Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective sy aside of life, the average persons never exposed her.
Speaker 1: I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty
Speaker 1: five of those years, I was catching killers. That's what
Speaker 1: I did for a living. I was a homicide detective.
Speaker 1: I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking
Speaker 1: the public into the world in which I operated. The
Speaker 1: guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from
Speaker 1: all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest,
Speaker 1: just like the people I talk to. Some of the
Speaker 1: content and language might be confronting. That's because no one
Speaker 1: who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join
Speaker 1: me now as I take you into this world. Today,
Speaker 1: I had a conversation with lou Verlouzi, a former us
Speaker 1: ATF undercover agent. He's a tatooed monster of a man
Speaker 1: who's spent over twenty years at the sharp end of
Speaker 1: law enforcement. He operated in the world where the stakes
Speaker 1: are high. Living a life like that comes at a cost,
Speaker 1: and his career did not end the way he thought
Speaker 1: it would. Today, he took us into the world even
Speaker 1: most cops don't get to see or experience. It was
Speaker 1: a heavy life that he lived infiltrating cartels, biking gangs,
Speaker 1: taking over a thousand guns off the street. He was
Speaker 1: even highed as a hitman to murder a doctor's wife.
Speaker 1: Lou is also the author of a book storefront sting
Speaker 1: atf agent's life undercover. Here is the chat I had
Speaker 1: with him. Lou, you worked undercover for a long time,
Speaker 1: and I know when you're passionate about your job, which
Speaker 1: you clearly clearly were, that you can immerse yourself in there.
Speaker 1: And the question I ask you working undercover as long
Speaker 1: as you did your Lou, but your undercover name was
Speaker 1: Seal from New York? Was your cover story? At any point?
Speaker 1: Did you become more Salve than you were? Lou?
Speaker 2: I would say for almost a decade I was. I
Speaker 2: was more soal than I was Little. It was it
Speaker 2: was a lot easier to be sal Man. Everybody loves
Speaker 2: sal you know he was. He was a dangerous, fun
Speaker 2: guy who was living a hell of a life. You know,
Speaker 2: Little had to come home to, you know, an unhappy
Speaker 2: wife and uh kids and unhappy because I was an asshole.
Speaker 2: But it was just easier for me to stay and
Speaker 2: row and be sal because he didn't have any problems
Speaker 2: man Liu lou Vellowsi had a ton of problems. Sal
Speaker 2: Nundiata was was care free.
Speaker 1: So absolutely that makes sense. And I do understand that.
Speaker 1: And I think the nature of the work that you do,
Speaker 1: and I experienced it as in law enforcement as well
Speaker 1: as a homicide cop, that you could run away from
Speaker 1: your your private world and in immerse yourself in your
Speaker 1: professional world. And it was easier because you just concentrated
Speaker 1: on what you had to do because.
Speaker 2: You didn't really have to answer to anybody in that world,
Speaker 2: you know, other than your supervisors, which as you were
Speaker 2: doing your job, wasn't a big deal, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: but in the home life you got to answer to
Speaker 2: people and the responsibilities and all that. So the more
Speaker 2: you didn't deal with those responsibilities, you know, the worse
Speaker 2: that situation got. So the easier it was to just
Speaker 2: be the other guy. For sure.
Speaker 1: I would imagine, like undercover the type of work you did,
Speaker 1: that it would be easy to or thing that you'd
Speaker 1: have to look out for is not losing yourself in
Speaker 1: the into that world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uh, it's a part of you because you know,
Speaker 2: I have so many people who come up to me
Speaker 2: and say, oh, you you know, you know you were
Speaker 2: an actor for twenty years undercovering. But it's not it's
Speaker 2: not really acting. It's just you. You take a part
Speaker 2: of yourself and you and and you just bring it
Speaker 2: to a different place. Right, it's you, but you know,
Speaker 2: you just you just kind of unleash that part of
Speaker 2: you and you go do these crazy things. So it
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's just you kind of create this
Speaker 2: other version of you, and you know it leads to
Speaker 2: it can lead to great results professionally and you know,
Speaker 2: guns off the street, drugs off the street, bad guys
Speaker 2: in prison, but it can lead to disastrous results on
Speaker 2: the personal side, and it did with me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it takes a toll, and we'll talk about that.
Speaker 1: There's there's consequences of the life that you live, and
Speaker 1: that catches up every now and then. We actually had
Speaker 1: Joe Pistoni on the podcast The Real Donnie Brascat, and
Speaker 1: he had an interesting take on things, and full respect
Speaker 1: to him, I thought it was amazing the job that
Speaker 1: he did infiltrating the mafia. But he made the point
Speaker 1: that because I asked him that, because he was very
Speaker 1: long term in that role. That how did you uh,
Speaker 1: let's say the moral compass, like did you? He said?
Speaker 1: The man? I think the advice he gave was you
Speaker 1: always had to remember that you're the good guy and
Speaker 1: not get lost in that world. Is that another trap?
Speaker 1: Four people that go in deep undercover understand what you're wrong?
Speaker 2: It absolutely is. And you know, Joe, Joe did a
Speaker 2: great job. I've I know Joe, I've done speaking engagements
Speaker 2: with him. But uh, you know, I think Joe that
Speaker 2: case was Joe's big case, and he got out after
Speaker 2: that basically, so you know, I want to say he
Speaker 2: was undercover three or four years and the smart thing
Speaker 2: to do, the smart thing to do is to get
Speaker 2: out like a dummy. I never I didn't get out.
Speaker 2: I did it for almost twenty years straight. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: uh yeah, it's uh, you know, there's two ways to
Speaker 2: look at it, right, you know, if you do it
Speaker 2: for five or six years and get out, those are
Speaker 2: the smart ones. But uh, but but the other side
Speaker 2: of that is after five or six years, man, you're
Speaker 2: just hitting your stride. Right, five or six years now
Speaker 2: you know what to do and what not to do.
Speaker 2: And that's how I felt I was like, man, I
Speaker 2: just got good at this. I want to keep going,
Speaker 2: and so I just never stopped.
Speaker 1: You know, I understand that because in law enforcement, you've
Speaker 1: got to evolve and you become comfortable in what you're doing.
Speaker 1: And I would imagine each time you did a job
Speaker 1: or did a sting, that you're learning something you might
Speaker 1: have made a mistake, and you think, Okay, I'm going
Speaker 1: to fix this one up, or I know the path
Speaker 1: and you get you would get very comfortable in that
Speaker 1: chaos that the world that you're operating in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Gary, you know, like anything else, you know, like
Speaker 2: like all the homicide detectives I knew, you know, and
Speaker 2: all the narc guys men and women that I knew.
Speaker 2: You know, five or six years goes by, and you've
Speaker 2: made You've made your mistakes, right, You've been corrected, You've
Speaker 2: made your mistakes, and then you know what to do,
Speaker 2: you know what not to do, how to carry yourself,
Speaker 2: and you just you get better and better. You never
Speaker 2: stop learning. And that's how I felt about undercover work,
Speaker 2: and so I just never I didn't want to start, man,
Speaker 2: you know, I I came to a place where I
Speaker 2: was more comfortable in my undercover role than I was
Speaker 2: at a bar with my friends.
