MONTREAL - The moment many members of the public and media have been waiting for for over a week has arrived at the Charbonneau Commission inquiry, with former FBI agent Joseph Pistone (aka Donnie Brasco) taking the stand Monday morning.

Photos and video of Pistone are forbidden, but the press is permitted to report on the content of his testimony. He will be shielded from cameras by a series of panels set up in the hearing room.

Pistone, more commonly known by the alias Donnie Brasco, brings with him a wealth of inside knowledge about North America’s dangerous and carefully shielded criminal underworld, gained largely during a six-year sting operation in the late-1970s that saw him infiltrate two of New York City’s most powerful mob families.

Pistone, as Brasco, slowly and patiently earned the trust of members of the Bonanno and Colombo crime families and their associates, building up a detailed case that eventually led to the arrest of about 200 gangsters.

Experts say his testimony will centre largely on the inner workings of the American mob, and not on any specific people or organizations in Montreal.