Transcript of #304 Chris Bayless - 30 Years Undercover Inside America's Most Violent Gangs New

So, uh, I just spent about, I don't know, 12 hours digging through the internet about you, and you are a bad motherfucker. Holy shit.

Whoa, dude, I don't, I don't think so, but okay. Are you sure you had Chris Bayless? It wasn't some other guy with a different name?

I'm pretty sure.

Are you sure?

Okay, but, uh, And, uh, the first ATF agent I've ever had on the show.

I hope I don't screw it up for the rest of the freaking agency.

Oh man.

But, um, I'm sure you'll get some bad reviews on, uh, talking to an ATF guy.

Oh, I'm sure I will too, but who cares? I get bad reviews all the time.

There you go, right on.

But I want to start off with an introduction, so to prove my point here, okay? Chris Bayless. 30-year ATF special agent, spent the majority of your career undercover, infiltrated the Hells Henchmen Motorcycle Club and was inside when they patched over to become the Hells Angels, planning the club's first plague in the Midwest. Your undercover intelligence helped build the federal RICO case that took down Mel Chancey and the Chicago Hells Angels leadership. Partners with Jay Dobbins, the agent who later infiltrated the Hells Angels in Arizona. Personally involved in more than 100 stash house sting operations across the country. Had partners shot and killed. Continued to work for 3 decades. Suspects planned to kill you on roughly half of your operations. One crew planned to poke holes in your stomach and to sink your body in a river. Got locked in a bar with a 6-foot-9, 300-pound biker outlaw enforcer while you were wearing a wire. You fought your way out. Your stash house operations cut shootings in half in Oakland, made 70 arrests in Phoenix, became a public face of ATF's defense against entrapment and racial bias allegations from federal judges. And today you're retired, outspoken, and ready to tell the story you couldn't tell for 30 years.

Wow.

And I had to dub that down.

Yeah, that's very nice. Sounds like a nice guy. Yeah, I don't know who that guy is, but you should have him on your show.

But, uh, well, I got something I want to give you. Okay, so let me grab it here real quick.

Holy Nike.

So, uh, uh, I've always— well, let me— never in a million years would I think I would be willingly, willingly giving an ATF agent a short-barreled rifle and a suppressor.

I love it.

So, uh, I got some buddies over at SIG. One really good buddy, his name's Jason, he's the VP of marketing over there.

And, uh, fantastic platform, man.

Found out you were coming on, and surprise to me, wants to give an ATF agent a short barrel rifle and a suppressor.

So there you have it. Are you kidding me?

Have you, have you, uh You familiar with that?

Oh, yes. This particular shooter? No, no. But the platform? Absolutely. I can see right now the optics. This is like, this is it.

We're going to break it in today. You're going to love it.

Awesome.

You're going to fucking love that thing.

My brother, this is absolutely great. I got a quick Sig story. I'll tell you that. And this is, I love Sig, first of all. So we transitioned from wheel guns and our first semi-autos was the Sig Sauer. And I had a 226.

And you used the 226?

I love it. It was—

oh, I used the 226.

So I was in it right after we did the transition, you know, to semi from the wheel gun. Um, we were unfortunately in a shooting in Joliet, Illinois. And, um, so everything was fine on the shooting. I get back, shooting review team comes out. They didn't care about anything other than, did you decock before you put it back in the holster? And I was like, well, what about the guys that were shooting at us? They're like, yeah, yeah, whatever. Did you decock before you put it in holster? And I was like, you know what, I did. They just wanted to make sure that during that transitional period, we got that muscle memory for the decock. And it was hilarious. And that was the— that's the only question they really cared. They said everything else. I go, well, this happened, this happened. They're like, yeah, fine. However, did you decock before you holstered the gun up? And I was like, yes, I did.

That sounds like a conversation that would be had in the SEAL teams as well.

Yeah, it was kind of funny. But no, I love— I've shot SIGs my whole life and I— it's a great— it's a great pistol, man.

Right on. I love it too. I'd love that one more though.

No, brother, this is like if Christmas— this is Christmas right now for me because this is— we have a few AR platforms at our house. Maybe, maybe not. But this is what— this is definitely what You know, if I had the like Christmas list of every checkoff, so please thank your friends at Sig Sauer, man, I greatly appreciate it. That's, it's exciting.

Right on, right on. I got another present for you too. Gunner is exciting.

This is where it's at though, man. And I thank you for that. I thank you for that.

You're welcome.

If you don't mind, I don't have a long gun to give you.

That's all right.

However, I do have a couple of things. This, you could— this is my wife's, all right? No guy gives another guy anything that's in a freaking envelope, right? So I told her, I go, I can't do that. And she's like, no, no, you can't. All right, this is, uh, we have another Advanced Undercover Program. This is our, our coin. I don't know if you collect coins or not, but this is, uh, it's, it's a small group of individuals, very small group of guys. Um, they do stuff all over the country, um, and other places. It's just a, it's, it's a small group, but they're highly motivated individuals and to this day still do some incredible stuff undercover. So thank you. Oh, you're welcome. And then this is, this is a compass that I got you because especially with your stuff when it comes to exploitation of children that you've been doing and stuff like that, it's hard not to, you know, mentally when you see that and you do that kind of work and I know people that are in that investigative arm. Um, it takes a toll, man. And when you see that, you get so freaking mad that you just want to tear people's throats out that participate in that type of activity.

So, um, so this is a compass, and the inscription is, first seek the counsel of the Lord. And so that's a Bible verse that, um, King Jehoshaphat was asked to participate in a war with the, uh, the king of Israel, and he said, okay, but first seek the counsel of the Lord. Well, the king of Israel didn't. They got their ass handed to them. So going back to it, everybody we look at, when you're fighting those demons and you're going out and fighting those people, man, you got to stay in that, stay in that zone and seek the first, seek the counsel of the Lord, man. And I can tell you from my own experiences, that really is something else, man. It really gives you a sense of peace and you know what direction you're going to. So good luck with all that, man.

Thank you.

I'm glad you're in the fight.

Seriously, that's heartfelt.

Thank you. Thank you.

It means a hell of a lot.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.

Thank you. One more thing.

Sure.

Before we get going, I got a Patreon account.

Okay.

It's a subscription account. They're the reason that we get to sit down here today, so they get the opportunity to ask every single guest a question. This is from James Cutbirth. What key lessons from your career would you impart to current law enforcement professionals, and how was your perspective on redemption and second chances evolved when reflecting on individuals who, like Mel Chancey, have left that lifestyle behind?

Well, I would say for law enforcement today, I, I think just— and I started in 1987— I think the, the level of professionalism that's out there today around the country of the guys that are first responders in law enforcement is It's awesome. These guys, I've been involved in helping with training at different points in time, and these guys are all dedicated to duty. I think finding that balance of home life and your family and still going out and doing this stuff every day, I mean, that's paramount. I think that the redemption of Mel Chancey is— that's the reason I'm here. It's not about doing all this undercover or infiltrating, whatever. You know, it's been— that story's been told like a million times. But a guy would actually go from living that life of violence and then making a change, finding the Lord and changing his life and doing it for all the right reasons. And what this guy has become now, it's, it's amazing. And I'm proud to be his friend.

So hell of a guy. Learned that yesterday.

He's a piece of work. Wow. Wow.

Yeah. But, well, thank you. So I got it. This is a little off topic before we get into your story, but I was reading something or talking to somebody. I can't remember, maybe a couple of weeks ago. And it was about undercover agents, federal agents, uh, state, whatever, local police, ATF, CIA, DEA. And it was talking about AI and facial recognition. And it actually was a conversation with somebody, uh, that— an old friend from my previous life. And they were talking about— I think what they were saying was that agency will not be traveling with pseudonyms anymore. And I was, I was, I was like, what? What the fuck do you mean they're not traveling with pseudonyms? And then it went into facial recognition and AI and how, how easy it is to dig shit up on people and basically said that they weren't— nobody will be traveling under— everybody will be traveling under true name and there may not be sure undercover agents much longer.

Yeah.

You heard of this?

Uh, yes and no. I think, um, the people that— the AI stuff is just exponentially exploded across the board. Uh, and from a security standpoint, we're always working— we're— law enforcement is always like a step behind because they're trying to generally catch up to whatever the, the current things are that are going to be a threat to us, is what we do. Um, and I know that— I know there's guys now in our program, the undercover program, Advanced Undercover Program, they're working on how we're going to deal with that and the steps we're taking so far to kind of, what can we put out? But it, it, like we're saying, exponentially so fast has grown so quickly, it's, it's very, very, very difficult. And it will be harder to do, um, if you're in a short— like you're just in like a town and you're just buying a couple guns off a gangbanger, or, you know, you're buying dope, um, on a smaller scale, you're probably not going to run into it. But you will run into it when you start to do Groups, organized groups, because, you know, at the end of the day, they're doing their homework on us every day.

They learn how we do. You know, if you talk to Mel yesterday, he was like, I know about RICO, I was trying to avoid RICO. Well, we still got you anyway because, you know, you didn't think it quite all the way through, and so we were able to get you. However, you know, there's always a learning curve on both ends, and, you know, we've got some incredible adversaries in the criminal community that are looking to really put it on us. Yeah, and we were like, we've got adversaries around the world, they're looking destroy us. You know, they can't get us, can't invade us. You know, we got two oceans and some land above and below, but the only way they can do this is to get us from inside. So you're seeing a rise of these other, these violent groups, not only just street gangs and Hells Angels motorcycle gang stuff, but everything else that's out there that's trying to put us down, man.

It's, it's, it's pretty crazy how fast the technology is developing and what it's affecting and And that's just something I never thought I'd hear.

Exactly. I mean, we are backstopping. Used to be you got a criminal history and an undercover driver's license and you were good to go. If somebody had the ability to run like a credit history, you know, we were backstopped up all through that. You could do a pretty decent deep dive into somebody from where it was before when I first started working and up until probably up to the point where I retired. It's really— I think it's kicked off in the last 4 or 5 years.

Wow.

Just immensely. But the people we had worked a lot with some people in Bragg and stuff and helped craft those backstopping measures for different groups, including ours. Gotcha. Yeah, man.

I mean, with the facial recognition, I mean, if you had any social profile as a kid, by the time you graduate the academy for ATF, I mean, you're correct. You're fucked.

You are. You're totally screwed. Yeah, you really are. And it's like, I have nothing. So if you want to play somebody who has to— I have no social media. I mean, I creep on my wife's every now and then to see what, like, everybody in high school is doing. But beyond that, I don't do any of that stuff, man. Yeah, I just hunker down.

Good for you.

Got my own little safe. You, however, I think, you know, really, you can't even have an opinion anymore without somebody wanting to tear your throat out or kill you.

Oh yeah, tell me about it.

Yeah, I'm sure. Fucking crazy.

Yeah, if you don't think like me, fuck you.

Yeah, I'm gonna kill you. Fine, like, okay, well, bring it. Yeah, well, and that's it. I mean, and that's what I, you know, in my opinion, it's just like the way— again, you can't invade us. Our adversaries around the world who want to see us fail, they, they can't invade us. They cannot take us. They cannot beat our freaking military. Yeah. They cannot, but they can put fentanyl into our country. Yeah. And Maduro can let every criminal out of the Venezuela prison and move them into the United States. That's that slow erosion of our country that is happening and people are just oblivious to it.

And the propaganda too, the bad armies, the—

I know, brother.

Narratives. It's, uh, it's— warfare has definitely changed, that's for damn sure.

Oh, no doubt. But you look at, like, I have a nephew that's over there now doing stuff, and, uh, you know, I'm proud as hell of him, and he's proud of hell to be there. Yep, yep.

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All right.

Where'd you grow up?

I grew up in, uh, suburbs of Chicago, not too far from from where Mel grew up. So we in the same neighborhood. Some of Mel's friends are actually— their parents live right behind my mom and dad, where my mom and dad lived, uh, Palos Heights. So I grew up, uh, regular blue-collar, everybody knows your neighbors, um, nobody had any money where we were at. So we had just a nice little sense of community in the, the, uh, the neighborhood that I grew up in was, was very good. We had the neighbors, the Baeos, I remember my dad— those guys had no money, and they would get together, smoke cigarettes and drink coffee, and figure out how— all right, you're working 3 jobs here, I'm working 2 jobs here, we only have 2 cars, your wife wants to go to nursing school, let's buy a car together and then we'll rotate, and that'll be the car that your wife takes to nursing school. And these guys would come up with this, just trying to— how to, to get ahead and, and live their life. And they were just— I would— I remember I was probably 6 or 7, listening to their conversation.

Mr. Bale and my dad just sitting down drinking a cup of coffee, trying to figure out how they're going to navigate life. Damn, right on, right on. And even I look back now and like, you know how everybody gets it with their dad at some point. My dad was the biggest asshole I'd ever met in my life from the time I was 17 to like 22. And then all of a sudden after I was 22, I was like, you know what, this guy's just— maybe he knows a couple things. Maybe he's lived a little bit of life. So yeah, but that's kind of how I grew up. Those were— that's, that's where I was at.

What were you into?

Played baseball.

Athletic?

Yeah. Yeah. Played baseball and just— I was on a couple of traveling baseball teams, you know, all through high school. But I had jobs. I worked at a lumberyard, so I started working there and I would do side jobs out of the lumberyard. My dad was a— he was a science teacher, but he made his money doing side jobs in construction. He was that guy, could fix anything, do anything. So great skill set as far as that goes. Now, um, you know, I could pretty much put additions on my house if I wanted to. You know, I don't do that anymore, but when I had to, I could. Um, so that's kind of how I just kind of started. I always— I was a night watchman at the local Payless Pool, which meant when the manager left at 10 o'clock at night, all my friends came over with beer and tunes, and we swam and drank all night while I was watching to make sure nothing happened at the pool. Um, so yeah, that was, that was kind of where I grew up at. It was, um, we— like Mel talks about too, when we were growing up, that whole area, kids were always fighting.

Everybody was quick to go to hands, you know. I mean, but it was, you know, it was just the South Side of Chicago, man. That's just how it was, South Suburbs.

Did you guys know each other at all?

I knew of him.

You did?

By being virtual the Hells Angels president. But I had never met him. But I knew— it was funny, the local attorney, local prosecutor for Palis Heights, used to train at the same gym that Mel did. And Mel was friends with— you know, they talked together. They weren't like going out for coffee friends, but they knew each other. And Mel let him ride. He rode a Harley. So Mel let him ride next to him one time going from point A to point B or something like that. Well, that guy was best friends with my mom and dad. So when we were doing the Hells Angels case, why, he was talking to my mom about something and my mom goes, well, I think he's doing some motorcycle. And so he, he kind of— and I'm like, so right away mom's OPSEC was freaking completely cut off at that point, you know, and we had to put her on probation for a while on what she said. But, uh, but that was in that community, everybody kind of knew each other, you know, and you knew who the asshole kids were and you knew who the good kids were and You know, you try to stay away from the asshole kids, but, you know, you tend to run around with them a little bit from time to time.

So, yeah, so that was kind of where both of us grew up at. It was kind of the, the south suburbs of the '70s and '80s, '60s and '70s. Yeah.

Where do we go from here?

I don't know. What would you like to get into? I went to college and didn't like it, but I got through it. I have a degree in environmental studies, biochem, but I knew there was no way I wanted anything to do with that. So I quickly got a doubled up and got an associate's degree in criminal justice. And I think the first thought about doing law enforcement came from— we had taken— I went to school, Manchester College in Indiana. And Indianapolis, Indiana has a boys' school down there for, you know, juvenile delinquents, as they used to call them, kids that had done some serious crime and they were down there locked up. We'd done like an outside tour and we were able to interview one kid. And on the way back, I was telling the professor, I go, you know what, why don't— I'm young enough. I go, how about you just put me in there as an inmate for 3 weeks and I'll tell you what's really going on? You know, because it just seemed like the kid was too polished that was talking about the institution and how things were. And of course, you talk to the, you know, the supervisors and the social workers and things like that.

But I was like, man, you really want to know what's going on? I go, put me in there. And he's like, would you go? And I go, in a minute, no problem. So we get back to college and he goes, I'm going to run it up the chain and see what will happen. I'm like, all right. So I'm getting kind of excited. I'm like, man, I'm going to go down there and be locked up and see what happens and see what I can learn. And I meet him like the next day and he goes, there's no fucking way they're going to let you go down there and be locked up in this place. I go, come on, man. I'll sign our thing and get out. And so that was my first, like, if you really want to know what's going on, you know, go out and meet these guys face to face and figure it out. How old were you then? 19, 20. Shit.

So you wanted to do undercover work?

Yeah, I didn't really know that, but what that was. But I thought, what better way? You know, I can listen to a million guys tell me what time of day it is about something over here. Well, you've never been there, so. You know, what if we go there and let's take a look and figure it out? So it seems like a better option.

Did you have any ambition to be a law enforcement officer as a kid?

I took a vice and drug abuse class, and the guy that did it was a Cook County Sheriff's deputy that was doing undercover, and he was telling a couple of stories. And I was like, oh yeah, that's— and then my baseball coach was a Chicago Police Department violent crimes detective, and he was like, just, he was just this good-looking, ageless, Rico Suave kind of guy. He just was such a, and a good man, a great coach. And I told him after listening to a couple stories, you know, I was like, you know, Pete, I think I want to be a cop. He goes, you want to go to the feds? He goes, don't. He goes, Chicago's done. And this is like 1976. He goes, he goes, get, he goes, don't go to the city. "He goes, try for the federal government." And I was like, "All right." So I had no idea I would end up doing that. But just how that guy's persona was, who he was as a person and how he carried himself, I was like, you know, that I would want to be that guy. You know, he was no-nonsense but very fair.

And then our youth group at church, we had a female police officer, Sugat, who was— she ended up retiring as a lieutenant. On a suburban department. Another, just, I just liked the way they had that calm around them. You know, things didn't— they weren't flying off the handle and getting all spun up on stuff. They just had an easygoing, problem-solving type mentality. And I thought, yeah, that's— I think I want to be like that. And so that was kind of like, for me, that's kind of got me into it.

Right on.

Right on.

Why did you pick the ATF?

I had, uh, my ex-brother-in-law was with DEA in Miami back in the cocaine cowboy days.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

And, uh, oh, but he's got some fucking stories.

Yeah, he's got a couple. Um, he transferred DE up to Detroit, and then he wanted to get back to Chicago, and Chicago was— ATF was hiring at the time, and so they took him as a lateral. So he got to ATF. He really didn't know about a lot about it. He worked with them in in Florida, in Miami back in the day, but said didn't know a lot of the guys or stuff. And he got in, he goes, man, this is awesome. He goes, this is like freaking— we're small. He called it the Marine Corps of federal law enforcement. He goes, you got no money, no support, but hey, can you go out here and kick ass and get with these fricking most violent guys and put them in jail? And he dug it. And I thought, all right. And then I had another friend that was a Cook County state's attorney. His brother was an ATF agent up in Rockford. Illinois. So I talked to him about it and he says, man, best job ever. And I'm like, wow. So I just— right place at the right time. Got an application in, took the test, and took me about 2 years to get— finally get on, get hired.

Really?

What took so long? Just the—

just— it was the background check. Yeah, it was background check stuff. And then there was— there was a hiring freeze, I think, in '85 or '86. They weren't putting people on. So had to wait for that to end. And then ATF hired, mass hired between '86 and probably '90. They put on a lot of people. They finally got the okay to do it and they put a lot of people on and we were doing pretty good agent-wise at that point. I think we had maybe 2,300 agents around the country at that point at the most. And we still don't have pretty much any more than 2,300 agents around the country. We've never— we've always been that political football. You know, the three largest lobbying groups, alcohol, tobacco, and firearms in DC. So it was always in their best interest to keep us functioning. But let's not give them a lot of money. I think Reagan actually was going to disband us at one point. And we had two agents were working the South Florida Violent Crimes Task Force during the Colombian Merlito Cuban War, the Cocaine Cowboys days. And we had two agents get killed down there undercover while they were doing the job.

And they'd gotten RIF notices that basically they're going to disband ATF, you know, at some point here. And you guys— and these guys went out and did the job anyway. And I was like, you know, this— I like, I like how these guys are thinking. And I was like, I'd— it'd be an honor to be a part of that. People, they're like, you're may not have a job in the next 6 months, year, year and a half, but go down there, do it anyway. It was part of the Vice Presidential Task Force that Reagan had. I think Bush was the one that ran it. Um, yeah, we had, uh, Eddie Bonillas and Ariel Rios were shot in two separate undercover deals and killed. Yeah, so it was, um, that kind of started— people are like, well, what are these guys doing? You know, they taking some farmer's shotgun from up in northern Michigan and they're like, no, these guys are down there going face to face and toe to toe with some bad people. Yeah. So it kind of changed the mentality a little bit at that point. They didn't disband us and then we were kind of off to the races after that.

Wow. So ATF's always been hated.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, we kind of— yeah, we're okay.

So what is— what is— could you just describe what is the job of the ATF? Because all we— all we hear is they're taking, they're taking our short-barreled rifles, they're taking— yeah, they're taking suppressors. Carbine pistols are illegal today, tomorrow they're legal, next week they're illegal again. What— so what is the—

all right, so ATF has two functions. There's a regulatory function, it's a regulatory side of the house. So the explosives, firearms licensing, FFL, explosive storage and sales of explosive. It's all kind of run through ATF. So they keep a lid on— not a lid on, but they can track explosives, you know, that kind of— the FFLs that have a license, you know, they do inspections to make sure they're current, you know, following the protocol and stuff like that. And then you've got the enforcement side, and that's the side I worked on. And so that was from the minute I started, it was always about violent crime. And so what you would have is the legislature won't do its job completely and say this is legal or this is illegal. So they'll say, okay, short-barreled rifle. Well, what constitutes a short-barreled rifle? So ATF then has to make a decision using regional counsel and firearms technology branch guys. They get together and they're like, okay, does this fit what the intent of the legislature was? And then sometimes they're like, yes, so you can't have this. Sometimes it's no, so you can't have this. So it's that constant— rather than be specific about what's legal and is illegal.

These guys have led it up to— and we're not the only agency that they've doled that out to. DEA does that for some of the drug stuff. Environmental Protection Agency, you know, they come up with their own policies and procedures, what people can do and can't do based on, you know, their— what they've been— powers they've been given from Congress. So in my opinion, ATF, it should be cut and dry. This is it. This isn't it. Everybody knows, let's go here. But I think you could— the silencer stuff and the machine guns and stuff like that, I think if I'm not mistaken, it was 1936 where they enacted the first statute against that. And it wasn't that they made silencers and machine guns illegal. What they said was, okay, you know, the government at that point still believed in the sovereignty of the states. So state's right to regulate itself. So what they did was say, oh, we're going to put a tax on it. You can have a machine gun, but you got to call us up. Pay $250, whatever the tax was, the transfer tax, and let us know you have it. It's just like a bomb.

Like, you can build your own bomb if you like, but you got to put a serial number on it and you got to pay the tax. Well, no bad guy is going to do that, pay the tax or put a serial number on a destructive device. And so that's where we come in. Now you have an unregistered, an NFA, or unregistered machine gun or shotgun. So now ATF can take action against you.

Gotcha. Gotcha. So how was it? How was the academy?

When I went through, it was 8 weeks of basic criminal investigation school, and it was 8 weeks of just stuff specific to ATF. So it was 16 weeks altogether. Now, I still teach down there. I teach field ops, and now it's 26 weeks.

Holy shit.