Speaker 1: Man, you know, I look, I'm sitting here looking at you,
Speaker 1: and I understand that role Like you dropped me into
Speaker 1: a homicide, saying that was easy for me socialize and
Speaker 1: be the family man and all that. That can be
Speaker 1: a little bit a little bit harder. So and I
Speaker 1: say this, and what, Yeah, I'm fascinated by the work
Speaker 1: that you guys do. It really is a mercive. You've
Speaker 1: got to get in there and you can't make a mistake.
Speaker 1: And you likened it to acting. I think someone made
Speaker 1: a comment because we've had some CIA dudes on and
Speaker 1: some even the French spy and basically talking about when
Speaker 1: you're playing a role in acting, if you stuff up,
Speaker 1: well yeah, okay, let's do that take again. But you
Speaker 1: can't afford to do that working in law enforcement undercover.
Speaker 2: No if. And again I always say I never really
Speaker 2: considered it acting because Salmon'siata was just kind of who
Speaker 2: I was, part of my personality that I just took
Speaker 2: to another level. But as far as making mistakes and
Speaker 2: you know, saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing,
Speaker 2: the consequences could be dire, you know, and oftentimes they are,
Speaker 2: and you know, unfortunately that's how we you know, we
Speaker 2: losch some great people because of mistakes.
Speaker 1: And it's not just you making the mistake. The more
Speaker 1: people that know about who you're what role you're doing,
Speaker 1: you've got people that you're not even controlling that potentially
Speaker 1: can make a mistake that can bring you undone. So
Speaker 1: I would imagine the twenty years that you almost became
Speaker 1: addicted to the adrenaline of it, the excitement of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, without a doubt, I did an undercover deal my
Speaker 2: first day on the job. You know, I was with
Speaker 2: two federal agencies over here before I got on with ATF,
Speaker 2: and you know, I I wanted to work undercover. The
Speaker 2: other agencies I was with I didn't have that opportunity.
Speaker 2: So as soon as I got over to ATF, they
Speaker 2: put me with this crazy guy who was my partner,
Speaker 2: and my first day, I hadn't even been to the
Speaker 2: ATF academy yet, and I told him I want to
Speaker 2: work undercover, and he goes, you want to work undercover, Okay,
Speaker 2: you're going to do a deal today. So I ended
Speaker 2: up that day. He had an informant who introduced me
Speaker 2: to a gang banger, big huge guy who wanted to
Speaker 2: sell a gun for two hundred and fifty bucks. He
Speaker 2: was a convicted felon. He was a member of a gang.
Speaker 2: So you know, I got wired up and all that
Speaker 2: and got in a brain undercover car and went and
Speaker 2: did the deal at a fast food restaurant at lunchtime.
Speaker 2: And uh, I walk in. What's the informant? And we
Speaker 2: meet the bad guy? And I'm looking up at this guy,
Speaker 2: and uh the informant makes the introduction. He runs out
Speaker 2: the door, and I'm like, it's supposed to happen, right,
Speaker 2: So this guy tells me to hey. He goes, hey,
Speaker 2: follow me into the bathroom. And you know, it's a
Speaker 2: bathroom at lunchtime of a burger joint, right, there's a
Speaker 2: there's a sink, and there's a urinal, and there's a commode.
Speaker 2: So he walks into the comode with the toilet and
Speaker 2: opens the you know, the door, and says, come on in.
Speaker 2: So I said, I guess this is how it works.
Speaker 2: I follow him in and I go in and I'm
Speaker 2: like straddling the toilet and he comes behind me and
Speaker 2: he shuts the door and latches it. So we're we're
Speaker 2: face to face right here, pretty vulnerable and yeah, and
Speaker 2: so I'm looking at him and I'm thinking, and wow,
Speaker 2: you know, this is my dream, this is what I
Speaker 2: want to do. It's my first day, and it seems
Speaker 2: like I've already made some bad decisions because my options
Speaker 2: are really limited right now. So, you know, he was
Speaker 2: there to sell the gun. You know, I knew a
Speaker 2: gun was going to come out. It was a gun deal.
Speaker 2: And he reached in his waistband, and you know, all
Speaker 2: I'm thinking is how am I going to get this
Speaker 2: guy's head in this toilet if it goes bad? You know,
Speaker 2: before he could get me. And but he wanted to
Speaker 2: sell the gun. My partner had given me three hundred bucks.
Speaker 2: He wanted two fifty for it. I just gave him
Speaker 2: three three hundred a game a fifty dollars tip. I
Speaker 2: just wanted to get the gun and get out of there.
Speaker 2: And so he gives me the gun. I give him
Speaker 2: the I give him the money, and we're walking out
Speaker 2: of the bathroom and I'm like, you know, going through
Speaker 2: my mind, I'm like, you know, are we supposed to
Speaker 2: sit down and break bread together, have a meal?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: How does this work? And I was like, you know what,
Speaker 2: I just I ran out the door, just like the
Speaker 2: informant did with the gun. And when I got in
Speaker 2: the car, in the undercover car and let the team know,
Speaker 2: everything was good and I'll meet him back at the
Speaker 2: you know, at the meeting location. I remember it like
Speaker 2: it was yesterday. I had that little stolen gun. It
Speaker 2: was a little twenty five caliber pistol, and I remember
Speaker 2: looking at it. I had put it right in the
Speaker 2: console and that was my hide right there, that feeling,
Speaker 2: greatest feeling I had ever had. I just took that
Speaker 2: gun off the streets, right that gun that you know,
Speaker 2: maybe that gun had killed a whole bunch of people,
Speaker 2: maybe it was gonna kill a whole bunch of people
Speaker 2: in the future. But I got it out of his hands.
Speaker 2: I took it off the streets, and that began my
Speaker 2: addiction right there, and I never looked back for the
Speaker 2: next twenty years.
Speaker 1: I can understand how that, and one of my frustrations
Speaker 1: is a homicide detected EVE unless you're chasing serial killers
Speaker 1: or gangland killings, when you can put a stop to it,
Speaker 1: the crimes happened and we're not preventing them. So it's reactive.
Speaker 1: This type of stuff you do, getting the guns off
Speaker 1: off the street. I can understand why you get a
Speaker 1: high with that because a gun. Yeah, you're being in
Speaker 1: law enforcement long enough and you've been ran long enough
Speaker 1: to know the damage one gun can do. So to
Speaker 1: get that off the straight from a bad guy, it
Speaker 1: has to give you a bit of a lift and
Speaker 1: make you feel like you're doing some good work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. You know, I half my career was
Speaker 2: buying drugs, and you know there was For me, there
Speaker 2: was zero satisfaction in buying drugs. You know, if I
Speaker 2: did a deal with some cartel guys and you know
Speaker 2: I bought twenty kilos, you're not even You're not even
Speaker 2: sticking your finger in a hole in the dam right,
Speaker 2: You're not putting a damn in anything. For me, it
Speaker 2: was very very small satisfaction. You know, you're gonna get
Speaker 2: some low level cartel guys and lock them up, that's
Speaker 2: about it. But just buying one gun, you know, from
Speaker 2: one convicted felon, you're actually making a difference in whatever
Speaker 2: community you're working in. Man, you're taking that gun off
Speaker 2: the street. You know, my agency that gun would after
Speaker 2: the case is adjudicated, that gun gets destroyed, melted, it'll
Speaker 2: never be back on the street. And that gives you
Speaker 2: some fulfillment, a feeling that, man, you know, I just
Speaker 2: made a little bit of a difference. Maybe I saved
Speaker 2: the kid's life, maybe I saved the cops life.
