How 8 Crimes Actually Work — From Bank Robbery to the New York Mafia | How Crime Works Marathon

my name is John panisi I'm a formal made member of the Lucchesi crime family this is how crime works the biggest misconception about kozanosha and the people that are involved in that life are people really believe that there is honor loyalty and respect these three principles which cause an Austria is based on it no longer exists honor loyalty and respect have been replaced by selfishness and greed [Music] the rules for a member is the rules of the family and the rules of causa Nostra and those particular rules are you're not to put your hand on another made member you're not to go with a another made member's wife or even girl for that matter you would need to be fully blooded Italian your mother and your father need to be Italian your bloodline needs to be all the time but with every rule there's an exception and there has been people who slipped through the cracks so to speak one of the rules is you shouldn't get involved in lawsuits you shouldn't be you should not sue people and I know that there was a rule where you're not to get involved in stocks and bonds I'm not 100 sure if that's still in effect today specifically in New York you were not to kill Women and Children of family members in the mob they were not allowed to use explosive devices such as bombs because on the other side in in Italy and Sicily they were known to use explosives to take out members throwing a war or just to take a member out they didn't want that kind of attention in New York so there's an exception to every rule Frankie dicico who was the underboss for the Gambino family had an explosive device put under his car and he was blown up as a result of that the no drug dealing rule applies to all the five families but all the five families have drug dealing activities going on in it every family is going to have certain members that are involved in the drug business and kind of turn a blind eye to it because it brings in so much money cause and nostril members today have no problem breaking the rules on a daily basis whereas incolo Gambino's error you couldn't break the rules breaking the rules meant getting yourself killed so all these rules that were put in place for reasons are now being broken so when you have an organization that no longer follows its own rules it weakens the organization [Music] before they created the five families the head of each family was called like a father so that's where they would get the name Godfather and at some point they broke it down to five fathers and there was five families so the five families in New York are the Genovese family which in the street they were known as the West Side that's how we referred to them there's the Gambino family there's the lucasi family there's the Colombo family and the banana family and they're like the nucleus of cause an Austria for the United States so as far as the five families all being in New York they controlled the entire state of New York it wasn't only New York City and then you have the creation of the commission which was the idea basically of Maya Lansky who looked at it as a board of directors the commission consisted of the head of each of the families those five families and they would basically make decisions on on anything that went on between them territories were divided obviously by Wood family represented which part of New York City it's kind of they cut their own turf out but if it overlapped that's where a commission would come in and make a ruling [Music] so when they created the structure of the five families they set it up more like a military from the bottom of that pecking order you have the associates who are considered civilians anybody that's not a made member of that life is considered a civilian above them are the made members of the family which are called friends we call them friends in that life above them are captains as we say capital regimes they're the head of the cruise the family is represented by all the crews that are in that family and then above them are the administration of the family the top of the administration is the boss the underboss and the constelliere and that's the structure of the whole family the word kasanoster means our thing and that that basically means that the structure of the mob or as people would call it Mafia belongs to them the members of that life [Music] the mob picks you that life kozanoshua picks you you don't pick that life so before someone becomes an inducted member of a family they become an associate and usually how they become an associate is their Associated to someone who's already an inducted member an order for an associate to be proposed I think several factors take place one is how good they get along with whoever it is that they're with the soldier that they're with you know that they do what they're told to do they keep their mouth closed once you're proposed a ceremony takes place who's conducting that ceremony is going to be a member or members of the administration along with them is going to be obviously the captain that's going to propose you that day a pistol and a knife on the table during this ceremony and it's mostly there for symbolic reasons your trigger finger whether you're a righty or a lefty is pricked your blood is dropped on us on a saint a picture of the saint it just symbolizes that the old that you're taking and the old that you're about to take you're taking it holding that Saint in your hand and they ultimately light that Saint on fire and you're moving that Saint from hand to hand and you're repeating after whoever's conducting the ceremony after which he is explaining the rules of that life to you [Music] my position within the lucasi family was as a soldier but there was times that I acted for my captain in the capacity of an acting Captain specifically for a sit down the administration would pick the captains of the family the requirement to be a captain obviously would be good leadership so they would have to see something in that person to feel that he could lead the crew that Captain is responsible for each member of the crew but he's also responsible for all the associates that are associated to that group they constantly had a position is that of a counselor so he is specifically handling not only internal what we would call beefs or struggles inside of the family but external as well the difference between a boss and an on the boss there's not a whole big difference with the exception of the title obviously the boss is the head of the family but the on the boss holds just as much weight in that family as the boss overall a boss's position is to oversee the family he's really in charge of everything that goes on underneath him which goes through the administration all his captains all the soldiers in the family all the way down to the associates the way the life is structured the boss is supposed to abide by the same rules that the captains his administration the soldiers and everyone else in that life abide by a boss of a family or a family together could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars per year there's many reasons to fill a boss position one obviously would be a boss is arrested incarcerated one would be a boss passes away through health reasons or and you know there is a void in the position but then there's also reasons like in the Paul Castellano situation a boss that they felt was being greedy and the family turned on the boss there's different scenarios where a boss can be taken out replaced ultimately killed for that matter [Music] I think years ago when it was first created the five families there was a lot more corruption with having law enforcement on the payroll than as it is today I think there's less of that going on but that doesn't mean that it doesn't go on as far as political influence obviously it would go through putting money in people's pockets for political favors in present times I don't think that they have the political power that they once had I don't think they're able to corrupt the politicians as they were years ago initially the mob took control of unions by force they would put people in those people would corrupt the union take over the unions and that's how they were able to control most of the unions specifically in New York City but today they have their hand in it you know a little in little areas but they don't control the unions like they did in the past [Music] a Nostra came to be in New York sometime in the early 1900s this was an organization and structure that came from the other side which means Italy Sicily when the immigrants from those countries came here to this country the Italians were almost like second-class citizens and they were discriminated against when they came so in the beginning it was to fight oppression but naturally that turned into committing organized crime and and and criminal Acts to gain a profit from so when the average citizen started to take notice of Kaza Nostra here I believe that the First Reactions were fear and intimidation because they feared and they were intimidated over this group of Italians they were also fearful to go to law enforcement they were fearful to talk out against them in turn cause an Austria gained its power because of this [Music] so I joined Kazan Austra because I came from a neighborhood both Ozone Park and Howard Beach was which was replete with guys in that life and I believe that I looked up to them at that time and wanted to be just like them if you're around people that are in that life inducted members you're at some point you become an associate and we were associated my cousin and I to the Gambino family through John Gotti Jr and the time I'm talking about I was around 14 15 years old at that time so sometime around 2012 I became an associate and on record with the Lucchese crime family by 2013 I was an inducted member in the family I stayed an inducted member in the family until 2018. I ultimately winded up leaving the life because the family that I was a member of falsely accused me of being an informant when it wasn't true they now were laying on me which meant that they sent people to lay get my patent usually when that is done it's either to a hurt you or B kill you I made my decision that I would never go back to my former friends who turned on me so obviously my life has took a dramatic change I'm no longer able to see my family as much as I like to I I'm not able to live as close to them as I would like to I have to watch every place I go you know and be very careful at what I do and my plans have to be mapped out of where I'm going and what I'm doing so my life took a big change [Music] in my opinion in 20 years from now cause an Austra is hardly going to exist in New York I don't believe that they're going to be able to survive cause an Austra now compared to years ago has definitely declined and the reason is the sentences that are being handed out the government and specifically the FBI have unlimited funds they're able to go after them they're able to take out bosses with the RICO as far as earning money by committing crimes or doing various criminal acts it's limited today than it was so now once you limit money making and money earning you're taking away power because money brings power and the organized crime today is definitely less powerful than it was in years past in the past few years there's been an increase in arrest and large number of arrests in Kosen Austra specific families are targeted and the reason being is is that it's hard for members of course in Usher to operate without law enforcement specifically the FBI knowing what they're doing there are more people that are informants Cooperators they have people that are working inside families with the FBI giving the FBI information that's how they're dismantling families family by family they dismantle them members of law enforcement from the United States now work very closely with members of law enforcement from people outside of the United States like Italy and Sicily they jointly create cases together [Music] I made the decision to create a blog and I started just writing from my experiences so the first podcast I created is also the name of the blog which is called sit down news and that's also the name of the podcast and I just recently created a second podcast called unlimited substance my name is Kane Vincent Dyer and I robbed over a hundred Banks between 1999 and 2001. this is how crime works for anyone out there that is watching this and you think you're gonna go commit bank robberies away I did or I'm telling you in here you're gonna find yourself in jail leave bank robbery alone so one of the things that I would do initially when I walk into a bank is walk in and go straight to the merchanteller because I always knew that the merchanteller would more than likely have the most amount of currency we've watched so many movies where people are like hey put your hands in the air I think people naturally go to do that when they hear hey this is a robbery the reasoning for me asking them to put their hands down or telling them to put their hands down is because you didn't want someone walking past the bank and seeing someone standing in the bank with their hands up or laying on the floor so it was always just put your head down keep looking forward that way if someone did walk into the bank they wouldn't even really realize what was going on until they were already in it and what that would kind of do is it would let me read the temperature of the room it would let me see if the people were either very compliant or very slow to move or if they seem nervous and scared then I I would kind of tailor how I would express myself after that trying to be more calming and you know unfortunately if you know things were moving kind of slower I would probably be a little bit more aggressive to the overall crowd checking the temperature doing that one teller I knew that one Merchant teller I knew if I decided not to go in the vault that I would still have a reasonable you know outcome for the payday that merchanteller along with the manager is the person I would have walked me into a vault and like I said if they were just uh a little too afraid or anything then there are times where you know I wouldn't go into the vault typically I pick banks that were close to Merchants uh that way I knew that that bank would more than likely be the banker for all those Merchants that were there and that would mean that that bank would more than likely have more cash on hand the other thing was it always had to be a bank that was relatively close to multiple interstates and one of the other things was how the bank was set up were there multiple ways that I could exit enter or exit why casing the bank would consist of me watching the employees and I would always watch to see who looked like they were in the most control so sometimes at case a bank for a day for a day and a half and then go you know um if that's if it was a bigger bank and I would watch the flow um I'd watch the the timing of the flow I'd watch the pickup I took probably I don't know a few weeks a month off and just taught myself everything about banks at that time got in the whole of all different types of Bank manuals you know uh employee manuals employee guides everything safes lock saves time vaults foreign my bank robberies as far as a tire would go I would just always try and fit in in whatever element was present it was always pretty much just dressing down you know jeans a jacket trying not to stand out too much I definitely use the the crazy glue to protect my fingertips uh and my Palms I would always wear a pair of glasses always a baseball cap and that seemed to cover enough the mascara would be basically it depend where I was if I was in a place where there are more ethnic people I would typically do a beard um if I was in a place where there were less ethnic people I would more so sometimes going clean shaven or a really light shave I would actually look at weather conditions because of course in an area where it's going to be raining or overcast you know you can layer more if it was sunny outside there are a lot more people out so there's probably more chances for me even to blend in on a rainy day though you get to bundle up you still get to know that there aren't a lot of people out so people are going to probably be looking at you in certain cities you had to account for different times that I would be going into a bank not getting stuck in a rush hour traffic though there were banks that I absolutely would do it rush hour just because it would take longer for law enforcement to get to me if there was a lot of traffic out so we've seen in movies that cops have this response time of about