So it's a pretty They've really— I was telling you, a great friend of mine, Sergeant Lessner from the Ranger Battalion, now he runs our training down there and has for the last few years. And just a completely squared away kid. And well, not kid anymore. He's close to retirement, but I'm old. So everybody that's still quasi on a job is a kid, but just a squared away guy. And we have over the years, we've hired— we have a couple SEALs that are ATF agents. We have a lot of Ranger Battalion guys, a lot of Marines. And it's a good group of— and then we have right out of college kids too, that kind of thing. So it's a good mix. The last class I taught at most recently, they were really good, really squared away. It was fun to watch them kind of progress. And then I teach field ops, which is the last 2 weeks where we have like a whole city set up, role players. And so they work a case from beginning to end over that 2-week period of time. We do undercover, we deal with informants, we do search warrants, we have a robbery situation where you got to go in and extract the undercover or the CI.

We've got hostage barricaded situation. So they run through all this stuff and hopefully they've learned everything they've learned in all the blocks building up to that point. Then now's their time to execute it. So it's fun. It's the most enjoyable part of the academy. No doubt about it.

Final FTX.

Yeah, it's awesome.

What did you want to do? Did you want to go undercover right off the bat?

Yeah, I, I was lucky. I got, um, I had some great mentors, um, when I started. I started in '87, got through the academy. I was doing stuff, working undercover by mid-'88.

You were undercover within a year?

Oh yeah, that was back in the day where here's your gun and badge, go catch somebody. Like, okay, you know, it was, um, like I said, it was a, it was kind of a whole different program. And my boss, the first day on the job, goes, I don't know what you know about undercover work or ATF work or federal law enforcement. He goes, my group works undercover. That's what we do. He goes, there's a Corvette over there. There's money in this box. You know, you want to use a different gun, get a different gun, but go out there, start buying dope and guns and make some arrests. And I was like, right, fucking on, man.

Holy shit.

I'm like, I'm good to go.

That's awesome.

And then there was a guy, John Rotuno, which was probably We have some great undercover agents in ATF. I know nobody hears about them or anything, but I look at those guys and they're just unbelievable what they've done. Had this guy, John Rotuno. The Vice Lord Street Gang was remanufacturing hand grenades. And so what they're doing, they're going to an Army surplus shop and they'd get the Mark 2, you know, the frag from World War II. They'd buy a bunch of those and then they would also buy the old, uh, smoke grenade fuses, which are completely different than an actual, um, hand grenade fuse. This has a timer, this one doesn't. So when they repacked all the black powder that they did in the hand grenade and they screwed in this fuse, 3 guys showed up to the hospital with half their face blown off, their arm gone, because they pulled the thing and thought, watch this, you know, this will be funny, hold my beer. And then the thing goes off immediately because there's no delay. So they were like— so they had a couple guys. So John Rotuno interviews one of these guys because obviously it's a destructive device and that would fall into— it's basically a bomb.

So John interviews this kid and he was so pissed off because the gang hadn't come put any money, you know, helped his family out or anything. He's got no arm. So he goes, I'll tell you what's going on. And so John gets his kid to introduce him to the— it was the Undertakers. It was a faction of the Vice Lord street gang. And we were getting— showing up. Chicago PD was picking up these devices that had exploded. Obviously, they found some way to get it away from them before it blew them up. So what they started doing was they put everything in a ball Mason jar and screw the top on. They pull the pin. And then they would throw the mason jar, it would break, and then the pun would expel and it would set off the bomb. So that's how they were reconfiguring their, their hand grenades. So John gets introduced to these Undertaker Vice Lords, and he starts buying these remanufactured— they'd had, they had like, I don't know, 60 of them. So John bought immediately. You got to get that, we got to get that off the street, you know. So John buys like all of them.

Well, he kind of ingratiates himself in to the club. So he ends up— or to the gang— he ends up doing, in a 2-year period of time, undercover every day with these assholes. He did 120 defendants, all gun and dope buys. Um, I don't— at least a dozen murders they ended up, I think, charging, that he'd got conversation about their criminal activity and what they were doing. Um, and they ended up arresting him on what's called a CCE, continuing criminal enterprise, where you have a leader and then your 5 or more people underneath you that, that pay up to or take orders from the leadership. So it's a, it's a way to get everybody wrapped up. And so they charged him with the CCE. So he did 120 defendants, and I would watch him every day go to the West Side of Chicago, the worst neighborhood in the city. He's just this yoked up Italian dude, and he was just whipping a game on these guys. Wow. I was like, I was like, I want to, I want to be that guy. And so that I started like, okay, let's figure this out. You know, what can I do?

And those are guys I worked in an organized crime group and we had two guys, John Mazzola and Jimmy Delorto. And they were like old school Italian paisans from the South Side. But they had a great ability to read people and they're just great true investigators. So they solved murders and it's usually a firearm was involved. The one case they did on a guy, Werner Hartmann, was a real rich man that had those stereo company, a stereo car installation. So you put your stereo in your car and got huge speakers and stuff like that. And he was a multimillionaire, falls in love with a stripper, of course. And then tale as old as time ends up, he's got two kids that he's with. The stripper's actually got a boyfriend. Surprise. And so he takes a MAC-10 that someone had converted to full automatic and kills him one night. So because it was clearly, it was a machine gun by how the pattern was, uh, John Mazzola, one of the agents, was working another case and was able to show that the guy that made and sold the machine gun to this guy was also a guy that John had bought a machine gun off of also.

And they started to get conversation, so they were kind of putting two to two together. Um, they go up and they figured obviously she was involved They kind of ID'd who the shooter was. It was the boyfriend of the stripper. And I remember Jimmy DeLorto, they had changed the will. So his little girls got nothing out of his $2 million life insurance policy, but the stripper girlfriend got everything. So someone had to change not only the will, but also the life insurance policy. And the only person that could do that would be the guy that sold him the policy. So they get all the bank records from this from this company. And Jimmy tells me, and I'm brand new, and he would always stick his tongue, and when he was thinking about something, he goes, "That lazy bitch wrote that guy a check." He goes, "The lazy bitch wrote a check. I'm sure of it." So he gets the bank records. So I'm sifting through all these checks. He goes, "Look for one about $10,000 to $20,000 that went to this guy." I'm digging through like 4 or 5 days' bank records, going through, going through.

Sure enough, there's a check. $15,000 that she had written to the insurance guy to change the beneficiaries of the insurance. And so he ends up going to jail with her and the shooter and stuff. But that was like, those were the cases I was exposed to when I first started. And I was like, man, this is— wow, this is what I want to do. So it's kind of different than what the general perspective of ATF is and how we do what we do. But I worked— that's all I ever did was cases like that.

And I mean, what do you do when they say— you had an 8-week academy, you show up and they say, there's cash, there's guns, there's fucking cars, go get bad guys. Where do you start? Well, I have no network.

Well, that's the first thing you do is that network. And a couple of guys in the group said, here's a couple Illinois State Troopers that we work for. I ended up going down to Illinois State Police District 5 post in Joliet, and I met some guys in the Cooperative Police Assistance Team. They called it CPAT. And I just introduced myself and I said, hey man, this is kind of my area. I go, if you guys can plug me in on anything, um, you know, I'll do whatever it takes. They're working some stolen cars from some organized crime guys. So the first couple things I did was just buy stolen autos for these guys out of the task force. And so that's kind of how I got started. And then I would always ask, you guys got any pistols, got any guns? It was always gangbangers or, you know, some organized group that was into nefarious activity. And so, you know, I just embed myself with those guys and we do the best we can to put a case on them. And that's how—

how would you embed? I mean, especially I would get informed as a new guy.

There's— you could do cold call, which is one way you just show up.

I mean, do you guys train for this shit? Oh, in the academy back then?

And yeah, at the end, the last 2 weeks, that field operations was the same thing. We've been been teaching that since, you know, Jesus lost his sandals.

And that's enough? I mean, I guess—

no, no, actually, no, it's, it's not enough. We have advanced schools that we put on too. But back in the day, at the time, it was like throwing the water to learn how to swim. And so that's how you cut your teeth. We just put your head in the game and start, start rolling. And that's what we did.

So what, what did you do specifically? Uh, build a network. Who do you start with?

I started with the Illinois State Police and we— I was doing— I did some gang groups down there and I kind of rolled into by 1990 had done the Outlaws motorcycle gang, had a clubhouse in Juliette and had developed an informant that I knew about motorcycle gangs and we talk about them and were, you know, were instructed on them along with traditional organized crime and street gangs, you know, in the academy. And we had developed an informant that was associated with them. And I knew about them, but I didn't know what the lifestyle was. I didn't know, you know, I could ride a Harley with no problem, but I didn't know about gangs. So the informant kind of brought me up to speed how things work and introduced me to a couple of the people in the Joliet Juliet group of the Outlaws. And so I bought— we bought dope out of the clubhouse, bought dope off a few of the guys. They all had guns. So after we did some dope buys, I found that I'd gotten introduced to the Colombian that was actually providing the cocaine to not only the Outlaws but everybody else, you know, in that area.

So I kind of moved over into his group, and I bought dope and some pistols off of his underlings. And then we rolled up to a guy that was his number 2, bought some dope off that guy and a pistol. We do a search warrant. He cooperates. We have the Colombian deliver 5 keys to us, and then we took them off. So it's one of those things where you start building. I started getting— once you get in the criminal community and you start, you know, you show yourself as a criminal or a guy that's hungry, looking to come up, you know, I'm just trying to come up, you know, trying to make money, just one of you, um, and you got a little bit of gift of gab you know, at that time I just, for whatever reason, had the ability to do that. And so we rolled through the Outlaws. We ended up seizing their clubhouse in Joliet on Oak Street, I think '90 or '90, and it might have been later, '92 maybe. So we did, I think, 4 or 5 of those guys. We did the Columbian and then we did the Columbians group.

So it was like my first, like, getting into an actual group or organization and kind of seeing how it— how the criminal community really runs.

But there's a lot more to it than that. I mean, I've, I've not done undercover work, uh, near as extensive as you have, but I mean, I have. I've done it on multiple occasions for multiple outfits. Uh, I mean, I mean, there's just, there's a lot to deal with. How do you do when you're conducting surveillance as an undercover guy? I mean, everybody that fucking passes by you, the paranoia that you deal with is everybody's watching me. I'm fucking compromised at every corner I go to. Oh, why did that guy fucking drive by so slow? Yeah, that hypervigilance goes to this fucker with the dog that just took a shit next. You know what I mean? Like, what—

that's how— how are you— that's why after 30 years of doing it, I was in my basement in the middle of the night pacing back and forth for 4 and a half hours because I was like, I had lost my mind. And I mean, you—

so you go with a biker, the Outlaws, then you're in the Colombian cartel. I mean, it's just— so you're just— you continue to weave through these things and you're just building more and more and more.

Correct. Uh, undercover is like sales. At the end of the day, it's— you're a salesman. So I go in, I meet a guy, sometimes it's a cold call sales, like, hey, how you doing? I think you need windows, all right? Let me— I'm going to sell you some windows. Or you might get an introduction from somebody, so say, this is my friend, or this is my cousin, or this is a guy that You know, he's trying to eat. Good guy, vouch for him. You might have that type of introduction, and then you just start to play off that. And it's about selling yourself. But you're right, it's— this one guy at the academy, he said it so succinctly. He goes, if you ever see a swan going across a smooth pond and it looks beautiful, so swan's just floating, but underneath it's fricking He's just paddling like a motherfucker to get across, but it looks fucking smooth on the top. That's what undercover is. In your head, you're thinking, how am I going to move this from point A to point B? Does this guy like me? Is he going to kill me? Is he going to rob me?

We get robbed occasionally on a few times. Is he going to jerk his pistol and go to work? Is he setting me up to get somebody else to do me? You know, it's all that. You're constantly thinking that. And working in that in your head, what am I going to do if? You're constantly reassessing a situation. Like when we do the bike gang stuff, after being with the club, like Mel's guys when they were henchmen up in Rockford, going to clubhouse, not everybody likes you. I think I'm a pretty personal guy and everybody should love me. But you get in that mix with these people and some people are like, there's something about you I don't fucking like. And you're like, okay, so now how am I going to win over this guy? Am I going to— I'm not going to fucking be patting him on the head. No, come on, man, like me. So you got to figure a way to get this guy to like you. And a lot of— sometimes we'll do street theater where we'll do some other criminal act with another agent and this guy will watch. You're like, okay, well, maybe this guy's about it.

And so we do that. And it, uh, undercover is like, how do you stage that? We just figure out, we do, I don't want to give away too much stuff because guys are out there still doing it, but we'll do a crime. We might hire these guys to act as a lookout. Here's all you need to do. Like I, one time, me or me and I've gone up to a guy and say, hey, look, man, $500. All I need to do is have a walkie-talkie and be at the end of this road. If you see anything, a car that, even a car, even if it's not a cop, You get on right away and you say, hey, it does look good. I go, and then you drive away. It's all I need you to do. But while I'm doing that, I got a bag of guns. And he's like, what are you up to? I'm like, just watch for the car. He'd be like, okay. Now I haven't told him anything, but he's starting to think in his head, what the fucking dude up to? You know, what's he got going on? Then he want to know.

All criminal groups, everybody's looking to move up, make more money. Be more violent. So like, if you're a guy that looks like you're a plug to get somebody into that, it's like, man, let's see what those guys are about. We'll see if we can move the ball forward with those cats. And that's, that's kind of how it works. So street theater is a good way to— time builds credibility. And for undercover stuff, not— you don't generally have a lot of time to build that credibility. A lot of these guys in the criminal community, they've known each other for years. They've been criminals for years. And so now I'm the new guy. And so now you got to kind of build that credibility in a short period of time. And sometimes it's hard to do. Sometimes it works and sometimes they're like, why don't you just go away? Like, okay. Yeah.

When it comes to— I mean, so do you remember your first, your very first approach as an undercover guy. What was it?

Was a sawed-off shotgun from a guy named Pig.

What was— why were you after him?

I, I— it was a favor to a local law enforcement. A lot of times, like, your local police department has resources, but they don't have undercover resources.

Gotcha.

So you might have the Al Capone in that, that community. This guy's name was Pig. He was Al Capone. He wasn't a cartel guy, but he was a guy that made the quality of everybody's life in that community shit because he was a bully. He was an asshole. He just— nobody liked him. His name was Pig. So the sheriff called the CPAC guys and said, you guys got a guy? We might be able to get a guy to introduce a guy to— he's just, you know, He's got a sawed-off shotgun he wants to sell. You know, that's like not a case we would normally do, but they needed Al Capone, who was Pig, just removed from their community because it just made the quality of life of everybody else in that community. He's just that guy that was just a problem. And so I met Pig, and it was my first, uh, it was the first undercover deal other than the cars for a gun. And I was like, I mean, I was nervous. Fuck, it's Pig, you know, this guy's fucking probably cartel fucking level. Like, I'm thinking he's the Al Capone of, you know, Wilmette or— forget the small town it was— Wilmington, Illinois, you know, population, you know, 120 people.

Said, I'll go get Pig. So I get down there and the guy was just a— he was just an asshole, you know. So I bought the gun off him and then they took him off the next day and charged him in the state. So, but that's what my boss's attitude at that point in time was. The federal government, ATF, local law enforcement is going to have so much that they can do, and sometimes they can't maybe take it to the next step, maybe do a RICO, which is hard to do jurisdictionally. They might have a bad guy that's coming out of another jurisdiction into their jurisdiction doing crime and then leaving. And if they don't catch them here, it might be problematic for them to go to another jurisdiction to get them, like another state. So because of that, because we have stuff like RICO and things, that jurisdiction, we don't have those problems anymore. So we can charge that crime— excuse me— whether the guy was over here or over here, the crime was here and he's over here doing crime. We can charge them all together federally.

And how— I mean, you're living in these communities sometimes.

Yes. Yeah.

So— and you were married during a lot of this?

I was married the first time for about— I have two wonderful kids. I think I got married young and my first wife did not enjoy the job. Don't bet she did not enjoy it on any level. And I think that— and I was not a good person either. Really, I was not good. I like to think of myself that I was, but I was like, I dove so much into doing the job that whatever she had going on, I was like, and then we— and it wasn't— I'm not saying it was just me, um, you know, she had her issues too. And I think we got to the point where I go, this is, um, this is not good. And she hated the job. Every day was a problem. Every day was, why do you do this? Why do you look like that? There's a lot of that. Like, I go to kids' events, you know, and I'd look like, you know, some chooch, you know, and they'd be like, why does Zach's dad look like that? You know, and I would tell the kids were really good at not saying anything. I say, look guys, we can't talk about what Dad does.

That's just the way it is. We had codes. Like, we had one problem one time. We ran into a guy, gave him the like, hey, we got to go, no questions asked, get in the car, we leave. Unfortunately, they knew way too much about violent crime and bad people at a very early age that I look back now and I'm like, probably was a good thing. But so I was divorced, I separated and then eventually divorced. Around '92 or so. And it just, um, I got to delve into the job after that. But then the problem with my ex— not problem with my ex-wife, it's that every other weekend you have the kids and Wednesdays. So I was broke, I had no money. So, um, I was on the SRT team also at the same time. And so I had my kit, was always in the apartment I lived in. So the kids would dig through it and, you know, put on the helmet, put the vest on, carrier. And so I say, hey, let's do quick peeks. They're like, what's that? I go, all right, let's say all the bad guys are in this room.

And I put the stuffed animals on the bed. All right, you get one chance, you get a split second, one eye, quick peek, you come back, tell me how many. So we made it into a game. So we started out doing just quick peeks, like, and then my daughter, who is always way smarter than my son— I love them both, but she's an engineer and he's in law enforcement— he couldn't do math. So that's always an offer. She was always— she picked up on everything. She was actually by 6 or 7 the most tactical girl. I mean, the stuff that would come out of her mouth when we were doing stuff. We had— I did one setup in where I was in the apartment. There were 2 doors on either side, down a hallway, 2 doors. You got 2 problems and then a 3rd door. So you got 3 problems you got to solve as we move through to sweep this area. So I mean, they're little and I got them, got a vest on and stuff. And so took turns being team leader. So my daughter would get in front right away, you know, she loved to, you know, so she would get up and she'd give this and we'd wait and she'd go, she'd give the nod.

So I tap Zach, Zach taps her, she's like, go, go, go. So she would do a button hook and she wants Zach to do across the room. And then we'd have one of the stuffed animals that have a pistol, you know, is that a shoot or don't shoot? You know, that kind of thing. And then it got even more involved to the point where I was like, okay, they'd like, okay, what are we doing today? I'm like, all right, got a warrant for Moose. Moose is a bad guy. Might, might be two people in the place. I go, what, what kind of entry are we going to do? We going to do surround and call out? What, what are we going to do? So Zach, my son, is like, dynamic entry, we're going in there. I'm like, Andy's like, well, there's two people in there also. Are they separate? She starts, she's like 7 at the time.

Wow.

So we would get up to clear the door and she'd say shit like, Zach, when it was his team leader time, he'd go up, he's calling the shots, what's going to happen. And he gets up there and he's kind of hesitating because there's 3 problems he's got to solve, doesn't know which room Moose is in. So what do we clear first? What's the most dangerous? So he gets up there and she goes, I hear from my daughter, 7-year-old little girl, she goes, come on, Zach, work the problem. Oh man, I was like, I love you, man.

Wow.

So that's how, that's how we kind of— that's what we did. We did that, you know, a bunch of times. And the unfortunate aspect of that was when I would go back to the— I had them on Wednesdays, so I would go— I brought them to the office sometimes. They do their homework in the conference room, and then we'd go out and do buys and then come back. So you had everybody in my group there, and there'd be, you know, guns on the table and we're putting everything into evidence and stuff and my kids are doing their homework. I remember one time it was the DC sniper. Remember when that guy was going around killing people?

Yeah.

All right. So we were taking turns. People would be detailed out to DC. And so Joey Rusevich was in my group and I got tasked that I was going to go out to DC. But also the time I would have been out there was the first daddy-daughter dance that I would have been able to go to. So Joey's in the room with me. My daughter's in there. He goes, you know what? He goes, I'll switch it up. I'll go, you know, and you can go to the dance. And I'm like, thanks, Joe. I appreciate that. So Joey catches the sniper. Well, he doesn't catch the sniper, but on the perp walk when they come out, my kids are watching TV and there's Joey. He's caught the sniper. So my daughter's like calling me on the phone, Dad, you're not even going to believe it. Watching TV, Joey caught the sniper. So here's my kids that they know what a sniper is. They know that he's killing people and taking their lives. So where their little heads were going at the time, I have no idea. But, uh, I'm sure they are two exceptional adults and, um, it worked out okay.

But, uh, I can't imagine what they must have been thinking at that time and You know, it just— it was weird. I talked to my daughter later. At one point, she actually talked to another agent's daughter that was having some issues. And, um, I remember she said, she goes, being little and being with your group of guys, and I saw how they acted with you. And when Joey said, you know, if your dad ever has a problem, I'm gonna go in and get him, she goes, I was like, well, shit, you know, it's all cool in the zoo, man. Joey's going to be there if there's a problem. It'll be okay. And it was like I was like, okay, I'm glad that you had that, you know, for yourself, because I— there's a lot of people, kids in law enforcement, they do not end up faring very well. And it's not just specific law enforcement, it's anytime you have a father that's a little bit not there all the time, that's a tough thing, man. Fathers are very, very important.

So yeah, yeah, I'm realizing that. I got a 4-year-old boy and, uh It's, uh, he needs Dad.

They all do, man. And, you know, the breakdown of the family is one of the major problems in the country. Yeah, it's just that. It— the nuclear family is, you know, just been shot. So yeah, so having that and having the kids be able to have those experiences, uh, it was hard, I think, a little bit. It was hard on them at different times, um, but But they turned out okay. They're good. My daughter's an engineer. She's a biosystems and mechanical engineer. She makes like biodiesel. And now she's working. She was in Cheyenne, Wyoming, trying to be a— my dad was a kind of a horseman. He raised horses on a farm when he was a kid. He always wanted her to be a barrel racer. He goes, he called her Bug. He goes, Bug, you got the perfect legs. You're strong. You're an athlete. Because you grip that horse. You're super light. and that palomita whipping you around that arena on those barrels. She never ended up doing it, but that was like my dad's goal for her. Right on. Kind of funny.

Where I was going is, I mean, you're undercover in the same town or in the same area that you're living in. That's just something I've never, ever had to do.

Yeah.

Nor did I have a family when I was anyways. But so how are you mitigating your own paranoia? How are you keeping your family from being compromised? Killed, being trailed, tipping off where your kids live, who your wife is. I mean, it's a lot of shit to think about that I've never had to think about.

When we first started doing it, the ability to find out who you were and where you were at was harder than it is now. Now there's— it's so easy to do. So there is difference. I— we always got trained up when we were getting trained, or we still train it now. You always wipe yourself off when you leave. If you got to go back and do another run, go someplace else, we always have— we don't always have, but a lot of times we'll have an undercover apartment. Get done doing a deal, go back to the undercover apartment. You got eyes on the undercover apartment. You'll be in there, you'll sit down, let's relax for a while. Maybe go out, go to a bar, get a sandwich, come back to the undercover apartment and have everybody that's your crew that's watching you observe to see, make sure everything is okay, and then go home from there. I used to do that for the group or the Hells Angels or AIM henchman case. Had an undercover apartment about 30 miles outside of Rockford in a small town apartment. I would go there after I would meet. I'd sit there, I'd wait for a little while, like 3 or 4 hours, make sure everything was everything, and then I'd do a couple runs on my way out, clean myself off, and then go home.

An SDR.

Yeah, yeah.