Speaker 1: Now I understand that, certainly understand that. But life could
Speaker 1: have been a lot different for you. You could have
Speaker 1: been a quiet, little reserved banker because in your your
Speaker 1: working career, start out working in the bank. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'm looking at I'm looking at you now, and I'm
Speaker 1: not saying the classic image of a banker, but that's
Speaker 1: where your path was heading.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, I went to college over here and
Speaker 2: got a useless degree in economics and business, and you know,
Speaker 2: I barely made it through college. And I was not
Speaker 2: I wasn't a hot commodity. No one was breaking down
Speaker 2: my doors to hire me on Wall Street, and so
Speaker 2: you know, I was able to get a job just
Speaker 2: out of the new newspaper at a bank making eight dollars,
Speaker 2: eight American dollars an hour. And I was just sitting
Speaker 2: in a room with no windows, taking computer print print
Speaker 2: outs and putting them in, filing them in file cabinets,
Speaker 2: and I just thought to myself, you know, I can't
Speaker 2: go through life with the job like this. There's no way,
Speaker 2: you know. So I knew there was something else for
Speaker 2: me out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand. It would be a slighter death if
Speaker 1: you if you're not happier, it's not something rewarding. And
Speaker 1: that's what you're doing, just to get the pipe check
Speaker 1: each each week. What what drew you? The law enforcement
Speaker 1: you don't carry?
Speaker 2: It was never on my radar. I I had a
Speaker 2: friend who I had played played ball with in college,
Speaker 2: and he just happened to call me one day and
Speaker 2: I said, I was miserable. You know, my life was.
Speaker 2: I was young and I had no direction. I was miserable.
Speaker 2: He said, man, he goes once you come over, come
Speaker 2: over after work and and let's have a beer, hang out.
Speaker 2: He said, you know, I'm staying at my brother's place
Speaker 2: in the Bronx. So after work, I drove down to
Speaker 2: the Bronx and he was sitting out on the stoop
Speaker 2: out on the front steps. So I sat on a
Speaker 2: stoopid him and we're having a beer and a Corvette
Speaker 2: pulls up right, which is pretty rare in the Bronx
Speaker 2: to see a Corvette and this guy gets out of
Speaker 2: the car and he's got you know, this is a
Speaker 2: this is way back when in the like Miami Vice
Speaker 2: days and all. And you know, he's got the long
Speaker 2: hair flowing flowing back, and his shirt's open and I
Speaker 2: can see he's got a he's got a Baretta ninety
Speaker 2: two f in his waistband. And I'm looking at this guy,
Speaker 2: going wow, No, that's that's a cool guy right there,
Speaker 2: you know. And that was his brother. I had never
Speaker 2: met him before. He just happened to be undercover Drug
Speaker 2: Enforcement Administration agent. He was an undercovered DEE agent and
Speaker 2: he had recently gotten back from South America and he
Speaker 2: was working undercover. And we went inside and we had
Speaker 2: a few beers at the table, and for about thirty minutes,
Speaker 2: I asked him questions about his job, and you know,
Speaker 2: he told me what he could tell me. And it
Speaker 2: was right then in that conversation that the skies opened
Speaker 2: up and I knew I wanted to be an undercover agent.
Speaker 1: I can understand that that time. And you reference Miami Vice.
Speaker 1: I think we had a lot of cops over here
Speaker 1: that we're watching that show, and there was a lot
Speaker 1: of undercovered dudes getting around looking very cool, and they
Speaker 1: had had the swagger about them, so I can understand
Speaker 1: the attraction. That was a cool scene that they seemed
Speaker 1: to inhabit. So law enforcement in the US is different
Speaker 1: in Australia. Here we've got state police and we've got
Speaker 1: federal police. So we've got four or five or six
Speaker 1: law enforcement agencies roughly covering the country. But in the
Speaker 1: marriag like you ended up and you're undercover work was
Speaker 1: in the ATF and that's a federal agency. You that
Speaker 1: wasn't your direct path into law enforcement. You joined other
Speaker 1: agencies before you got to the a TF. Do you
Speaker 1: want to just talk us through that and explain what
Speaker 1: the roles are in those agencies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I wanted to work undercover. But as you know,
Speaker 2: like like if if you want to be a homicide detective,
Speaker 2: you don't just become a homicide detective, right, you have
Speaker 2: to pay your dues, right, And it's years and years,
Speaker 2: you know, after that conversation I told you about, it
Speaker 2: was eight years until I actually did an undercovery Okay,
Speaker 2: So what I did was, you know, I didn't want
Speaker 2: to be a uniform police officer. I didn't want to
Speaker 2: be writing traffic tickets, pulling people over. I wanted to
Speaker 2: be an undercover agent. So I didn't put in with
Speaker 2: the city police or the state police. I put in
Speaker 2: with every federal every week on them, the three letter
Speaker 2: the alphabet agencies, all the three letter agencies. I put
Speaker 2: in with every single one we had ice, you know,
Speaker 2: at f d E, A FBI, all of them over here, right.
Speaker 2: I really wasn't very qualified, to be honest with you.
Speaker 2: I had no experience, no law enforcement experience. I didn't
Speaker 2: have very good grades in school. So I put in
Speaker 2: and I actually, when you put in over here for
Speaker 2: the FEDS, you take a test, an examination, and the
Speaker 2: only advantage I have. Usually most of the guys taking
Speaker 2: this examination are our police officers who want to become FEDS.
Speaker 2: They want to move up to be a FED, so
Speaker 2: they've been removed from the school system, usually for you know,
Speaker 2: seven or eight years. They were gritty cops. By this time.
Speaker 2: I was fresh out of school, so I was still
Speaker 2: in test taking mode. And I just happened to score
Speaker 2: really high on the test, which is the only reason
Speaker 2: I got a phone call. And I got a phone
Speaker 2: call from Immigration which is it's no one over here
Speaker 2: as ICE now immigration and Customs Enforcement, that's not what
Speaker 2: it was called back then. But so it was for
Speaker 2: a job to be a special agent with the United
Speaker 2: States Immigration and Naturalization Service. So I was in New York,
Speaker 2: the job was in LA. They flew me out to
Speaker 2: LA for the interview. And again, you know, I think
Speaker 2: I did really good in the interview, only because I
Speaker 2: didn't know what the hell I was doing. So sometimes
Speaker 2: that's when you do your best, right.
Speaker 1: When you're ignorance helped I help.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I went in there and I was
Speaker 2: just myself, and I was and I was real honest,
Speaker 2: and I wasn't expecting to get hired or expecting much.
Speaker 2: And when I got back from LA, I didn't even
Speaker 2: have a suit. My uh my dad had to help
Speaker 2: me buy a buy a suit for the interview, and
Speaker 2: I tucked my long hair into the back of my
Speaker 2: jacket and went in and uh, within a week of interview,
Speaker 2: I got a call say, hey, man, listen. You know,
Speaker 2: pending your successful background investigation, we're going to offer you
Speaker 2: a job as a special agent in Los Angeles. So,
Speaker 2: you know, I passed the background and I went in
Speaker 2: I went down to the academy. I had never never
Speaker 2: seen a gun, never held a gun. You know, again,
Speaker 2: I was as green as you could be. I was unqualified.
Speaker 2: I was green, but I was hungry man. You know,
Speaker 2: I was hungry man. I was going to realize my dream.
Speaker 2: So I worked super hard. It was a long heart academy.