three to five minutes and that's pretty accurate that is not just Hollywood so I would park across the you know street or in some direction where I wasn't alone standing out by myself my car wasn't the only one and I always use the car that would fit in something that was really typical um that you would just see a lot of what I would always try and do is make sure that wherever I was parked that it would not be in view of anyone that would be standing in a bank or immediately outside of a bang so I always gave myself enough space to [Music] get away and then kind of disappeared [Music] so when exiting the bank once I felt I was out of sight I would turn a corner or something then I would Trot a little bit further once I wasn't in front of a bank trying as soon as I'm in my car and my mascara is off I turn on my radio rolled out my windows take off my hat and I'm singing I've got music on cops passed me I'm looking at them they're looking at me because what they're actually looking for is the guy that's not looking at them listen when a bunch of cops roll past you or even fire trucks what do we all do we all look so the one guy they're looking for is the guy who won't look at them you know as they're driving to it they're looking to see if anybody's trying to ignore them personally typically how I would end up checking for die packs it was different depending on what type of money I took if it was just the merchant teller then of course that money is loose even though it's in Stacks it's still loose so what I would do is once I got all my mascara and things off and I was set and ready to drive I would literally put a bag of money next to me and go through it and then throw that money kind of like on the floor I would get back to my to my Stakeout and I would go through all the money taking my clothes making sure they were burned putting my my fingers in solution so I could get the Crazy Glue off I would hide the money in several different places but to be a little bit more specific there was this one place that I had opened up the floor of it I don't know at one point there had just millions of dollars in this floor there are a couple of times actually put money in like a bank Vlog like a a safety deposit box wouldn't that been ironic had it gotten has there been a bank robbery gotten stolen huh the way I ended up getting into bank robbery a very very close person to me a relative a sibling had gotten involved with a Criminal organization there was just no way he was going to get around this debt you know it would have been a matter of life or death you know have this debt not been paid taken care of the person would have lost their life those first set of banks that paid off that debt those six though were a lot less preparation and more desperation initially I felt bank robbery was this victimless crime I thought it would just be a better crime to commit I felt like I was taking from an institution versus a person which I wouldn't have done my first bank I was literally just looking for any bank I was going down the freeway and actually had to use the restroom so I pulled off the freeway it was at this Calabasas exit I I pulled in there to go to the restroom and then the parking and right in front of me were two Banks it was a Chase and there was a Wells Fargo and I sat there for a time period trying to to determine which one I should go in just watching the flow of people at this baseball cap and stuff and I kind of Pumped myself up had this firearm with me and I'm heading towards the bank and as I get towards the bank two things happen one there is this lady who is at the bank that seemed pregnant to me and it was just like ah I can't go in there while pregnant ladies in there she gets scared and you know the baby's harm so I was like well I kind of turned back and as I went to turn back there was this car window right there and I look in the car window and I notice oh my God I can totally see myself like I can make myself out so I went to this store that was miles down the road I ended up getting this backpack and I also got some mascara and some crazy glue to put on my fingertips as not to leave uh any fingerprints because I didn't want to walk up to the bank with gloves on which is to me pretty obvious it was a sunny afternoon there was that cord while I was at this store it just kind of struck me like what someone tries to stop me it made me uh purchase a replica like an air gun or something like that but it looked very very authentic so I purchased that and decided to use that in the robbery instead realizing that I probably needed a bigger bag so I ended up grabbed this backpack I realized that the backpack had this these double zippers that I could partially open that would make it like a perfect sack that would be able to put things in still have another hand free hence the name kangaroo Bandit when my consciousness started to awaken again I think I can no longer hide behind the life and death imminent danger that was there before I know if I would have kept doing it I would have got caught when I decided to turn myself in uh of course I let my family know first and then you know my attorney and I we contacted the FBI and at first they were like yeah oh absolutely absolutely um what I did not know at that time was someone had already kind of given them my name I contacted them on a Wednesday and they plan on meeting them on Thursday excuse me on Friday and instead they were like no we're not waiting on you to come in they did this huge uh raid on my home on a Thursday night but the only way they were able to take me in is if they found something on that search warrant which they weren't able to find before he left though he and I had this conversation he'd be in the FBI agent so I told him I'm gonna take some time to go spend with my family and then when I'm ready I'm going to turn myself in and I was letting him know don't worry I won't I'm not going to run I'm not going to bolt man I'm gonna keep my word I told you I'd keep my word and turn myself in and I end up doing that so when I saw when he saw me and I saw him after I had greeted my family I actually walked up to him and we've we come in embraced we actually hugged each other I surrendered it was like okay now I begin my life well I did not understand back in that time the the psychological tolls that the victim suffered the heavy cost I was having others pay to to to get out of the situation I was in and so what I've done to in an attempt to rectify that or to make right I've worked with victims I've worked with ex-offenders and hopefully any victim that suffered at my hands and because of my actions you know maybe they can take some comfort in knowing that today I actually you know I've tried to wrong that I didn't try I I like to think I am writing those wrongs uh volunteered for years uh for almost four years straight I volunteered four days a week four hours a day to help people get their lives back whether it's an inmate or an excuse me a former inmate or a victim my name is Jay Dobbins I'm a retired undercover federal agent and I infiltrated the Hell's Angels this is how crime works with all the hatred for me in that gang and from their supporters they can take some satisfaction of that they ran right over the top of me all that battle damage all those things happen the failed prosecution all that Blood Sweat and Tears they ran right over the top of me and kept going I was just a speed bump [Music] I was part of the Hells Angels investigation which we named Operation black biscuit from 2001 to 2003. I answered to a case agent we were both ATF agents my false Persona I went by the name of Jay Davis the gang members knew me as Jaybird and I portrayed myself to be a gun Runner um a debt collector the Hell's Angels don't have to actively recruit members they want people that bring them value I had spent some time as an associate of the Hell's Angel so getting to know them getting to let them get familiar with me and I was invited to the clubhouse and the invitation it wasn't so much an invitation as it was in order they believed that I was doing debt Collections and that I was running guns within their territory so I was told that if I intended to keep doing that business I had to come to their Clubhouse and meet their members and and basically have them sanction me to continue I showed up at the Mesa Clubhouse and was greeted in the street by four or five Hells Angels some had guns some had baseball bats in Arizona you can open carry firearms and so I had guns that were Exposed on me some of the members who were basically working as security told me you can't bring your guns inside our clubhouse that's not allowed and I told him I'm not taking my guns off and I don't take them off for anybody including the Hell's Angels you have people that you feel like you need to defend yourself against so do I if I allowed them to start dictating everything to me it was never going to end and at that point uh one of the shot callers from the Hell's Angels came out and put his arm over my shoulder and he said look I make the rules and you can come in with your guns on so right off the bat from that very first critical interaction like I felt like I was winning [Music] the Hell's Angels call themselves a club the Hells Angels motorcycle club there's there's Charters and within the charter the the the chapter the group uh there's a president a vice president a warlord which is in charge of weapons and retaliations and defense when I was associated with the Mesa Hells Angels which is where I started their president was bad Bob Johnston and he was a very well respected feared long-time Hell's Angel if I could gain his trust that his trust would be projected to other members and would open doors for me in the biker gang you start off very slowly the first step is that you're an associate which is you're just someone who's spending some time in the presence of the gang members once you build a relationship the gang will ask you to hang around then after you uh Prospect ultimately hopefully you're doing that to become a full patch member from the date of your prospecting from when it starts there's a minimum mandatory of 365 days and that's that's to some extent how they insulate themselves because they know that a cop can't keep Pace with them and can't keep up with them for that long of time to be a full patched Hells Angel it is everything to those members the patches that they wear and the formatting of their vests which are also called Cuts is very important in this hierarchy I was a hangaround for the Skull Valley Arizona Charter of the Hells Angels so I had a black cut that had nothing but Skull Valley on the front when you become a prospect you get your bottom rocker the bottom curved patch so when I was prospecting I got an errors Arizona bottom rocker when you become a member then you get your top rocker the designator Hells Angels or whatever the gang is and your Center patch which the Hell's Angels is the death head to get full membership you have to be voted on by the members of your Charter and you have to receive a 100 percent vote if one member of that Charter votes against you you're prospecting phase continues there's another rule in the in the in the land of prospects is that it takes as long as it takes [Music] territory is very important to the biker gangs the territory you control influences how much money you can make within that territory they're constantly trying to acquire territories of competitive gangs the Rivalry that I became most aware of or closest to was the Hell's Angels rivalry with the Mongols motorcycle gang the Mongols were a california-based biker gang I was at the 2002 Laughlin River Run which it like was a major major biker run in Laughlin Nevada the Mongols home base was Harrah's Casino which was a short drive up the main Laughlin drag Casino drive to where the Hells Angels home base was which was the Flamingo Hotel some Hells Angels went down to Harrah's and started poking the tiger and got surrounded and it was on and it was every man for himself I stepped outside of the Flamingo and police cruisers and police motorcycles and cars and police helicopters were all screaming Down Casino Drive and I was with another agent and I turned to him and I said well I guess we know where the Hell's Angels went because the police response was massive the Hera's Casino riot the Morongo Casino Riot the Twin Peaks shooting in Texas those biker clashes are taking place all the time we typically don't see it or hear about it until it takes place in a public venue where civilians were just common man citizens are involved in it there were fights that I was present for that I knew the rules I didn't want to blow my cover but at the same time I didn't want to watch someone some innocent civilian get beat down I would find the target of the of the beating and throw some legitimate punches on them like like I wasn't faking throwing good Hard Solid punches on the victim of of this rat packing but in essence what I was doing was protecting that victim's head I wasn't going to kill anybody punching them in the head but they would have gotten killed if they take a steel-toed boot in the forehead I got a call from a skull Valley Charter officer get to the clubhouse right now and bring all your Hardware which meant bring your guns I was told the Banditos are coming to Las Vegas Las Vegas is our territory and they have not requested a hall pass we expect you to shoot them before they get the kickstands down on their motorcycle and here's the kicker we're going to be watching you from a distance if you don't shoot them we are going to shoot you I was able to get in touch with the case agent Joe Joe slatella and and and tell him what my orders were Joe slatella found this pack of Banditos pulled them to the side of the road and stop them so I showed up at the Target location with the Hell's Angels watching me but the Banditos never showed up in the eyes of the Hell's Angels all they knew is we sent Jaybird to Las Vegas to kill Banditos and dang it he was there ready to handle his business [Music] I allowed the Hell's Angels to see me in criminal situations in order to hopefully avoid some of those uh mud checks that I knew were coming in in bikerland a mud check is a test to see if you're gonna put your pants when you're confronted with a treacherous situation so they would accurately see me in a Narcotics transaction I would either receive or give narcotics and either receive or give money in exchange all while being witnessed by a Hell's Angels like enforcer bodyguard what they didn't realize is that the person that I was in the transaction with was another law enforcement officer who was playing the role of a drug dealer the local police departments the local officers they weren't in on the scheme I got stopped by the cops all the time I got beaten up by the cops I was never as good of a motorcycle rider as the Hell's Angels were they could perform tricks do all kinds of crazy stunts that I couldn't do and writing in a pack of Hell's Angels it takes an enormous amount of focus you have to trust the person writing next to you because they're so close like one person makes a mistake in that conga line of motorcycles and everybody's going down [Music] I was told when you meet a Hell's Angel and you got your sunglasses on you better lift your sunglasses up and look that person in the eye that member wants to see your eyes I was told if I had riding gloves on you better take your writing glove off when you shake hands with a Hell's Angel never touch a hell's Angel's patch never slap him on the back I made those mistakes and and was reprimanded for it was smacked for it on occasion with regards to women there's a hierarchy that takes place within the gang there's old ladies who are the wives or girlfriends of members and they're off limits you better not get caught trying to mess around with a member's wife or girlfriend because there's a violent price to pay but there's also women who they move from member to member to member members can can leave the gang of their own free will in good standing like in essence they can retire and when they retire they're considered out good they still have to relinquish all their Hells Angels property but if you're out bad they will come and take back their cut their vest they will take back your motorcycle that's their property in their eyes and they'll take back that tattoo I was a part in a a piece of the process of those reclamations of Hell's Angels property like basically almost like the police doing a search warrant breaking into a guy's house and taking every single thing that's said or looked like it belonged to the Hell's Angels [Music] the Hell's Angels operate independently in their Charters as far as how