One of the golden rules of Sicilian "organized crime syndicates" is that you never, ever introduce yourself as a member or as someone who is connected. It is a hard and fast requirement that you are introduced by someone else who is inside.

This goes back to the earliest days of protection racketeering on the island, and is taken extremely seriously even today.

I'm not sure if the Campania/Napolitani families follow the same tradition, but it's a pretty good bet that if someone even so much as implies that they're "connected" to an Italian syndicate, they're not.

Also, if you think pretending to be a cop is a bad idea, try pretending to be affiliated with gangsters...