Speaker 2: I made it through, and the next thing I knew,
Speaker 2: I was on the streets of Los Angeles and it
Speaker 2: was the greatest time in America to be a cop,
Speaker 2: to be in law enforcement, was in the early nineties.
Speaker 2: I was in LA from nineteen ninety one to nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety six, and you know it was when LA. This
Speaker 2: was during the La Ryan I don't know if you guys.
Speaker 1: There definitely heard the bad and watch it from over
Speaker 1: he with a bank kyok.
Speaker 2: It was really had that invasion. It was the being
Speaker 2: of the invasion of all the Central American gangs coming
Speaker 2: into America, and LA was like the epicenter. So you know,
Speaker 2: you had the MS thirteen, you know, coming in from
Speaker 2: Al Salvador on, all of the Mexican gangs and the cartels, Guatemalan,
Speaker 2: Honduran gangs coming up, and you know the gangs that
Speaker 2: were already, you know, our homegrown gangs in Los Angeles
Speaker 2: in America. They didn't know what to do with this, right,
Speaker 2: you know, they they had never seen this kind of violence.
Speaker 2: You know, they were doing drive buys in some shootings,
Speaker 2: these Central American gangs, they were cutting people's heads off,
Speaker 2: they were cutting body parts off, private parts and shoving
Speaker 2: them in people's mouth to send a message. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was next level gang warfare. And I would I
Speaker 2: was lucky enough to be on the streets during that
Speaker 2: and to battle that, and I really that's where I
Speaker 2: learned how to be a cop. From the Los Angeles
Speaker 2: Police Department detectives that I got to work with, they
Speaker 2: taught me how to be a cop. So it was incredible, man,
Speaker 2: it was a great learning experience for me. It's where
Speaker 2: I learned kind of how to carry myself. And I'll
Speaker 2: just tell you what I did. I think that made
Speaker 2: a difference. So the way they did it back then
Speaker 2: was your first six months on the job, they put
Speaker 2: you in La County Jail. So every day I went
Speaker 2: to La County Jail to interview on the release line
Speaker 2: everyone coming, every foreign born inmate that was coming out
Speaker 2: of La County jail to determine their alienage and their deportability,
Speaker 2: all right, and if you determined they were deportable, you
Speaker 2: were you know, right up detainers and fill everything out
Speaker 2: and hand the paperwork in and they would not get released.
Speaker 2: They would go, you know, into federal custody. But what
Speaker 2: I would do was, you know, I was fascinated by
Speaker 2: these guys. You know, here I am talking to this
Speaker 2: guy who has been cutting people's heads off, right, some
Speaker 2: guy from El Salvador, who grew up in some dirt
Speaker 2: hut in San Salvador, who ended up somehow on the
Speaker 2: streets of La as an enforcer, you know, for MS
Speaker 2: thirteen and he's out there killing, you know, selling drugs,
Speaker 2: chopping people's heads off. And I would talk to these
Speaker 2: guys would I was genuinely interested in their story, you know, like,
Speaker 2: how did how did you go from being a little kid,
Speaker 2: you know, in these very simple beginnings to where you
Speaker 2: are and what you're doing. And it's funny, even hardened
Speaker 2: criminals they'll tell their story, and you know, I would
Speaker 2: pass that information on to our gain units, right, and
Speaker 2: our gain units were like, hey man, you know this rookie,
Speaker 2: he's going the extra mile. Man. You know, he's passing
Speaker 2: information and he gets it. And I think that kind
Speaker 2: of helped me in my career, you know, start getting
Speaker 2: out as you know, I got known this guy's a
Speaker 2: worker's go get.
Speaker 1: Well what you've said there, Lou, I understand because if
Speaker 1: you have that inquiry in mind, and dare I say,
Speaker 1: And it's not used all the time, but empathy, that
Speaker 1: understanding the path that brought people to when they're sitting
Speaker 1: behind the gates in prison, it can give you a
Speaker 1: deeper understanding. It helps you if you can communicate with
Speaker 1: them on their level. It helps you all the way
Speaker 1: through your career in law enforcement, being able to have
Speaker 1: a conversation with people, not sit there and judge and
Speaker 1: not just go, well, you're a bad guy. You've got
Speaker 1: nothing to say that I'm interested in. If you sit
Speaker 1: down and spend time, it does make a difference, doesn't it.
Speaker 2: And that's human nature, right Gary, that's human nature.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Everyone everybody had a mom at some point, right that
Speaker 2: that held them as a baby when they came out.
Speaker 2: And you know, I wanted to know from these guys,
Speaker 2: you know, how man, how did you get here? How
Speaker 2: did it? How did it happen? Tell me, you know.
Speaker 2: And it turned out that a lot of these guys,
Speaker 2: you know, the real story, which a lot of people
Speaker 2: didn't get into. You know, their families back in Ol
Speaker 2: Salvador were being closely watched and if they didn't do
Speaker 2: if they didn't carry out their mission and do what
Speaker 2: they're supposed to do, their families would get killed, right
Speaker 2: the gangs would kill their families. So again, you know,
Speaker 2: you can't make excuses for criminality and you know, for
Speaker 2: these kind of bad things, but it gives you a
Speaker 2: pretty good understanding. And you know, I would talk to
Speaker 2: them about that. Hey man, tell me. And plus i'd
Speaker 2: be doing these interviews in Spanish, you know, which is
Speaker 2: which was the second language for me, which made it
Speaker 2: even harder. And I just I just really found that
Speaker 2: you get so much more information when you when you
Speaker 2: treat everyone with respect and with dignity, you know, unless,
Speaker 2: of course they give you a reason not too. But
Speaker 2: you know, right off the bat, I always treated everyone
Speaker 2: with respect, they treated them with dignity, and I found
Speaker 2: that got me a lot farther in law enforcement than
Speaker 2: being a tough guy.
Speaker 1: I think sometimes law enforcement types make the mistake of
Speaker 1: being the hard ass the whole time, and that's not
Speaker 1: often the way you get through what you've what you
Speaker 1: need done. Well, you talk about El Salvador and the
Speaker 1: Central American crime groups that come from places like that.
Speaker 1: We had Rick Prado on the podcast CIAD that worked
Speaker 1: over there, and you said that your local gangs in
Speaker 1: La these new gangs took it to another level. So
Speaker 1: I could imagine from being a cop on the street
Speaker 1: that would have been interesting time. So you went from there?
Speaker 1: Then you ended up in Uh, where where did you
Speaker 1: go from there?
Speaker 2: So again you know there was there was not going
Speaker 2: to be a place for me, uh to work under car?
Speaker 1: You still wanted to be the Miami Voss? Did you
Speaker 1: still you still had that that drive?
Speaker 2: And you know it's interesting, Uh with the Miami Vice thing?
Speaker 2: When when? How how you know reality versus television? You know?
Speaker 2: In my mind of course, Uh, I'm thinking under cover work.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be on yachts, I'm going to be driving Lamborghine.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be surrounded by supermodels and champagne. And
Speaker 2: it could not be any farther from I would. I
Speaker 2: was in trailer parks and the projects, and I was
Speaker 2: driving old shitty, beat up cars, and you know there
Speaker 2: was never any supermodels. But uh, but anyway from from
Speaker 2: you know, we had guys working undercover, but they for
Speaker 2: the most part, they were the Hispanic guys you know
Speaker 2: going in you know who were do buying fake green
Speaker 2: cards and fake documents and all that. So I wanted
Speaker 2: to get back to the East coast of America, you know,
Speaker 2: the West coast never really yeah, I never felt that
Speaker 2: home there.