they make money and how they conduct their business so there's Charters that run a fairly clean business and that aren't involved in a lot of crime there's others that are involved in Narcotics trafficking gun running extortions protection rackets there's no uh payday or no salary to be drawn by being a member of the Hell's Angels there's no big Universal bank account that issues paychecks there was Hell's Angels members that I ran across that were selling street drugs and and putting those profits in their pocket and keeping at least the bulk of that profit for themselves and then they also they have legitimate businesses that they can push money through just the swag and paraphernalia of the Hells Angels is a multi-million dollar business the Hell's Angels hold toy runs and they conduct blood drives and they do community service and like that that shouldn't be taken away from them they make positive contributions to society with those things [Music] Hells Angels parties could be as spontaneous as the drop of a hat you could be at the clubhouse and the next thing you know music's blaring and guests are arriving and women are coming in and the booze is Flowing they could be inside outside they happened at parks campsites there's a myth that every Hell's Angel is a drug addict there was Hell's Angels that were Fitness freaks that took care of themselves they ate well they got their rest they didn't drink they didn't smoke so to to decline those things wasn't necessarily a false alarm a red flag against you I have a a tattoo of Saint Michael on my arm and Saint Michael is the patron saint of law enforcement it signifies good triumphing over evil there was times when I got pressed where I would show my Saint Michael tattoo and say do you understand what this is I got this when I graduated from rehab the reason why I'm here the reason why you are interacting with me is because I'm sober because I have money in my pocket all those things that are attractive to you [Music] as the infiltration investigation that I was working on started winding down we had two years under our belts um lots of money like well over a million dollars invested in this investigation and I still had not received membership I still hadn't gotten my full patch I was a prospect to be quite honest selfishly I was trying to accelerate the process so I went back to one of those or very early statements that was made to me what happens if I cross paths with a bongo I was told it's your responsibility to kill him so I went to the Skull Valley Hells Angels leadership and I told them I've got a line on a Mongol in Mexico we've we found this Mongol I dug a shallow grave in the desert took some polaroid pictures of the murder what they didn't know is that it was the ultimate scam the murdered Mongol was a member of our task force that we had dressed up concealed his face in the pictures and then we'd used Blood and Guts from The Butcher Shop to create a murder scene a crime scene they made me a member there of the Skull Valley Charter gave me a cut to wear now after the fact they have denied a couple things they denied that they believed it okay I understand that they denied that I ever became a member both sides of that explanation are actually true I was made a member of the Skull Valley Charter I was given a cut and told that I was a Hell's Angel and I was a member of Skull Valley but I was also told because I was Within the one-year Prospect probation period that an international vote would have to be taken to accelerate my membership which never took place our case ended before the Hell's Angels took that vote so so they're correct in that too I've never tried to hedge that I've never tried to dance around that or deny that [Music] so the operation concluded for a couple reasons we had a a lot a vast amount of evidence against our suspects physical evidence thousands of hours of tape recorded conversation criminal conversations in the end we indicted 55 Hells Angels and Associates and 16 of those were indicted on racketeering charges Rico charges some charges were dismissed some charges were reduced in that discovery Open Source process the Hell's Angels learned that the person they thought to be Jay Davis the debt collector the gun Runner the contract killer Jaybird was actually Jay Dobbins an ATF agent and the threats against me and my family started stacking up the Hell's Angels held murder contracts on me they were farmed to the Aryan Brotherhood they were farmed to the MS-13 through the prison system so all these people had their fingers on a murder contract for me my family was in jeopardy and in the summer of 2008 my house was burned to the ground in the process of this Hell's Angels case I abandoned and betrayed my family I made this investigation my priority my wife and my kids weren't I was trying to be a great undercover agent and and and in the process I betrayed my own family that's one of the things is that in this undercover role I built real human relationships not every second was spent in the middle of some criminal activity or doing something violent or treacherous or illegal I spent time with members writing casually writing not not violently or threatening writing shooting pool hanging out um members slept at my house I slept at member's house there's human relationships that are built and you can never undercover out the human factor there's there's people you like there's people you don't like it's no different than any other aspect of society [Music] I wrote a book it's titled No Angel my harrowing undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hell's Angels then after I did that and after I followed atf's instructions to defend myself they ultimately sued me for the for the book I coached High School football at the end of my career and and into my retirement which I've got a lot of satisfaction from like that that service before self trying to influence the lives of of young men and teach them some football along the way [Music] my name is Omar Sharif I was formally involved in gang activity in London and this is how Chrome Works I was involved in gangs from 2005 until 2011. I'm grateful that I'm still alive although I've come very close to losing my life in inside of gangs I've had a bunch of knives put to my neck stomach I've been stabbed twice in my right leg um about guns put to me the structure of a gang is almost like being in employment okay you have the newbies that come involved you then have management you then have Senior Management I've been involved in a gang when I was around 13 years old actually from selling sweets in school I was approached One Day by someone who said you know how would you like to make more money and initially I knew what he was talking about I was scared but when he started mentioning things about you know you can be a man you can provide for help your parents at home and when you come from a council flat estate and you know sometimes things are not easy that kind of languaging is enough to make you say well okay can I actually do this we've been enjoying that the same the age that I did you're considered a younger a younger is the street Soldier the younger is the person who just gets employed into the gang as part of the gang initially as a younger were to hold certain things or to make deliveries were to be on call you're told where to go what to do not to look into bags not to look in the boxes it's just you're a Yes Man and we look up to our olders so our olders are the people that we aspire to be the ones that have the money you know at the time they had the Gucci belts the Rolexes the gold teeth the nice cars in a gang the older is not always in charge but he is almost like middle management so he takes control of what gets moved in and out of the area who's selling what on certain streets money management distribution and he'll have the huyashi it can be a she as well they'll have the connections to the people at the top so it's kind of a chain of command so they're the ones who normally even groom people into a gang they're the ones who when things go A bit sour and people get you know hit on beaten up sometimes kidnapped sometimes threatened it's the olders that they call but I know from experience that even the oldest who we looked up to they are speaking to people above them I've seen people who are above the orders who look Nothing Like Us who don't sound like us at all I can guess the jobs that they do and they are very embedded into society which was quite an eye-opener for me because I I thought even as a young black guy in London it's only guys like me that do this kind of stuff but actually we're just their foot soldiers so even our olders who we wanted to become they're still the S man for someone else the people who are above our oldest in the gang the highest on the hierarchy from what I understood this this couple they were massive on the real estate scene in the UK they were not involved in themselves in their dirty work but a lot of the money that went going into their businesses came from the money that a lot of the foot soldiers the youngers like myself will be making and passing up the up the food chain it's scary to think that when you go to a bank or you're speaking to a lawyer or you're working walking into greater London and you're talking to someone that's quite high up in business for example they have interesting habits on the side or Hobbies on the side because I've seen it with my own eyes [Music] the way that street gangs make their money uh here in here in London there are things like kidnappings there are hits where someone wants someone to be hurt or killed but the most common way which I'd say is what you hear of or see most of day-to-day is by selling drugs gangs normally have things called trap houses or Bandos trap houses are places where drugs will be sold from where they could be stored weapons gang members will be living there um or looking after the place for example and these are required in a number of ways so these could be places where squatters have been for a while it could be someone else's home that belongs to the gang and these are safe spots for the gang so if anything happens you'll get a call saying right me outside the trap house we know where that is the address is never texted over a phone it's never spoken over a phone it's always told you know verbally so there's no traces to where it could be and if they're in the area the gang belongs to the police initially will immediately make a connection [Music] gang wars can start over the smallest things or the biggest things smallest things could be they were at a club or a rave and from there someone gets stabbed and then it's a whole we need to retaliate we can send the message we need to show them who we are so they ran up everyone and then it's now not just one person versus one person it's actually a gang versus gang postcode versus postcode and now we're talking 50 to 100 people plus it got to a point where we were having postcode Wars meaning it was my block nw1 versus nw5 these gang wars started because people started to become greedy people were looking for power people were looking for just to be significant and also people wanted to rise up postcode Wards are also named Interstate Wars this is something that started even in the 60s 70s which Aries became smaller or bigger and it's it's a way of protecting territory now there are things called Block Wars estate Wars which are even within the same postcode there is such a rivalry there are such demand for who is more important so it goes from area postcode now to blocks which creates further division years ago there was it seemed to be more of a reason as to why they go into war because something big happened even recently as a mentoring uh about 10 young boys from the school and one of them said to another one something offends them about his mum and that Spilled Out from school and because it was filmed and put on social media one of them actually ended up getting stabbed there was a video of around 60 people having having a 5 because the weapons I saw machetes coming out what are they fighting over essentially is nothing really it's there's those fights are not happening over drugs not happening over a threat from someone outside it's just two male egos that can't have a conversation and it has to result in violence and then sometimes even death [Music] although guns are easy to Source knives are still the bigger problem we hear more deaths happening from knives and gunshots for sure maybe because the laws around knives are aren't that regulated because they say if you carry a knife you go to prison for four years but then I hear people getting three four five warnings so people aren't really taking the Law seriously and nowadays when you hear about someone being stabbed it's a younger against the younger olders don't get involved with stuff like that and these youngers are not going to be able to get a hold of a gun unless they steal it from someone or steal it from the trap house for example for any under 18 year old to get a knife it's as easy as going onto Amazon and clicking something for next day delivery and it gets delivered it's not regulated I know even on Snapchat there are accounts on Snapchat every day where they say hey we have five machetes we have five Army knives with knuckle dusters attached to it who wants this I've seen axes with chains why are they making these things why are they not asking for proof of ID some website might say You must be over 18 to buy this that I have never deterred anyone under 18 to say okay oh I shouldn't do this they don't know that by making that sale and then delivering it to that house that young person goes and kills someone here they're part of that cycle but they're so far attached from that in the UK there is a law around carrying a knife um around the sides that the blade itself being less than three inches it has to be foldable and you shouldn't be carrying it for for the wrong reasons I've I mean I've stopped on search before and sometimes I did have an eye for me but I did have a foldable knife and I wasn't in the state of anger so the guy said to me actually if he caught me and I was in a state of anger then he would have arrested me and that made me realize actually they don't have a correct way of policing this because I know so many I knew so many guys who would carry bigger blades than that ones that you can't fault and they'd be walking with those on high streets for example I've never heard of someone going to prison for carrying a knife [Music] so I grew up in Malibu which essentially is a very very nice area however there is a division because there's one side of malibone where you have very nice mansions and nice Flats with nice cards that's not where I lived I lived on the other side I lived another side where it's Council Flats it's block towers even though it's on our doorstep we're brought up with a mindset and the belief system that we're not good enough for that it's easy for anyone to be interested in joining the gang for many reasons for young people normally it's to do with money the other main reason is that belonging it's having a family having that Brotherhood a Sisterhood if we don't go to private schools right we go to Just public schools and that's where it all starts I didn't run to a gang and say Hey I want to be in your gang to make money is I try to go down the proper route you know I I borrowed some clothes to go to interviews I applied for for 50 jobs when I left school and no one said yes to me if Society is not allowing me to make money in this way but there's a lifestyle which could where do I go the first thing they do is befriend you is they they welcome you in so they make you feel a part of a family the second thing is to spoil you somehow you know if they know you need money they buy they give you some money to know you're hungry you get some food then they test you somehow they may ask you to hold something for them they'll ask you to be somewhere at a certain time and normally they've set something up to get you robbed on purpose they set you up in some way to see what you say because that's them checking in on oh can we trust this person it's really bad the way they make you trust them and actually love them as a family but you're just you're just a porn in a bigger game in a gang it's almost like putting together a fantasy football team different strengths someone could be fast someone could be a good driver someone could be a good fighter someone could stab and not care about it someone could steal so when they recruit for a gang I would say there are qualities that they look for the number one thing they look for is loyalty but they also look at how can they strengthen the gang what can that person bring to the