Did you just say that you had, uh, there was an element that was overwatching you to—

for a— at times there were, and times there weren't. Um, it's a lot of manpower to have that go on. And when you do a long-term infiltration type thing, you're tying up an overwatch crew or just guys in your group for, you know, now no one's doing anything except for this specific thing. And we were such a small agency, a lot of times you only ended up with like 1 or 2 guys on your cover team, which ended up saving our life at one point. I talked about it later, but, um, we didn't have a whole fucking group, so you were kind of on your own to make sure that you were safe when you got out of there. And I would always do my due diligence to make sure I was wiped off and cleaned up before I went home.

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That's 50% off your first order. It's sundaysfordogs.com/srs50. Sundaysfordogs.com/srs50 or use code SRS50 at checkout. Want more from The Sean Ryan Show? Join our Patreon today for more clips and exclusive content. You'll get an exclusive look behind the scenes where you can watch the guests interact with the team and explore the studio before every episode. Plus, unlock bonus content like our Extra Intel segments where we ask our guests additional questions, our new SRS On side specials and access to an entire tactical training library you will not find anywhere else. And the best part? Patreon members can ask our guests questions directly. Your insights can help shape the show. Join us on Patreon now, support the mission, and become part of the Sean Ryan Show story. Did you ever— have you ever had an incident where you were with your family And the bad actor that you were after?

Yeah, it was actually one of the guys on— one of Mel's friends. I ended up— I would take my kids to, um, Odyssey Fun World early in the morning at 9 o'clock before all the assholes came. Like 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock in the afternoon, then it was crowded. You know, it is— you try to keep an eye on everybody and, you know, you're looking at everyone. So I would go in the morning when no one was there and, uh, I remember one of Mel's guys was upstairs. I don't know if he was— I don't know if he had kids or he was with like a girlfriend's kids or something, but they were doing something and he had his cut on. And unfortunately, my kids knew what henchmen, angels, outlaws— they knew all that stuff. So my son's bounding upstairs to go to this one game he always liked to— video game he'd like to play. And he's running up the stairs. I look up and I see this guy on the left side and I'm like, gosh, shit. And I would never let my daughter— she— we held hands and we played all the games together.

She was never by herself. So she sees it at the same time I see it, and she goes, hey Dad. I go— and I gave her the, the no sign. And I'm like, Zach. And he's like, you know, boys. Zach. He's running up, you know, he's not listening. Probably gets to the top of the stairs, and then he kind of sees it, and he like turns around. His eyes are super big. So he leans up against like a pillar And, uh, and he looks down at us and I give him the, like, let's go. And, uh, he can't let it go, so he like leans back against the wall and he goes, and I'm like, yeah. And then he's like, he comes out against the wall like he's joking, like, it's all good, yeah, walks down the steps. Get his hand. I go, we got to go. He goes, yeah. So we go out. I go, hey dude, when I give you this, you just go. I don't need your sitrep on whatever the situation is at that point. I go, we're just, we're gonna frickin' exfil right now. Get in the frickin' car, we're out.

And he's like, he's like, yeah, I know. He goes, are we afraid of that guy? I go, no, but you know what, he was up there with his kids and we wouldn't want anything to, we wouldn't want to argue or have a problem with his kids up there. And they were like, okay, Okay. Right. Like, okay. So that was the only time that— That's it. That was it. Holy shit. That's very— Wow. But I tell you what, I look back at stuff and I am— it's like even coming to know the Lord and finding— getting back into faith. I am extremely thankful for where I'm at now compared to where I was by the time I retired. It's— I'm very fortunate. Very fortunate. I worked with some great guys that I know would save me in a minute. And yeah, I was very, very fortunate.

Did you have a plan for if that happened? I mean, how different was your cover story than your actual story?

I mean, obviously pretty close. I was— I mean, I can wrench on cars and stuff. I knew construction inside and out. I poured concrete, too, framed houses, worked with my dad all the time. My dad was just jack of all trades. So it actually came in handy because it looked like you really were who you're purporting to be. I always had a set of tools in the truck. Yes. Yeah. So when the brother's hot water tank went out, I'm like, "Oh, shit, bro, I got you, man. I'll swap that out for you." So having the ability to do that non-criminal stuff, it helps your backstop story because now you become more real to these guys. "Shit, he swapped out my hot water heater. Cop's going to do that." And then any preconceived myth about undercovers, that would always come in. And like what? Like, well, if you're undercover and I'm a bad guy and I ask you, are you now or you ever been a police officer? You got to tell me, otherwise it's entrapment. So that was like the big one. So a lot of those guys would say, are you now or have you ever been affiliated with law enforcement?

You know, you'd be like, no. All right. Because if you were, you'd have to tell me, otherwise it's entrapment. So we help perpetuate that. Mistake, but I think everybody figured it out by now. But back in the day, that was one of the things. So, so they would ask you, you know, questions and stuff like that. And it was just like, yeah, I'm lying, but it's okay.

I'm lying, but it's okay. Wow. So how did the— who did you go after first? Was it the— I started with Outlaws.

Outlaws. Yeah, I started the Outlaws case and it wasn't an infiltration. I didn't— those guys didn't know me more than a handshake. You know, and I rode on the credibility of the informant. And so it was just the Juliet guys, and it was like just enough to get probable cause for a search warrant and get the guns and the dope that we had purchased, we used. And then we bought enough dope out of the clubhouse that we were able to seize it, federally seize it, forfeit it. So we took the clubhouse. But it was that time that I met some of the guys. They didn't get wrapped up in that first case, but I met some of those guys that ended up getting it on with Mel and his crew from— at the time they were in Antioch, Illinois, and then they moved up to a small town right at the border of Illinois and Wisconsin. And the state line chapter, they were called, of the Outlaws, and they'd moved up there. And so I had met some of those guys. I knew the— I met the president. And again, just riding on the credibility.

I didn't buy anything. I didn't talk to him about criminal activity. It was just kind of a meet and greet, you know, spent a little time at the clubhouse in Antioch, but not very much, um, you know, and that was about it, just getting seen, you know. You just can't run up on somebody and go, hey, got a machine gun, you know. Yeah, you know, it doesn't work. So you got to build that, get that foundation set before you move forward.

What, what is it that— what's go criteria for the ask? I mean, how much time are you spending building their trust, hanging out with them? You know, what, what is in your head, what is go criteria for, all right, I'm good enough, I can make the ask?

Um, sometimes though, if they ask you a question like, dude, what are you trying to come up, are you trying to eat, what do you like, what are you looking to do? And it'd be like, oh, fuck, bro, you know, I got a plug over here for dope. I got this guy, but this guy's short. I don't know if you got a guy, you know. Yes, not you. I don't want to come to you for dope or guns, but if you got a guy that could hook me up, that'd be great. So a lot of times they're like, well, fuck, why give your money to that guy? You can deal with me directly. Oh, okay, great. Okay, I'll deal with you. So that's kind of the, you know, kind of the MO. But it's a vibe, you know. You got to kind of feel it. You can tell how people act toward you. You know when people don't like you. I'm sure you know that feeling. And so you get a, you get a good vibe for that. Have an understanding of how much to push and how much not to push, you know, how much to like kiss their ass for like, God, you guys are the best, and not be some suck-ass that's, you know, you know, got these guys up on some pedestal you're trying to be like.

How much time are you spending studying biker gang culture. Yeah, you gotta do your homework.

I did. When I first started, we went through the academy and I— you saw the sizzle reel. I was like, no one will ever infiltrate. I'm like, fuck, come on, man, there's got to be a way. You know, we can— got to be a way to get in on these guys. Um, and I knew that my predecessors, the guys that I admired in my organized crime group, they, they did some mob guys. So I'm like, I think every— if you find the right angle to come at them, everybody can get done. And every criminal can be had at some point if you work it the right way. Why did they say that?

I forgot. So can you just elaborate on that for the audience?

It's just hard. Like, motorcycle guy that said— There was a mystique for the motorcycle gang stuff. It was when I did it in— when I did the Mills case, I think started in probably late— no, yeah, late '92, just doing the homework. On the guys, like trying to figure out who's who in the zoo and what was going on. And then it wasn't until probably mid-'93 that I really started it full-time, and then it extended to almost '95 until it just got too violent and ATF said no more. But the workup on it was doing your homework, what are these guys about? But we didn't know what it was going to take to become a member of any of that. There was always these rituals. I remember one And girl told me, she goes, agent, female agent, she goes, you know, it's kind of gross, but she goes, you know, you're going to have to blow a dog. I go, what? She goes, yeah, to get in on these guys, you're going to have to blow a dog. I go, are you fucking kidding me? She goes, that's what I heard. Like, what you heard or what you know?

And she's like, well, that's what, that's the rumor of how to get into this club. You're going to have to do that. So I remember asking one of the henchmen up in Rockford, Manny Mathias, I go, I got to blow a dog or some shit to get in here. He goes, dude, where'd you hear that? I'm like, I didn't want to say a law enforcement professional told me that's what you got to get in. I was just like, nah, I just kind of— somebody told me that one time. He goes, dude, he goes, if I told you to blow a dog and you did it, I would send you on down the highway. He goes, no, we want men, not dog blowers. I'm like, okay, good. All right. I think I can handle that. I'll be okay. So yeah, so that was kind of— but yeah, it's— we didn't know. A friend of mine that's a West Point grad that was also an agent, he was a helicopter pilot, flew Cobras, great guy. He had actually done a bike club called the Warlocks down in Florida. And he had met the president at the gym.

This guy's West Point guy, just played football for a point. I mean, he's just solid, jacked up cat. The president liked him right away because he was a big dude. And he basically said, "Come on in. I'm going to give you your own chapter." So he got himself and then like 4 or 5 other ATF agents. They developed their own chapter of the Warlocks down there, got patches and didn't have to prospector start out or earn their way. They kind of just got by virtue of the fact that this guy really liked the West Point guy, Steve Martin, who was a great undercover. He said, "No, we We— you're okay, you're with us. They're like, we're gonna get you guys going. So they started their own chapter and they did a bunch of those guys down there. But that was, that was the only guy I had to talk to, great friend of mine. And I would compare notes, like, what, how did— like, what are they asking you to do? Do you got to commit a murder? Do you got to do all this violent shit? He's like, I don't— for these guys down here, we got patched in, right?

I don't know what it's like to start from scratch and move up. I'm like, all right, so you—

do you always, um, do you always start from scratch? Because I mean, I guess starting from scratch— I don't want to come across like I'm trying to diminish anything. No. Uh, so please don't take it that way. But you know, I mean, so I did some undercover work, a lot— most of it in the Middle East. And you know, we would get these briefings on culture and all this shit. And of course the briefings were always fucking off. So we'd get— you told me— yeah, I'd be like I remember one time I walked this guy through an entire city and, uh, to clean him up, and he was— I had him walking through metal detectors and all this shit. Yeah, we finally do the pickup after a couple hours, and he gets in the car and he's like, that woman at the hotel, that was, that was you guys, wasn't it? And that guy at the fucking mall, that was also you guys. And I'm like, how do you know all this shit? And he's like, well, guy had the knife on the wrong side. The woman had— was wearing her fucking burqa the wrong way.

Yeah, the sash was on the— and I was just like, man, we are a fucking clown show. We gotta go back. That's why they call the CIA the Clowns in Action. Oh, that's funny. But, uh, so, so, but, so where I'm going with this is if you're starting from the beginning, if you're starting as a, a guy coming up who's just interested in the biker gangs, I guess maybe you don't have to know the culture because you'll learn it along the journey.

And so what you kind of want to do is like, I see how you— like, I have— like what I told like this guy Paul Jensen that was, um, one of the henchmen up in Rockford. I said, man, I see how you guys roll and how you guys act, man. I'd love to be a part of this, bro. I said, I— but you know, I always— John Mazzola said, never play a badass, never play a tough guy. He goes, just play the chooch because you're a guy looking for answers, trying to figure it out. So I was like, okay. So I would tell Paul Genta, I said, man, I love riding Harleys, I love the club life, I think that's for me. And he's like, all right, man, he goes, if you're interested, he goes, you know, just start coming around. And I'm like, okay. And so he would give me to like the protocol of meeting somebody, like you shake your hand, you know, I'm Chris Rockford, hang around, hang around Rockford, you know, there's a way to meet these guys, never touch the patch. Don't fight with the brothers, you're going to get a beat down, you know, that kind of thing.

So there was like that protocol, the nuances of, of being in a club. And so he was, you know, he was very good about just, you know, kind of teaching me the ropes. Um, the other ones, like for the Outlaws before, I was just a friend of a guy that knew him. So again, they didn't know me farther than a handshake. So it was not that hard, but it wasn't an infiltration. And it's kind of funny, we always talk about, is it worth taking the time to infiltrate or can you figure out a different way to get these guys? And a lot of times figuring out the other way is a lot safer and a lot expedient. You might not get the same bang for the buck, but you're taking off the head of the snake. So let's just do it this way. It's a little bit easier. So infiltration always isn't there. Getting a patch, that's not the goal. The goal is to make the case. At the end of the day, you don't say you got a patch, but Nobody went to jail. You're wasting your time. So if you're working toward, you know, collecting evidence and buying dope and buying guns and showing their criminal activity, that's one thing.

But if you're just doing it for the sake of doing it, it's not worth it. A lot of guys have done cases on bike gangs where they never became a member. They just were able to befriend these guys. And some guys would say, why don't you, you know, why don't you put your toe in the water, man? Why don't you stay? I got my own thing going on. I'm okay. And they were able to go through and do quite a few people. So, you know, it's not always the infiltration that really gets it and wins the game at the end. Sometimes it's just being smart about the number of people you have, how much, you know, money ATF's going to have, the time that's going to be expended to do this. Is it worth it? And so a lot of times I did a better case that if you want to talk about, we can talk about too, is a different bike gang. But they did a historical case for us, the Grim Reapers. They were a Midwest club I did right after the Henchmen. Midwest Club, about maybe 500 members, 400 members. They were in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

Kind of white supremacist kind of orientation. They had those ties with, you know, like the Klan guys, that kind of thing. But they did a historical case on them where they went back and identified all the violent acts these guys had done. Bar beatings, a rape, home invasions. Stealing motorcycles. They had really put together this historical case that was awesome. So when I got to the point where I was doing the undercover part and got introduced, all I had to do was get conversation about a lot of these acts that they had already proven up. And now I have bought a small amount of dope from a guy. Well, that makes all the historical dope they could put on them good. So it made it a lot easier. It's a way better way to do those kinds of organizations. So you got the historical case with all the components And then I would go back now as a fresh face. I say, man, I heard you guys, that guy you dropped in the bar that night, went out, flipped him off and stole his Harley. I go, man, that was— He go, yeah, we beat his ass.

Fuck, he was unconscious. We went out and then we stripped it down. The Triple Tree and the rest of the parts went in the river. And then we sold everything to the Outlaws in Joliet. They were aligned with the Outlaws in Joliet. So you get that conversation now, and it makes all that historical case that they've done that you may have shitty witnesses about. It makes it really good because now you got that actual confession and evidence about that crime.

You've stroked a lot of egos.

I've told a lot of guys, man, you're the shit. Yeah. So that's what it's about. But you don't want to be a punk either, because then they don't want you around. So there's that balance of like, man, I respect how you take care of business. You have to do it in a— like a macho— you know, macho, but kind of a manly kind of, man, I respect what you guys do, man. And, you know, I respect how you guys handled that.

Man, embedding is a hell of a lot more complicated than just being undercover for a couple of fucking days.

It's weird. You know, it's weird, but it's also— it's like, it's like being on the wrestling or the boxing team. You know, you're on a team, but it's up to you individually to go out and frickin' whip a game and put these guys in jail. And so it's like you got a whole team around you, but it's up to you. You're kind of a solo act. It wasn't until like probably 2000 where we started working together in groups. We'd have 3 UCs going, doing a deal. And man, that was like— I was like, this is awesome. Now you like that better? Oh, and being on your own, I'd rather— I liked being on my own because then I had only myself to be responsible for. But when you got guys that are of such a high caliber and I watch them, how they work and the stuff that would come out of their mouth and how they knew where I was thinking, and we would play off each other. All the— it's just, it's like an orchestra, man. I mean, I'd be saying one thing and this guy would help bolster it by saying something stupid.

You know, it just was that ebb and flow of these guys and their, their ability to really, um, really talk to people and, and get information out of them. And it was, um, and it was fun. And not only that, your security is a lot better too. Now you got a guy, you don't have to turn around, you know, you can— you know, I know there's a guy He's got my back. Right on.

How often would you be having to report back or check in or be affiliated with ATF when you're embedded?

I did that every day. Every day? Every day. What I would do for the Henchman case, I'd get up, man, I was up out of the house by like 4 a.m. I would go to the office. Get the report stuff handled. I would sit down with the secretary. I'd give her, this is what happened last night. These are the recordings I have. She would take care of putting that stuff, or I would put it in evidence, but she would document the evidence sheet, put it in. We'd write a quick brief, we'd do a report, and then by 9 o'clock I was back in the mix. I would, I would be back with those guys doing stuff. I always played it where I lived a distance away that gave me time. If there was something that I needed to either get more people, something bad had happened, or just guys— bad guys are lazy by nature. They're not going to want to make a trip all the way 40 minutes to, you know, come check me or stop by for a beer or something like that. So the times, even being embedded, I was able to remove myself to the point where you could live a little bit of life.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. But the henchmen, I didn't know enough by the time I had joined the Grim Reapers. Which was kind of interesting. We faked a— to get in and back up a little bit, to get an informant to get into the Grim Reapers, they arrested a guy, a 3-time convicted felon, a guy named Crazy. So they arrest Crazy for having a pistol in his pants. Well, the club brothers did not put any money on his books and he sat in the federal lockup for 3 months with nothing. So at that 3-month point, he called up ATF. He said, I want to cooperate. I'm looking at a lot of years. He goes, I want to do the right thing. So they went out and interviewed him. So the bikers know that if you're in jail and you're looking at 15 years and there's no bond, there's no way— if you all of a sudden, oh, this miraculous thing happened and now I'm out and I'm back, you know, bring me back to the club. They're not going to buy it and they're going to kind of kick you to the curb. So we had to do something that they thought— this goes to the street theater part— they thought something that they were watching was really happening.

In reality, it wasn't. So they made a deal with Crazy and Crazy's attorney. We got approval from DOJ to do it. And they said, look, we'll dismiss the charges on you for now with prejudice, but you're going to have to introduce a guy. You're going to have to give us all the historical stuff on the Grim Reapers that you know. All the drug dealing, all the stuff you've done. You know, you got to be completely honest about it. And if it works out and we're able to secure convictions at the end of this and you do your part of it, then we will reindict you maybe for a lesser charge, you know, and that's kind of the ebb and flow of the criminal justice system. If you cooperate, then you get some kind of benefit for it. So we didn't want to go into court. We're going to have to go into court and dismiss the charges. So he had a court date. And all the brothers came in to see what was going on. So the judge and the attorney knew, and it was already— yeah, we were just basically going to drop the case.

So the case agent and the U.S. attorney start getting in an argument, fake argument. And the U.S. attorney looks at the case agent, he goes, well, I'm gonna have to dismiss all the fucking charges. He goes, you motherfuckers. So he goes, Judge, because government You know, right now we're going to withdraw with prejudice charges against Mr. I forget whatever his name was. And then judge is like, defense counsel got anything? They're like, nope, we're all good. He's there, bangs the gavel, and he goes, case dismissed. So the U.S. Train Watcher, now he's tearing into the agent, fake of course. So all the guys in the gallery see this go on. Holy shit. So when Crazy comes out, they're like, fuck. Great, this is awesome. So about a month later, he introduces me as his nephew, and now I'm off to the races.

So wow, that shit. So the fucking attorneys, everybody could be in on it?

Yeah, it was like illegal. There was nothing wrong with it, it was just that they got in this fake argument in the middle of the courtroom. You know, the judge was like, the judge was like okay with it. He was like, fine. And again, this isn't shit like this with the government does not happen in a vacuum. You got to run that shit up the chain, you know? And everybody's like, yeah, there's no problem. You're just dismissing the case with prejudice. No big deal. You were going to do that anyway for his cooperation, so you're good. So that's what, uh, that's what we did. And then I got introduced, and then for the next 15 months after I got done with the Mel stuff, when they said no more of that, I rolled into that and then became a hang around and a prospect. And then, you know, we didn't plan on that to begin with. They're like, do you think you could get on these guys? I go, I think I'm okay. I went out and I bought like a stolen Harley off the president of the Iowa chapter, like first night out, loaded in the back of my pickup truck.

And I go, I think I'm okay. And they were like, all right, man, let's go. So I was like back in it again.

So I mean, the reason I was asking how often you have to check in is, I mean, how many guys have you seen, or maybe none, but how many guys lose themselves when they're embedded in a the Italian mob and the biker gangs and the, and the, you know, inner city gangs.

Yeah, it's a little bit—

I think because it's an attractive lifestyle. It's fucking exciting. There's women, there's drugs, there's booze, there's fights. Like, yeah, anybody that's, uh, I don't know, got a little testosterone, real fucking man, um, that shit's attractive. There's a lot of power, a lot of ego, a lot of women, a lot of— like, it's just a It's true.

You're doing gangster shit. Yeah. And some of the guys, you actually, you're like, I like that guy. Like, if that guy wasn't a criminal right now, we'd probably be friends because he's actually a personable guy. His choices in life though, he's gone to the left here and he's doing what he's doing. Um, so yeah, so you had that. And I think that's just the nature of— you try to look for the best in people. I mean, sometimes, I mean, the way I was brought up, you know, everybody gets, you know, You just kind of look for the best in people. You know, you try some way to communicate with them or get on their level. And it's just that interpersonal communication stuff that lends itself to having feelings for or losing yourself. We've had guys— we had one guy that it's his story to tell and I won't tell it. But yeah, he had a problem as he's doing it. He goes, I like these guys more than I like my agents in my office. And well, that's a problem. I remember talking to him. And I'm like, bro, what do you— you wear a white hat.

That's a black hat. I go, there's a lot of gray area in between, but at the end of the day, you're the police. And he was having a— he struggled. He goes, yeah, but these guys are about brotherhood and this stuff. I go, if these guys know who you are, they will kill you. I said, if they had the opportunity to slit your fucking throat right now, they would fucking kill you. Where's the brotherhood in that? He's like, whoa. So a lot of guys do. They have, they have an issue or they run into problems with it. Have you ever had that issue? I was pretty much knew where I was at. There were guys I liked. I felt bad, like when Manny Mathias got murdered by the Outlaws up there when we were at his funeral. I was actually, I had a guard in the clubhouse at the time, but, um, I felt, I felt bad. I was angry. I was mad, you know. I'll put Manny in jail for the stuff he was doing, but yeah, you He believed my story, you know, and he was always looking out. He always looked out, you know.

He goes, man, you guys aren't paying enough attention. They're trying to get us. Yeah, he would tell the informant and myself, man, are you checking your shit for bombs? Are you strapped every fucking day you come out of the house? You need to move closer because we're, like I said, we're away, you know, 35, 40 minutes away. He goes, you should probably move closer in town. We have a problem. We need everybody together, you know. I'm like, I will think about it. But yeah, so it's like a guy like that, he's looking out for me. but he's looking out for me because he believes I'm a freaking criminal. He's not looking out for me because he loves Chris Bayless. You know what I mean? So there's that. You got to kind of figure that component of it out, and it's hard. A lot of people struggle with that. I would imagine. I would imagine.

I mean, I would imagine that depending on how much time you're spending with these guys and you get attached to them, and I mean, I've seen lots of, say, case officers get attached to fucking assets and it's still as old as time, rack when they get killed. And but anyways, but you're in a— you are in a brotherhood, you're in a full-blown criminal operation. And I would imagine you like a lot of these, or maybe you like some of these people. I would imagine the lifestyle is at least interesting to you.