Speaker 1: So I went.
Speaker 2: I jumped over to the US Marshals on the fugue
Speaker 2: on their fugitive squad, and I was only there for
Speaker 2: two years. I was in New York and I was
Speaker 2: in Puerto Rico chasing fugitives, which was a blast, right
Speaker 2: as well. You know this as a cop, the more
Speaker 2: action and the less paperwork you have to do, the
Speaker 2: more fun the job is, right because what they don't
Speaker 2: show on TV, right, whether you're a homicide detective or
Speaker 2: an undercover officer, is that of the time you're banging
Speaker 2: out reports, they don't show that the fugitive investigations and
Speaker 2: chasing fugitives was eighty percent action and twenty percent report.
Speaker 1: Well, I would imagine the brief is done, you've got
Speaker 1: the evidence, you're just gonna find this this dude.
Speaker 2: You're kicking doors man. So so it was great and uh,
Speaker 2: I was having I was having a good time doing it.
Speaker 2: But again I wanted to work undercover. So uh, an
Speaker 2: HF was a small agency over here, and you know,
Speaker 2: only maybe twenty twenty four to twenty five hundred agents,
Speaker 2: and they weren't hiring very much in the back in
Speaker 2: the nineteen nineties, and finally an opening came up. They
Speaker 2: were hiring one class and they were only hiring people
Speaker 2: who were already agents from other agencies, so you could
Speaker 2: jump over. You didn't have to go through the first
Speaker 2: part of the academy. There was I think there was
Speaker 2: there was only like twenty four positions open. I put
Speaker 2: in and I got it. So after the future kind
Speaker 2: of chasing for about two years, I finally got on
Speaker 2: with ATF. I really wanted to go to you know,
Speaker 2: they give you three choices where you can go, so
Speaker 2: I put in I wanted the action. I put in
Speaker 2: for New York, Miami or Los Angeles because I just
Speaker 2: wanted to be in one of our you know, the
Speaker 2: biggest cities with the most action. And uh they sent
Speaker 2: me to Savannah, Georgia and that's the logic of the
Speaker 2: US government. And uh, but it worked out because I
Speaker 2: just happened to get in an office and get partnered
Speaker 2: up with this crazy guy who was a brilliant undercover agent,
Speaker 2: and it just set me off on my career and
Speaker 2: I started working undercover right from the bat.
Speaker 1: Get that right mental in law enforcement, that sets you up,
Speaker 1: doesn't it. If you've got someone that you can learn from,
Speaker 1: someone that's got the smarts, someone's got the yeah, the
Speaker 1: values that you've got, and follow their lead, that makes
Speaker 1: a big difference, can set you up for your whole
Speaker 1: whole career getting the right person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no doubt, you know, Like I know, you
Speaker 2: know because I worked with a new a lot of
Speaker 2: homicide detectives over here, and you know, every every young
Speaker 2: patrolman on the street dreams of being a homicide detective,
Speaker 2: right they want to. That's again, you got to pay
Speaker 2: your dues, You got to prove yourself, move up slowly,
Speaker 2: and pay your dues. So it was the same to
Speaker 2: be an undercover agent. You didn't just come on and
Speaker 2: become an undercover agent, you know you And my goal
Speaker 2: was I wanted to do these long term, deeply embedded
Speaker 2: undercover cases where I was traveling all over the country
Speaker 2: and getting in with these organized crime groups. But you know,
Speaker 2: my partner showed me. He's like, listen, you start small
Speaker 2: and you work your way up. So for years and years,
Speaker 2: I started out, you know, buying one little bag of
Speaker 2: crack off some you know, eighteen year old gang banger
Speaker 2: in the parking lot of the shopping mall. You know,
Speaker 2: buying a stolen gun off a convicted felon, you know,
Speaker 2: behind the bowling alley, you know those. That's what I
Speaker 2: did for my first couple of years, you know, And
Speaker 2: you slowly build up and work your way into conspiracies
Speaker 2: and maybe some small street gangs and doing that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff, you know, And if you prove yourself and
Speaker 2: if your name gets out there, you will get the call,
Speaker 2: you know, to start doing these long term, deeply embedded
Speaker 2: undercover operations.
Speaker 1: It makes saints, the saints learning the try lou What
Speaker 1: do you reckon the qualities of a good Then it's
Speaker 1: hard to generalize because everyone comes in with different skill set,
Speaker 1: But what do you think of the attributes of a
Speaker 1: good undercover officer?
Speaker 2: What I see in common when i'm you know, we
Speaker 2: had an ATF. We had the EUP call the Enhanced
Speaker 2: Undercover Program, and it was just a collection of agents
Speaker 2: from all over the country who specialized and undercoverable. The
Speaker 2: most amazing crew you'll ever see, right, I mean you
Speaker 2: see them all in a room. It looked like it
Speaker 2: looked like prison just got out, right, But the characteristics, like,
Speaker 2: you spend some time with these people, and here's what
Speaker 2: you notice first and foremost when you get beyond what
Speaker 2: we looked like, these are some of the smartest people
Speaker 2: you'll ever meet.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You cannot be a dummy. These are really smart, educated people.
Speaker 2: And the probably the main characteristic is the ability to
Speaker 2: think on your feet, the ability to always know what
Speaker 2: to say. They're all pistols man with the responses like
Speaker 2: they're also quick to respond, and they can sell you anything.
Speaker 2: You got to be a salesman. You have to be
Speaker 2: a natural salesman. You know, if you're you look at
Speaker 2: that real slimy car salesman who's very successful, who's probably
Speaker 2: selling a car that he knows isn't the right car
Speaker 2: for that person, but he'll say whatever he has to
Speaker 2: say to make that deal. You can make. You can
Speaker 2: make that person into an undercover. Those are the kind
Speaker 2: of characteristics it's not. It's not you know, bravery. To me,
Speaker 2: it wasn't it. You know, you know who's fearless. That
Speaker 2: wasn't it at all. Who's got the ability to make
Speaker 2: that sale? Because that's what you're really doing. You're selling
Speaker 2: your load of bullshit, you know, to get people to
Speaker 2: want to follow you, to want to be part of
Speaker 2: your hustle, or to let you into their hustle. It's
Speaker 2: a sales.
Speaker 1: Pitch that makes sense because you're even selling yourself that
Speaker 1: people want to speak to you selling the product or
Speaker 1: purchasing your guns, your drugs or whatever. There's one side
Speaker 1: of it. Well we'll touch on it because both of
Speaker 1: us don't lock at very much the paperwork associated with it.
Speaker 1: So just to clarify the reality of I know, obviously
Speaker 1: in homicide we've worked with undercovered guys and girls and
Speaker 1: the amount of paperwork that goes with it. There's an
Speaker 1: accountability because when you're as an undercover officer, invariably, if
Speaker 1: you're giving evidence at court, the defense barrister solicitors again
Speaker 1: to attack you. Well you're a professional liar, aren't you.
Speaker 1: So it's all about recording and documenting. That's another side
Speaker 1: of it that you've got to be very keep accountable
Speaker 1: documents and spend a lot of time recording everything that
Speaker 1: you do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's funny how they don't show that
Speaker 2: part in the movies around the television show, right. So yeah,
Speaker 2: and when you think about it, everything you do out there,
Speaker 2: for every minute of action, you know that all has
Speaker 2: to be accounted for somewhere in a report. So very
Speaker 2: similar you know, to a homicide investigation. You know, you
Speaker 2: know that every single per you interview, right, you know,
Speaker 2: every single piece of evidence you collect, no matter what
Speaker 2: it is, you have to go back to the office,
Speaker 2: get on your computer and you know, well when I
Speaker 2: started it was typewriters, but anyway, you get on there
Speaker 2: and that all has to be logged in, that all
Speaker 2: has to be accounted for, and you have to regurgitate everything.