table new gang members are recruited on a geographical basis so the local recruitment is I think the priority for a gang because they need to have numbers high they need to have a certain amount of people on road doing certain things a certain people moving Distributing managing [Music] so in the UK we have something called counter lines this is where a lot of the inner city gangs there's no more territory everything's been divided up so they're now thinking right how can we expand so counter lines are where these gangs want to operate in smaller towns smaller cities rural areas and they normally use young people for this so you may have heard of a term going OT which is going out of town and they're facilitated by the oldest so the oldest would have someone in place who may live in a smaller town they may have someone who has a farmhouse somewhere train tickets everything is paid for for the young person they're given a budget they're giving money for lunch and things like that they'll tell them to dress how they dress normally they'll give them a backpack say look don't up in a backpack here's the address go here wait here or call this number for example the whole point of doing that is so that police will say well it's a young person we don't have to search them foreign I think in some way the UK is influenced by the US not just on the rap scene I know the drill scene came out um but also there's always a bit of competition for example the USA the Bloods versus Crips that also came here in the UK and that was a massive scene for a while there was a period where it just became colors so there was just the bandana which represented which color which gang you're from that's really why we started to see you know music videos become more more grimy we started to see more killings we started to see more weapons on the street so in the US we have gangs like BMF and GD have been going on for 30 years plus Latin Kings I I feel that in the UK gangs are more divided here in the UK you can you can have in a state a block and even within that block it's divided blocked you know from block to block street to Street and that's what I experienced and nowadays I'm sure it's even worse so the main difference for me is the size of the operation but also it seems that they have more stability and more structure in the way that it creates longevity I believe social media plays a massive role in the right of gun violence because of the exposure that they get I've interviewed a young person in prison and he said the reason why he killed the people he was killed because of songs that he'd listened to he said he wanted to recreate that in real life and I focused on young people because they're the vulnerable ones they're the ones who aren't able to make a decision for themselves yet I know for sure that there's going to be some collateral damage from these things you know because when you listen clearly if you can understand what they're saying in these drill songs it's scary what's allowed to be sold and listened to publicly and shared on radios for example because young people will listen to that and they want to replicate that because they think ah okay he is now our my role model my idol for me to be deemed as someone successful I need to do what he's doing for children to avoid being targeted for gangs it comes down to discipline for me it's really understanding what you're getting yourself into [Music] I think the way gangs are police nowadays it's it's difficult because it made me feel so embarrassed you know to be a such friend of my mum and you know she cried at home saying you know why do they think my son is this kind of person and I hated sitting here upset but I if I put their hat on I think right well if we stop and search everyone that looks like the criteria or stereotype we could find another weapon and take it off the streets for me that's the wrong approach because not everyone who looks a certain way belongs in that stereotype I think stopping such should be reviewed the policy because if you find one young person and he's carrying a knife that's under three inches long that is foldable they'll take it away slap on the wrist have a good day next day he'll go find exactly the same knife from somewhere else carry it again instead of creating or deepening that hate you should try and create a relationship by doing things like going into schools I've always said that you need to speak their language if you want to police them sit down and talk to them a brother of a friend of mine a while back he was caught on the streets he didn't have a lot of drugs on him but he had enough and he was arrested and went to prison for a short while if someone said to him Hey listen we know what you're doing out here how about we offer you an opportunity to earn money with us or we'll find you a job and you've got to think of it like this prison as a business every single person that gets put into prison someone's getting paid it's a good deterrent for some people because some people might take that as a lesson saying well oh I know a friend of mine was carrying something and got arrested I shouldn't do it too but for the most people it's not enough in prison there's more going on there than on the streets this is what we don't hear about on the news there's people dying in prisons the gangs are still doing the same thing in prison [Music] I believe wealth inequality definitely contributes towards gang activity gang violence the way these gangs make their money and also from personal experience is through drugs you know predominantly if 90 of the money comes from drugs and you make it legalized one thing can happen that there's going to be too much demand for it so either the gang will start fighting even more because now they've got an open market for example or it could destabilize them because the second companies here pharmaceutical companies will start getting involved and they're massive players that will completely eliminate the ganks so will they have money to buy weapons will they have money to even fund gang wars anymore it probably wouldn't happen for many young people who carry knives one of the reasons and one of my initial reasons was because we feel unsafe all we've heard about people being stabbed and we wouldn't be able to protect ourselves I don't think there's a quick fix to trying to make a young person feel safe the way to solve the issue and deter them from it isn't by fear because that doesn't work it's by re-educating them on the consequences of these things and I say giving people an opportunity showing people more love these people that are involved in gangs they did everything they did because they wanted to feel love from people they didn't get love from home they didn't get that affection at home but when they did something the gang showed them a respect and that's what drawn them in even deeper one thing I know that's changed over the years and that would still help other people feel safe in gang-led areas is the presence of Youth centers and these are places where you could have rival gang has come to the same building make music together play pool together play basketball together and it was a place of safety when you have something that you're passionate about and have something that you care about it removes the amount of time you spend with the gang it removes the amount of time you spend on the streets schools do have a big part of playing Gang culture and it works both ways because I've seen how if you have a school that's in the middle of three areas that are having a war for example then you have a big issue because then you have just like in prison you have gang activity happening at school it will take a community approach to to to remove or reduce you know gang violence and gangativity but I think it has to be a complete united front from all levels of society foreign gangs 10 years from now I can see the problem becoming deeper I can see a culture which is being even more embedded into society I think London gang culture will become almost at the standard for other gangs and other countries there are young people who don't look at the the seriousness of this they will see it as it's cool they'll see it as it's a thing to be just like I did when I was young so yeah 10 years from now was a scary place especially as a parent try to get out of the gang is one of the hardest things you can do I didn't have a choice it got to a point where I had to go out of the ends so leaving the area where I was from I had to move to a different area and this is because I've seen people die this is because I got attacked I've been stabbed myself and I just knew in my mind there were two directions for me there was prison or there was being stabbed or ending up that but it was in that moment of of Darkness where I realized I need to make a bigger decision I need to make a decision of what I'm going to do with my life but it took me going and speaking to the people who are my elders and saying and exactly telling them what I'm telling you right now on camera is that I've had enough and that you know my mental health at the time um wasn't in a good place I wasn't able to speak to any of them ever again I wasn't welcomed um I was actually advised to stay out of the area because I was actually able to get out of the situation I feel a responsibility to be a voice to other people since leaving the gang my number one priority was to work on myself to become a better person so right now I'm a mentor and a coach as a mentor I work with young people in schools prisons universities helping them understand their mindset helping them to make better decisions and as a Peak Performance coach I'm working with individuals to do exactly the same thing but also to help them understand what drives them as humans there are definitely aspects of being around the gang activity that I do regret but right now what I'm doing with young people adults and people in all levels of society I wouldn't be able to have those conversations if I didn't go through what I've been through my name is Ed Calderon I'm a former Baja police agent I currently work as a security consultant in the United States this is how crime works gun smuggling has armed the people that killed a lot of the people that I used to work with a lot of these groups are actually stockpiling these firearms for long periods of time it's hard for anybody to keep track of numbers and what gets found and what doesn't get found in a country with realistically nobody's keeping count I think the flow is this uh drugs make their way North and firearms and money make their way South 70 of all firearms come from the north from the United States they call it operation ant basically uh individuals carrying these small pistols across the border is a very common thing so how many times can they cross the border well if they're Americans there's no limit to how many times they can cross that border it's a pretty easy process to uh grabbing an AK-47 taking it apart into its basic components putting it in a backpack and just walking across some of the ports of Entry another one is just basically having some of these Firearms uh duct tape and or Shrink wrapped onto your person so let's imagine I have five mules each of them is capable of carrying around probably two guns on their legs duct tape to their legs maybe two more higher up on their thighs and maybe two on their chest just multiply that by the amount of people you have doing that on a daily basis filling their pockets with the ammunition feeling a corn flakes boxes with uh with the ammunition as well Tijuana is basically Silicon Valley when it comes to finding ways of smuggling things from in through one of the most watched borders on the planet basically there's body shops there's places that install radios there's a bunch of people with a lot of experience in modifying Vehicles down there these businesses have been known to basically construct some of these concealment compartments and vehicles many occasions we would encounter or find Firearms of different kinds and different vehicle hides on in in and around some of the places that would be operated things like pushing the volume knob on the radio and then then pulling the uh the brake on the car will release a latch on the passenger side seat revealing a concealed firearm American vehicles are the preferred kind you'll see recreational vehicles utilizing festive days where you know spring break where you'll see a surge of traffic going from the north to the South a lot of these smuggling operations that have utilized concealment related to regular commercial shipments from the United States into Mexico of agricultural equipment electrical appliances a lot of these companies are basically utilized as fronts and or without knowledge of these companies they get loaded up with extra stuff on their way toward towards the Border as they pick up a load somewhere in the United States and try and introduce it into Mexico another aspect of it is uh tunnels drug tunnels again Firearms do get moved through those drug tunnels that have been operating and are still operating some of the most interesting ones that we managed to see was a French style trebuchets which are basically giant catapults flinging things across the border had some ungodly speeds drone technology the first crashed cartel drone that I directly saw was a large quad drone that crashed right on the border where the Tijuana River treat plant is we saw remote control vehicles small ones uh toy ones basically loaded up with a Firearms Munitions and money being driven across the border By Radio Control this is not my opinion but the border patrol is one of the most corrupted Federal institutions in the United States there's been many cases and convictions against them and it's these Gun Runners have uh people everywhere and have and own people in some of these ports of entry and pay corrupted officials across the border it is interesting that you do not get searched at all at times Crossing into Mexico but if you cross into San Diego your vehicle gets scanned you have to step out of the car sometimes you have to take off your backpack and put it into an x-ray machine so it gets x-rayed density scanners might be utilized to try and detect some of the Firearms going across the border but those x-rays are used sporadically every now and then you'll get one get used and it's rare that they find something there's explosive detection dogs that are out there that are trained to detect explosives Munitions for example but again you have to realize to not only create a dog canine program that is able to detect some of these things but to maintain them is not an easy thing in my experience most of the most of the arrests that we made were pitassos apitaso is a slang Mexican slang word for somebody told on them usually it's a personal thing or usually somebody just eliminating competition those vehicle hides a lot of these uh Gun Runners that have been caught in the past were random acts of pure luck or somebody trying to cut the competition out 20 year olds 18 year olds that have a clean record get hired to buy some of these guns in some of these places and then they get gathered by The Gun Runners somebody that has a vehicle it was a retiree American that crosses the Border regularly somehow maybe goes camping in Baja and stuff like that it's a perfect candidate to be a mule for firearms and uh you load a bunch of cars with uh people that are not who you typically expect to stop at the border so this is these they basically utilize you know people camouflage you know what what do people expect to see on the border as far as a drug smoker so they're going to shy away from that women get utilized a lot a lot to move things around older women because of the cultural stigma of Mexican police agents as far as trying to search physically search a female much less a female that is older in age the social media is a very big part of it not only the advertisement of some of these things being sold in some places but also recruitment of small purchase buyers on the U.S side cartels will troll uh places like Tick Tock uh we'll have uh social media accounts related to one of their members or showcasing some of their activities on online and you'll you'll see wannabes or people sending DMS and stuff like that on the U.S side kids didn't want to be a part of the lifestyle it's easy money for a kid you know uh the economy the lack of the lack of opportunities for a lot of these young people even with educations out there it's hard to it's hard to find a job I was approached several times when I was uh going through my process of turning into a police officer and it only takes you doing something for a criminal organization like any of these cartels that