There's no doubt it's crazy. I mean, it's— yeah.

And so with that comes maybe a shift in values. I mean, anywhere you— I joined the SEAL teams, I've got all kinds of fucking bad habits from the SEAL teams. Bar fighting, womanizing, boozing, all that shit, you know what I mean? And it became a part of who I be— it became a part of who I am for a long time. Sure. Until I was able to kick that shit.

I— you know what, I think a guy told me one time, I was looking at when I retired, I thought maybe I had talked to a guy that was in defense intelligence and he was like, we were just talking about undercover work, being in different places, doing stuff. And I was like, man, you guys, that'd be a fun gig, you know, where you guys are at and the stuff you guys are doing. And he's like, yeah, he goes, if you have a sliding scale of morality sometimes. And I was like, that's, I get it. I was like, you're right. You know, we have that, those morals, those things we were brought up with. With. But now I gotta be with guys and act like this is something. I love the fact that you're beating the snot out of your girlfriend. I love the fact— fuck her, you know, what does she know? She disrespected you. Fuck it, you got to give her a knot in the head. You know, it's that kind of like— I don't believe that, but yet I'm telling my brother, right on. We had a guy, um, Paul Jensen had— he, he had like a little pal, used to like whip his girlfriends.

And so he had this little whip. So my now wife at the time was an agent also, and she was my under— she was my girlfriend, played my girlfriend. And like, we were talking outside. She's a terrible undercover agent. She's like the worst. I was like, you are like— she's like, I know, I know, just shut up. And I'm like, okay. So we had gotten this script And I told her, this is— I go, they are going to get you into the— oh, they are going to get you in a room. They're going to ask you some questions. It's not like, oh, hey, welcome, you know, the butt cake's over here and get a cup of coffee and everything. I go, they're going to go in, they're going to ask you some shit. She's like, all right. So I come up with this script. We practiced it for like 6 weeks or a month. Yeah, just every day I'm asking her questions. So I get to the clubhouse and they're like— because they're kind of like, why are you not with some chick? There's a million hookers and a million strippers that everybody here is banging.

Why are you not participating? I was like, well, I got this chick, she's a good earner, you know, takes care of my shit, you know. And they're like, well, you know, we never see her. Like, all right. So I talked her into like, okay, just— I just need cameo appearances on some runs and some shit. She's like, all right, I'll do it. So We get the script down. First time we're at the clubhouse, there's like 3, maybe 4 of the guy's old lady's girlfriends that are there. So I walk in, make the introductions and everything, and the girls are like, Tina, good, come with us. They go upstairs in a clubhouse. She's up there like hour and a half, you know, close to 2 hours. And I'm like outside and I'm like, fuck, you know, sitting in the— we had a fenced-in area where all the bikes are parked. We're out there just having a beer. And I see her come back out around the corner, and I could see she's got like a little bit of a tear in her eye. And so the brothers were kind of walking around a different way, so I had a one-on-one section with her.

Like, I looked at her like, are we cool? And she goes, uh, I don't think they believe me. And I'm like, okay. I said, all right, um, I go stand over by the bike. So I'm kind of trying to catch the vibe because these guys can be telling you, hey, everything's great. And then, you know, and I was like, check the vibe. So she was kind of standing outside. I used to get some of the shit out of saddlebag or make like you're fucking around over there. So she's at the bike doing something. So I go back inside and, um, two of the old ladies there. And I was like, I go, I go, hey, we're getting ready to run, you know, see you guys later on or something. And they were like, we really like her. I'm like, are you sure? Because I'm thinking about dumping her. And they're like, no, we— I go, guys, seriously. I go, this is like a frickin' Today thing. I go, I don't— they're like, nah, she's— we like her. I go, are you sure? Because if you don't, just tell me, because I'm thinking about dumping her anyway.

And they're like, no, we kind of like her. I'm like, okay. So I go back outside, we get on the bike, go back to the car. But I go, I guess you did okay. And she's like, they were asking me about this. They're asking about that. There's shit that you gave me. They were asking about— you didn't give me that shit to tell them. She goes, I had to make it up. I said, well, hopefully you did a good job. What lies did you tell them so that we can mark down so you and I are together on our lies? And she's like, all right, fine. So we're at the undercover part. We had to go back and redo— like, not redo, but just, okay, exactly what did you say exactly? You know, it was about her background. Where are you from? You know, where do you work now? What's your phone number? How long have you known Chris? How long have you guys been dating? You know, your boots look really fucking new. She, you know, like all of a sudden she's a biker chick, you know, where you've got these worn girls that have got some stuff that's got some road miles on it.

Tina shows up in all new shit with the price tag still on it. You know, I was like, that's not going to fly. So, but she did fine on that part, was great. The other problem was a couple of months later, Paul's got that paddle that he liked to whip his girls with. He had this little paddle and Tina was standing in front of me. And Paul goes, give Tina a little whack on the ass. And I'm like, so she's talking to another old lady. So I kind of go forward. I gave her like a shot on the butt with this little leather whip thing with a paddle on it. Well, she spins around, man, and bam, and she blasts me right in the chest. And then she realizes I shouldn't have done that. And I look at her and I hear Paul Jensen go, you should get your cunt in line. And I'm like, right on, bro. So I grab her by the hair and I walk over to the side of the clubhouse. I go, sweetie, you can't punch me in front of these guys. I go, it's not good. It makes me look bad.

She says, I am so, so sorry. I go, okay. I go, I gotta put you on timeout, man. I go, go back and sit on the bike with your arms folded, pouting, and just sit there. And she's like, okay. So she goes back, sits on the bike. So we go in with the rest of the guys. I'm having a beer at the thing. So I'm looking around and they don't— nobody says anything, you know. They're just like, you had to take care of your shit the way you had to take care of your shit. So after a while, I looked at my wife, I go, you know what, fellas? I go, I think timeout's over, man. I'm gonna go home. I go, I'll catch you guys later tonight. They're like, right on, brother. So I left. I went outside. I was like, baby, you cannot freaking do that shit. She goes, I know, I know, but she cannot play that subservient female biker role, you know. I wanted to tell her, I go, start washing a bike or start wiping the gas tank off it. I didn't want to— I said, figured timeout, just sitting in timeout on the back of the scoot would be enough to— that was her penance for the day.

Yeah, but yeah, but she did, um, we were practicing getting— because we knew the Outlaws were trying to get us, so I had a.45 that I carried in my back, back of my pants, and we're on the bike She would practice coming out of my pants if we had to engage while we were riding, which we almost had to at one point. So I thought we were all prepared. I thought I was like, I got this shit. I'm in the middle of a biker war. I know what some of these guys look like. I'm fucking gunned up. I got guns over here. I got guns in my pants. I go, I'm on it, man. Somebody steps to me, I'm going to fucking crush them. I had no idea how much Dallas knew about where we were at, what we were doing, times they had surveilled us, times they tried to kill us, where I was oblivious to it until later when I talked to the case agent, Sandy DeVolcanere, who did the RICO on them out of Wisconsin. I was up interviewing these guys and they were like, yeah, remember you? And I was like, fuck.

So I thought I was, man, I thought I was king fucking shit, man. Look at me. Fuck, I'm that. The realization of that, freaking, it's one of those to-your-knees experiences where you're like, you know what, I need to fucking reassess who else knows what the fuck I'm doing, like how I think of myself, and I gotta, I gotta be better. And so yeah, you just, you try to be better. Damn. Yeah. Why'd you almost kill somebody on your bike? Well, actually, the Alas almost killed us. We had, uh, two cover— or one cover team guy And we were doing a run where, you know, you go out, go to bar to bar, you know, so that the henchmen— and we had some out-of-town angels were there. So we're all lined up getting ready to go. And the Outlaws— and we found this out later because the Outlaw that killed Manny Mathias, I interviewed him. He cooperated and gave everything up. When I interviewed him, he talked about— I asked him about— I go, were you guys in a van one night driving by our pack? He goes, yeah. He goes, we had a couple of ARs, shotguns, and pistols, and we were going to slide the slider over of the van.

And he goes, and as your bikes were going this way, we were coming south. You guys headed out of the clubhouse. I go, right. He goes, yeah. He goes, we were just going to— and just open up on everybody down the line. And I was like, okay, okay. And the reason I knew that was our cover team guy spotted and knew who the president was. That guy Spike that was driving the van. And so we knew they were— we thought they were just following us. I had no idea they were gunned up, ready to frickin' unload and kill all of us. And so I'm thinking to myself at that point, like, it wouldn't have mattered if Tina got that.45 out of the back of my pants. We were going to eat it. There was no way we were going to be able to survive that. And it's one of those where they saw our surveillance guy, our surveillance guy saw them. They didn't know if the surveillance guy was one of our guys following a pack that was gunned up, ready to go, or if it was law enforcement that was following the pack. So they called it off and they left.

So it was one of those many times where I look back now and I'm like, so fortunate to not be, not be injured or hurt.

Damn. How long were you guys undercover together?

15 months, I think. Shit.

About a year and a half.

And these guys were all sharing They would, but you had the right to, you had the choice for, I mean, if your old lady wants to go sleep with so-and-so, no problem. The Angels were more, they're a little bit different in that regard. The Grim Reapers, I would never bring a girl to Grim Reapers. They told me flat out, first chick you bring here, we're fucking her. Like, all right, right on. Good to know. So I had no girlfriend during the year and a half on the Grim Reapers. But at that point I knew, how to play it. Like I said, they had done a historical case, so I didn't have to push to get a lot of guns or everything. I just had to get a lot of conversation for the RICO. And that's what made that case. And we ended up with 50 defendants in 5 states. I think we seized 3 clubhouses under that. We were able to show historically they had purchased 250 keys of cocaine from the Joliet Outlaws that went to them. So we had that drug conspiracy locked down. We could show that they had stolen over $1 million in Harley-Davidson motorcycles over the course of just 12 months.

So these guys were— I mean, they were out there doing, doing bad things. And so we were able to do that through the RICO. I think we charged 17 guys on the RICO and the other 38 defendants went on single, like I bought dope or single gun buys or something along those lines and whatever they got caught with during the search warrants that we did on their houses.

Yeah. So did you ever have anybody that tried to fuck your partner?

My partner that I'm married to? Yeah. Well, there were guys that were like very, very interested in like, hey man, you guys, how do you guys get down? We don't get down like that. I go, I'm a sole proprietor, bro. I like, I like my stuff.

And they're good with that.

Yeah, they were fine. Yeah. Right on. Yeah.

Well, Chris, let's take a break. Let's do it. And when we come back, we'll talk about infiltrating the Hells Angels. Certainly. This episode is brought to you by Ro Nutrition. I've been running Ro's Longevity Stack, and it's changed how I think about staying in the game long term. Not just performing now, but staying capable for the next decade. Most people don't think about cellular health until something goes wrong, but the guys who are still operating at a high level into their 40s, 50s, and beyond, they're thinking about it right now. Myro Stack is NAD+ for cellular energy and recovery, liposomal glutathione for antioxidant defense, and curcumin plus resveratrol to support your body's inflammatory response. 3 products built built around how your cells actually function. What makes Ro different is the delivery. It's liposomal and liquid. Most supplements pass through without being absorbed, but Ro's format is designed to actually get into your system. If you're serious about the long game, this is where I'd start. Get 20% off with code SRS at ronutrition.com. That's code SRS at R-H-O nutrition

So I think we're getting ready to talk about infiltrating the Hells Angels. Okay, where do we start? Actually, how did you— so was this a tasking, or did you decide to do this? Because at the beginning you kind of said it was There's a gun, there's the money, go rescue people. Right, right.

It was kind of independent. But what, um, we always knew— there was a case where, um, two Hells Henchmen at the time— was Hells Henchmen when we started, they didn't get their role in their patch to Hells Angels was later on. Um, two Hells Henchmen had actually, um, they were— we knew they were into a lot of different things. Millard got locked up on by the FBI, uh, for a minute on a car give-up mail fraud. We had information they were, you know, dealing drugs and all about guns. Um, we also had information in a separate case where two of Mel's guys had done a murder or attempted to kill one of their attorneys that represented him. He hated his wife and didn't want to get divorced, so he thought it'd be a better idea to put a bomb on her car and blow her up. So two of Mel's guys went out up and actually put a bomb on her vehicle. Um, it went off, she got injured, but she wasn't killed. But these guys was interesting, um, criminal masterminds that they were. You got two biker guys, they're in a northwest suburb. Um, she had— she was taking the train into the city, and so she was in like a parking area where you get the train.

There's coffee shops there. Well, these guys sat around looking suspicious when they put the bomb on. And every suburbanite's looking at these two biker guys like— they were very recognizable. Obviously they didn't read that book Left of Bang where you look for anomalies, you know, they missed that part. So, uh, they put the bomb on, she puts it in reverse, backs up, it detonates. She's not killed. And so we knew that from a protectional— or from a standpoint of why would Hey, look at these guys, they were in a lot of different stuff. And so that was the pretext for starting the investigation. Um, I knew from an undercover standpoint there's no way I could do these guys in Chicago because again, I knew who Mel was and I knew, um, we knew we just grew up in the same area. That was— it was not going to take very long to get found out. Um, so fortunately a local police officer and DeKalb County sergeant had developed a CI, a guy nicknamed Grub, and he said this guy wants to cooperate, thinks he can, you know, do a case on the Rockford Angels, or Hell's Hatchmen.

I'm like, all right. So I met him and he's like, we got our story kind of down straight. And we knew right away that, you know, I didn't know exactly what we'd have to do. To get in. And the intent really wasn't to get in and become a member. It was more just to see if we could perfect a case on the information we could gather just by being around those guys. But it looked like it was moving toward like an infiltration kind of thing as we started to go. So it became like, okay, well, we can keep going on this, then let's, let's see how far we could go and get into the internal workings of the, of the club that we wouldn't get if we were just, you know, on the outside superficially. So as we started hanging around, we backstopped ourselves with— the CI was actually a counselor for drug addiction, and so they knew he didn't use or drink. And so it helped me with the drug component because I said I was with this guy, part of his— I was in his program, and that's how we became friends. He knew my dad, blah, blah, blah.

So we had a pretty solid story. He was a contractor and was a builder. So I would go to construction jobs with them during the day in and around where we knew some of these guys would be. They'd drive by, they would see us, or as we started to hang around or go to the clubhouse or meet them in bars, they're like, what are you guys doing? Well, we're building a house over here. So, you know, they would drive by and they'd see us. And so it added to the credibility of who we were. So that's kind of how we, from a foundational standpoint, we started it off and started going forward from there.

So your whole plan was just be seen first without—

Just be seen and see where we can go. You know, it's one of those things you're not going to know unless you try it. What we were able to do very early on was the henchmen had a— one of the members from Chicago had a storage unit, and we had gotten— we'd heard peripherally stuff just talking about guns and vows like, yeah, we got it, you know, we got guns, we're ready to go if we have a problem anywhere. We got them stashed, we got them stored. And some of the guys I worked with in the auto theft task force said, hey, man, we got— we think we got enough probable cause to get into this storage unit. It's owned by a Hell's Henchman. They said he's got like an arsenal in there. And I go, well, do you guys got enough PC to get in without anything we're doing? And they're like, all right, let's talk to the state's attorney and see. So they talked to the state's attorney. They didn't need any of our stuff, any information we had. So they were able to get what's called a John Doe warrant, which is basically you don't— you're not going to know who was the affiant and gave the probable cause for the warrant until you actually go to court.

Then it's revealed. So it kind of kept their, their informant safe for a little while while they, they did this, did a search warrant. So when they got in, I went up and I was clobbered all up and I was sitting in the back of squad just to see what they would get out of it. And I think we got 150 firearms, 15 machine guns, 10 silencers. Hand grenades, 32,000 rounds of ammunition, all assortment, 5.56, 9mm,.45, a lot of black powder. What else did we get? I mean, it was just— it was like their arsenal, nice old arsenal. So we were able to take that. So we were able to get that like very early, like maybe the first 6 weeks, 7 weeks that we were doing it. It came really quick. So for ATF, that was a— all right, that's kind of a win. That's a good stash. They were all MAC-10 machine pistols that they had. They were converted. Great job. The guns were oiled up and they were wrapped in cellophane. They had 200 rounds and they were all in like a little Pelican case. So you had the silencer, the MAC-10, 200 rounds of ammo.

So you could just grab it, go if you were going to go do something, take care of it, and then either get rid of it or bring it back, whatever you wanted to do. But it was all— it was pretty much— it was ready to go. You know, you come by, you grab it, you go take care of business. So for us, that was like, wow, we kind of hit it pretty good right off the bat. And then it was like, well, let's see what more we can get, more information we can get, more stuff that they're doing. And as we started getting into it, you know, the guys that were dealing dope out of there, we pretty much identified those guys pretty quick. and then we got word that they were going to roll their patch to become prospects for the Hells Angels. And the dynamic completely changed. You had guys that— you had 26 members, I think, maybe, up in Rockford. A lot of those guys knew this was not going to end well, that when we make this step and get this Hells Angel patch, you know, we're gonna have a problem with the Allos.

They knew So a lot of the guys quit. Are you a part of all these conversations?

Are you in the club?

I'm not in— I'm in the club, but I'm, I'm learning the ways of the force, if you will, through one of the members that kind of— Paul Jensen. That Paul Jensen eventually stabbed a guy to death and died in the penitentiary. But Paul was my guy that like he was helping me along. So even though I wasn't supposed to be party to meetings and stuff, You know, I'd ask him, I said, "Brother, what's going on, man? I gotta know, you know. I mean, I got a business, um, you know, I'm still trying to eat, want to be with you guys. Should I gun up all the time?" He goes, "You better gun up every freaking day, man." I'm like, "Okay, all right, enough said." Um, and then he would just give me tips and clues as to like, "Hey, they're coming in. A bunch of guys are going to quit. They rolled their shit up, they left it on the pool table, and they're not— they're not going to be part of the club anymore." And so I think they were down to like maybe 8 guys actually were the remaining crew of Rockford from about '26.

So a lot of those guys said, yeah, you know, we're about knuckling and, you know, being crazy bikers, but we're not down for what's going to happen. And they knew. They knew that it was going to be bad. And so that's when I think it helped us a bit. I think I mentioned before that because they were so focused on doing the right thing by the Hells Angels, and the Angels would come in and give them called abductions, on-the-job training, you know, coming in. This is what we expect from you guys. This is what we want to see from you guys. Here's how you handle it. It was more like platitudes of when you met somebody, you know, this is how we want to be respected. This is how we want to be seen in the community. The henchmen were like into themselves, didn't talk to anybody outside the bike club. The Angels are like, no way, man. He goes, you got it. It's a public relations thing. He goes, you want people in the community to say, yeah, that guy's not a bad guy. They take care of their neighborhood, the clubhouse. They help us out.

They're good guys. 'Cause at the end of the day, we might be in court, we might have these guys sitting on a jury, and we want those jury pool from that area to say, "You know what? Those guys aren't really that bad." So it was kind of a PR kind of thing. So we started having what was called Tuesday Night Runs, and it was where they just invite people in that were just riders, just regular citizens, they called them. They'd make a little money by selling drinks at the bar, and then we'd have a poker run. You go out, go bar to bar. It was a way to kind of, um, get people interested. Maybe they got, you know, there's a couple guys we want that look like they'd be hardcore guys that could come with us, and maybe kind of groom those guys and see if they'd be around. So it was kind of like, uh, kind of an open house kind of thing for the biker world. So a lot of people would show up. Um, one of the people we— that showed up initially was a club called ARM, Association of Recovered Motorcyclists.

It was supposed to be a sober club, no drugs, no alcohol, just living the biker lifestyle, you know, live free or die kind of, kind of thought process. So those guys come in. What we didn't know was those guys were aligned with the Outlaws. And so when they came in, all they were doing was taking notes and gathering intel, then to give to the Outlaws up in Janesville, Wisconsin, that ended up the bombings They picked out the targets and that kind of thing. So I remember the president coming up to me, you know, he put his arm around me and he's like, so you're throwing your hat in here, huh? I said, yeah, right on, you know. Because yeah, it's good, this is a good group, man, you're going to be just fine hanging out with these guys. And now this shit went, told the Outlaws where everybody lived, you know, and they came back and they used his information against everybody in the club.

Yeah. What did you think of the lifestyle? You know, those guys— you enjoying it?

Um, it was pretty— I'm not gonna lie, there's an adrenaline rush you get doing shit. Um, like I said, like on that sizzle reel, man, when you're in a pack of, you know, 20 or 30 guys and you're rolling down the highway, you see that Angel patch and the Hells Angels patch You're like, nobody's going to fuck with us. And if they do, it's going to be on. It's like that, that level, that thought of invincibility, if you will, that I'm riding with some guys that are going to get after it. And so there was— there's like, there's an allure to that. Like you talked about, man, if you got a little bit of testosterone and some gumption, it's like, man, this is kind of— we're badass. And it was kind of that mentality that, that those guys had. And some of them were very badass. Extremely badass, and some of them weren't. So what do you mean by that? Well, there's guys that would get down, get down, like they call it on the street. Like, there's guys that get down, but you want a guy that gets down, get down, like a guy that will take it, a guy that's going to murder somebody, like Paul Jensen stabbing a guy outside the bar.

Paul was a guy that would get down, get down. But you had other guys, maybe they sell dope, but they're still in a club, but they weren't, you know, they're down for the cause. Because at the end of the day, if we all decide we're against the Outlaws, then everybody's in. There's no like, well, you know what, I'm going to take this day off. No, we're at war with the Outlaws. You're going to go out, you see an Outlaw, you're going to kill them. It was the same way for the Outlaws. And if you didn't do that, you're going to get your ass beat or worse, and you're going to get tossed out of the club. So that's— you're in for a penny, in for a pound. And that helps us with the RICO, because there's a part of the RICO when we identify the enterprise, it's called the Pinkerton Rule. It's Pickering rule basically says actions and statements of one co-conspirator are the actions and statements of all. So if you and your crew and I, we decide we're going to deal dope and we're at war with this other drug faction and one of our guys out of the crew, we had the agreement and that's what you do is the agreement to do something.

So, and that's the conspiracy component. As soon as we agree to do that, then if you went out and got popped off with 50 bricks, it could come back and we could all get charged with that same drug amount. If you decide I need to kill a rival drug dealer and we've all agreed at some point we're going to have to kill a rival drug dealer and you do it, we all get hung with that. So it's, it's kind of a— and that's a very simplistic way to do it. It's a little more nuanced when you get into court. But ultimately, that's basically it in a nutshell. So and that's why RICO is such a valuable tool. It's because you get a lot of guys at the top that'll order something, and the underling will go do it. We all have the agreement that we need to go kill this guy. We send a guy out to go kill him. Generally, that guy, if he gets caught, will just get charged independently of that murder. But what RICO allows us to do is to go back then and take the entire enterprise down, because those are the actions in furtherance of the enterprise these guys are doing.

And so it's like a mosaic of criminal activity. You've got a lot of little incidents, but they paint a large picture of the totality of the criminal actions of a particular group. And so that's what RICO does and that's why we use it. But it's not something that's in a bubble. RICOs just don't like, "Hey, I'm going to put a RICO and we're going to charge it tomorrow." There's levels of review that go through that because it's such a great tool. They don't want it to ever be— we don't want there any bad case law or anything bad said about it. So to do a RICO, you've got a— it's called a prosecutorial memo, and it starts at the first level prosecutor, goes up to his boss, crim chief, US Attorney. And then for RICO, that goes off to OEO, Office of Enforcement Operations. That's what it is. They have a RICO team up there of attorneys. They review it to make sure you've got everything right, and then it goes back and you got the to do it. So it's, it's kind of voluminous, takes some time to put— it takes a lot of time to put together, but it's, it's well worth it because you get to just bring in a ton of criminal activity that you wouldn't necessarily be able to do in a normal case.