Speaker 2: You know, even if you recorded it, you know, you
Speaker 2: still have to regurgitate. You know, what was said, what
Speaker 2: you what you took from that interviewmrize it. So if
Speaker 2: you and that's another thing you asked about the characteristics
Speaker 2: of a good undercover. All the best undercovers were really
Speaker 2: tight with their paperwork because you had to be. And
Speaker 2: for the exact reason you said, if you were not
Speaker 2: good with your you could be the greatest undercover in
Speaker 2: the world. If you couldn't translate that onto paper and
Speaker 2: your reports weren't tight, you would get torn up in
Speaker 2: court by by a good defense attorney. So the ability
Speaker 2: to translate what you did, what you heard, what you
Speaker 2: saw onto paper was so important that that was a
Speaker 2: huge aspect of the job because if you couldn't do that,
Speaker 2: you're going to lose in court, and then everything you
Speaker 2: did was all for nothing. Anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've saying that I've seen undercovers in court in
Speaker 1: murder trials and that it's ruthless. The cross examination they
Speaker 1: get to discredit everything that's come on, Taking away from
Speaker 1: the paperwork, the courts and all that. How do you
Speaker 1: gain the trust of the people you're targeting.
Speaker 2: I think all of us who did it, we all
Speaker 2: we would draw on our own personal experiences on life.
Speaker 2: So and I use this analogy, and I know it's
Speaker 2: very corny, but it's very similar to if you see
Speaker 2: a girl you're very attracted to and you know you
Speaker 2: want to cold, You're going to do a cold approach, right,
Speaker 2: you see she's bellied up to the bar. You know,
Speaker 2: how are you going to do that? Right? You don't
Speaker 2: want to come on too strong, right, you don't want
Speaker 2: to be real standard offish and cool, right because you
Speaker 2: know so, So you've got to figure out you know,
Speaker 2: you have to first you have to assess her personality, right,
Speaker 2: you know, and then you have to figure out what's
Speaker 2: the best way to keep her engaged with me, to
Speaker 2: keep her talking to me so that I can get
Speaker 2: a phone number, all right. And it's very that's very
Speaker 2: similar to undercover work, right, So first thing you got
Speaker 2: to do is you assess your target, whether it's outlaw bikers,
Speaker 2: you know, the mafia, the cartels, you know, whoever it
Speaker 2: may be, you know, the gangster disciples, street gangs, you know.
Speaker 2: You assess who you're going after, and then come up
Speaker 2: with a technique or a plan. And if you don't
Speaker 2: think that your personality is going to work, maybe you're
Speaker 2: not the right undercover. Right, maybe you need to say, hey, listen,
Speaker 2: I think someone that's important, right, you know, know your limitations.
Speaker 2: So my approach was always listen, I'm not trying to
Speaker 2: become a member of the Sinaloa cartel, all right, I'm
Speaker 2: a big note totalian. They're not gonna let me hit.
Speaker 2: So my goal I'd never tried to necessarily become a member,
Speaker 2: but I wanted them to want to become a part
Speaker 2: of my hustle. So I would let them see me
Speaker 2: and know that I had my own hustle going on,
Speaker 2: and make them want to be around me. Right, You
Speaker 2: always want to be the most popular guy in the room,
Speaker 2: so people are kind of drawn to you. So you
Speaker 2: want to do that with the bad guys, with your tarts,
Speaker 2: make them want to be a part of your hustle, Like,
Speaker 2: hey man, what's that guy going on? And how can
Speaker 2: I make money off him? You know that that was
Speaker 2: always my approach, you know, not to say, listen, I
Speaker 2: want I want to be a Hell's Angel, you know
Speaker 2: I want to My approach was, listen, here's you know,
Speaker 2: I see what you got going on. Man, I see
Speaker 2: your hustle. You know, here's what I got going on.
Speaker 2: Maybe we can work together and make some money. Right,
Speaker 2: Maybe you can help me and I can help you.
Speaker 2: Do you know that? That is how I went into it,
Speaker 2: and never a hard sale, never a hard push. I
Speaker 2: would just put it out there what I could, how
Speaker 2: I could help them what I had to offer, and
Speaker 2: you know, let them see how eye roll.
Speaker 1: The people you're dealing with too, they get the the Yeah,
Speaker 1: they got the straight smarts. They'll they'll smell you out.
Speaker 1: They'll smell a copper mill away. And if you come
Speaker 1: on come on too hot, Uh, you're going to be
Speaker 1: fobbed off. But you've gotta make it. I understand what
Speaker 1: you're saying. You've got to dangle it out there, get
Speaker 1: them curious and and uh want to reach out to you.
Speaker 1: So I dare say they think they're in control of
Speaker 1: the pace of what's developing heat as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, you know you don't. You don't want to.
Speaker 2: That's why we talked about earlier. That tough guy approach
Speaker 2: rarely ever works. If you come on too strong and
Speaker 2: come out as a tough guy and you know I
Speaker 2: did time in this person and that person. First of all,
Speaker 2: those things are easily checked on. Right you talk shit,
Speaker 2: you say you know you were in this prison, or
Speaker 2: that you better know you know what cell block were
Speaker 2: you in, and you better know all that information, right,
Speaker 2: because they do, I guarantee. If they don't, their friends do.
Speaker 2: So it's always super important to keep everything as real
Speaker 2: as you can keep it and as close to home
Speaker 2: as you can keep it so so that they don't
Speaker 2: feel like you're trying to necessarily run a hustle on them.
Speaker 2: They feel like, wow, hey, this guy, obviously he wants
Speaker 2: to make some money off us. Can we make some
Speaker 2: money off him? And maybe we can work together and
Speaker 2: be in business to get it. Because you know, what
Speaker 2: I found was no matter who I was working, whether
Speaker 2: they were you know, supposedly these you know, white supremast groups,
Speaker 2: or whether there were Mexican cartels, Italian mafia, black street gangs,
Speaker 2: none of that. Man, None of them had any real
Speaker 2: ideology or any of that. It was always about money.
Speaker 2: They would deal with anyone who could make them money
Speaker 2: if they trusted them. That's what it was always about.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. So you found what they're what they're they're
Speaker 1: looking for, and get them curious about it. I want
Speaker 1: to take into one one case that's mentioned in your book,
Speaker 1: and being a homicide detective as long as I am
Speaker 1: seeing someone preventing the homicide is great. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: the doctor where your role was as a hired hit
Speaker 1: man to knock off his wife. Do you want to
Speaker 1: tell us through that that story, because I think that
Speaker 1: gives an interesting insight into the type of good that
Speaker 1: undercover operatives can can do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a very bizarre case and it was
Speaker 2: you know, for me, it was it was a big
Speaker 2: deal in my career because it actually went to the
Speaker 2: Supreme Court, the United States Supreme Court, and it made
Speaker 2: case law. Uh. And it's the reason why an undercover
Speaker 2: cell phone is now considered a device a communication device
Speaker 2: in interstate commerce. So if you use one of these
Speaker 2: it in the commission of a murder for hire, they
Speaker 2: take it federally right away.