operate on that border it only takes once for them to know your name to know how to contact you to know that you are able to provide a service once and the first time it's voluntary the second time it's they're gonna they're gonna tell you to do something the person buying that gun and then handing it to somebody is going to then traffic it down south he got probably 200 so that's the first payment you know and then that gun is now going to be probably doubled down down south or maybe 80 percent more of the valley is going to be added on to it so you have something that might be worth 800 is not worth a thousand five hundred down there in the hands of somebody that wants that specific gun the further south you go the more expensive the firearm that's kind of the rules about it the closer you are to the board the cheaper it is the gun Runner might have connections and he might paid somebody off usually if it's a large shipment he'll have security with him as soon as he Crosses by this I mean people that are watching the load and move with him you know some of these people might drive it to a body shop or they might drive it to uh one of these uh beach resorts where you can park your camper there and that is when the deal happens that could be where some money gets exchanged it could have get a gun in exchange on the southern on the on the Northern side but that's when the guns become uh property of whoever is going to get them I've seen some of the Gun Runners put guns into places like Tecate which is on to the east in the desert uh and basically in traditional places where they can avoid military checkpoints if they can or sometimes they don't even care because they actually paid off some of the military as well it is not an easy process to get to to procure a legal firearm in Mexico Mexico has a single blanket Firearms law there's a single Firearms uh store in Mexico they and if if anybody wants a firearm legally in Mexico you have to be able to pay for a bunch of documentations and you usually end up with an overpriced pistol and not a lot of ways to buy bullets for that pistol unless you belong to a shooting club and if you belong to a shooting club in Mexico that's a very expensive thing so in essence uh legal possession of firearms is something that upper middle class people can afford so people are desperate and if they want security usually in Mexico as a civilian you'll go into the black market most of the gun friendly places uh On the Border are usually where these things are purchased Texas Arizona sometimes even further further north where person-to-person sales and private sales are more permitted or gun shows are pretty prevalent somebody will walk into a gun store and buy and purchase a couple of firearms and some of these things get moved from a permitted a permissive or a place where you know Firearms laws are pretty you know a pretty open to places like California and the reason you see that is because they're actually being utilized to pay drug loads sometimes you also have a lot of people ordering some of these firearm Parts uh through the mail now which is a new a new method of smuggling as well people will buy some of these things in the United States and then mail them down to Mexico under false labels and declarations as far as what's inside of those boxes for accessories for firearms and being gathered at a private home packaged and labeled falsely and then sent south through through packaging Services there's been many cases of things being taken off a military bases in California for example grenades that are clearly coming from military installations in the United States and or are taken from military bases by a corrupted soldiers every now and then you'll see a you know bigger caliber uh the equipment down there the truth is uh those account for about 70 percent of illegal Firearms found in Mexico in the hands of cartels and murder scenes and uh in the heads of dead sicarios the truth is that there's probably more than that they assassinate political candidates uh they use explosives Terror tactics psychological tactics uh they capture in prison people right now currently there's a the Sinaloa cartel that's uh historically been dominating the border and a big part of Mexico but now there's a new generation cartel which is a very new ultraviolet militarized uh almost Guerrilla force that has taken over and with groups like these they have very specific firearms that they want to buy so they're not only looking for a gold-plated AK-47 anymore they're actually looking for night vision equipment to install on their firearms they're looking for suppressors to put on a 50 caliber precision rifle that they procure you'll see as these commercial gun manufacturers making a very cool aesthetically cartel-like pistol it's obvious if you have a gun company creating a gold gun for a civilian Market that they're trying to tap in into a Fascination and or a culture that is currently going to be in foster a narco culture Naco Cultura or narcoculture is something that's been going on in Mexico for decades the fascination or the treatment of some of these criminal organizations as almost a Robin Hood type type character where they're robbing from the riching season from the poor I can't tell you that making guns impossible to get or restricted or illegal something like you would see in Australia would be a solution to anything because guns are already out there there's a lot of people that want to blame the United States for everything I think they clearly have a responsibility when it comes to some of the Firearms Crossing that border you have the United States basically Outsourcing its uh counter drug policy and counter cartel policy to to Mexico through money the United States I I would say should do a better job of keeping track of what that money is being used for in Mexico some of the arrests that have been made recently by American law enforcement and sharing some of their information with Mexico like sites lasers things of this nature for accessories for firearms basically this is what's been every now and then gets caught but again it's a drop in the bucket with what actually gets through when we saw some of this activity and who do we tell do we tell the same law enforcement agencies that didn't uh let us know about all those guns walking across that border that ended up killing a bunch of my friends you know it was my experience to actually find some of these uh Fast and the Furious guns uh during my time active in the form of some fn57 pistols that were used on some of my friends that I used to work with this was an ATF operation the ATF would approach uh places of uh gun sales and keep an eye out for certain types of purchases of firearms the ATF wanted to let these guns walk so they can track them down to Mexico to see if they can somehow make a case for something bigger but realistically all they did was let almost 2 000 guns walk across the border most Mexicans saw that as a major not only betrayal by the United States but also a bunch of conspiracy theories started popping up of uh you know why would you introduce so many Firearms into Mexico the anti-American sentiment in Mexico is at an all-time high and it's been growing I think as a Mexican somebody was actually born down there and experienced some of the violence at some of these uh Firearms helped Foster down there I think the biggest misconception about gun smuggling is that these guns uh these guns somehow there's a lot of effort being put forth by The Mexican government to stop these guns from coming down to Mexico the straw purchases up here get a slap on the wrist I think yeah some of those penalties hit be steeper the Mexican Government through Marcelo is basically sued a lot of the major American manufacturer gun manufacturers the only group legally allowed to sell firearms in Mexico was the military so it's interesting that the The Mexican government did a lawsuit against American gun manufacturers but they didn't mention in that lawsuit the people that they buy their their firearms from Mexico has a very big problem with corruption and it has attempted many times to curtail this corruption by developing coal organizations to try and keep police honest I was put through FBI background checks I did polygraph testing every year but even with all of those safety precautions people flipped and when they left they didn't hand it over their rifles or their guns sometimes so they would take them with them I was a Baja police agent for about 12 years I did that job till it was uh until it was time to leave the corruption levels in the institution that I was in became completely unsustainable and anybody that wanted to actually do their job and be honest about it uh was not in fashion and or in Vogue at that time I had to leave my job in a hurry there's no uh there's no retirement no severance package it's a pretty hard job to do it's a pretty thankless one but there's a lot of people that are in that fight a lot of people that are honest a lot of people that never took a dime I somehow made it out alive of that system after concluding my 12 years of service down there I came to the United States and utilizing some of the experience and and know how that I got from that experience down south I now become a subject matter expert do training for civilians private companies in the government across the country specifically gun smuggling has armed the people that killed a lot of the people that I used to work with it definitely has had an effect not just on me but on on most of my generation I want to give a voice to the countless people down there that went through some of the experiences that I went through some of the widows Left Behind Some of the orphans left behind by some of the conflicts that went on down there I'm trying to keep that memory and that voice alive for them my name is Aleister Morgan my younger brother Daniel was murdered in 1987 and I have been fighting for justice ever since hi I'm Neil Woods I'm a former undercover police officer and part of what I do now is I investigate corruption within policing this is how police corruption works we rely on our police for the rule of law but often our police get corrupted and what this means is that they are no longer acting in our interests they are acting on somebody else's interests or their own interests [Music] there is no more important asset to organize crime than a corrupt police officer because that corrupt police officer is useful in so many ways criminals need corrupt officers you know they want somebody who can get rid of a statement or who can alter a surveillance log or you know these tiny things corrupt police officers also can interfere with an investigation and make a case fail at court for me police corruption is anything that deviates from the oath to police the public without fear or favor it's quite a neat little phrase that without fear or favor but it means you don't take bribes without favor you don't look after people who are important to the exclusion of people who are less important or seen as less important in our society without fear or favor is a good way of compressing all that so a corrupt police officer can be put in place by getting somebody who's called a Clean Skin they've got no previous convictions and they are coached to join the police and they remain an asset and some of them will remain a sleeper asset where they're not put any risk so they're only used for particular types of corruption sometimes they are used to help manipulate a third party who is another cop to help uh use information to Blackmail them other information that is really useful to organize crime is information about someone's movement or where someone lives or a phone number or something like that the more Sinister use of information like that is to Target rivals organized crime always have Rivals there's always violence is never very far away because control of the market means a lot of money and if someone is a threat to that then violence is used and corrupt police are used to help facilitate that violence that is something that is a regular use of corrupt corrupt assets [Music] most common form of corruption that I'm aware of is what we call noble cause corruption now this is where police do something which is corrupt but they do it not for their own financial gain not because they're involved with organized crime but because they want to catch the bad guy and they see that the system is against them and if they just tweak the rules a little bit they've got more chance of getting a conviction as a undercover police officer I saw myself as fighting drugs organized crime but I am guilty of some noble cause corruption these police approached me and they said that their target for the operation was committing burglaries on old people and he was doing some very Sinister things when he came into the bedroom he also happened to be a drug dealer so I was being sent in to quite legitimately investigate him and catch him for dealing drugs now a fundamental part of the rules was that you must not act as an agent provocateur which means you must not cause someone to commit a crime if they wouldn't have done anyway but you must also not cause them to commit a more serious crime than they would have done now this guy wasn't capable of kilos he just wasn't but I talked him up I said I need larger and larger amounts and he would not have tried to supply a kilo he ended up adulterating an ounce right down to a kilo so the key is presented as a kilo and he was caught with a kilo but it was less than one percent pure but he pleaded guilty to the trading of a kilo and got substantially more time in prison now that was wrong of me but it goes to show how easily you can get Fired Up by the need to catch dangerous people as a police officer and how noble cause corruption can creep into it so I'm guilty of it as well now the problem is that leaves the officer or officers open to manipulation and blackmail where they become puppets for the organized crime now I know that I upset like a lot of police officers when I talk about corruption because it's understandable most of them they're good people doing trying to do the best they can with some pretty crap laws really but we have to understand the extent of this and we have to be clear out about this we have to be honest about this it's the only way we have a chance of of dealing with it [Music] sorry I uh you know this narrative is something I've gone over so many times Daniel was my younger brother by a year at the age of 37 he was murdered with an ax so it was vicious brutal Savage attack within three weeks I was convinced because of the events that took place there was there had been police involvement in Daniel's murder which was a a terrifying Prospect uh my brother expressed concerns about police corruption about a month before I he is murder which was the last time I saw him alive and he said oh it's a bent copper and he named a name which I cannot could not recall it went out of my mind and then he said Alistair they're all over the place down here I learned later a year later at an inquest that he believed his partner and sergeant fillery from the murder Squad had been involved in a in a robbery and he was thinking of going to announce that force and then two days later he was dead uh Sydney filary who had been accused of involvement in the Murder by another witness he'd left the police force and within a year I was running my brother's company with Jonathan Rhys after years and years of Investigations some of which in retrospect I know were corrupted and Exhibits officer in the first investigation and he was disciplined or given words of advice and I think that is the only penalty that anybody has suffered in 2021 I took the decision to sue the Mac police I do every all of everything in consultation with my solicitor who who has stood by me for decades and advised me help me keep my sanity in in dealing with this a he said there are grounds there are legal grounds to do it and B is probably the only form of accountability you're ever going to get from these people and I think accountability I've been wanting that for 30 five years UK police have one of the best records in the world for solving murders the systems that we have in place are incredible they're like a well-oiled machine I've I've been part of murder inquiry teams myself a few times and it's incredible how they function and so how efficient they are traditionally in the UK and certainly around the time of the of the Morgan murder the murder detection rate the percentage of murders which are solved in the UK was 90 percent 90 percent the ones that you don't solve tend to be organized crime murders it's shocking it wasn't solved like genuinely shocking it's quite clear the