Roger that. What are you partaking in? Are you selling, are you selling drugs? Are you selling guns? Are you sleeping around? Are you using drugs? I—

we did, uh, heavy drinking. We did some street theater with Paul Jensen, and once I did it with Paul hired him to watch something and gave him some money and then left it alone and didn't say anything about it. He goes, so you gotta— he goes, you got a bad self and a not so bad self, huh? And I go, well, you know how it is, you got to eat, you know. I wouldn't say anything about what it was about, but he knew that obviously it was something. So he would vouch for me then, uh, for the most part, you know, for the rest of the time. Like I said, there was other guys in there that were like something about dude You know, something ain't right with them. And you're never going to win those guys over. You just got to figure out a way around them. So I would do that. And then, like I said, I did enough in front of Paul. And at that time, again, they were so focused on being— getting that patch, that Hells Angels patch, and rolling it over and not fucking that up and having the Angels say, now we don't want you guys.

They were so focused on that, they pretty much weren't paying attention to what we were doing or not doing. The fact that we were there, uh, in and of itself was enough to those guys. All right, you know, we'll let you guys come along. Wow. Yeah. So we were—

are you, are you partying? Are you—

I mean, oh yeah, we were at the clubhouse, tending bar. I do security during the meetings, you know, I got a two-way radio. Um, drugs? I didn't do any. I didn't have to do any. No, yeah, I told him in the beginning. There was one guy that— one guy that would constantly push Al, he said, brother, I just can't trust you to— unless you— I go, bro, I go, I already told you, man, I've been down this road, bro. I go, if you want me to be like Dennis, which was another guy that was just drunk all the time, he always— he'd come in the clubhouse and say, I'm financially embarrassed, because he was just freaking broke. I said, if you want Dennis, I go, then put that shit in my nose, and you know what, I'll be Dennis. But right now I got $1,000 in my fucking pocket. So do you want to earn You want a guy that's going to make money and make us look good as a club, or do you want a drunk at the end of the bar? I go, choice is yours, bro. And he was like, oh no, man, I'm just saying.

I go, bro, I just— I can't. So that's where I'm at. I go, if I got to do that to be with you guys, I can't be with you guys. They were like, okay. They bought that? They did. That's surprising. It is. I think they'd like the fact that we had a business, and I think some of the guys looked at it as if you have a a chip business. Like Mel had, you know, Mel worked for companies, you know, where he was no-show, you know, but he got a paycheck and he got insurance. And it was just companies that I think in, you know, his ability to use those proceeds, you know, drug proceeds, and then pay that company for his healthcare and stuff like that. So they looked at our having a business, what they thought was a legitimate business, and the CI did have, the informant had a legitimate They kind of looked at that as probably a plus. On sub-level, we'll be able to leverage that at the end of this when we get our full patch. So they kind of looked at us like that, where, yeah, okay. And then there were times in bars where somebody had mouthed off or something, and then they're like, hey, man, step to that guy and tell him what time of day it is.

I'll be right on, bro. So I go step to the guy and I would tell him basically, brother, I said, man, you don't want how this is going to go. I go, it's not me. I go, it's them, and you know it. And he'd be like— most of the time those guys would just say okay, you know, and they, they walk away. But I think they wanted me to go up and slug him in the face. I come back and they're like, why didn't you knock that guy out? And I was like, well, first of all, I'm a little fucking dude, and, uh, that was a pretty big cat. So I just told him what time of day it was. I told him I'd get him sometime when he wasn't looking, and they're like, all right. Right on, hang around. I go, do you want me to just get locked up for doing something stupid? I thought we were smarter than that. So when they tried to do things to test, I'd be like, I'll do it, I'll find a way to do it, but I'm not telling you when I do it, and I'll do it on my own.

Because they had a motto, three can keep a secret if two are dead. And I'm like, that's the motto, man. So I'll hang it, you won't see that guy anymore, but I'll take care of it. But I'm not going to tell you guys. and it'll just be what it is. And they were like— so having that air of mystery a little bit on how you handle your business, it went a long way. And like I said, they were so concerned with being Hells Angels at that point in time, um, they kind of— that's the normal stuff they probably would have did to really check our shit, they weren't, they weren't really doing. So we were fortunate.

So I mean, you're just talking about, you know, do you want an earner or do you want a drunk? And, you know, interviewing Mel yesterday. I interviewed George Christie. I haven't released it yet, a couple months ago, you know. And I'm asking these guys, what— how is the club making any fucking money? Like, I don't understand. I don't know if they're just not telling me because, you know what I mean, they still feel some allegiance to it. But I don't understand what the point of the club is if everybody's doing, you know— yesterday Mel kind of described it, just everybody does their own shit. They deal their own drugs, they do their own run women, whatever guns, whatever it is, but it's not affiliated with the club.

And so if the only way the club is making money is paying fucking dues, and it's the underground aspect of what they're doing with the drug dealing, so you've got interconnected drug dealers like, um, SoCal or Southern California guys will be dealing with and selling meth to Midwest guys, and they The fact that you're both Hells Angels, there's a certain level of one, safety, that you're not going to get robbed on the deal. Although I think it did happen at one point. I think somebody didn't pay for dope or something, and it was quite a riff within the Hells Angels about it. But everything they do is like, it's involved, but it's not involved. So they know how RICO works. Like, there's other clubs— I know one club that was like, if you sell an ounce of cocaine, you pay $100 to the club. So they were, you know, it's almost like he checked every RICO, you know, the money laundering component of it, and said, okay, you know, the organization itself is putting a price on the amount of drugs that you're selling. And so it— that is easier to prove. The way they get around doing is we're all independent operators, we're all doing shit on our own, but they pay dues to the club, they go on runs, they buy their Harleys.

You know, all that stuff is the proceeds of their illegal activity to be in the club. And the club's as much about persona and badass and we're the number one guys than it is about anything else. No shit. Yeah. There's guys making tons of money. We stopped one of the Chicago Hells Angels with $1 million cash in Las Vegas that he was getting ready to go. I think he was going to try to launder it through you know, gambling, small amounts of gambling, and then get the receipts. But we got one of those guys, and it was later, it wasn't when I was involved, and in fact it was when Mel was out of the club. But that was one of their guys. Got, uh, and another guy got stopped with a trapped car with a bunch of money in the truck going to Mexico to pick up. So those guys were, they're in the game, and they're in the game, you know, in a large way. Not all of them are at that level, but there's a lot of them that are. And they use that Hells Angel that mystique about who they are.

Because if it's like Charles Schwab, all right, so if you're going to invest with Charles Schwab or Joe Blow the Ragman, you know, at the end of the day, it's like, I'm going to go to Charles Schwab because he's got the name and the reputation and he's badass and he's going to get it done. And that's kind of how the Hells Angels looked at it. You know, it's the same way. We're kind of the Charles— we're the number one guys. And they use that. They use that that persona, that sticker to basically say, you know, when we do business, the Hells Angels logo comes with it. So whatever we do, there's some Hells Angels affiliation with it. It's like when Mel beat the guy up for disrespecting his girlfriend. You know, he invokes the Hells Angels. You know, he tells him inside, do you know who the fuck I am? And the guy's like, yeah. He goes, I'm the fucking Hells Angels president. He goes, My crew will crush your crew. So now he's using again the Hells Angels logo, the Hells Angels. Gotcha. Their mystique, you know, in this particular situation.

So it is an enterprise that they use to influence their personal operations. Correct. And they all get to use that enterprise. Correct.

When you come in and someone says, this guy is a weapons specialist in the Navy, that's his MOS, he's a— or they— I forget what was called— weapons specialist. This guy's a Navy SEAL. There's going to be a certain amount of what you think about this guy based on the fact that he's a, you know, weapons officer. There's a certain thing you're going to think about this guy because he's a Navy SEAL. And that Navy SEAL stuff may ride on the coattails of, you know, you or Jason Redmond or one of these other guys that they know about. So they know what they get. So they expect the same thing out of you guys or out of this other guy that you've just met that's a Navy SEAL. So right away, there's a certain persona that you are certain of. This is who this guy is and what he's about. It's the same way with the Hells Angel patch. You know, there's certain things I expect. One, he's probably a killer. Like, maybe he's a killer, he's not, but they have a reputation of being a killer. So right away with that reputation comes the ability for me to facilitate my criminal activity and make it better by riding on the fact that I am actually a Hells Angel.

Gotcha. Does that make sense? I mean, is that— did I explain that right?

Yeah, it makes sense. Is this how— is this how all gangs work, or is this just motorcycle?

I think so. I think, uh, I think gangs—

Italian mob— this is—

yeah, it's a set, you know. And Crips, Bloods. There's people that are drawn to that dark side that, you know, man, there's an edge to that. There's girls that are attacked, you know, that like that. Guys that are in that mix, they're, you know, they're dangerous. You're living day, I'm on the edge. I'm a criminal. I'm out there frigging, you know, doing shit you don't know about because I'm a mystery. So there's a lot of that that goes on in the criminal world. I think for street gangs, a lot of times street gangs are the result of of, I need to live in this community and if I don't join this gang, I'm either with them or I'm against them. So it might be easier to me to be with them. So not that there's not guys that actively, I mean, we've done some great street gang cases where those guys are just homicidal. I mean, just absolutely have no thought of killing somebody. And those are the guys we want to put in jail. So when you have that, I think it goes to that any collection of bad people, I think it's kind of the same mo.

Like the Latin Kings think they're it. You know, the Gangster Disciples are going to disagree. You got territorial disputes, not only for whether or not it's a drug dealing area or drug tip, like the Kings are going to be over 33rd and Troop and these guys want to be over there selling their dope. There's enough dope tips around the city of Chicago not to do that. But this guy might disrespect this guy on Facebook now or Instagram. He might rap about this guy as being a jagoff. Well, now this guy loads a car full of thugs and they go over and they shoot the guy off his doorstep. So you have a lot of that level of violence. It's not done for any particular reason other than he disrespected me and now we're going to get him.

Makes sense. How was the patch over? Um, you got patched then, correct?

No, I got, uh, I became a hangaround, an official hangaround. And then they had done— they killed Marty Mathias at that point, murdered him in his shop. They detonated the car bomb on Grand Avenue. They had blown up the president of the club that I was with. Um, who else did they kill? They killed another guy Were you there for— were you there? I was there when Manny got killed. I was there when the bombs went off. Yeah.

Can you describe that?

Uh, I think the realization of— well, there was two things. One, when I interviewed those guys later, but I had the realization of, man, I better make sure I'm checking my six and that my shit is together and my shit's tight. I remember that. I remember, um, Manny was killed so violently. Did you see it? I didn't see him actually kill him, but I saw the scene later and I saw the pictures and I interviewed the guy that killed him. So how he— and I don't say this because— trying to think of how to put this. I appreciated his fight for survival and what he did. The guy that came in and shot him 3 times with a.45. Didn't go down, came around a counter and engaged him, got the gun turned around, squeezed rounds off. The guy that killed him said, he took me to the ground, we're wrestling on the ground, the gun's empty, I'm hitting him with the gun. When I got to the back, Manny had a 9mm hidden in the back, and I think he was trying to get to that. The guy, the other, fouls him back grabs a chunk of metal that was on a bar or on a workbench and starts crushing his skull with it.

I think at that point, as I recall, he said he went to the back and Monty had some locks on the top. He couldn't get out. So he spun around and had to go past Monty. Monty ties him up again and fucking— it's like just saying, "Fuck you, motherfucker. Fuck you." And that's when he took the screwdriver and and finished them through the neck with a screwdriver. And it was kind of interesting, or kind of interesting, the whole thing, a little surreal, a little. When I was talking to the investigators and they pretty much knew how the, by the crime scene, they could figure out what happened. You know, I was, I was pissed off, man. I was like, you know, fuck. You know, it was weird because here I am I'm going to try to arrest Monte at some point if he's involved in things. But on the other hand, I think the level of brutality at his murder, I was like, I was pissed. I was fucking pissed. And it was a strange time, man. And I was like, I talked to ATF management, came down and they were like, where are we at on this?

What do we have right now that we can do? I said, well, we got the gun storage stuff. We've got other information. We weren't able to get a lot more going because of— in that transitional period with the Angels. I go, we got some small buys off people in the area. Like, I'd bought, like, dope off some other guys, bought sawed-off shotguns off some guys, bought guns. So I'm like, so this is where we have right now. We got a lot of great conversation about the club in general, what we could use in a RICO as far as outlining of the enterprise. So we got good stuff on that. And they're like, look, Chris, with all due respect, man, um, we can't— we don't think you can— we can cover this. We can't cover you enough that we could preclude you from getting smoked. There's a certain amount of risk you take, but now you're, you're in the middle of fucking war between the Outlaws and the Hells Angels. In addition to that, you did a bunch of the Outlaws already, so they kind of know maybe who you are. They might recognize Hey, isn't this the same guy that ended up seizing a clubhouse in Joliet?

You go, so you got that problem to worry about. Um, then you got the problem of what if these guys find out, or they think you're actually— you know, all these murders going on, somebody inside is telling them. Little did they know it was ARM, that other bike club. They're like, they might think it's you, you know. You're the new guy. Who's the new face? You know, all of a sudden we're all going to jail after somebody sold him dope. That's interesting. So there was a lot of stuff that I didn't want see at the time. I'm like, no, fuck that. I go, I can stay in there. I still had a.45 in the back of my pants. I'm super fucking cool. And I wasn't, man, not by any stretch. So it was good for them to say no, say we're all done. And so shortly after Monty got killed, I think it was by the fall, we basically told those guys, the informant, hey, we're out. We're done with this. With right now. Our business is ruined. Everybody's trying to kill us, blah, blah, blah. So we laid it down. Sort of like, you know, you made prospect, you would've been the first Hells Angels prospects in Rockford.

And we're like, you know what, bro? It's not about fucking getting a patch. It's about— we left it with, it's about the fucking brotherhood and that kind of thing. They were like, all right, but you can't come back. Fair enough. So Fast forward, I, um, that's when I did the Grim Reaper case for the next 15 months out in the Quad Cities. Rolled right from that into that next case. Um, and then the informant started to get back in with these guys. We chronicled the violence that they were doing. The informant got kind of back in, and in that time we were able to stop those violent acts of retaliatory acts, you know, when they went out, we're going hunting tonight for outlaws. I call up state police. I go, we're coming out tonight looking for guys. So they would have two unmarked and a marked, and they would dole around. And then as soon as it looked like we might be on something, they would knock us all down at traffic stop. What are you guys doing tonight? Nothing. Okay, have a good evening. And then they'd let us go. So we did that.

I think in the RICO, we actually charged six of those events where they'd gone out to do something and we were able to stop it by just interdiction. Just having the cops there, like, hey, we're watching you guys. And they knew they were on them. So they were like, you know, they go back, they swept the clubhouse for bugs. They thought we're getting bugged. Somebody's, you know, somebody's in on us. You know, I mean, they were, they were scrambling to figure out how this information was getting out. And then they also thought too, and we're in the middle of war with the Outlaws, so of course cops are going to be watching us. You know, we do have to lay low and be smart about what we do. And so that's when it just seemed like it was a good opportunity to get out. And so we stopped. The undercover part for me stopped right there. I went and did the Grim Reapers after that for 15 months. But at that same time, I was helping Sandy DeVolcanere put the RICO case together against the Outlaws that were coming down and had done all the murders and the bombings and things like that.

So in talking to Sandy, who did— I can't say enough about What an outstanding case she put together. I mean, it was two separate RICOs. They charged every violent act that these guys had done. But at that time, when they were doing surveillance on the Hill's henchmen, I was there being surveilled. So it helped Sandy in her case to have me there interviewing these guys because it was like, okay, Chris, were you at Club 251 on Thursday, October 2nd? Like, yes, we were. Okay, so that corroborated, you know, the outlaws that had come forward and flipped. but to corroborate their statements and made it more, you know, made more— yeah, yeah, definitely that occurred. So we're able to kind of put that together. But that's where I learned, you know, I was not fucking Beretta and super cool Batman. I was fucking very foolish and, and lucky. That we didn't get killed. So very, very thankful. So, so anyway, so we did the— I did the Grim Reapers next. Did you have any—

when is the first— did you meet Mel yet?

Yeah, I had flown with Mel out to— was a president's meeting in San Francisco. And I went out on a plane with them there when I was just official hang around. We flew out for that. Why would they bring you to that high-level meeting? I didn't, I didn't get to go to the meeting part. I was just, I kind of inserted myself a little bit. I go, hey, you know, I got a brother. If you guys are going, you guys don't mind? And they were like, I don't give a shit. It was Ricky and the informant were going to go out, so I just tagged along with those guys. They're like, yeah, come on. So it was just just a way to kind of be seen but not seen. So if you interact with Mel at all— no, I saw him at the airport, shook his hand, that was it. Yeah, no, it's just knowing Mel's like, he's going to want to talk to you a little bit, get to know you. And I just— we couldn't take a chance on that because that would have burned out the CI completely. So we did was I quit after that.

I quit for a minute, um, Did the Grim Reaper case that lasted about 15 months. Got that indicted, helped Sandy with the RICO. So in '97, that's when the first RICO on the Outlaws came down and that kind of slowed all the violent acts, stopped right then and there. Nothing was going on because these guys just got whacked. Angels weren't doing anything then because they thought, well, these guys just caught a RICO, we're going to catch a RICO too.

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So everybody was kind of waiting. Nobody was doing anything. So Sandy does the first round of RICO in '97. Bunch of guys pled and then cooperated and gave him more information about what they were doing. Got to interview a bunch of those guys. And then she did a subsequent RICO like a year later that went back and indicted even more people under the RICO that they hadn't got wrapped up in the first RICO. We ended up doing a Title III, or she, I shouldn't say we, Sandy did a Title III on the Outlaw Clubhouse or the Outlaw President and the guy that killed Monte Mathias. She was up on his phone. So we were getting a lot of, you know, bad talk on the phone calls. And again, every time those guys would go out, try to do something because we heard stuff on the phone, team would go out and knock them down.

What kind of close calls did you have? Um, look like you— that I knew about?

Yeah, that you knew. I knew about— I thought I had maybe 3 that I did know about.

Is this with the, uh, with the Angels? With the Angels.

What were they? Well, The Reapers was a different one with the— I forgot that we talked about this on the other— with the Angels, it was probably 3 that I knew of, but about 20 altogether that I had. 20? I had no idea. And that's why I said, man, you got to humbly walk through life because I thought I was that. Fuck. No way did I know. Sandy would say, did you know they were out at your apartment? I'm like, holy shit. She's like, yeah. And then I talked to the guy that cooperated. He goes, yeah, we were. Did you have apartment? It was a 2-story, second floor in the corner. And I go, yeah. Sandy's looking at me, did you know that? I go, no. I'd like to say, oh yeah, I knew about it. I saw you guys. It's all cool. I had no idea. Why were, why were they at your apartment? To kill us because we were part of the, part of the Angels. Holy shit. Yeah. So there was probably, I think, 20 altogether. 3 that I knew, so 17 I didn't know. I kept checking them off. There were times when I was riding with the president that got blown up, you know, and you guys, because I'm a no guy, I'm in the back, you know, he's right up front.

We're riding together, but I still, because he's the president, I got to give him his leave. Well, they were on an overpass waiting for us to come over the overpass, and for whatever reason they didn't shoot. And Sandy's like, did you know about that one? I go, I remember the time. She goes, you remember a car on the side of the road? I go, I don't. That's how I was not paying attention. I go, I did not. She goes, they were going to get you then. And I'm like, fuck, you know, again, you just think you're— and I go to God, man. It's the hand of God. There's no doubt about it. You know, truly believe that. Truly believe that. Chris wasn't watching Chris. God was watching Chris. That's where we were at, at that point. There's no doubt in my mind.

Did you ever think you've been compromised by the Angels?

By them? No. By the Grim Reapers, I thought, well, actually, the case agent that was an Illinois State Trooper, one of the case agents, Don York was the ATF case agent and my guy we called Mongo, Jeff Patterson, was with the Illinois State Police. He was there. Their guy. And Danny Roach was another guy. But, um, he came in one day and he goes, hey man, he goes, they ran your shit. I go, yeah, we're getting ready, I'm ready to go to clubhouse. I'd been in for about 6 months. Because they ran your shit, he goes, doesn't come back. And I'm like, really? He goes, yeah. He goes, dude, they got some questions for you today. He goes, what are you gonna do? I go, well, I'm gonna go to the fucking clubhouse, I'm gonna whip a game. And he starts laughing, he goes, I'm just fucking with you, bro. He goes, they ran your shit, it all came back, it's all good. And I'm like, you motherfucker, man, it's hard enough to do in this shit and then you gotta fucking do that. So I'm good friends with the guy, but I was like, I wanted to dot his I.

I'm like, god dang, bro, I said, I'm under enough shit. I haven't had a break since this Hells Angels shit. I go, I'm like, I don't need this, man. So yeah, so he was just being a dick. Um, but there was a time after we did, um we did indicia warrants, they call it, if you're familiar with that. So it's basically club indicia. So because we're looking at the enterprise of the Grim Reapers, we got search warrants based on indicia warrants, and we're looking for membership in this organization. And so indicia is like, you know, it could be anything from your, the drug, you know, Grim Reaper patches, Grim Reaper paraphernalia, anything with Grim Reaper out that was in your house, we were able to take. But if we accidentally ran into pistols, guns, and dope, then we'd get a second search warrant for the pistols, guns, and the dope, and then we'd do that. So what they wanted to do was do these indicia warrants first on— I think we did 25 altogether, 25 warrants in 5 states. We hit them all simultaneously at the same time. A bunch of SWAT teams, state, local, federal, US Marshal Service helped us out.

Great guys. So we do these 25 search warrants. And I was telling the undercover— or telling the case agent and the SAC in Chicago, Special Agent in Charge in Chicago. I go, if you let me stay in after the search warrants, just let me stay in, I'll be okay. I said, you know, yeah, they got hit with warrants, but we sealed the indictment, so they're not going to get what the probable cause of the warrants. Yeah, some of it was me, But a lot of the stuff in other states, I hadn't been there yet, so there's no way they could put that on me. So I'm like, let's just— I go, I think I could stay in there. So like, no, too dangerous. You're done. The undercover part's out. I'm like, bad mistake. So the U.S. Attorney, Tate Chambers, who's probably one of the best attorneys I've ever worked with, he goes— he's like a Southern kind of Southern Illinois— goes, now, Chris, you think you could stay in there with these boys for just a little bit longer, maybe get some conversation about what they're all doing? I said, fuck yeah, Tate. I said, put me in, coach.

He's like, all right, let me make a call. So he calls the SAC and he goes, your agent seems to think that he could stay in there and it'd be okay. And they're like, all right. But they— there was a 2-week gap between that. So once they got hit, you know, went over the cell phones or pagers, everybody out, don't come back to the clubhouse, it's fucking hot, stay away. And so the informant we had that we did the fake fake thing in front of the judge. We had the informant say, "I told Chris just to stay away, you know, stay back, you know, don't come around." So now 2 weeks have gone by and things have kind of slowed down. Nobody went to jail. So I was like, "You motherfuckers are making it harder now because now I'm going to have to explain where I was for 2 weeks and why the fuck I wasn't a good enough brother to be down here when it all went to shit, start figuring this stuff out." And they're like, "Well, you said you could get back." And I'm like, "Yeah, if you'd let me go back the next day." I go, but 2 weeks is too much, too much time, man.