Speaker 1: I can take you.
Speaker 2: So this very well known, very respected doctor, and he
Speaker 2: was actually a doctor for the LPGA, the Ladies Professional
Speaker 2: Golf Association. He he was married to a much younger
Speaker 2: attractive woman and the marriage was going south and there
Speaker 2: were financial issues there his property. He had a second
Speaker 2: house that was that he rented out.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: He happened to live very close to the Federal Law
Speaker 2: Enforcement Training Center. Uh, you know where our academy is
Speaker 2: and many other academies are. And it was not uncommon
Speaker 2: for a lot of the instructors, you know, to rent
Speaker 2: local houses, you know, local apartments and He had a
Speaker 2: guy who was living in this house who was a
Speaker 2: he was a former military one of those secret squirrel
Speaker 2: guys who was a firearms instructor at the academy. And
Speaker 2: the doctor was really into guns and all that, and
Speaker 2: they had kind of you know, the guy was renting
Speaker 2: a house from him, and they had become friends and
Speaker 2: he would work on the doctor's guns and all that.
Speaker 2: And one day the doctor approached him and said, hey, man,
Speaker 2: I know you were you were in that that world,
Speaker 2: that whole secret spy world and all that. He said,
Speaker 2: would you know anyone who could help me out? I
Speaker 2: got to get rid of my wife? And you know,
Speaker 2: I mean there was there was trust there. You know,
Speaker 2: they had known each other, and this guy was like
Speaker 2: he kind of blew him off. But I guess like
Speaker 2: the third time the doctor asked him, he was like, man,
Speaker 2: this guy is serious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's another law and I want to kill my wife.
Speaker 1: It's uh, he's starving the thinking playing.
Speaker 2: So you know atf we we had over here in America,
Speaker 2: you know that that was murder for hires had become
Speaker 2: one of our things, one of our specialties, you know
Speaker 2: that we did as undercovers. And this guy. He went
Speaker 2: to supervisor, who directed him to go up to our
Speaker 2: our office, and he sat down with my supervisor and
Speaker 2: told him the story. So my supervisor called me in
Speaker 2: and uh, he told me the story. And so I
Speaker 2: gave him my undercover cell phone number, and I said, listen,
Speaker 2: don't don't approach him about it. Don't say anything else
Speaker 2: to him. If he comes to you again, tell him, yeah,
Speaker 2: say listen, I have something you can talk to. Give
Speaker 2: him my number. And he said okay, and he left.
Speaker 2: And honestly, you know, with murder for hires, I'd never
Speaker 2: really thought about it again, because we would get that
Speaker 2: more often than you think, because a lot of guys,
Speaker 2: a lot of people talk crazy, you know, They're like,
Speaker 2: I want to kill this guy. I want to have
Speaker 2: him killed, you know. But as you know, some people
Speaker 2: do carry through with it. They will. And a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks later, I'm in the grocery store with my
Speaker 2: wife and my undercover cell phone rings. It was a
Speaker 2: number I didn't recognize, and I answer it and he says, hey,
Speaker 2: this is the doc, and you talk and I had
Speaker 2: to think real quick, and I was like, oh boy,
Speaker 2: that's the doctor down there. So I told him. I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: let me get somewhere I can talk. I'll call you
Speaker 2: back in fifteen minutes or whatever. And I, you know,
Speaker 2: back then, you couldn't just this is cell phones had
Speaker 2: just come out, and you know, so I had to
Speaker 2: go home and get my recording equipment, turn the recorder
Speaker 2: and put it in my ear and put the phone
Speaker 2: up and so talk to him, and we set up
Speaker 2: a meeting and I ended up meeting him at a
Speaker 2: public place, at a restaurant, and I let him do
Speaker 2: all the talking. I guarantee you when that first meeting,
Speaker 2: I probably didn't say twenty five words, and he just
Speaker 2: he really started going into in the first meeting, telling
Speaker 2: me all about his relationship and how it had gone south.
Speaker 2: And I'm thinking this is kind of weird, you know,
Speaker 2: at because now I'm in hitman. We're a hitman uniform,
Speaker 2: and I'm thinking, you know, as a hit man, I
Speaker 2: don't want to hear this shit. I want to know
Speaker 2: what are you paying me? You know, who is she?
Speaker 2: Where is she?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: That's all I want to know. But as an undercover
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, keep talking, dude, right, keep talking, because
Speaker 2: this is this is all good. Because that first partner
Speaker 2: I told you about. He had taught me from the beginning.
Speaker 2: When you're working undercover, shut your mouth. Nobody's going to
Speaker 2: prison based on what you say. They're going to prison
Speaker 2: based on what they say, So shut your mouth and
Speaker 2: let them talk. You know, he went into the whole
Speaker 2: story about you know her and you know how terrible
Speaker 2: she was and all that, and so I think at
Speaker 2: that first meeting I might have gotten her name, and
Speaker 2: he wrote down on a piece of paper for me
Speaker 2: where she works and what her address is, and when
Speaker 2: you're doing the murder for howre That stuff is great
Speaker 2: because when you go to trial, and they almost always do,
Speaker 2: you want to put as much on the table as
Speaker 2: you can because they're always going to say it was entrapman.
Speaker 2: So so the more evidence you have besides just the conversation.
Speaker 2: If all you have is a conversation, it's not nearly
Speaker 2: as strong. But if if you can put some evidence
Speaker 2: on the table makes it so much stronger. So at
Speaker 2: least now I got a piece of paper in his handwriting,
Speaker 2: he wrote out her name, her her address, and her
Speaker 2: place of employment. You know, why else would you do
Speaker 2: that unless you know you want to.
Speaker 1: You'll definitely add some white to the caist, doesn't it
Speaker 1: in that? Getting the evidence in that manner.
Speaker 2: But you know what happened next. I couldn't even believe
Speaker 2: it happened. So we had several meetings and I ended
Speaker 2: up telling him and this was just a shot in
Speaker 2: the dark, a total shot in the dark.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I had told him that the way I was going
Speaker 2: to do it was I was going to make it
Speaker 2: look like a robbery. I was just just an everyday robbery.
Speaker 2: I stick a gun in her face, give me all
Speaker 2: your jewelry, all your money, all that. And you know
Speaker 2: over here robberies go bad all the time and the
Speaker 2: victim gets shot anyway. So that's how that was going
Speaker 2: to happen. So again, I don't know why I did this,
Speaker 2: but I did it. I said, listen, this would be
Speaker 2: a lot better if you can get me a gun,
Speaker 2: a good clean gun to do it. And he said, yeah,
Speaker 2: ill get your gun. And in our next meeting he
Speaker 2: brought a thirty eight caliber Smith and Wesson revolver for
Speaker 2: me to kill his wife. So now you're talking about evidence.
Speaker 2: I mean, it doesn't get any better than that. Now
Speaker 2: I could put the writings he made, you know, her name,
Speaker 2: her place of employment, her address, the conversation, and the
Speaker 2: gun he gave me to kill her. So again it's
Speaker 2: incredible evidence. So we had several meetings, we had several
Speaker 2: phone calls, and again usually at this point, most of
Speaker 2: these cases here in America, that would be a state charge,
Speaker 2: a murder for her, but there is a federal charge.