whole problem was police corruption and it's quite clear that it wasn't adequately investigated because of police corruption and then when there were inquiries set up those inquiries were inadequate to the point that it's difficult not to conclude that corruption was preventing them working properly [Music] an informant is somebody who provides information to the police often referred to a chis um a covert human intelligence Source in the UK so an informant will generally come into contact with the policeman they're arrested for a crime organized crime know who within their ranks has just got caught and they know that they are going to get approached by the police to be asked to be in informant and so then it becomes a sort of Machiavellian game and how that game and how that plays out so often informants are used to get rid of Rivals because if the market is so competitive so competitive that if you get rid of Rivals you actually can make more money that's the way the market Works other ways of informants being involved with the police is they can be paid and there are some informants who actually earn a living doing this and informants can get very Savvy as to the value Financial value certain types of information the trouble is that the majority of people who of informants Who present that way act that way are also working for organized crime all of the accountability for the use of informants cheers is internal all of it tasking of an informant has to be authorized by senior officers but there's nothing to say that those senior officers are not corrupt either through noble cause corruption or full corruption and we know that we know that some of them are if a police officer wants to search someone's house they get a search warrant in order to get that search warrant they have to go to a magistrates Clerk and prove to the magistrates clerk that there is a justification for doing so the magistrates clerk will then allow the police officer to apply to a magistrate and the magistrate will either agree or not if a cheers or undercover operative wants to come into your life and if that chairs that informant or undercover operative wants to manipulate you into doing something different than they can do that it is the most intrusive thing the police can do and it's there is no external oversight at all it's cops judging cops and those informants that have that power to come into your life they're usually criminals because that's why they're useful [Music] whistleblowers do not get looked after in the police in the United Kingdom my friend was in danger of his life for trying to be a whistleblower he was whistleblowing about corruption and also racism and his colleagues turned on him he was bullied the corrupt cops have a network of supporters friends and they will use and manipulate them to fight against the allegation they will bully them so there's a directed response by those corrupt cops but also there is a culture where cops don't want to believe it of their colleagues and will be very suspicious of anyone who is saying anything critical or suggesting them are wrongdoing they just won't believe it this is someone that they've been alongside this is someone who's had their back this is someone that they've had to rely on and they've done long night shifts with I mean I know a police officer for former met officer who Came Upon serious corruption he knew about stuff he wanted to he was kicking up about it a man who later became she 87 for the independent police complaints commission said to Viet my friend the former police officer he said well you know I'll get you I'll just drop this you know you can get the job that you want you know bribery you know offering to say you know you get promotion you know if you shut up about this and he wouldn't you know bear in mind that there's also an Institutional failure to admit it because the police have a duty to maintain public confidence so that means that they don't advertise the extent of the corruption and they don't want to find out they don't want the public to think that they're corrupt it's one of the most energetic and hard-working cops and he's gone up against organized crime including transnational organized crime and his work but he'd never been in fear of his life until he started whistleblowing on corrupt cops he had to go into Witness Protection from the corrupt cops in the mat [Music] the last defense that the police can have against corruption is the witness protection where the police fear that corruption means that those people are not safe than they are put into a witness protection program which means they are given a false name they are moved to a different place and it's a really brutal thing to have to do to someone according to the rules of the system you cannot have any contact forever with your friends your family your community anyone you've ever known and the reason that this horrible system exists is because of how Insidious and ubiquitous police corruption is but of course even that system gets corrupted I know someone who worked within the witness protection system they they told me that at least half of their team were actually corrupt and that nobody was safe at all the database for the witness protection system is completely isolated from other computer systems they're not connected at all so theoretically they are already bomb proof but of course any system is only as valuable as the humans operating it and Gangsters Don't corrupt computers they corrupt cops I myself looked after um five protected Witnesses I was acutely aware of the fact that we've been told that greater Manchester police couldn't be trusted in this regard so that we took the view that we couldn't even necessarily trust the national Witness Protection system and we very carefully managed our Witnesses for a long time outside that system [Music] the met or the Metropolitan Police is the police of greater London so all of the wider city of London the Met operates in a different way to every other police force in the UK it's it has various centralized responsibilities that other police don't have so for example they are in charge of terrorist investigations they have the National Crime agency in London as well so they work closely with the National Crime agency and they have other Central responsibilities as well the mat gets a lot of bad press they get most of the attention for anything that goes wrong and people want to bash the Met but I have to say in this case the Met does have the biggest problem with corruption in the United Kingdom it does I mean it's hardly surprising it's by far the biggest Police Service there's more organized crime concentrated in London there was a internal investigation an operation called operation Tiberius in the metropolitan police it's many years ago now and it showed a sheer extent of corrupt police and most of those corrupt police were manipulated and corrupted by the informant system now part of the the response to that although there's never been any public response from the map that's Ned that report's never really been addressed one response to that was the idea that you can defend against corruption by limiting the number of years a source Handler can work in that role and and it's limited in most police sources now around the country to five years and this was seen as a as a way of helping prevent this corruption that was this development over time that's corrupting over time that was happening but all that's happened is it's actually cast The Net wider for organized crime it's given them more opportunities and more people to come into contact with it's completely gone against the map and I do know that that corruption still exists I have to make something really really clear about corruption at least 99 of corruption within the police is caused by the money from the illicit drugs Market there isn't enough value in any other crime to cause the kind of corruption that exists the black economy with drugs Etc is vast and the amount of money that these drug Barons have sloshing around and could to use to bribe they they their tentacles reach into every level of the dude you know the Judiciary the police politicians so that kind of money it creates corruption I have had very personal experiences and come up up against this corruption map there was lots of pressure on me to get intelligence and find out about a particular gang called the bestwood cartel who at that time were at war with everybody in Nottingham there was daily shootings and I'd been on that operation for four and a half months I'd just got a really significant breakthrough I'd managed to buy some drugs off one of the lieutenants of um of Colin gone the next day you know we'd been working very long hours and two of my backup team went off sick and so I was introduced to two new police officers that had not been involved in that operation before I met the first one shook his hand had no problem with him the second one I shook his hand and the hairs just went up on the back of my neck this guy was just wrong so I went to the senior investigating officer for the operation and said look boss I cannot have this cop knowing what I'm doing I just can't I don't trust him I won't be able to relax and he said fine I didn't think much more of it but then 12 months later when Colin Gunn was actually brought down it turned out that this cop had taken exception to a guy called Charlie Fletcher was an employee of Colin gone as I say he was an employee but he was paid to join the police and he was paid two thousand pounds a month on top of his police wages plus bonuses for good information he'd been in the police for seven years by the time he was caught when he was introduced to me he knew I was undercover and he was very very close to finding out exactly what I was up to now at the start of that operation involving that corrupt police officer Colin Gunn was letting everybody on the streets know that if he ever caught an undercover police officer he would be snatched off the street and tortured to death so those were the stakes that that we were working with the biggest sums of money black money floating around are from the drugs world and that is a major a major influence on police corruption has been for a long time I think my view is that drugs are a public health problem they should not be criminalized and that they the supply should be taken into the hands of the state in order to deprive organized crime of the funding to corrupt I mean I think our our drugs policy is completely out crazy I know I upset a lot of British police by talking about the corruption in this country but we still have at least a claim to the best police in the world we do there is a lot to be proud of in the United Kingdom in our police but we have the same problem as the rest all around the world is the Organized Crime Control the drug Supply so in that we have things in common with every other police service around the world there really is nothing we can do about police corruption as long as the power is in the hands of organized crime we can try and tweak our systems here and there we can try and increase our vetting but it really won't make any difference at all because this is about the fact that organized crime are rich and they are rich because they are in control of the drug Supply and as long as that goes on police corruption is not only inevitable it will be ubiquitous so in the police corruption that was happening that you witnessed why why was that happening well I think that there were drugs involved in that as well I suspect strongly suspect that there were police involvement with drugs in that [Music] my name is cesomes Lewis I was first assaulted by the Met police aged 14. since then I've been stopped over 30 times this is how police racism works people don't really understand what it feels like to be stopped and pulled over in your car and being followed by offices and your hearts beat and the adrenaline is going people don't really understand that this is something where you think potentially if something goes wrong here I could lose my life I've been dealing with the police professionally for a long time but also personally too but all My Views and expressions are based on my personal experience [Music] I was a sold at age of 14 just coming home from school in my school uniform I was at the train station on the train and a police officer came onto the train told me to get off before he took me off I questioned him and said look whatever I'm supposed to have done let me know and when I walked up to him he dragged me off the train assaulted me punched me hit me twice in the abdomen with his trunching handcuff me drag me with the handcuffs along my front all the way down the platform two flights of stairs and then dearested me because of public outcry of adults and my friends never told me what I was supposed to have done went home to press charges against the officer and was thrown out by the crown prosecution service the criminal justice system here for lack of evidence and we had eyewitness accounts of about 12 people and CCTV evidence too but that changed my whole outlook and feeling towards policing I saw that adults weren't able to give me Justice that manifested itself through anger because that was the only thing that I had to hold on to so after the assault at age 14 I experienced over 30 stop and searches you know since then but it was always the same same language he looked like a criminal look at the clothes you were in why are you in the area this area is known for drugs and criminals such as yourself it's just a way in the manners the language and it made me feel like a criminal even though I wasn't involved in any of that stuff I was literally at the mercy or whatever officer you know who came to contact me whatever they wanted to do and that just made me feel worthless at times you know like less than human and for some people there's no coming back from that [Music] so the London gains Matrix was born out of the 2011 uprisings after the the shooting of Mark Duggan and the gang's Matrix was basically a database of predominantly black males that were seen to be part of gangs or organized crime in London but many people on this list were guilty by association it might have been family members friends uncles acquaintances but they were on this list and this information was used to criminalize and Target a large number of young black males in particular for things that they weren't even a part of there were people on there that were criminals and part of that but however it was very disproportionate and a lot of people on that gang's Matrix on that database had information shared with about them with other agencies such as schools you know businesses it was sharing information about people who weren't actually criminals and using that to decrease their life chances and opportunities within education employment training but this is also linking it to the criminalization of black youth and dehumanizing black youth and actually creating a stereotypical narrative around criminality and that it's attributed to the black community only but they're gangs from all walks of life all backgrounds in London but again it seems to be real succinct focus on black deviants on black uh criminality [Music] stop and search it's a police power which is used to stop anyone that they feel might be potentially committing a crime or may have committed a crime and it's used under one of three sections routinely in our communities Pace section one of Peace 1984 which is the police and criminal Evidence Act which allows police to stop People based on Reasonable Doubt another one that's commonly used is section 23 of the misuse of drugs act this is something which is routinely used in our communities especially with young black boys to stop them and to detain them under section 23 with the purpose of carrying out a search for drugs and that is used been used on myself many many times there are people that are consuming drugs you know in affluent areas but they're not being policed you know in a way that some of our young black boys are being policed in some of our areas another one which is very controversial section 60 which is a police power which is used when violence is anticipated in certain areas or certain boroughs this can be used to stop anybody without reasonable grounds when we talk about suspicion and we talk about reasonable grounds and evidence those seem to go out the window when it's a black person many people are not all again stop and search they're against the way that it's carried out in a way that it makes them feel and the legacy of that stop and search when my grandparents came here from the Windrush generation in the 50s 60s 70s 80s sus law was literally just that suspicious law if