It's going to be hard. And they're like, well, we thought you were like this undercover guy. I'm like, so now it's the fucking question in your fucking cajones. I'm like, all right, dude, I'll go. So I went back and it— there was a lot of side-eye look for a while. I remember we ended up in, um, we're doing a national run, we're down in Louisville, Kentucky, and, uh One of the, uh, they got together and the meeting was to talk about all these search warrants, the guns they had lost, dope they lost, all this stuff. And one of the guys smoking a joint, he's sitting there and they're like, why didn't anybody get arrested? And he takes a big hit off the joint, goes, because we've been infiltrated, motherfuckers. And I'm looking at the dude and I'm behind the bar and I'm like, all right, what's he gonna say next? He goes, somebody's doing us. And the reason we didn't get arrested is that dude's still doing this now. And I'm like, it's not me, man. Maybe it's this dude over here. It's not me. And they were like, yeah, you're right. How are they doing this?

And they're like, it can't be an undercover. And I was like, thank God he said that. I was like, felt a lot better about things. He goes, it's got to be surveillance. And you know how those feds can beam down and turn our pagers into wires and And I was like, man, thank God that guy said that, because then they're going to start looking around. Okay, who's the new guy? What's the common connection between all these warrants and the guy that could put all that together? So it was a rough couple of days.

Man, how the fuck are you carrying all that weight? I mean, you're geofenced into a small area. You've been, what, 3 organizations now? Yeah, within, um, so you're, you're paranoid about the current op and all the fucking previous ones probably too.

And then the other problem was these guys were aligned with the Outlaws from Joliet that I had done in the very first place. And this is only 7 years later, this is '97. Some of those guys were— that I didn't do knew about me and knew about the seizure of the club and the guys that got arrested. So there's one guy in particular, Ronnie Talmage, that was the president, and I knew who he was and he knew about me because they'd gotten all the records of how they got done and how the search warrant was done on the clubhouse, why it got seized, because they don't want to make that same mistake twice. So there's no more drug dealing in the clubhouse, no more dope in the clubhouse kind of a thing. So he had all that information and knew basically who I was. So Ronnie Talmadge sometimes would call up. They were aligned, politically aligned with the Grim Reapers against the Angels. He would call up, I'd answer the phone at the clubhouse in Rock Island. And, uh, he'd go, 'Yeah, it's Ron and Ronnie. I'm on my way out.' Like, 'Okay.' Like, and then I'd have to make excuse to leave in about 2 hours because that's when Ronnie would be there.

So I was ducking those guys at the same time with the Grim Reapers. Um, and so now I think about it, yeah, it was pretty fucked up. Holy shit, man. Yeah, but again, grace of God, bro.

Why did you— why did you bring your wife in?

First time. First time. Because they're starting to question why. There was like— I'm not an exceptionally handsome lad, but kind of in the biker world, um, I could be a— I could be a solid 8, you know, pretty hard 8. Um, and so there was a lot of strippers that were like, brother, what up, man? Yeah. Oh, this doesn't look good to you? You're not— I'm like, babe, you know what? I go, Mom never My mom always told me never date a stripper. No offense. My mom told me that. And I go, I got this girl, man. I go, she's good. And they're like, whatever, dude. So they were questioning like, you know, like the Grim Reapers had a girl. They go, take this bitch for a ride on your scoot. I'm like, all right. So I get out and our recording devices were like from the Stone Age. So we had these Nagra recorders that were like a 1970s reel-to-reel. Tape deck, you know, like a porno, like down, down. So you would wear that down here on your— in your crotch, and it had two microphones that came up to the side. And the quality of it was great, but it's like carrying a brick in the front of your pants.

And if you lift up your shirt or have an issue like that, and a lot of times you'd get in a little scuffle with the brothers, you know, they call it a mud check, especially the Reapers, you know, they punch in the chest like, what do you do, Prospect? Like, I'm gonna wait till I get a full patch and we'll put my $100 on the bar. I'm not always going to be a prospect. And then it's, we're going to go. And they'd be like, ah. So a lot of times they just mud check, see what you're about. Are you going to step up? You're going to protect yourself kind of a thing. They want to see what you're about. So there's a lot of little skirmishes and shit. So I'd always have to keep, like, I'd cover that. And so you're trying to kind of wrestle with people, punch somebody, and you're trying not to keep this shit out. The stuff we have now is like, it's unbelievable. And guys bitch about wearing it. It's like this big. Like somebody could find that. I go, dude, I was wearing a reel-to-reel tape deck back in the day, like in my phone.

So I'm like, yeah, you know, I don't want to hear like, oh, this little tiny thing is, is too hard to fucking secrete. Like, no, it isn't. So the Reapers had, they had this two strippers. Of course, I get in the clubhouse, one of the presidents says, prospect. And I'd been got made prospect, had my prospect patch. He goes, uh, Prospect, take that bitch for a ride. She needs some air. Like, all right. So I go out, I get on a scoot, she gets on the back, and she starts with the— rubs the shoulders, goes in the back of my hair, down the sleeves, basically just searching me for fucking wire. She goes down my arms. At this point, I've got a, um— didn't have the recorder, thank God, at the time, but I had a 1-watt transmitter. Which was a lot smaller and it was over on the right side. And I also had a big hole in my pants on this side. So she goes down through my legs, my back, my waist, you know, nothing. Well, then she starts fishing around and playing with my junk through the hole in my pants, you know.

So I'm driving and my cover team was, you know, the guys are watching and they're seeing this go on and I'm like, oh, fuck. So she's digging around in my pants. I go, babe, I go, nothing from nothing, but I'm going to hit the note here in a second. I'm going to make a mess. And then we're going to crash. She starts laughing. She goes, oh, it's okay, it's all good. So we drive back to the clubhouse. I get off the bike, she gets off, she goes in. I could see the president look at her and she goes, it's like, sorry. Like, all right. There was times they went out, they would toss my truck, you know, because the clubhouse had cameras outside. Both the Grim Reapers, they did it, and the Hells Angels. I'd be inside watching the surveillance camera outside and I see one of the brothers look around, open the passenger door of my truck, dig through the box, look in the back of the truck, you know, pop the hood real quick, look underneath, shut everything, and then come back in. But they would, you know, they would check you like that.

So you got to be prepared.

Did you see them doing that to anybody else or just you?

Yeah, I had to do it to other— I did it when I was a prospect for the Reapers. They would be like, they just, you know, it was a look. It was like, they're like, like, dude, And I go outside, look around, you know, pretend like I look around, check his car, come back in. Dude seems clean. It's all right. They're like, okay, all right. So they do it. He did it all the time.

Have you ever run into another undercover not knowing it? I mean, agencies don't do the best job.

No, we don't do each other. So that's a fact too, man. That's a big fact. Um, I'm trying to think. I know people have, but I never experienced that. I never ran into another guy. Right on. It's almost like night vision. It's like if you look at it, you know, he's got night vision, you get that red so you can tell. So, yeah, no, I never had that.

Right on. What, you know, what was your— you know, Mel talked about some of the violent shit that he's done yesterday, but he— I think he left a lot out. You get it?

You know, I think what I'll say about Mel and his violent— Mel was a violent guy, there's no doubt about it. He had those Charles Manson lamps. When I saw him the first time, man, the way he looked and stuff in his eyes, I was like, man, that dude's a very bad man. He's a very bad man. And that was my first thoughts when I saw him. I think Mel's like, um, you know, Sodom and Gomorrah in the Bible. So the angel comes down, They're running away, right? Lot and his wife. And Lot's wife turns around to look back as God's decimating. And she turns to salt because she looked back at the past. And I think Jesus actually says in another, later on, Jesus says, remember Lot's wife, or remember Lot's wife, don't look back. So once you're forgiven, You don't look back. Once you come to God and you know in your heart, asking forgiveness, God forgives you. It's done. It's forgiven. You do not look back. So I think a lot of what Mel's is with what he had done, I feel like he's gone out of his way to make amends to everybody pretty much ever beat up in his life.

He's gone out, he goes, I'm sorry that I did that. It, you know. And he goes, um, but he's asked the Lord for forgiveness too. And I think it's very hard for him. I know when we were doing the sizzle reel for the movie stuff, I actually told him at one point, I said, brother, um, let's go home, man. I go, I can see it in your eyes now. I go, the guys— I don't want— I didn't want the crew guys that were doing the lighting and all this, I don't, I don't want them to know that guy, because that's not the guy I know now. That's not the guy I'm friends with. So I was like, I go, let's just go home, man. I go, we live a— we got a good life, man. Got a roof over our head. We got a great family, you know, that loves us. We don't need to— there's— we don't need to make a movie. I said, plus, not only that, what you do now for people that you just talk to that are in a bad spot, he doesn't turn anybody away that comes to him and says, man, I did this and there's no way I could be forgiven.

You know, Mel is like, right, no, that's not right. You know, so I think for him, And to look back on that violence, it's almost like Lot's wife turning around. And I think he's afraid that he doesn't want to re-experience it. But I go, brother, your story of redemption, it has to start with that violence where you were.

That's what makes it real.

Exactly. I told him one time when he was doing the sizzle reel, he was minimizing the shit. Well, you know, I was an altar boy. I go, brother. I go, I don't arrest altar boys that all of a sudden start breaking windows, you know, on a RICO. I go, you did a little bit more than— he's like, and he would hang his head and he's like, ah. And I go, brother, I go, you're gonna have to touch that dragon, man. You're gonna have to go back and, and get in touch with that a little bit and, and tell that story. Because your story of redemption, the people that come to him, they knew him back in the day when he was road, so they see it, and they know he's changed, and they know it's for real. I mean, we've been friends for 20-some years now, and he has not gotten off the God Squad ever. You know, he's been— once he committed to it and he saw what it did in his life, the amount of peace that he got, he's like, this is where I need to be. And he goes, the ability to help people and shit, you know, he goes, I would pray on stuff, Chris.

He goes, you know, I prayed God that he would bring those keys and let me out of jail. I would say that prayer every night. He goes, God's got another plan. He goes, but the people he's rotated in through my life that I've been able to witness to or help come to know the Lord or just get out of the lifestyle. Because that guy was like the Al Capone of Chicago in that he dealt, he knew and was friends with traditional organized crime, the mob guys in Chicago. All of them knew him. He knew them. They used to break bread together at a place on Rush Street in Chicago. They'd be in there eating. He'd be in there eating. He was locked up with them. When he did his stint and his first federal stint, they were buds. They knew him. And then he had all the street gangs, the Mexican Mafia guys, the Latin Kings, the Gangster Disciples, the Vice Lords. He knew all the leaders and they all liked him. And they all knew him by reputation. They knew what he had done in the past and he garnered great respect from those guys in the criminal community.

So now that he's changed, I go, I go, those guys knew you when you were Mel, all those bad stories. So now where you're at with the Lord and your walk and the redemption component, I go, now these guys can see like somebody that was as bad as them and as violent as them, man, you can change your life. You're not stuck in this rut or this hole, man. You could actually make a difference and change. And I go, and you're the beacon for that. And I go, but we don't need to put it on the TV screen, man, or you don't need to make a movie about it. You got enough people coming to you now that you've helped. I go, that's a life well lived. I said, so this other stuff, if it comes and more, and it's benefit to God's grace, great. And if it doesn't come, we're okay with that too, man. It's— we've— my humility at this point, I'm like, man, I've got nothing. I don't want to prove anything to anybody. I don't need a movie. I don't need any of that. I just need— I just want to live a happy life, man, you know, where I got some peace.

So his reputation spread far and wide.

He was the poster child for the Hells Angels across the country and across the world. Wow. Yeah, everybody knew who he was. Everybody knew his reputation. I mean, you've seen some of the earlier pictures. Um, yeah, that was Road. You know, he, he was a monster, no doubt about about it. Damn. It's funny, I think it might be a self-preservation thing with Melf too, a little bit, in that he goes, yeah, but I always had— I always thought of myself, I'm a good guy. And I go, Melf, in your heart of hearts, you are a good guy. I go, you're a good man. I said, but road decided to lead you down a different road, man. And you weren't a very good At that point, it doesn't change who you are in your heart, but your actions dictate something completely different, man. But again, that's your tool, man. That's what you get these other guys to come up and go, I don't want to live the life anymore. And if this guy can make it okay, he was doing prison when we locked him up. We housed him in Henry County Jail, which is a jail, maybe 400 inmates in a county jail in Western Illinois.

And there was a guy, Rodney, and I have to give you the clip of Rodney. Rodney was a guy that he did prison ministry. His wife died in 1970. So every day after his wife passed away, he was a farmer. Get done working farm, cattle, corn and beans, come into the local county jail and have Bible study. And he was the one that bought out of his own pocket TVs for the inmates and he would have Bible study. Every, I think, 3 days, 4 days a week. He would come in every day after work. So this guy's working his ass off every day. His wife died. His devotion to her and to, like, for his wife, he would come in. She's a devout Christian. He goes, "I'm going to witness to these guys how the Lord's changed my life." So he would do it every day. So when Mel got out there, this is 1970. Mel's now, 20 years later, Mel's in locked up with these guys. Mel and him clicked so tight together right off the bat because Mel was already telling these guys in there, you got to, you got to come to know the Lord and let's take a look at what you got caught with.

And he'd have the sentencing guidelines, federal. There you go. What's your criminal history? And the guy would say, well, I've been down 3 times. Okay. Criminal history is this. Here's what they're going to give you for your, what you did. The federal system's like, they assign a number and the greater the crime, the higher the number. It's like a chart. You go like this. That's how much time you get. So he goes, you're looking at 360 to life. He goes, my suggestion to you, we're going to pray on it, but I think you should cooperate and, you know, come in on yourself and look for a reduction because you're going to get hammered. And that's the only way out of it. Like, well, what if I could beat the case? He goes, you could try. You could try to beat the case. He goes, if you want to, we'll pray on that too. Let's pray. See what God has in store for you. So he would do that. So he hooks up with with the prison ministry guy. And at one point the sheriff called and said, or the lieutenant that ran it called me up and he said, he goes, hey, can Mel do his entire time in here?

And I go, why? He goes, because he basically came in and these guys would be playing dominoes. They'd be loud in the day room, slapping, and everybody's yelling. And this poor guy is trying to do Bible study. And so Mel came in one day and he said, hey, check it out, fellas. He goes, "We're going to do Bible study in the day room for 40 minutes." He goes, "So you got two choices. You can join us for Bible study or you can go sit quietly in your cell and reflect on life." He goes, "Those are your two choices. Your third choice is to slam dominoes and be loud because you're not going to like what I'm going to do to you after that." So this entire pod got a bunch of guys coming to Bible study. Everybody else would just go into their pod and sit because he had Hells Angels Forever tattooed on his friggin stomach. And they were like, okay. And again, it goes back to that. When you wear that tag, you got that respect. And they knew who he was, not only by reputation, but that he was a Hells Angel.

And they knew he would get after it if he had to. He loved the Lord, but he'd also punch you in the mouth if you didn't listen to the Bible study that this Roddy guy had come in and took his time out of his own life to get you guys on a better track. Back. He goes, you got to respect that. And then actually he went back years later. Rodney had Alzheimer's and was in a home. And there's a great videotape, just his friend, he didn't know it, but his friend was videotaping it. And he's talking to Rodney, thanking Rodney for, thank you for— Wow. It's a great video, man. Real good video. Do you have that? He mailed us. I'd love to put that up. Yeah, you should. Because it just— he goes, Rodney, I can't thank you enough, tell you enough. And you see Rodney finally realizes like who Mel is, even through the dementia, and he just breaks down. He's crying. He's like, thanks, because I'm glad you came. I live in Florida now. I live in Florida. I live in Florida. I flew in just to come and see you. I wanted to see you here.

Wow, wow. Yeah, so there's that, that yin and yang, ebb and flow, good and bad. It's constant. It's a battle.

When did you link up with, uh, Jay Dobbins?

Jay was, um, let's see, um, Jay got— I don't want— Jay's got a great story. I don't want to be a guy that tells Jay's story, but he had gotten taken hostage. He was shot in Tucson, Arizona, through the back, basically died on the way to the hospital. They paddled him back. Yeah. So he comes to— he was an outstanding football player, wide receiver for the Wildcats, very known well. And the shooting ended up being, you know, it was all over the newspaper. Tucson's not a super large community. And so Jay came up to Chicago, then got transferred up to Chicago, and he was my partner for quite a few years before he went back to Tucson. So when he came up, we were in that Sig shooting where I told you the guy only wanted to know if I decocked. That was the guy I was with, was Jay. He got— Now, tell that story again.

Sure. You didn't tell it in here.

You told it out there. Oh, okay. Okay, um, we did a gun reverse on, uh, two gangbangers from Juliette, Gangster Disciples. Um, we went to do the takedown. We did the undercover part, and then we just got in our car and we just figured, ah shit, we had our stuff. We had done it off-site. The bad guys weren't by our car, so they didn't see anything. So we did it off-site. We, we get in our car and I had my, our vest and stuff in there, so we put our vest on and shit, and the takedown team was getting right behind them, knock them down on a felony stop. So as they vector in behind them, Jay and I pulled in front because a lot of these guys squirt, you know, and they're going to run, you know, if you don't have them all blocked in. So we ended up being the lead car. Well, we're getting ready to make the stop there on the radio. Hey, we're getting ready to affect the stop. And there was a kid on a bicycle that just out of nowhere showed up. And I'm like, hey, hey, hey, we got to move it down the road.

There's a kid on a bike right here. By that point, they had already hit the lights and siren. Let these guys know they're getting stopped. So the guy in the car with the two bad guys slows down, and, um, I speed up to get away from the kid, hopefully draw these guys up farther up into the zone where we can knock them down safe and make the arrest. Well, I get kind of blocking the road. Jay gets out the passenger side, I get out the driver's side, and, um, the guy just floors it. It. And at the same time, the passenger gets out and he's like, boom, boom, boom. He starts putting rounds downrange. Um, they hit Jay with the car before he hits him. I'm shooting back. Um, they hit Jay with the car and it hits him so hard, it— he does that, you know, that football that, you know, you're like this, left, right, up, down. He was doing that before he got hit, but before he gets hit, he ups, boom, puts one in the guy's shoulder. Then he gets hit by the car, flips up over the top of the car, actually shoots again before he lands on the ground.

I was kind of like, holy fuck, anybody else see that? That was kind of amazing. Oh yeah, get back. But, um, so Jay's down. I run over, I go, you're all right. He's like, go fucking get him. I'm like, right up. So I jump in the car and it's a chase. We had Illinois State Police band radios in there, so it's called a pursuit. You know, now the cavalry's— everybody's coming out of the woodwork. End up pitting a guy into a, like, into a field. They get out, they run. They're, uh, they're in like an open field area with a lot of wooded, new construction. So I didn't see exactly where they went when they left the car, trying to see if the guy still had a gun. I get up on top of the hill and I'm just peeping, just very slow, you know, just as small as I could be. Still had high ground, but I want to be able to see you know, larger areas I could, looking for movement, looking for trying to see where these guys squirted to. Um, and then I hear like huffing and puffing behind me, and fuck, fuck, and it's Jay walking up the hill, and he's got his gun and his badge in his hand, no shoes on because his shoes got knocked off his fucking feet, knees are completely blown out.

He goes, hey, I quit. I go, what? He goes, yeah, he goes, just fucking twice. He goes, Hasn't even been like not even 2 years. He goes, I'm all done. And I'm like, all right, bro. I go, check it out. I go, how about we find these guys, make sure everything's cool in the gang? I go, then you can quit after that. But until then, you're standing up. We know there's a guy with a pistol. Hey, let's get down. And so he did. And so, so that was my— Fuck this shit, I'm done. That was my first—

We're in the middle of a gunfight.

Yeah. Don't mind. How about you quit later? But no, just a great undercover agent. And a good investigator, no doubt about it. Yeah. Yeah, that's the first time. That's the first incident we had. But we worked together. I did a lot of UC stuff and we did some undercover together. But we bought some pipe bombs off a guy. Oh, we'd go upstairs. Now that you brought up Jay Davins, this guy was making pipe bombs. So we're like, oh, shit. Well, so we're like, how many do you have left? We don't want to tell him, go make us one. Because you don't want to do that. You're just like, do you have any left? I've got two. Don't sell them to anybody. We're going to come get them. So this is right after the shooting. So Jake, we're going up the steps to this guy's apartment and the door is slightly open a little bit. And it's one of those apartments where you walk in, there's a little dinette and there's like a kitchen wraparound thing. And it's got like a, like a hole through it so you can see into the other room. So we opened the door up and, um, we're standing there and the guy's got a— it's an AR-15 looking, but it's a 9mm.

I forget, SMG, or it's the 9mm. It looks like an AR platform. He's just sitting there and he's like this, and we're in the doorway and we were just like— it was like, fuck, I can't even jerk my shit at this point and get with this guy. We were both in the doorway and we just started. And he goes, hey, just fucking with you motherfuckers, check it out, it looks like an AR but it's a 9mm. We're like, holy fucking great. And I'm like, I looked at it, Jay's like, he goes, I gotta stop hanging around you because no good's coming for this. So we go in and the guy's got the pipe bombs. And I go, man, trying to get information about the pipe bomb, what's in it. So we're talking and I go, man, you got a lot of balls building those things, man. I go, I'm afraid that shit'll go And he goes, "Ah, they're perfectly safe." And he starts banging them together. Yeah, he had kind of the fuse. He goes, "Safe." I'm like, "That's good, bro. I trust you. It's safe." So, you know, we take him downstairs and we arrest him.

We pick him up and take him out. But yeah, it just came to mind. That was another deal. But we'd done just a lot of small deals, small undercover deals like that together, you know, buying guns and dope. We had another guy in our group, Mike Lippman. We did another really good undercover agent. We did one where he did some undercover for the FBI out of the South RA in Chicago. They had an organized crime case and they had a guy that was making— this guy was crazy. He's an old school guy. He was making silencers. He was dealing cocaine, stealing cars. He was just like a one-stop shopping for criminal activity. So Mike Littman had gotten into him really good and he really likes Mike. Mike. So Mike said, um, hey, this guy's got a stolen Jaguar there, um, you know, you want to come with me and drive the Jaguar back, or we'll figure out how we're going to do that. He goes, I'm going to buy some dope, and he's got some new silencer thing he wants to show me. So I'm like, all right. So we get there, and the guy is fucking nuts, but he's like a tool and die guy, so he's really good.

So he was making prototype revolvers that you put a silent— a can on that actually worked. He was turning the barrel down, fixed the silencer, but he had the headspace, the gap, like so close that you still heard a noise and there was gas escaping, but it wasn't, it wasn't like, you know, there's a large enough space that a silencer, I mean, you could silence it to a degree, but not really effectively. This guy actually had figured out a way to do that with a revolver because that headspace was so tight tolerance, but you got to keep it lubed. So we get there, this guy's half nuts. And he goes, "Hey." He goes, "You gonna buy that Jaguar?" And Mike introduces me to him. And he goes, "Yeah, my boy Chris is gonna take it apart when he gets it back to his shop." He's like, "All right, great." He goes, "Great car." It was an insurance job from another mob guy from the East Coast. So I'm looking at the Jaguar and he goes, "Hey, you guys need a bomb? Any bombs?" And I'm looking like, is this some type of ATF undercover scenario at the academy where You go in and the guy's got a smorgasbord of shit.

And I go, bombs? I go, yeah, I suppose we could all— he goes, dynamite. He goes, you guys could use dynamite. Your line of work, you need dynamite, right? I'm like, yeah, sure. You're like, you know, when in Rome, okay. So he gets in his garage and he's got this box and he pulls it out. And I didn't pay a lot of attention during the explosive instruction at the academy, but I knew enough to it was very sweaty, and I knew that if it was crystallized, it was a lot more shock sensitive. Because, I mean, it's pretty stable. I mean, you could throw it around, burn it, you know, it's not going to go off unless you've got an actual cap that's going to do it. So he goes, uh, or high explosive. So he goes, I go, what am I going to do with this? I go, I throw it at somebody? He goes, oh yeah. He goes, you need some caps? He goes, you need a bomb? I go, I don't necessarily need one, but I could probably use one at some point. He goes, okay. He goes, here's the dynamite. So he's got it on the table.