Speaker 2: But for a federal charge here in the States, you
Speaker 2: have to show there's an interstate in nexus. For any
Speaker 2: federal charge, any charge, if there's a gun involved, all
Speaker 2: you have to do is you have to show that
Speaker 2: that gun at some point crossed the state line. So
Speaker 2: if the gun was made in Florida and you arrested
Speaker 2: the guy with the gun in South Carolina, obviously that
Speaker 2: gun at some point across the state line. It's as
Speaker 2: simple as that. So we ended up after all that happened,
Speaker 2: and we had to actually bring her and her daughter
Speaker 2: in before during the case because the government got worried
Speaker 2: that maybe I wasn't the only person he was talking to,
Speaker 2: maybe he had a backup plan. That's the case.
Speaker 1: You've bought up an aspect. These are the other things,
Speaker 1: like when you're talking it through, Okay, that's logical, that's logical.
Speaker 1: But I was curious about that because once you know
Speaker 1: someone's going to plan to have someone knocked, you've got
Speaker 1: a risk that you've got to address. And I was
Speaker 1: wondering how you did that.
Speaker 2: That was one of the toughest, toughest talks of my life.
Speaker 2: You know, they brought her in. She had no idea,
Speaker 2: she had no idea why. They went to her job
Speaker 2: and said, we really need to talk to you, but
Speaker 2: we can't do it here. She's like, what do you
Speaker 2: want And they were like, listen, we really can't do
Speaker 2: it here, so will you please come with us? And
Speaker 2: she was like, well, I need my daughter. So they
Speaker 2: had to go get the daughter out of school and
Speaker 2: brought her to a hotel and you know, we had
Speaker 2: to tell her to listen, your husband is hiring someone
Speaker 2: to kill you. That is a tough thing to hear
Speaker 2: that your spouse is hiring a person to kill you.
Speaker 2: And then I had to talk to her and you know,
Speaker 2: obviously there were tears and I mean the emotions were
Speaker 2: crazy as you can imagine. And she was a strong woman.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you, we actually got her. I don't
Speaker 2: want to say it like that. She agreed to make
Speaker 2: a recorded phone call for us, which was another great
Speaker 2: piece of evidence. You know, we told her, listen, it's
Speaker 2: not about him, it's about you and your daughter and
Speaker 2: your safety. And she was able to pull herself together
Speaker 2: and make a very damning, damning phone call to him
Speaker 2: where he he went crazy and yelled and said bad things.
Speaker 2: So it was good evidence again, and so we took
Speaker 2: them into protective custody. And I had met with him
Speaker 2: in person on a couple occasions, we had talked on
Speaker 2: the phone on several occasions. She told him during that
Speaker 2: recorded phone call she was going up to their lake
Speaker 2: house with her sister to see her sister. You know,
Speaker 2: we're getting ready to take him down. And he called
Speaker 2: me immediately after, and this was crazy. He said, well,
Speaker 2: maybe you could drown her. Maybe you could get in
Speaker 2: the water when she swims and pull her under and
Speaker 2: dround her. And I said, listen, man, we agreed on
Speaker 2: how I'm going to do this. You know, I can't
Speaker 2: even swim. So I always gave him an out. I said, listen,
Speaker 2: if you're not serious, tell me now, and he was
Speaker 2: like no, no, no, he goes, you could just maybe
Speaker 2: could just like get her on the side of the roads.
Speaker 2: After that, when he hung up, he called me from
Speaker 2: a payphone. There was payphones back then called me from
Speaker 2: a payphone, and he was being surveiled. When he hung up,
Speaker 2: agents zoomed in and arrested him. And uh, how we
Speaker 2: turned that case federal was that when he called me
Speaker 2: from that from his cell phone when we had conversations,
Speaker 2: he was in South Georgia, which is right on the
Speaker 2: border of North Florida. The signal bounced off a tower
Speaker 2: in Jacksonville, Florida, back up to my phone in Georgia.
Speaker 2: And this sounds real chicken shit, and it is.
Speaker 1: That was our that was our name, the rules, that's.
Speaker 2: Right, hey whatever, hey, however you can do. So that
Speaker 2: was our interstate nexus day he used. He used his
Speaker 2: cell phone, and it affected interstate commerce because the signal
Speaker 2: bounced to Florida back up to Georgia. So he went
Speaker 2: to trial and he lost. The jury found him guilty,
Speaker 2: but they appealed it and it went all the way.
Speaker 2: They didn't appeal it and say he's not guilty. They
Speaker 2: appealed it and said they fabricated federal jurisdiction by this
Speaker 2: whole hokey cell phone tower thing, and it went all
Speaker 2: the way up to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court made the decision and said, no, this device is
Speaker 2: interstate commerce.
Speaker 1: Okay, So well that with a change change the landscape
Speaker 1: for quite a few things. Doing a job like that,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of satisfaction. But there's a little anecdote
Speaker 1: to that one that occurred years later, if I read
Speaker 1: it correctly in the book, that you were in a
Speaker 1: restaurant with your wife and family years and years down
Speaker 1: the track, and the waiter was looking at you. Is
Speaker 1: that the case that it relates? So you want to
Speaker 1: tell that story because I think it's something that would
Speaker 1: have given you a real uh yeah kick, along as
Speaker 1: the work that you've done.
Speaker 2: So that girl when they pulled her in and was
Speaker 2: she was a kid man. She was maybe thirteen or
Speaker 2: fourteen years old, the daughter of the doctor's wife. And
Speaker 2: you know he was not her biological father. He had
Speaker 2: adopted her. So yeah, maybe maybe seven years later, I'm
Speaker 2: at a restaurant with my wife and kids and the waitress,
Speaker 2: young attractive lady, kept staring at me, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: you know, I had no idea who she was. I
Speaker 2: couldn't place her or anything like that. Finally she came
Speaker 2: up to me and she started crying and said, you
Speaker 2: don't remember me? Did And I said I do not,
Speaker 2: And she said, you saved my mother's life and told
Speaker 2: me who she was and all that, and we you know,
Speaker 2: we hugged it out, and you know, it was it
Speaker 2: was a very special moment for me because you know,
Speaker 2: as an undercover agent, you know, I would go to
Speaker 2: a town or a city and do my job and
Speaker 2: leave right you know, I usually wouldn't even be there
Speaker 2: for the rest, you know, I would leave and I'd
Speaker 2: be on to the next one. And so you very
Speaker 2: rarely do you ever see the fruits of your labor
Speaker 2: or do you even interact with victims or anything like that.
Speaker 2: And this was really the first time in my undercovered
Speaker 2: career that I ever felt a sense of wow, you know,
Speaker 2: here's here's a life that I was able to affect
Speaker 2: in a positive way through my work, you know, and
Speaker 2: it meant a lot to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can imagine that would and that's something tangible
Speaker 1: for the sacrifices and the effort and the chaos that
Speaker 1: goes on with your life doing the doing the type
Speaker 1: of work. Lou we might we might take a break here.
Speaker 1: There's so much to cover. When we come back, I
Speaker 1: want to talk about the storefront strategies, a little bit
Speaker 1: of straight street theater. I like that that give always
Speaker 1: gives me a giggle when you create, create that, but
Speaker 1: also about the impact that's had the life that you've lived,
Speaker 1: and the type of situations you've faced throughout your career
Speaker 1: as a law enforcement officer. But it's like law enforcement
Speaker 1: on steroids, I reckon, when you go undercover, it's really
Speaker 1: at the sharp bend. So when we get back, we'll
Speaker 1: have a chat about that. Looking forward to it, all right, brother,
Speaker 1: cheers