they thought you looked suspicious they could stop you and that came derived from the 1824 vagrancy act which was used to actually imprison vagabonds and travelers and people with no fixed Abode and that was revamped in 1984 section one of pace but it's still being used in disproportionate ways to really criminalize and oppress large volumes of working-class people based on their demographic and where they're from as a real lack of empathy and policing and that causes a lot of the trauma and reinforces a lot of the trauma in our areas as well and the trauma that we face as black britons and the black British experience so it does make it difficult but most of the officers that do it they want to and they want to make you feel a certain way and they want to reinforce that power Dynamic and that shouldn't be the way forward you know and often many researchers end up with no further action it's not really an effective tool the 78 or stop and searches forever action with only about eight percent leading to a conviction so that tells you within itself that is something which needs to be used in an effective way based on evidence and reasonable grounds and not just on a hunch [Music] my response to those figures you know three out of five children being strip searched by officers it just showcases the issue that we have that officers and adults feel that it's necessary to do something so intrusive um and I keep using the word trauma because trauma is a driver for the negativity in our communities especially with a lack of mental health support we don't access enough mental health and therapy because you know black Africans the Caribbeans is seen as a sign of weakness you know historically we have a real racially motivated Outlook towards young people when it comes to to Crime but also the adultification of young people within those areas it just it shouldn't happen we talk about young black boys in education that may have growth spurts you know six foot Four Thirteen there's a real fear around the physicality of a black boy a black man and that's something that's been embedded you know over time you go back to Margaret Thatcher when she came to power in 79 and 80 there was this fear of the black man the black mugger you know the person who's going to be the black robber and this has been these seeds have been sown over time that's at the Forefront of many people's minds and because they've already been dehumanized you know in that thought process this doesn't matter because you if you don't empathy you don't have understanding of what that will feel like then you don't care you know and that's why I do what I do and speak about because I know what it feels like to be assaulted by an officer I know what it feels like to be adultified you know by police officers and within education but until you actually feel something experience that you won't understand it there needs to be guidelines in terms of how we then safeguard that young person whether it's Justified or not how do we protect them that's probably one of the most dehumanizing things that's happened you know to some people it's happened to my cousin last year at the hands of the tsg just as he was delivering food as ubis Rider end up being in the cell being strip searched no phone call disappeared for 17 hours like he hasn't recovered from that many young people are not going to be able to recover from that they don't have the support but quite simply if many of these offices if that was their child would they agree to it I don't think they would foreign so the territorial support group tsg they are an enforcement arm of the police the Met police force in London they have different vans so blue Vans uh and they police events mainly public order events as well and protests and things like that but before the tsg were created we had the SPG which was a special Patrol group now my uncles and grandparents they were routinely peace police by the SPG so the SPG used to go around and literally just pick up black boys black men assault them put them in the cell and then release them without charge and it was all based on sus law suspicion that they were criminals so the SPG was disbanded I believe in the late 80s and then we had the tsg which was created which is basically the same thing just revamped with a new name so they go into communities again policing communities targeting people that might be criminals in their eyes or drug dealers or if it may be but they use stop and search and also section 60 which is being able to search people without reasonable grounds which is a special police power the tsg undo a lot of the good work of neighborhood teens um that the police have in communities they're routinely come in and it's enforcement before engagement you know they don't want to ask questions they go in heavy-handed cuffs on using Force anything else questions after they get to impart that violence without any recourse without any repercussions and that doesn't help it really doesn't help and and that's a real issue within our communities and that's where a lot of these incidents happen uh negative incidents where disproportionate force is used against people so the tsg have a lot to answer [Music] we see young boys being handcuffed being restrained you know needs being put on their chest whilst on the floor hands around their neck like even after what happened to George Floyd if it was carried out in a different manner if things were diffused and de-escalated then we would still have so many people here today even the other day you know young man DeSean Joseph 14 in Croydon stopped by police they felt that he was a criminal and just create committed a crime but they restrained him and had a grown adult with both knees in the back of this young man who was face down on the floor you know and he thought he was going to die you know in the interview that he gave he said I thought I was going to die and how do you counteract that trauma who's going to give that young man support who's going to apologize to him because it's not going to be the Met you know we talk about Joy Gardner same thing suffocation and this is not these are not isolated incidents so that means that there's something going wrong within those processes within those systems and the people that we have who are supposed to be enforced in the law because these things shouldn't be happening based on the evidence I've come across a lot of the police custody deaths in relation to black people and the ones that I've I've come across have been highly suspicious um and again the evidence that is used to then convict or not convict the officers who are involved in the case and being charged isn't really forthcoming the criminal justice system and the powers that be protect a lot of officers when these instances happen I think that's one of the reasons we don't get the Justice we deserve there's a database of offices hundreds of officers that are committed crimes and these names are a lot of them are withheld you know and they're protected but we shouldn't be protecting these criminals because day-to-day criminals are not protected you know by the media or anybody else you know we've had a 390 police custody deaths with the Met police since 1990 and disproportionately black people are at the heart of that um and there have been a number of incidents you know with Kevin Clark who was basically suffocated you know he said he I couldn't breathe nobody listened to him you know he ended up dying you know in police custody um and this is something that's routinely happened uh Dalian Atkinson ex-football player for Aston Villa uh who had issues with mental health but was killed at the hands of police was tased nine times kicked in the head by an officer which all attributed to his death but that officer was actually charged but only got eight years that's not Justice for me it's not Justice for the family the fact is this man abused his power so did his colleagues and were aware of it and no one stopped it but these are State assisted deaths and I feel that they're protected by the powers have been there's a different set of rules you know for officers when it comes to the law so we have to be consistent in terms of how we enforce the law and until these things stop and we get True Justice and criminals within the police force are going to prison for you know minimum terms life sentences for taking people's lives we're not actually going to change the perception of the police [Music] there are many instances of where how we are received when we're complaining about crime and we are victims of crime we are then me to feel like we shouldn't be victims of crime that it's not important in relation to Richard or gay who went missing who was then found to have passed away but when his mum went to the police station she complained and said my son's gone missing and we need to find him and one of the officers responded by saying if you can't find him how are we supposed to find him shows you the lack of empathy and policing and even though we're victims in crimes we're made to feel like criminals and that's a lot of the racial bias and stereotyping that we have to face but there are numerous incidents of black people going missing and Reporting the crime or reporting it as a a disappearance and nothing happens as a human being like how do you how do you sleep at night knowing now that that person has died it's no longer here and that was your response to his mum [Music] there's got to be something within that recruitment process going wrong for us to be having these type of people attached to the police service especially the men but in other police forces across the country there's a major failing in the recruitment you know are we doing tests and personality tests I'll be doing you know tests around psychology the psychology of people that are joining the fall site how are we measuring you know these things and how we recruiting the wrong people over and over again parts of the Met parts of police forces are deeply Insidious because they don't want to change and if colleagues are not actually calling us out then you're part of that problem you're part of the issue despite all the good work and great work you might do in terms of policing but you have to call it out there was a man called Quentin slowly who was training the police much like myself uh he was at the subject of a targeted kind of raid by a group of officers that he actually trained they literally stopped him from earning the livelihood um so he took that to court and won the case defamation of character amongst other things and he was paid out hundreds of thousands for that you know that mistreatment but also they tried to destroy him and some officers weren't happy that someone from the community that was a black man was educating him around this and being paid to do so you know and that's the reality of some of our police officers that feel that they're Above the Law and they can do whatever they want and that's a really scary thought you know because how far has that gone in history you know and how far will it go in the future [Music] they might have got a massive issue around public trust because of the way they've consistently mistreated communities and this is not just about a black British thing this is about working glass people being oppressed in the way that the state has routinely oppressed many people across this world an apology is going to be the first thing but the actions have to back up what you're saying you know how do you build trust and build a relationship that's never been there it's by listening being empathetic and actually working in conjunction and in collaboration with these communities that's the only way that we're going to build a relationship that's never been there I think the transparency and accountability needs to be across the board if senior met officers are failing within their role they need to be gone not seconded into other roles just gone like you need to get this Insidious side of the police out and you have to Target individuals within that that institution and unfortunately that's the only way we can do that because ultimately more senior officers are still having the same outlooks and having the same conversations in rooms which are close to us and the base of our stereotypes and racially motivates stereotypes and until people change and have a more inclusive Outlook towards people in general then we can't sell these things within Society let alone at Institution [Music] so I've been training the Met police since June 2020 so it's over two years now and this was after a stop and search that I experienced during the first lockdown and I saw these officers stop a young white boy and a black boy and it didn't look right 12 officers around two boys so I stopped in my car wind down my window and said boys are you okay you're right everything all right they shouted over says yeah we're fine thank you for checking in I drove around the block back onto the main road and then I saw the blue lights behind me and I thought oh let me pull over it's not for me and then it pulled me over under section 23 of the misuse of drugs that and it was you look like a criminal you look like you just made a drug deal you know the car you're driving and then I realized that they were children there were 21 22 23 I was 37 at the time and I said you know what I need to change this I decided that you know what I'm gonna train you how to talk to young people especially black youth and how to engage with them positively because you've done this to me for 24 years and I had no solution and then six weeks later I was in New Scotland Yard opening my first session I run conscious bias you know racial equity in policing but also linked to stop and search it's part of the the solution it's not going to be the solution it's part of the solution and getting able to understand that we're all human and that we all want safer communities so if we treat each other with that sort of respect and we work diligently in anti-racism and stand in anti-racism and Challenger systems that are in place then we have a better Police Service but a better Society better community foreign Max branded Master forger and I made over 500 000 pounds forging art this is how crime works in those days you didn't have the the technology to send them up to the lab to be tested today you would never get away with it they can tell you then the day you painted it the the color how old it is the canvas has got to be right you know you can't you can't forge it should be my day you didn't have all this technology it's from 60s 68 to the 70s is when you could still hit it yeah but not today no way we used to buy what we call Pop boilers pot boilers are old rubbish pictures don't use somebody would be an amateur but as long as the cameras at the back was right you couldn't do an old picture from the 17 or 1800s on a canvas that's mitered you had to do it sort of when it's looking the part if you did it on the the auctioneer was sorted out and may have if they've got a bowl of flowers on or landscape you rub it down you sand it down to a flat level prime it gesso gesso primer undercoat on top of that white undercoat do the sides and then do your painting as for starting do the sky get the drawing system done you know with a bro like undercoat air dryer then you just sketch it out so that was the preparation I think this is where the experts couldn't work out he well if this is a fake he's got I can match the color it's it's just there it's just I see it and I think I would know the color straight away what to use you know if you use oil paints your normal oil paints it takes probably about three months to dry right but my my little way of doing it was I found a quick drying process brolic or any house undercoat you know white undercoat and then you put that with your paint you put your hair dry over it and it will dry probably in about two hours that's why we could be do so many this you know that was it so the Aging is a whole new world what do you think happens when you've got a picture in a frame for years and years and years so when it's inside the the slip frame it'll be clean won't it and all the dirt will show it so we used to do age it fake it up with a with a walnut scramble like dirty sort of tea stain color and then get your Turf and run your finger down with the cloths all the way around so you've got a neat line so when they say that it's been in the frame for years and years put it back in the frame that was it I wanted to crack the pictures hence a very magic thing which somebody showed me years ago from an old guy that used to restore he said B glue is perfect bee glue is a scotch glue it's called it's used for woodwork when you're too young to remember but it was always a