Kenny "Kenji" Gallo (born 1968[citation needed]) is a Japanese-Italian American[1] gangster-turned-informant, a former director and producer of adult films and an author.
A convicted narcotics dealer on the West Coast associated with the Los Angeles crime family and New York City's Colombo crime family, Gallo became an informant against such mafioso as alleged Colombo crime family heir apparent Theodore "Teddy" Persico Jr.[citation needed] His memoir Breakshot: A Life in the 21st Century American Mafia, co-authored with Matthew Randazzo V, was published in August 2009 by Phoenix Books, and the co-owner of the Breakshot Blog.
[2] Gallo was born of Japanese descent in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles and raised in a middle-class family in Orange County.
Gallo was bullied by older students at the military school, and he later wrote that the experience taught him "to enjoy hurting people" and that "man should use any means at his disposal without hesitation to obtain dominance over everyone he meets".
Gallo's father later had him removed from the military academy and enrolled him at University High School in Irvine.