He goes, let me find the caps. So he digs around his garage, he pulls out a box. He's got 3 blasting caps in a box. And they've got the blasting caps, they got the shunt to make sure there's no static electricity that's all of a sudden connect to circuit. So it's got that little shunt thing. I think it's a shunt. My wife's going to kill me for not knowing what the correct terminology is. But it had the shunts in them, so I knew enough to, okay, that's okay. So I get to Caps and I go, well, what do I— how do I— he goes, oh, what do I got to do the whole fucking thing for you? He goes, you need a timer? You want a timed one? I go, sure. He's digging around his garage. He's got a mechanical egg timer that's already set up for AA battery pack. It's got like 6 plastic where you clip them in. It's already wired up, soldered, no batteries in it or anything. And he goes, yeah. And he goes, the egg timer. He goes, these things are fucking beautiful. They never fail. And he'd already wired two wires, one to the actual timing thing that you turn, and the other one was to collect when the timer comes back up and it hits.

Now connects the circuit and the bomb goes off. So he's like, he goes, remember, you got to go past 5 minutes though and come back. He goes, because if you just do 1 or 2, it might just go all the way front. He goes, you can't do that. You got to go to 5 and then come back if you want anywhere from 1 to 4 minutes because you got to go to 5 and then bring the dial back. And I'm like, okay, good to know. So he gives us all that shit. And so now we got this fucking bomb. So Mike's over looking at the silencer on there. He goes, does this thing actually work? And that guy goes, watch. So he loads it in his garage and he fires a round off into a mattress and some other shit that he had up against the wall. We're like, oh, fuck. So he does that. It actually worked pretty well. And I'm like, this is kind of amazing. So Mike buys the silenced gun off him. He buys a quarter key of cocaine off him. And we get the Jaguar. And we think we're fucking Miami Vice at this point.

We're like, we are— who is cooler that we got a fucking stolen Jaguar? We got this dynamite. So the FBI guys, super happy. Obviously, they listen to the wire, happy with what we got. So we get out. We're still on pagers at this time. We didn't have cell phones So we didn't want them following us out. So we were kind of make sure we were clean. We got to a payphone. I call our explosive guy. I go, hey man, I got 3 sticks of I don't know what. He goes, what's it look like? And he's like, oh, it's this kind of dynamite. Okay. He goes, what's the condition of it? I go, it's sweating all over the place, leaking. It's wet. He goes, all right, any crystals? I go, no, no crystals. So I'm actually touching it and fucking with it, which is dumb. So I'm moving it around. Gooner, Mike Lippman, we called him Goon. Goon's saying, let me see that dynamite. So he's like looking at it, we're touching it. So he goes, well, don't touch it. And I'm like, okay. I didn't know why. He goes, just don't touch it. He goes, make sure the caps and the explosive are separate.

I go, yeah, it's with the cocaine in the trunk of the car. We're going to drive it back to the FBI office. He goes, I'll meet you at the FBI office. And I'm like, okay, cool. So we start driving along and I start getting this fucking headache. Like my eyes are popping out of my head and I'm just like, man, like dizzy. I'm like, what the fuck? And Gunner's like, "Shit." He goes, "It's the nitroglycerin that's leaking out of that." He goes, "It's absorbed into our fingers and our hands now because we were stupid enough to fucking touch it." And so we got these massive pounding fucking headaches. So we get back to the FBI office, get out of the car, and I'm a little fucked up. Our bomb guy shows up on the set. He takes the dynamite. He used gloves. He didn't touch it because he didn't want a headache. So I go upstairs and tell the rack, hey, I go, hey, I'm with ATF. Is Ivan here? Ivan was an FBI agent we were working with. They're like, he's on his way back. I go, well, let him know we got the bomb.

It's downstairs in the parking lot. And the guy's like, you have a bomb in the parking lot? I go, it's a little one. It's only 3 sticks of dynamite and the caps. And the guy's like, are you fucking kidding me? Why did you bring a bomb in the parking lot? Because this was our meat spot. It's your case. Going to be your evidence. Thought I'd come back to you. And they were like, The guy had lied. He goes, we're going to have to evacuate the building. I go, I don't think it's that necessary that we go that far. But, you know, so it was like Maricopa, sorry, good point. Our bad. Shouldn't bring a bomb in the FBI office. That's probably not a good thing to do. So that was like— Jay was with us, I think, out on that one as a cover team. And Mike Littman, like I said, another really good undercover agent. So yeah, we thought we were so fucking cool. You know, little did we know. Just the stupidity of every aspect of where we were at, what we were doing.

But yeah, when did you move on to the Sons of Silence?

I didn't— I did them. It was a— I didn't do them. Blake Boatler and Darryl Edwards were two friends of mine, ATF agents, another great undercover. I stand on the shoulders of some guys that have done some fucking amazing shit around the country. These guys had gotten in and they were actually full patch with the Sons of Silence motorcycle gang. And, um, we— they were looking for a club that was going to get threatened by these guys. They had pretty much locked down Colorado Springs. And, um, the, uh, the case agent said, you know what, Blake Fuller said, maybe we can get, um, if you guys ride around as a bike club, the normal protocol would be, hey, get, um, get a meeting together, you guys. And we, we came up with Unforgiven was our motorcycle gang. So we had Unforgiven top rocker, Colorado bottom rocker, which is a no-no. We start driving around their bars in their area. So they were having meetings about who the fuck are these Unforgiven guys. And Blake Bowler's in there recording the conversation. They go, we see these guys, got to have them come in, yank their shit.

Normal protocol. Like, all right, seems about right. So we're driving around. So Blake Bowler says, hey, you guys been to bars? They saw you. We kind of got the threat. If you get a little bit more. Maybe be seen one more time. Go to their bar, Jenny's Bar in Colorado Springs. We're like, okay. So we, you know, we're fucking riding our Harleys in, we get off the scoots, we go in. Well, the time that Blake had left the bar and told us there were no Sons of Silence there, the actual guy that Doug Luckett was— like, people get into fights and they're like, yeah, that guy was 6'8", fucking 400 pounds. Doug, look, he was 6'8", 400 pounds. Doug Luckett had gone there. So when we walk in, he's there and the entire bar's there. And so it didn't end well for us at that time. He came out, he said, you guys are it, you think you're that, you're not. And they fucking got us. They got us good. So the whole bar basically beat the fuck out of us in this bar. That's where I got kicked and got that ear ringing from.

There was one funny point. In the middle of the fight, this is a funny, kind of a funny story. So I'm on the ground, I just get kicked, a bunch of people are piling on top of me, putting lumps on me. I get pulled off by a guy named Babyface, John Carr, who was another great, great guy, big, jacked up, yoked up guy. He pulls everybody off, gets me up. Well, they grab up Babyface, they got him in a full Nelson, and they are working him like a heavy bag. I mean, they're fucking just bam, bam, beating him pretty So the one guy that's beating him looks over at his old lady and he goes, go get a pool cue, or no, pool ball, and come back and crush his skull. So she like runs over the pool table. Now I'm trying to get, I'm like, this is, I'm trying to get to this chick. So she runs back before I can get there and she's got this pool ball in her hand and he goes, crush his skull. So rather than crush his skull, she just goes and she threw it at him and it goes just boop, and it fell off his chest.

And like everybody in the bar kind of caught that and started kind of laughing, like, like, okay, that was pretty funny. And then he went back to beating our fucking ass. But Jay was in there. Jay was part of that, that crew too that day. But yeah, so that's the, the Sons of Silence case. And then we got out to the door, ran outside, nursed our wounds, and rode off into the sunset. So yeah, that's it. That's, that was my only Sons of Silence. But those guys, at the end of that case, I forget how much methamphetamine they bought. They got explosives, they got bombs, they got machine guns. Um, it— there was— they did a— Blake and, um, Daryl did an outstanding job. Really good case. Wow.

Where were you when I read that, uh, you got threatened to— they're gonna kill you, poke holes in your chest?

Yeah, that was a guy. Um, so we started after probably 10 years of the, um, the bike case, I had the same U.S. Attorney in the Central District of Illinois. He did the Outlaws case, uh, he did the Hells Angels part, and then we went back. And because we could show historically that the Grim Reapers had bought about 250 kilos from the Joliet Angels, we did a drug conspiracy on those guys and arrested like, I think, 3 or 4 members out of Joliet Outlaws and got them on drug conspiracy. So this is like up to 2000, right around in there, I think. Yeah, '99, 2000, right? Um, we're still working on Jay's, um, or not Jay's, but, uh, Mel's indictment when we got him on 2004. Uh, then after that I started doing, um, we were doing these Gideon operations around the country. And so we would go to like the worst city in the country and we would deploy into there We would spend about 2 months doing a workup, talking to the local police department. Who are your worst guys? Who's the shot callers? Who are the hitters? Who are the trigger pullers?

And we would focus on just those guys specifically to try to wrap them up in anything we could get. You know, Al Capone eventually went to jail for income tax evasion. So never went to jail for how many people he killed or shot or booze, but income tax. So we found, like, ways to go in and try to take that violence out of that community. One of the ways we did it was stash house robberies. So I pretend like I'm a stash house robber. I'm a courier, and I know where probably 20 kilos of coke is. And it's kind of a whole scenario. I don't want to bore you with it completely, but it's not boring. And a lot of, a lot of, I don't think that a lot of people are still out there kind of doing something similar. We changed it up a little bit, but we still do these type of proactive cases. So I act like a drug courier and I go to the worst guys you got in the neighborhood. I go, you I met some killers, man. And I met one guy one time in Vegas. He sat there and he pretty much succinctly put it in play.

He goes, "I don't need robbers to rob this place." He goes, "I need killers that are going to rob because the way it's set up is I know where the dope is and I can drive us there eventually. However, there's 4 armed guards and they're vatos, they're cartel guys. They're not going to give that dope up just because we asked for it." And they're like, "No, we understand." And we run it just the exact way a stash house runs for the cartels. So everything looks exactly above board in the criminal community because that's how they operate. And that's how our scenario is set up. So there's always a plan. The only guy that will— that is a connection between the stash house robbers and the cartel is me. I'm the guy that is going to be introducing everybody. Well, actually not introducing, but bringing them to the stash house to kill everybody and steal the coke. So they know at the end of the day, cartels, they just, they don't like 20 bricks gone. They're going to want to know where their dope went and they're going to want to try to find who fucking robbed them.

So I'm the only linchpin. So these guys generally always have another conversation without me that involves killing me. And this guy in this instance, They were talking about, what are we going to do with his body? What are we going to do with Chris's body when we get done killing him? He's like, poke about 10 holes in that motherfucker, man, because we got to get deep in there. Poke 10 holes. He goes, because what happens is when we throw him in the water in a river, gas blows him up and he floats to the surface. Poke about 10 holes, 10 holes in that motherfucker. He'll stay down with the fishies. So that's what— that was the— we're going to kill Chris. But generally in those cases, they're always going to kill you at the end. But we've things in place that they're not going to kill you until they get the location of the stash house if we take them off before that. Holy shit. Yeah, it works great. It's the most— some of the most violent guys I've ever met in my life are on those cases because they're about, we're killing everybody in the house.

I'm like, right on, bro. Shit. And then so many crimes have been solved after the fact when these guys cooperate, because you're looking at a chunk of time on that case. Well, these guys already have a history, violent history. They've already got convictions. That bodes against them on the federal case. They got a gun, the amount of dope we charged that they were going to rob. So they look at a substantial more. And the only way to get out from under that is to cooperate. So you end up with guys that say, well, I could tell you about 3 murders or 4 murders, give those up. So.

I mean, I'm just, you know, going through some of the stuff in this staff house operate— staff house operates— staff stash house operations. I mean, Phoenix, Arizona, 2009, 70 arrests during a wave of home invasions at drug locations. Oakland, California, 2012, police chief requested ATF help after violent crimes rose 20%. 4 months later 4 months later, shootings were cut in half. California 2012, crew member provided information that led FBI to solve nearly $1 million in armored car heists. Chicago 2013, arrested Gangster Disciples enforcer from Englewood, one later charged with murder on bail. Mhm. Did you put a real fucking dent in— they're bad people. What was going on over there.

Yeah, but it wasn't just me, man. I, I mean, I— the ones you're talking about, I did, but we've done those around the country, and guys have done, uh, some really heinous guys. I think I might have— we were talking earlier about the MS-13 guys that cut the fetus out of the girl's stomach. Richie Zayas, my partner from Tampa, Cuban guy, He did those guys.

I'm sorry, what did you just say?

The MS-13. It was the guys that FBI had a case and they had an informant, female informant, that was giving them information. They'd relocated her and she came back to her red zone. Unfortunately, they found her. They lured her to a bridge, under a bridge. She was pregnant. So by virtue of the fact that she gave information, about MS-13, they went ahead and held her up and they cut the fetus out of her stomach and then slit her throat. Richie Zayas, my partner from Tampa, had done that, set a crew of guys, bought guns and dope off those guys, and then he testified at the sentencing about all the other criminal activity they had done and were doing at that time in addition to the murder that they killed that witness and cut the fetus out of her stomach. Shit.

What's it like looking these fuckers in the eyes?

It's fun because you know they're going to go to jail in a minute on the takedown and stuff. But I tell you, that's where people say there's not evil out there, everybody has self-worth. That's not true. I believe people can change. I believe generally that people are good. But there is evil and there is evil in these people's eyes, man. They've got that look and you just know it. You can just feel it. This guy will kill me in a minute. This guy has killed people before. But those are the guys we need to— we want to remove them from the community. You know, it's like crabgrass in your lawn. You know, the bad guys, the uber violent guys are the crabgrass. You want to remove that so the rest of the grass can grow, healthy grass can grow. And so you gotta, you gotta have proactive law enforcement and you got to do that. But, you know, with the anti-law enforcement stuff and everything's racially biased, it's like it's, it's harder to do those without having to fight that defense a lot of times. Yeah, you know, it's almost like, um, on the stash house stuff, after I retired, you know, I did a thing for the Chicago Sun-Times because I was tired of getting this— you're getting the defense side of it, but you're not getting the proactive side and why it's important to do those kinds of cases.

And they're like, "Well, you're just doing it in this one community. You're doing the Black community, the Hispanic community, or this community." I was like, "No, we're doing it in any community we find violent guys that are willing to step up and kill somebody for fucking cocaine because they're not doing good in the community." I said, "We need to remove them because they're not just doing this, they're doing other criminal activity." And so when we meet them and we talk to them and they're like, hey, we're it. Like the guy, I did a couple for the FBI in Chicago and they were the, it's the one you read. They were the enforcers. You get that off the internet? Is that where you got it? Yeah. Those guys were, okay. Those guys were the enforcers for the Gangster Disciples on the South Side. And a guy told me, the guy that led the crew, the guy I stepped to first to say, hey, you got anybody to that would do this are interested. He says, I'm interested and I've got a crew. And I said, well, I gotta meet them. Because you want to get that conversation from everybody.

And I meet his crew and he comes over to me afterwards. He goes, what do you think of my little go-getters, man? I said, fuck, dude, they're about it, man. They'll jerk a pistol and go to work, won't they? He goes, fuck yeah. He goes, you know that violence in Inglewood, all these murders that have happened, the last 5 murders on the South Side? My guys, my guys took care of that. I'm like, right on, brother. So that's the people that you're taking out of the community, those uber violent guys you're taking out of the community. And that's important to do, man. But they were Black Gangster Disciples, so they're a Black gang. So the question is from the judge and stuff, why are you picking on— you're just doing Black guys. So I'm like, look, look at the violence in these two communities on the West Side and the South Side of Chicago. Look at the level of violence there. I go, it's almost like losing your keys in the garage, but you're looking for them in the kitchen. It's like, because the light's better and it's warmer. I said, bro, I'm not going to catch— I'm not going to find the keys in my kitchen because I lost them in the garage.

I'm not— if I'm tasked with preventing and stopping violent crime, especially used with a firearm, I got to go to places where it's very violent and they're using firearms. And unfortunately, it's disproportionately in these communities. But there's good people in those communities that if the priors are taken out, gives them a chance to—

and you know what happens if you don't fucking pay attention to those communities and you let all those criminals keep going? You're a racist then too. Correct.

Dude, there's no— it's common sense and good judgment has left the arena.

It's just a fucking losing battle. Absolutely. Try to do good, you're a racist. You try to do bad, you're a racist.

Like, it's just, it's just, it's, it's, it's fucking ridiculous. Is we had 30 shootings last weekend in Chicago. 30 shootings. And that's not even a— it's not even what we call a good weekend for shootings. Crime has— violent crime murders, they've gone down to a degree, and it's kind of on a slope. And it happened when the attitude toward law enforcement changed. Unfortunately, you know, it's got to be political. And I think finally, after the George Floyd shit was done and the defund the police attitude was done. Proactive law enforcement's coming back and you're starting to see those— the benefits of that, which is taking these violent guys off the street, man. I said that wrong.

I need to correct myself. I said good or bad. You, you pay attention and you give the community attention and you arrest the bad guys, right, in a Black community, and you're a racist, right? If you neglected because you're labeled a racist and you let crime run rampant said you're a racist, right? So what the fuck are you supposed to do?

You know, do you keep your nose down? You do your job. I know what I do. I know when I go to heaven and God says, what about these guys? I can account for everybody I put in jail. You know, I didn't— I'm not gonna lie on anybody. I'm not gonna do any of that shit. You know, these guys went to jail because they jerked a pistol and went to work, or they went— or they were talking about doing it, or they've already killed people. So these are the guys that we want to do them at. It's like, like Mel, and God bless him for changing his life, and I'm glad he did. But at that time, Mel needed to be taken off the set. He was the head of the snake. And I think that's why once he changed and he went to jail, that's why the US attorney that had all these cases, he goes, man, we've had a good run. We've done a lot of clubs, we've done a lot of violent guys. There's no more that RICOs that Sandy DeVulcanere did up in Wisconsin. Let's stop the violence, man, because guys got— we're looking at life and some guys got life.

It's like, you know, what? And for what? You know, it's almost like the freaking Rotary Club got after it with some other philanthropic group in the community and said, your fish fry is not that good, so we're going to kill you guys. I mean, there's no actual reason to do that other than be just for the sake of violence being violence. So yeah.

Well, Chris, let's take a break. Let's do it. And we'll talk about what got you out of the ATF. You got it.

Why'd you leave? Right on.

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So that's probably good enough reason. Yeah. Yeah. The last— so I started working full-time for SOD, Special Operations Division, undercover branch. So I didn't work out of any one particular area. I worked all over the country. So we were doing these Gideon operations and we would, again, like I was talking about, we would focus on the communities that were really uber violent and we were running at those. So we were out in Cleveland, Ohio, excuse me. And at that point I was 55, maybe. I think I'm 55. I was 55 at the time or 54, 54. We were running, we would do on those Gideons, we would run maybe 14 different operations a day, undercover deals. We'd have a big board, whiteboard at the offsite. We'd like, okay, informant so-and-so's got this guy, this guy, this guy, 2 undercover buys just to meet for conversation. So we kind of mapped out our entire day to kind of maximize because we were only there, we would do it, we would run about 4 months straight, you know, every day for 4 months. We take Sundays off or something, go to a ballgame. But for the most part, excuse me, you never got away with it or away from it.

It was just always, you know, because we were trying to maximize the amount of time we had or maximize the number of— not defendants, but maximize enough encounters in that period of time as we could in 4 months. So we were working pretty, pretty fast. The ones out in— I think the most we ever did was 14. And that was out where you talked about that one in San— or, um, Oakland, California. We were ripping and running, uh, every day, uh, just into the evening, come back, cut reports, get ready for the next day. Informant says this, I met this guy undercover, he wants to meet the next day. So it's boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So we were doing one in Cleveland, Ohio, and, um, we'd done a bunch of deals. It was near the end of the case, and we got information, a guy that, uh, violent dude, couple-time convicted felon, gangbanger. Two of his buddies had like a bag full of stolen guns, um, and it was just a simple deal that you've done— I've done, you know, I don't know, a couple hundred times easy, no problem. Um, we get to the— we get to his house, I back up my undercover truck, and, uh, I get out of the truck.

He's down, he's got this bag of guns, looked like guns, sitting on the ground, and unzips it. I look in, I see this whole shitload, just pistols and a couple shotguns and some other things. I'm like, all right, that looks good. So I turned to the undercover truck door, 4-door Escalade, and I opened the back door, and I hear that click. I hear the hammer going back and locking back. I was like, hmm. I turn around and he's got it up and it's right in my face. And he goes, because I think I need to see some money. But he's got that look like, I just want to see where it is so I don't have to pull it off you later kind of look. And I was like, we train and we teach like tying up with a guy with a pistol because I know my cover team's about 20 seconds out, maybe 25 seconds, which is a long time when you're fighting for your life. But I know they're gonna, they're gonna come up and be there. But I was too far away from him to go hands-on. And where we were situated, I knew where the cover team was going to come up and deploy out of their vehicles and move up.

Not that they wouldn't have had any trouble navigating that and doing the thing, but I I felt— I thought maybe I could just close the distance with this guy somehow, and then I could go hands-on. So, um, he starts to go like this, like, get down on your knees, and, um, I couldn't give him that. I couldn't give him that. So, um, yeah, fuck, sorry. Um, so I tried to close the distance and I got the money out of my pocket that I had, and I was just gonna throw it in the air. And so as soon as I took the money out, the entire expression in his eyes and on his face changed. He starts smiling, and I was like, motherfucker. And he drops the gun, or he leaves the gun down and hangs on to it, and he pulls the trigger and he lets the hammer go forward. And I ended up buying the gun and the bag of gun he had on me, and then the bag of guns, I bought them all, got them in the truck, and then I left. And I was like, for whatever reason, can't even tell you, that it's not the first time somebody had put a gun in my head.

On the home invasion crew guys that we were doing, stash house, guy grabbed me and Frank Ferella grabbed me into a stall in the bathroom. We were having the meeting in a restaurant with his crew to do the store, the stash house robbery. And he goes, let me talk to you for a minute. I'm like, all right. Get in the bathroom. And he gets me in the handicap stall, and he gets a.45 out, and he puts it up under my chin. He goes, we're for real, bro. If this thing isn't for real, I'm gonna fucking get you. And I'm like, I don't doubt that for a minute, bro. It's for real. He's like, all right. Did not have a— that did not affect me in any way. And there were other times guys We're in the gun business, so there's always going to be a pistol. But I cannot even— couldn't even tell you why that was just— I remember thoughts in my head were like, Cleveland, Ohio. I'm going to die in Cleveland, fucking Ohio. All this shit I've done and it's Cleveland. And I was talking to— I ended up getting some help on it.

I was talking to the psychiatrist lady that helped me with it. I could tell you where the sun was in the sky, the birds were chirping. I don't even know why that I had that memory of that at that particular moment in time. And then I felt like I let my kids down because I'd fucked up. So it really took, for whatever reason, again, I don't know if it was—

why do you feel like you let your kids down?

