Paramount Pictures' film "By Any Means" opened in theaters September 4, 2026, with Mark Wahlberg playing Gregory Scarpa Sr., the Colombo family capo and secret FBI informant known as the Grim Reaper. This is the official website of the Scarpa family: Greg Scarpa Jr., his son, tells the real story here.
Yes. In the 1960s, the FBI used Gregory Scarpa Sr. in Mississippi during investigations into Klan violence against civil rights workers. The film, directed by Elegance Bratton, dramatizes that chapter; the FBI agent played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is a fictional composite created for the movie.
Yes - Gregory Scarpa Jr. and his sister served as advisors on the film, as reported in press coverage, and Greg spent about a month and a half on set.
Gregory Scarpa Sr. (1928-1994) was a caporegime in the Colombo crime family in Brooklyn, New York, and at the same time one of the FBI's most valuable secret informants. His own FBI file, released publicly through the Freedom of Information Act and available on the FBI's online Vault, shows the relationship began in 1961 and ran for decades. In the 1960s the FBI used him in Mississippi during investigations into Klan violence against civil rights workers - the chapter the movie dramatizes. On the street he was known as the Grim Reaper. He died in federal custody in 1994. The family's collection of his declassified FBI file pages, hand-signed by his son, is part of the Scarpa Archive.
A few things the coverage of the film has already made public. The FBI agent played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is a composite character created for the movie, not a real agent. The Mississippi episodes are based on real, reported events from the 1960s, though the film compresses the timeline the way movies do. And the man at the center of it was a real husband and father whose family lived every consequence of that double life for the next sixty years. That part never fits in a two-hour movie, and it is the part this website exists to tell.
The film ends in the 1960s. Greg Scarpa Jr. lived everything after: the Colombo wars, the cell next to Ramzi Yousef, the Terry Nichols explosives tip credited by a federal judge, twelve years in ADX Florence, and coming home after 32 years. Read his true story, see the signed collection, or talk to Greg himself.
Greg Scarpa Jr. and his family run their own official shop with tees, mugs, hats and stickers starting at $8.96. Everything is printed and shipped for you when you order. These are everyday pieces rather than hand-signed items - for those, see the signed collection. The shop is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or licensed by Paramount Pictures or the film, and it does not sell movie merchandise.
Greg spent about six weeks on set as an advisor while Wahlberg played his father, and the two met during production. Watch the moment on Instagram. Ask him what that was like - seeing your own father, thirty years gone, walk toward you in another man's body - on a call or a live. There is no press junket version of that answer.
Greg answers questions about the film and his father on the Set It Straight lives, takes private calls, and signs pieces from the family archive. The fastest ways in: the signed collection, the official shop, and the priority list so you hear about drops before Facebook does.
Greg Scarpa Jr. gave a full life-story sit-down interview to VladTV, telling his complete story in his own words. Watch the full VladTV interview. He also goes live regularly with the Set It Straight community and takes questions directly from viewers.
This independent, editorial page is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Paramount Pictures.