Joseph Ragone was a Genovese family soldier who was especially close to Mafia turncoat/informant Joseph "Joe Cargo" Valachi. Valachi was the first former mobster to publicly testify about his associates in La Cosa Nostra. Valachi offered his historic testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee in October 1963. Ragone was part of an East Harlem-based drug ring whose principals were arrested in a Bronx sting in August 1954. Ragone also ran a vending machine business and a Bronx bar. The 1954 drug operation was closely affiliated with a nationally prominent narcotics syndicate. It flourished over a decade's time in the 1950s and early 1960s.