring to perpetrate wide-ranging schemes from insurance fraud to selling prescription drugs on the black market and deadly fentanyl. He has possessed a “Top Secret” security clearance from the U.S. government since 1986, and in December, 2022, his Top Secret clearance was renewed in conjunction with contract work for the Department of Justice. 

WEST POINT GRADUATE

Scott Curtis is a graduate of the United States Military Academy (West Point).

A former infantry captain (variously a platoon leader and Company Commander), he is a 100-percent service-disabled military veteran. 

Federal agents in New York pulled off the biggest one-day Mafia roundup in United States history yesterday, simultaneously bringing the hammer down on more than 120 reputed wiseguys — a takedown so enormous it required a Brooklyn Army fort to book them all.
— New York Post

A NOTABLE CAREER IN LAW ENFORCEMENT

Worked diligently and selflessly to protect the rights of Americans. Exemplifies the best in federal service.
— Dept. of Justice/EOUSA Director’s Award citation
Pay-to-play was the order of the day in Allentown and in Reading. [Curtis’s] years-long investigation illuminated troubling conduct for which all of those indicted must now answer.
— Michael Harpster, Special Agent in Charge, FBI/Philadelphia
Logo for Scott Curtis's company FLEO Investigations.

FLEO logo.

The lead agent in the Colombo purge.
— Investigative journalist Jerry Capeci, Huffington Post (2011)
Hardest hit by the raid was the Colombo family, considered to be one of the mob’s bloodiest outfits. . . West Point grad Scott Curtis had presented [the informant] with his options: Go back to prison for the rest of your life or come work for Team America.
— Men's Journal
  • FBI New Agents Training

  • Money Laundering Training

  • Insider Threat Training

  • Complex Financial Crimes Training

  • Information Security (“Infosec”) Training

  • Whistleblower Protection Training

  • Insider Threat & Media Contact Awareness Training

  • Digital Evidence Handling Training

  • Reporting of Suspected Child Abuse Neglect & Sexual Exploitation

  • Federal Campaign Finance Offenses Training

  • Social Media Training

  • Continuity of Operations Under Threat Training

  • Victim & Witness Assistance

  • Weapons of Mass Destruction/Active Shooter Workplace Safety Training

  • Confidential Human Sources Training 

Relentless.
— Benton Campbell, U.S. Attorney, Eastern District of New York
Scott Curtis was a scourge of the Colombos, participating in the arrests of more than 100 gangsters, convincing at least a dozen wiseguys to reject their Mafia oath and become government informants.
— New York Daily News

SIGNIFICANT ACHIEVEMENTS

This largest single-day operation against La Cosa Nostra sends the message that our fight against traditional organized crime is strong, and our commitment is unwavering.
— Press conference, United States Attorney General Eric Holder

Scott Curtis’s remarkable efforts led to the conviction of hundreds of sophisticated criminals—with emphasis on the storied Colombo crime family—when in 2011, he spearheaded the largest single-day takedown in U.S. history of 127 organized-crime members, effectively dismantling the Colombos’ ruling administration. [See: “Testimonials” page linked HERE.]

Identified by Gang Land News journalist/columnist Jerry Capeci in the Huffington Post as “the lead FBI agent in the Colombo purge,” Curtis planned and (usually personally) executed hundreds of arrests, searches, and surveillance operations of violent, highly sophisticated criminals with such memorable monikers as “Junior Lollipops,” “The Claw,” “Fish” Marra, “Tommy Shots,” “Andy Mush,” “Fat Larry,” “Richie Nerves,” et al. The record takedown made headlines internationally. Curtis also busted brokerage-boiler rooms hijacked by the mob that defrauded thousands of regular folks of more than $40 million. Flipping violent criminals into cooperating witnesses, Curtis has an ultra-rare, intimate familiarity with the witness-protection program. 

In the course of his career with the FBI, Scott Curtis solved more than ten cold-case homicidesWith a shovel in his hand, Curtis personally found the body of Colombo underboss William “Wild Bill” Cutolo, missing for more than nine years and whose death marked the formal end of the Colombo war. Curtis’s discovery of the body was deemed “for pure drama…the top New York mob story of the year” by Gang Land columnist Jerry Capeci. Confessions Curtis himself obtained from the henchmen ordered to commit this murder supported the life sentence handed down to the acting boss of the Colombo family, Alphonse “Allie Boy” Persico (son of incarcerated family boss Carmine “The Snake” Persico).

Curtis is an expert on the history and rituals of the mafia: inductions, moral code, murder protocols, and such rackets as loansharking, car theft, bank burglaries, labor unions, and construction. Also: confidential informants manipulating agents. He has served as something of a mentor to flipped mafia wiseguys connected to scores of baseball-batterings and murders—men who are out of jail and struggling to stay legit. 

The newer generation of mobsters who were raised in the suburbs is accused by its elders of being too soft, stupid, and obsessed with phones, according to a Wall Street Journal interview with Scott Curtis.

IN THE MEDIA


“A square shooter.”

Defense Attorney Eric Dowdle describing Curtis in the Allentown Morning Call / Read Full Article 

“This Scott Curtis is all over the place!”

— Covert recording, Colombo crime-family captain


One way the New York and Allentown cases diverge is Curtis’s semi-celebrity status in New York. In the city’s courtrooms and in the pages of its local tabloid newspapers, he was mentioned almost as often as the men and women he was investigating.
— Allentown Morning Call