Because I always told them I'm fine, I'm going to be okay, you know. And they're like, you— I could just see like my daughter saying, well, you always said you were going to be okay and you're not. No. And so I— for me, it just felt like that. It just felt like that. I had that feeling. Um, uh, I was just— I felt stupid. I felt like, again, I'm smarter than this. How did this guy get the fucking ups on me? Me. How did this happen like this? And I think that the other thing, it was so personal, man. I mean, the guy, we were right there. He smelled like shit. He smelled like bad B.O., bad cologne, and weed with bad breath, you know. And you're that close and you just, it's all that things, you know, you become hypersensitive and acute to that. And I was just, I couldn't get on the ground. And, um, like I said, I stepped forward and then got the money out and it all went. But it just took its toll. So that was when I think Tina was down, my wife was down getting her bomb tab.

She was going through the— at Redstone Arsenal, where the training is. So I know she was down doing that. And I remember when she got back, it was just incredibly weird. I'd be middle of the night, it'd be 12 o'clock, and I'd have this freaking something's wrong. I'm either going to have a heart attack. Like, or there's something wrong around here. And I'd go down, I'd look outside, go down the basement, and I would just pace for like 3 or 4 hours. I would walk, you know, trying to ramp myself down. Like, there's nothing wrong with you. You're not going to die. Not having a heart attack. You're okay. You know, I've been in peer support since 1988. You know, I've talked to guys that had been in way worse situations than that, and I felt like like, um, I felt part of it was I felt like such a, a pussy. I felt like, how did I not— how— I didn't get shot. I have friends that got shot first 14 days on the freaking job. I buried my friends, um, that have been killed. I've got friends that are, um, you know, they're in a wheelchair right now, um, because they've been shot.

Uh, I just it was hard to equate that I was feeling this shitty about that incident that I could not— I was like, this is a nothing burger, man. This is absolutely nothing. And so I'm in the— talking to this— I went to a friend of mine that's from the Illinois State Police who runs a center for families, for first responders that have been in shooting. They run the whole family out there, Cornerstone. It's a great program. So I called him up. I said, man, I got some— I'm dealing with something I can't figure out. So we get together and he goes, I got the perfect lady for you to talk to. And I knew his story and all the shit he had been through. And I— so I assumed he was talking to her to get through his stuff. He goes, oh no, I'm good. I don't have a problem. He goes, but you're fucked up. He goes, you need to go talk to her. I go, I know your background. I go, you got to be fucked up. I go, I'm not the only fucked up one here. I go, you're fucked up too.

He's like, no, You're more fucked up right now. He goes, here's the name, here's the number. Call her. All right. Set up an appointment. I go in, she listens to the whole story and she goes, I want you to read a book. I'm like, okay, what's that? Sorry, Mark, man. It's all good. She goes, it's called Touching the Dragon. She goes, written by a Navy SEAL. I'm like, okay. So I started reading this book. And I'm like, great book. What a great career this guy's had. He gets shot and he struggles with getting shot. Now he's off the teams. He's not on anymore. He got shot one time in the knee. Alcoholic, blew up his family, the whole nine yards. Shot one time. So I get to page 207 at the bottom. And the guy that came to talk to him to help him had been shot 25 times and lived. And so he goes, I'm sitting here and I'm talking to this guy that had been shot 25 times and he's helping me try to get better. I've been shot one time and like, he talks about shame. It was like, fuck. Now I get it.

Get it. So shame is that thing you kind of— it's a gift you give yourself, but you don't want it. But you wear that. Like I said, man, I could not figure out why I was in the basement walking for 4 hours. I'd not been shot. Do you know now? Absolutely. Why? It's the straw. When you operate at that hypervigilance level, at some point your mind goes, oh, we're all done now. Your body's like, your body's done. My mind's telling you we're all done and it ends it. And that's where I was at. I was at the end of point.

And fuck, Chris, you did 30 fucking years. You were undercover within a year.

Right. That's a lot of shit, man. It is. I realize that. It is. Yeah. A lot of shit. But again, I know—

most of it as a one-man band. Yes, it's true.

It's true. But you don't want to be that weak link in that crew. And you know that as well as anybody. You don't want to be that guy that's got a problem. You don't want to be that guy that can't take it. You want to be that guy that shit. We're fucking Superman. I don't know if you notice that, but we got capes in our trunks. You want to be that guy, or at least you have that for yourself, and maybe that helps you get through 30 years of shit. But at some point, man, the body keeps score. And I was just at that point where— So I did the EMDR and prolonged exposure, and I got myself back to quasi-normal. How long did that take? I was surprised at how quickly the anxiety point left. The prolonged exposure, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but I go through it with the therapist. She's got a little recorder and I thought it was dumb at first. She goes, "I want you to tell the same story I told you. I want you to tell it into the recorder and do it 5 times, record it.

And I want you to listen to it for 5 times." It takes about 35 minutes the whole time. She goes, you need to do it every day. So I'm like on my way home and I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? I'm going to speak into this record. I'm pacing in the basement for 4 hours a night. I'm thinking about just driving off a cliff. I go, this little recorder and this shit is not going to work. But I did it anyway. I was like, and I noticed the anxiety level at about day 5 started to lessen. And then I noticed that I would get I could not tell it. I'm surprised that I got to the point where I could tell that story into the recorder and I wasn't— it didn't have that visceral friggin' effect anymore. It seemed like it was almost— it was there, but it wasn't there. You know, it was more abstract. It was kind of stepped away from where I was at mentally. And I was like, wow, okay. I slept, started sleeping better. Felt better. And then she did the EMDR. And that, by the time I did the EMDR, I was like, I felt that you don't have that right here where your anxiety level's through the roof.

I'm looking at everybody. It just, that kind of like, it finally, it was just kind of, I got some relief. And it, so that book and that lady definitely saved my life. No doubt. Wow. Yeah. But again, I'm not the— when I look at what other people have done, like the John Rotunos, the Richie Zayas, these guys that have— man, it was funny. I talked to Ricky Zayas later, but he goes, "Do you have nightmares?" And I'm like, "Yeah." He goes, "Man, I wake up screaming." And he had gotten a divorce and he was with his new girlfriend. And she's like, "Yeah, he screams like every night." And I go, "Hey dude, you remember all those times I was telling you like I'm struggling with this shit and you said, 'Hey man, just suck it up, drink a beer, do a shot, off to the next adventure.'" I go, "Would have been really nice if you said, 'Hey, I have nightmares.'" So I'm like, I tell everybody now, if you're having an issue or problem, do not freaking swallow it. And especially don't start doing shots and drinking beer because you're just exasperating that situation.

I said, "Come talk to me or something." I go, I've got no I've done what I've done and I'm good. I said, but walking— you've done 30 years, or guys have done 20 years or 10 years on the teams. I go, there's no sense being that miserable and having that constant vigilance and that anxiety in your gut, in your head. It just takes— it takes the fun out of life and everything. So, you know, if anybody gets anything about me talking today, get some help. And there's plenty of things out there. We've come so far. And our ability to treat that and move that forward, you got to do it, man. You can't not do it. And you owe it to your family. You owe it to yourself.

We talk about this all the time on here.

You were going to kill yourself? It got to the point where I knew that in the basement, I couldn't go on. I can't— the amount of anxiety and heightened sense of just like skin crawling off. I just, I was like, I can't live like this, man. I can't do it.

But then, did you know how you were going to do it?

It never got that. I would probably just shoot myself, but I never, I never sat down and planned it out where I'm going to get in the truck, I'm going to drive away. Because my thing, my was like, my kids had put up with so much shit of me being gone and things like that. That was the thing that I was like, there is no fucking way. I was just like, dude, you got to quit being a fucking I was saying to myself, you got to quit being a pussy. You got to stand up and fucking fix this shit and do it right. And I just, I could not do that to my kids, man. There's just no way. So yeah. So that lady, that book, if I could meet that SEAL sometime, I'd freaking love to tell them thanks because that definitely changed my life.

Oh, I got a feeling something's going to happen after this releases. Um, but always does. Yeah. What about drinking, drugs, anything like that? No. No shit.

You never felt like that? I used to drink. I drunk, you know, in that culture I was a 14 beers and 3 shots guy, you know, and I'm not a, I'm not a big dude, but I could do that, still get on a Harley and ride away. But I don't do that anymore. That's been— I do, if I do one or two beers, it's a big night and I'm in bed at 8:30. I enjoy my grass in the backyard. Yeah, it's a different— I actually got a job. I do frame-off restoration on old, like Willys Jeeps. My father kind of got me into it. And so I do that kind of in honor of him. He's passed. And I work with a guy that actually Mel knows him, but I arrested him a while back for Hobbs Act robbery. And I ran into him after he did about 4.5, 5 years, ran into him. He was in the halfway house and he had to get a job to be in the halfway house and it's part of his parole. So we run into him. He was managing a restaurant bar. Tina and I just, my wife had gone in to just get a sandwich with some friends.

And there he was standing there and I was like, I'm like, Ricky, you're out. He goes, Chris, I am. I'm like, so I go, well, how you doing, brother? And he goes, I'm doing good. And I go, you look good. You look great. You were working out. He was a big kid. He goes, yeah, yeah, I'm back to working out. I go, you at the halfway house? He goes, yeah. I go, what are you doing now? He goes, well, he goes, he was an idiot savant mechanic, like never formally trained, but could wrench on any car, any Harley. He was unbelievable mechanic. He goes, well, he goes, a friend of mine's doing me a solid, older guy. He's giving me a shop area. I'm good. So I'm setting up a shop. I'm just going to work on cars. I go, that's freaking great, man. I go, good for you. He goes, yeah. He goes, I go, we good? I go, because we're in a restaurant now and, you know, he goes, no, we're more than good, dude. He goes, I changed my life because I'm going to do things differently. And he goes, for all the shit I did before I went to jail on your thing, he said, if I just do this 5 years and get out, I'm good.

And I'm like, very cool. So fast forward a couple of years, my dad blew up the motor on his Jeep. So I called up Mel and I said, remember Ricky? He's like, yeah, I talk to Ricky every now and then. I'm like, he was a guy from the neighborhood kind of guy. I said, think there's any hard feelings? I go, I got this I have a Jeep that I'm looking at working on. I don't have enough room in my garage to pull the motor out and take the tub off. I'm going to redo the whole thing. He's like, call him. So I called up Ricky and he's like, fuck, come, bring it. So I trailer it out there, we put it in his garage, he takes the engine out within like 15 minutes, figures out what's wrong with it, it's got to be rebuilt, pulls all the pistons and crank off. Um, and he goes, you're pretty good with a wrench. He I go, well, I'm retired, I'm looking for shit to do. He goes, brother, he goes, I'll clean a part off my— over here in the corner. He goes, you just want to bring cars in and wrench on them.

He goes, you can come anytime. So I just started, you know, a couple days, and then pretty soon I was like, oh, I like coming here and wrenching on cars. And, you know, just there's a solace of just building something, you know. And, uh, and we talk about— he— it's funny because he talks about, you never would have got me for this. I go, I knew you were on that. He's like, no fucking way. He goes, if I had done this, would you got me? I go, no. But he's one of those guys, he's a lot like Mel. He's worked 7 days a week, 365 days a year since he got out. And I'm impressed by not only his commitment to staying out of trouble, but also just how he's living his life. He's a good man. He takes care of people. There's people that come in there, he's got a shop that excuse me, no big marquee, but people that are maybe struggling with the amount of money they have to get something fixed and they've got a newer car and it's going to be $1,500 or $2,000. He goes, let me take it.

I'll take care of it. And he does it, does it on the cheap. And he's just— he's a good guy. He's a good guy. So I've been— that's— I go, that's my little place of solace. I get my wrench out, take a few motors apart. Yeah, it's awesome.

It's good. Good for you, man. Yeah.

So I was at 56 is when I— I could go to 57, but at 56 I was like, after the Cleveland thing, just, I'm like, you know what? I'm good. I've 30 years. I'm all done now. I'm good. Was a hell of a ride. It was. I don't think I'd change a thing. Well, maybe a couple of things, but I like very much where I'm at now. I think, you know, it was funny. I went— Mel had a— he was on social media at the time when I retired. He's big social media, devotionals, second chance, always stay in the fight, not physical fight, but stay in the fight to do better. And there was a little kid, his father had reached out. His kid had leukemia and he was on his last chemotherapy coming up. And so his dad reaches out to Mel and he says, my son follows you on Instagram or whatever. I'm not on anything, so I couldn't even tell you what platform it was that he was on. But he goes, my son loves your devotionals and he loves like your Second Chance and Don't Give Up. He's been fighting leukemia.

He goes, his last chemo is coming up like this Friday or next Friday or something. He goes, any way you could call him or he goes, well, Typical Mel. He goes, "I'll be in Chicago that weekend." I go, "So I'll come up a day early." He goes, "You might have— my buddy Chris will pick us up, the guy that arrested me, pick us up at the airport. We'll come. Absolutely. Where at?" He's like, "Well, he gets his last treatment at like 2:00." And I'm like— and Mel's like, "Great." Calls me and I'm like, "You want to meet this kid?" I go, "Absolutely." So we go over and we sit down with this little guy. And when he came in, it was his last chemo treatment. So I don't know if you ever I've never been with anybody that's had cancer, but the last treatment, I mean, you ring the bell and it— you're pretty beat up after all that poison going through your system. So this little kid comes in, looked sad, and then he sees Mel and he's like smiling. And he's like, he's like, "Oh, Mel!" He started— Mel's like, "Hey, I've heard all about you.

You played baseball." And Mel had the whole kid's whole bio. He's talking to him and telling him stuff. And Hulk Hogan had sent him some autographed pictures and he had a little thing from Hogan. Like stay in a fight, you know. So he'd done all this stuff for this little kid. So we were only supposed to stay about 45 minutes, um, or an hour. We end up being there like 4 and a half, 5 hours. By the end of it, I'm crying, Mel's crying, his parents are crying, you know. It's just, it's just a great moment for this little guy. So at this time is right when I was retiring, and I was, um, uh, I was having the problems in the basement. I never told Mel that I'd been diagnosed with anything or that I had some issues, but he knew that. He goes, "What's going on with you?" And so I told him after we met with this little guy, I was driving him to the airport and I said, "Well," I said, "Brother," I said, "Man, I don't even know if it's all worthwhile, bro." I said, "I did so much battle damage to my kids, my family, myself.

I'm like, I don't think it was worth it." So typical Mel, as you've met him, he's popping a stick of gum in his mouth. He's got his bag and we're pulling up to the terminal. He goes, "Let me tell you something, He goes, "If God's only plan was for you to be an ATF agent, do all your shit, arrest me, put me in jail, I change my life, I come out, I do all this other stuff, I meet this young man who's suffering from cancer and we gave him 5 hours where he's happy because he got an autographed picture of Hulk Hogan," he goes, "It's all fucking worthwhile. It's God's plan." He goes, "And who the fuck are you to decide what God's plan's about?" out. And I was like— and he gets out of the truck, he goes, I'll see you next week. I'm like, okay. And he left. And I was like, that was that kind of universe switch where it's like, maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way, you know. All this stuff is a gift. It's a good way to look at it. Yeah. So that's when Miller introduced me to his pastor, his old pastor, that just a salt-of-the-earth guy, Pastor Steve.

This guy turned 50 and he wanted to bench 500 pounds on his 50th birthday. So he did. Holy fuck. So he's that guy. He's just a monstrous guy. But I love him, man. He's helped me come a long way in my walk with the Lord, as with Mel. He's just one of those guys. That guy never gave up on Mel. From 50. He would pray for him all the time. Millie said he— the pastor told me, goes, I'd page that big lug at like 2 o'clock in the morning. I knew he was out doing fucking shit. I'd page him, I love you, I'm praying for you. You know, it was like, wow, like, right now. So he never quit, he never gave up. So, man, just being in that universe of people that are that— not only that, you know, they show the glory to God, and, um, the peace that you get from, from having that in your life. I really, I'm just very happy that I have it.

I'm happy for you.

Thank you, brother. You're there, bro. I've listened to you talk. I know you're, you seem to be maybe on the front end, like you're coming into it and coming into your faith. It's easy to lose sometimes. Understood. But you're getting there, brother. Thank you. You are. You're a good man, you know it.

When is the first time you met Mel? Not at the airport, after he got out of prison or before?

First time I met him was right after his attorney told us in the courtroom, because he's been out of the club for 4 years, he'll just plead to his shit and he wants to be done. I'm And the U.S. Attorney's like, that's great, but he's got to come in for a proffer. He's got to sit down, spell it all out. So that's when we first, we first talked. That's when I took him to the bathroom when he was all chained up. And he's like, fuck, dude. I go, brother, I go, it's just a speed bump in the road of life. Just a speed bump, man. You'll get through it. He's like, Terry, he goes, I'm looking at 24 years, dude. I said, well, I go, but you're doing the right thing. You're minimizing you know, your exposure by cooperating and coming in on yourself and pleading guilty. So you're going to get credit for that. I go, that's for you. That's the best you could do. He goes, you got me? I go, we got you. He's like, okay, how about after prison? Yeah, you know, it's so funny. I think I got him at the airport when he got released.

He goes, hey, can you pick me up? I'm going to drop— the marshals are going to drop me at the airport. And he goes, I got nothing. And he goes, I want to kind of surprise my mom, and I don't want to call anybody from Chicago that I know that I'm coming home because, one, I don't want any of the degenerates coming. I don't want— I go, yeah, I'll pick you up. So I scooped him and drove him to his mom's house and sat down. So we had his mom, of course. This is right after prison? Yeah, right when he got out after his 4 years. You're his first call? Yeah, he called me. Holy shit. Yep, yep. So it's kind of funny. Yeah, so I picked him up and his mom, and of course we had to eat right away. Her mom's like this tall, little Italian lady. Um, yeah, funny. So she cooked us up a great lunch, we ate. Not even awkward, huh? No, you know what, I kind of knew Mel before I knew Mel. Um, when he was locked up, I would listen to his prison calls because you get a lot of information Like, guys will be— they all know it's recorded, but you'll have— they make statements and say shit that you can use against them all the time.

So back in the day when he was locked up on the state and the federal stuff, I would listen to all his jail calls, and it was always interesting that I would hear how he talked to the criminal community, then I heard how he talked to his friends and his family, and you could see that he wasn't road. 24/7. He was road with this crew and he was somebody else with this crew. And I was like, I didn't really expect that. Interesting. I mean, everybody's got a mob. Every mobster's got a momma, you know. But it was different because he wouldn't allow his friends to get anywhere near the club. Like, he had some pipe-hitting friends that were personal friends, but he would not let those guys. He goes, nope, nope, not for you. So he wouldn't let them anywhere near it. I was like, okay. So there was— I could tell there was a difference. And then, like I said, he'd been out for 4 years and was living his life when we got him.

So do you guys seem like you've changed a lot? Oh yeah, yeah.

Because if he was on bullshit, we would have smelled that out in the first Mm. He would have got right back into it if he— and there's no reason he did— he couldn't have. He would have given him the patch right back. He could have gone right back into the mix. Or, you know, he knew, like I said, enough criminals in the community. He could have gone back to whatever life he wanted to go back to with any one of them, you know, being a major player. But he didn't. I'm like, right on. But he— yeah, he's, he's a good friend. Right on.

Well, we got one last section here. Okay. So we got this new thing we're doing called the Hot Question. Okay.

So Claude, same, same AI program, the outline where you got all that other information.

Okay. We asked Claude to give us an incredible question for Mel the other day. And today we had it scrape the entire internet for everything that's out there on you, and here's what it came up with. So here's the question: what's something people don't understand about infiltrating biker gangs that could get you killed instantly if you mess it up? And what's the closest you've ever come to getting exposed and killed?

Um, the thing not to do is show disrespect to anybody. Membership-wise. If you're new and you show up on the set and you disrespect or you act like you're all that and a bag of chips, you'll get your ass beat in very short order. So knowing the protocol and knowing how to act— as far as coming close on a killing part from a biker standpoint, um, probably coming close to being killed happened— I found out about it after the fact more so than at the time. I knew there were times where the Allies were looking to get us and that it would be a problem. So there were very— there were close times then, but it was well beyond anything I knew at the time. And the realization of that later was very hard. Very hard. Yeah. What is the—

how do you ride in the formation?

Well, it's usually president, vice president, road captain, you know, enforcer. There's like a little— depends on the club, have different, um, so they lead the pack. You're going to have blockers that ride next to the plaque. So if you're running a whole line of bikes through a town, blockers ride up on either side of the pack and they block that intersection or corner so cars can't interrupt the club thing. They were coming out of the pack after Monty's funeral from the funeral home when I was I was doing security at the gate at the Hells Angels Clubhouse in Rockford, and some guy cut them into the pack and they ended up shooting the guy and dumping like 5 rounds. And then I've got the gate and I can hear these guys flying up. I see these guys like this. I open the gate up and they run a car in and jump out. Guns go flying in different directions and everybody hunkers down and just sits there watching TV like they didn't do anything. Police cars flying all over the place. I just shut the gate and nothing happened. So cutting bikers off will definitely get you killed, uh, in a heartbeat.

So yeah.

And then last thing, break down some gang terminology for us. What are some common terms and slang that were being used on the streets there?

I think the street vernacular, we always call it, um, like straps, bangers, thumpers, murk them. I'm gonna— it's kill them. So guns are straps, bangers, thumpers, hammers. You're gonna bang hammers, you're gonna shoot somebody, gonna murk them, you're gonna murk them, gonna put them down, gonna put them down, uh, gonna get them to bow down. That motherfucker will bow down. That means basically you got the gun on them. And look, the guy wanted me to do in Cleveland, you gotta bow down. Um, so that would be stuff I had— like, you know, they've got— bikers have different terms for Old ladies, property of, you might have an old lady that's property of the club or property of a certain member. They do a lot of that. So it's kind of the street vernacular, but it transcends just bikers or street gangs. Same terminology, licks. If you're going to hit a lick, shit, I'm going to get down on a lick, you're going to do a robbery. I'm going to hit that lick. I'm going to rip that shit off. I'm going to tear it off them. Shit like that means I'm going to rob. So that's kind of the street vernacular, I guess, if you will.

Do you miss it? Sometimes. You know what's funny? I get to— and HS has been very nice into having me back to help teach at the academy and teach some field operations and undercover. So I get to dip my toe and look at some, maybe some hard chargers, some guys. We got some guys now, man. It's like being a father. And your son just freaking hit the home run and— or freaking, you know, won the Super Bowl or some shit, or threw the touchdown pass. When you see a lot of what these guys have accomplished and what they've done and how they've protected themselves, how they've saved their fellow agents in shootings and stuff and robberies, and man, it's just— you get— you're proud that, you know, man, these guys are— these guys are still jerking their shit and go to work. Fuck yeah. You know, you get excited for them, you know. But then I get to go home, and like I said, my grass is ice in the backyard, and I get to wrench on my Jeep. So I get that momentary, like, yeah, even though I'm not in it at all on any level.

So, right. Oh man. Yeah.

You want to end in a prayer?

Absolutely.

You want to lead it?

Okay. All right, let's do it. Holy Father, um, Lord, we thank you for this opportunity to fellowship with Sean, to talk about you, Lord. To talk about your grace, your forgiveness, how you interact in our lives and make it better. And those that come to you and know you and lean into you, just— it just makes life so much better. Thank you for this time and opportunity, Lord. We— all the, all the glory goes to you, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, Chris, all right, brother.

I know we're missing a lot, but that is a hell of a fucking story, man. Well, it was an honor, dude. My honor, man.

I sit in this chair, I feel like a poser. I mean, you've had Cody, you've had some amazing people that have sat in this chair, brother. I'm very humbled to have the opportunity to talk to you. So thank you. I appreciate it too. Well, you're one of them. Well, thank you, bro. Appreciate that.

God bless, man. I bless you, bro. No matter where you're watching The Sean Ryan Show from, if you get anything out of this at all, anything, please like, comment, and subscribe. And most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can. And if you're feeling extra generous, head to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review.