smelly sort of gooey look so I bought two pound of this I put it in a saucepan he told me overnight it go next month it's a jelly then you think right put it on the stove bring it up to a varnish if you overdo it it goes through thickly just got to get it right get your picture right to get your picture you give it a coat of this varnish this Beagler varnish you take it to a heater it has to be an electric heater it can't be dry heat and you circulate the painting like that and you think God it's cracking it's working and you do a bit on the top of the sky and you look at it you can actually hear it cracking wash off the B glue with warm water on your tap and then right you've got all the correct empty a Hoover on it rub all the Hoover in all the dirt so all the cracks filled with dirt and then after that the nails that you've had in the garden for six months in the tin because you put water in they've rusted make sure that their nails go back in the place where it was because they'll suffer they'll suss you out tap it all back under glass white polish back in the frame tail compatible because it smells after a while it takes off the B glue stink and it goes it rots to be honest and then hence you've got it so there we go on there looking good auction room Saturday three or four of those boom add the finance in the beginning um he would buy the canvases he would buy the frames he gave me like money in the beginning until we got started I was in Portobello Road already came along and he said I love your painting sir he said I'll give you 200 quid for a lot I can never drink with me afterwards so we went to the pub just in portabella Road and you started talking about um we want to do this big time yeah I could have done it on my own but not as well we were going as father and son like you know he was 45 I was 19 years old so the first auction we hit was lots Road we got into the auction room and you know if you sort of make them look they're very important we would say so good morning Governor there Gary yeah morning I still got some smudges in the car so did you ever look for me and he goes yeah bring them in he said that's no fine said that because Dad bring them in with you so we bring him in a bloody bin liner don't we and he goes uh what's that down there so it looks interesting this is the very Posh guy on the desk this is how silly it was the auctioneer would go hmm Albert Derby but what he didn't know that Albert Derby used to sweep floors in the Brighton in in a in a pub and I thought when I was painting these fakes I said nice what we're going to do I said let's pull I know a friend or a guy old fellow I met was in his 80s called Albert Derby yeah do that so I bought Albert Derby on this fake picture went into the auction and he told me yes he's then listed painter I went yeah right that's how much they know then he said to me what's the other thing there oh it's some cat pictures so so did do not know what this was it's a Louis Wayne who's Louis Wayne sir I thought it was Batman's interesting sorry sorry and my my gosh you see son this guy knows all about it when you've got respect like that and the way the knowledge he has is incredible so you look and learn but again to make that Auctioneer feel like he's got the knowledge and you know nothing then the big thing was the auction rooms when you go into the auction room you've got to be careful the guy you're on the desk doesn't go into the auction on the night because you spot two of you bidding for the bugger then you'd think hello what's going why are they bidding against their own future sometimes we nearly brought the burgers back and uh what we used to do you'd have a preview so on the day you would have people coming in to look at the pictures see what they wanted to buy we used to stand next to my pictures or two of them and you would hold you and you pretend not to listen you go oh and they gotta go Albert Derby it's interesting so it looks pretty good to me you can have a puppet this and you'd mark it down think right I've got him he was in one side I was in the other and we used to ring it so my sign was for when we were bidding up was to get to two and a half Grand and I'd either do that that I'm out and he would carry on and I used to do that twice if you're going to if you're going to overdo it you buy the blood you think about yourself Bond Street Gallery for 45 Grand and we've got 25 in readies and addressing the check which we cast immediately there you go that's the other way mostly dealers would buy they would buy um for reselling or you get privates you know hours we did a lot we fooled a lot of people with ours but we had never had any comebacks never once did they suspect that they were they were well how do you feel about this sure you're you've got a picture or listen to all these people talk about it it's four weeks old and it's dated 1797. so you know we who knows it just goes on somebody liked it some somebody crossed us up and they raided us one night when I was in Fulham found all this bead glue um old paintings stretches everything then they can charged me with uh forgery and deception got off I didn't I got knit and uh I had a single cell because I was the governor I asked the governor for oil paints he agreed and then pencils and paper and things like that and so spotful really came to me and revisiting in those days so what he used to do is to bring the paper in and he'd have up his sleeve and he's to slide out some paper that used to knit from the from the library and flip clean pages and the pages were really old in 1830s so I could do Samuel Palmer drawings in my cell put it in my Bible next time you came up I was to roll them up and roll them up easily used to take them back home frame them up show them in the auction so when I came out I had about four grand I mean you know so I was forging in prison if I walked into Christie's or Saturday bloody Bell would ring because I'm on camera and I well I'm banned from auction son I'm banned from every auction in the old days there was a bang on the door I was halfway at the bloody window but I don't have to do that now I just feel content with my life born in Buckingham Road in Brighton basement flat uh five of us and it was poverty it got so bad that they decided to take it away so that was the first place with bark inside women to the children's home I did all that came back to my mother I ran away to London and then I tell the only job you could get was on the circus so I went up to the circus in chipping Norton when I left the circus I hit Portobello Road saw lots of paintings I thought I can do those myself and so I did about five or six pictures then off you go Portobello Road here I come do I feel remorse and to be honest I just felt it was survival you know um I didn't think perhaps if I was that age I was only 19 or 20. my book is called Max branded Britain's number one Forger and it's all it's not about how to fake a picture it's my real my life story my name is John penisi I'm a former made member of the Lucchesi crime family this is how crime works we were involved in a Range Rover scam where the Range Rovers were purchased or financed from the United States here and shipped to countries like China where they had a specific Range Rover that didn't have all the bells and whistles that the Range Rovers in the United States had and they were sold almost for four times the amount and there was a stipulation that if you purchased a Range Rover from the United States you would sign a paperwork saying that you weren't going to export the car they were buying them maybe for a hundred a hundred and twenty thousand and it was being sold in China for about up to four hundred thousand a lot of members of organized crime went into legitimate businesses whether they opened up pizzerias restaurants construction companies and things like that one of the legitimate businesses was in The Fulton Fish Market which is where most of the fish that goes to the restaurants in New York City comes from Rudolph Giuliani came into the fish market and seen that there were members of organized crime planted there with businesses that were legit and he took them all out so that was one example of ways that which they try to slip into legitimacy but because of who they were law enforcement got them out so the food industry was always a big earn for organized crime in the past and it is present today as earning capabilities been taken away from Kosen Austria because of the government and the FBI they went a little more in the legitimate way of doing things creating companies that Supply food but what they would do is they would go to restaurants and insist that they have to use their product and their companies so the specific companies that they would create would be the companies which Supply the restaurants whether it be pasta Sauce Cheese water and even imported food from from Italy and Sicily a lot of members of organized crime have purchased their own restaurants and went into that legitimate business they have took control of restaurants as well that weren't as they'll come in as partners so they would create companies that become vendors for food which Supply the restaurant industry as far as Hollywood in years past organized crime had a big hold on the unions there and that's how they were able to manipulate and control what went on in Hollywood with the movies and music business the sanitation was big years ago and they brought a big case on them years ago there was a big arrest of the private sanitation companies they were charging so much money towards local businesses to pick up their garbage but even presently today members of organized crime own companies that are private sanitation so there's still a big presence in the sanitation industry tax evasion or tax fraud and money laundering is something that always went on in Kazan Austra in the past and still to this present day illegal money that's being made in the street today is not being claimed on taxes that's tax evasion or tax fraud right there money laundering happens when organized crime they're making money and they're buying legitimate businesses restaurants and companies so they're washing the money illegal money through these legitimate businesses insider trading was bigger years ago where cause an Austra went into the financial center and created companies and they were finding out information the SEC came down on them there was a lot of people who were indicted and went to prison as a result of that and they kind of pushed them out so counterfeiting went on more years ago there was always counterfeit bills tens 20s where people were pushing this counterfeit money back into society today it's a little more difficult because the way the bills are made you know the bills have specific emblems on it and why is in the bills so the government made it harder for members of organized crime to counterfeit their bills in Sicily in Italy they use cryptocurrency especially to to buy narcotics and I believe that in New York the same thing's happening a lot more criminals are using cryptocurrency to do scams and as a means to pay for things to do criminal activities cryptocurrency would come into effect again where the loan Shaw could get paid back in cryptocurrency today loan shocking is a way in which cause an Austria made money years ago and makes money up to the present date where they loan somebody money at a rate for with this big involved The Vig is is the interest that they're making off the principle of the money A lot of times people in the street life can't walk into a bank for whatever reason and get a loan they'll go to a loan shock gambling is always going to be an earn for cause and Austra it was done on a much larger scale they had casinos illegal casinos a lot of cod games today there's not a lot of that going on as as it did years ago but you're always going to have your bookmaker taken action to make some money so a lot of times gambling and loanshaw can go hand in hand there's gambling going on maybe somebody runs out of money there's a loan shock somebody that's lending money they borrow the money from the loan shock and gamble is always going to be owing money so in turn they go to the loan shock so those two specific ways to make money go hand in hand because in Austria so gambling has been taken to a new level in present times we're now there is online gambling so cause an austro has people who have online gambling mostly in Costa Rica they'll build websites and they'll have their customers go online and they gamble through the website years ago it was all done through paper people writing things down there was none of that online activity as far as gun trafficking and arms trafficking obviously it was bigger years ago but every family has a member or certain members that are involved in in guns and you're going to see a little gun trafficking where somebody's leaving the state or maybe getting guns from another state and bringing it back into New York for sale or for use so there's always some kind of gun activity going on within organized crime drug dealing and drug trafficking was done on a much larger scale years ago it is a big urn for causing Austria but I think it's done on a much much lower scale than it was years ago at one time prostitution was a big big earn for organized crime as well as the whole sex industry pornography and all of that today that no longer exists as a money making opportunity for them years ago organized crime made a ton of money through the 1-800 Sex calls where you would call up and talk sexual with a woman on the phone it was a big big urn for them so that's no longer available to them extortion is another means in which to make money where years ago it would be maybe pushing up on local businesses restaurants and have them pay extortion money it's harder to do today people are not afraid to pick up and call 9-1-1 and call the cops on these people they're not afraid of repercussions from them so today it's mostly where one business is owed money by another business they would try to go about getting their money in any other way and then as a last resort they would come to one of us and we would collect the money if we could collect the money and we would sometimes take half or take whatever percentage we felt that we wanted and give them the rest most of the business that we got involved in to collect money was the construction business whether it was a supplier of construction material or people that were doing construction themselves and one company owed another company and one company wasn't paying and we would get involved another way in which organized crime got involved in construction was bid rigging where a certain contractor would be given a job without going for bid and that no longer takes place today because the government doesn't allow it you know the government monitors what goes on with these construction activities so bid rigging is something that really was lost today another means in present times which to make money was fiber optics myself I was specifically involved with a bunch of guys in our family we were installing fiber optics for a big company and we would get subcontractors to do the work for the company that we had the companies did not have to put it up for bid they just were given the job to do and told what they should charge and what they should not charge so that's where the crime comes involved in that so presently cousin Austria is making money through the old methods and some of new methods like book making gambling extortion labor racketeering the construction industry the coding industry in the garbage industry and those are always going to go on some of the newer ways in which they make money is through restaurant vendors and restaurants and legitimate businesses they are even inducting members now that are legitimate people that that have businesses and have have money so some of the ways in which they lost earning capabilities is like the unions and the reason being is that the government monitors the unions now so the government kicked out members of organized crime and companies that were involved with organized crime out of the the construction industry the fish market and even the garbage industry causing Usher to me is like an amoeba and it's always changing shapes and forms and they're always trying to come up with new schemes and new scams in which to make money and this will always continue because without scams or scores to make money equals power and without power there is no more cause and Austra [Music]

Channel: Insider

Views: 1,794,565

Keywords: Insider, crime, How Crime Works, robbery, mafia, NYC, Hells Angels, marathon

Id: 6Jr6gpZ_x8w

Length: 157min 59sec (9479 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 12 2023