A Florida police detective snared in an FBI sting operation was so enamored by the wiseguy life that he planned to retire to New York, where he hoped to become a “made guy” and work full time for a Mafia capo he grew to know and love as “Big Jack,” Gang Land has learned. 

Unfortunately for the mob-loving cop, “Big Jack” was really Joaquin (Jack) Garcia, an FBI undercover agent in the midst of multiple investigations.  

Sources said detective Kevin Companion, (right) the ringleader of a crew of alleged rogue cops in Hollywood, a suburb north of Miami, was tape-recorded discussing his “retirement” plans during a lengthy FBI investigation that led to drug trafficking, bribery, extortion and other charges against Companion and three other cops.

In several conversations, Companion, who allegedly netted $42,000 in payoffs in the two-year-probe, promoted himself to Big Jack as a worthy crew member who would be “honored” to serve the mob capo in numerous endeavors, sources said. 

Garcia is a tall, burly Cuban émigré who, as Gang Land reported last week, starred in several simultaneous FBI undercover probes. The wily agent persuaded top Gambino mobsters in New York that he was a legitimate

hoodlum. At the same time, he posed as a drug baron in other stings in Atlantic City and Boston. 

The Hollywood detective apparently was easy prey. Somehow, sources said, Garcia convinced Companion, whose father is Irish and mother is Italian, that he could become a made man “if he worked hard and kept his nose clean.” 

It’s hard to understand how a veteran cop and mob devotee in the age of “The Sopranos” could believe that a half-Irish detective could be inducted into the Mafia. But sources tell Gang Land that Big Jack and “Mikey Suits,” an undercover agent who played the role of the mob capo’s top gun, sold the idea to Companion. 

Companion could not be reached. His attorney ignored repeated calls for comment. 

On more than one occasion, said a source familiar with the investigation, Companion, 41, told Garcia that he would “do whatever he wanted. He’d work in a warehouse, make collections, serve as his bodyguard, anything, as long as he could earn enough money to support himself and his family.” 

“He became enamored of Big Jack and his position of power. He told him that he was going to be retiring, he wanted to move up north, his wife wanted to

move up north. It was like a no-brainer in his head,” said the source. 

During the investigation, sources said, Companion purchased a summer place in a suburb north of New York and often sought Mikey Suits’s company for dinner when he was “in the neighborhood.” 

“His father was Irish, but he lived Italian,” said a source familiar with Companion's mindset. Among other things, sources said, Companion often used Italian colloquialisms, had an Italian flag on his car, and had Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra sound bites on his cell phone. He idolized Sinatra and boasted that in 1998 he drove to Hollywood, the California version, to attend his funeral.  

Near the end of the investigation, a source said, Garcia told Companion that he “went on record with his boss” and informed him that he put Companion on his payroll “to protect himself just in case they were ever spotted together” by the law. 

During the discussion, Big Jack told Companion that he had told his boss that “the cop was very helpful” and added that “if the books ever opened up down the line,” there was a chance that he could be proposed for membership in the family. “You never know,” said Big Jack.  

“I would be honored,” replied Companion, the source said. 

The detective had the same response after he raised the issue of his heritage with Mikey Suits and he explained that being a full-blooded Italian is no longer

a necessity, stating, said one source: “Nowadays, it’s about being able to earn, and loyalty. If you’re a big enough earner, and are proven to be loyal, you could get made.” 

Sources said Companion’s most recent discussions with Big Jack and Mikey Suits about his Mafia inclination occurred early this year, not long after he and his three police colleagues allegedly rode shotgun for what they were told was a load of heroin. 

Sources say that one day before Big Jack, Mikey Suits and two other FBI undercover agents were scheduled to meet with Companion and several other allegedly corrupt police officers looking for easy money, the FBI sting unraveled amid assertions by federal authorities that loose lips of Hollywood Police Chief Jim Scarberry were to blame. 

Scarberry (left) concedes that he told more people about the probe than he agreed to – he said he agreed to tell two key aides while FBI officials say he agreed to inform only one – but he told Gang Land this week that he had a right to inform his top police brass and city officials about the investigation. 

He said there is no systemic corruption in his 330 plus member police force, that he has no plans to move against other cops whose names surfaced only internally as corrupt, and that his only regret is that Companion and the others didn’t “just say no,” when the FBI agents offered them money to commit illegal acts. 

Scarberry, who worked undercover as a young cop in North Miami Beach, did not say his men were “entrapped,” but he maintains that until the four cops said “yes,” there was “no indication that prior to that they were not doing their job as police officers” or that “any illegal acts were going on before the investigation.”

Longtime Genovese capo Tino Fiumara, (right) who relocated to Long Island following his release from prison two years ago – ostensibly to get away from relentless pursuers in his home state of New Jersey – may have outsmarted himself.

The cagy Fiumara is viewed by law enforcement officials as a feared and viable contender to replace the late Vincent (Chin) Gigante as the family’s boss in 10 months when his federal supervised release period ends. But he may have jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

Some 17 months after his longtime underling, acting capo Larry Ricci, was executed while on trial for waterfront-based labor racketeering charges, the New York FBI and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn are still trying to link the 65-year-old Fiumara to Ricci’s murder.

“There’s no way the family would kill Ricci without getting Tino’s okay,” said one

law enforcement source.

Ricci (left) disappeared in October, 2005, and was later acquitted of the charges. Not that it did him much good. Later still, the unlucky mobster was found shot to death in the trunk of a car in Union, NJ. Sources say the feds have developed two possible reasons why Ricci was whacked and both of them have Fiumara making the ultimate decision.

Sources said Ricci ignored directives from family higher ups to plead guilty. He also was named by a Philadelphia mob turncoat as a participant in an aborted and unsanctioned plot to kill three Philly mobsters in an effort to aid an old Newark gangster buddy become boss of that family about seven years ago.

Knowing why Ricci was killed, however, is a far cry from proving Fiumara did it. So come January of next year, expect the ex-patriot from the Garden State to vie for the top spot of the powerful Genovese crime family.