My name is Jay Dobyns. I'm a retired undercover federal agent, and I infiltrated the Hells Angels. This is how crime works. With all the hatred from 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 happened, 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. 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, a debt collector. The Hells 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 Hells Angels, 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 an 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 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 them, I'm
not taking my guns off, and I don't take them off for anybody, including the Hells 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, one of the shot callers from
the Hells 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, I felt like I was winning. The Hells Angels call themselves a club, the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. There's charters, and within the charter,
the chapter, the group, 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 longtime Hells 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 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 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 hang-around 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 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 Hells 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% vote. If one member of that charter votes against you, you're
prospecting phase continues. There's another rule in the land of prospects, is that
it takes as long as it takes. 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
Hells 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 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 Hells Angels went." Because the police response was massive. The Harrah'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, where just common man
citizens, are involved in it. There were fights that I was present for, that I knew the rules, and 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, I wasn't faking throwing good, hard, solid punches on the
victim 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 him 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 Bandidos
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 Slatalla, and tell
him what my orders were. Joe Slatalla found this pack of Bandidos, pulled them to the side of
the road, and stopped them. So I showed up at the target location with
the Hells Angels watching me, but the Bandidos never showed up. In the eyes of the Hells Angels, all they knew is we sent Jaybird to Las Vegas to kill Bandidos, and dang it, he was there,
ready to handle his business. I allowed the Hells Angels to
see me in criminal situations in order to hopefully avoid
some of those mud checks that I knew were coming. In biker land, a mud check is a test to see if you're going to s--- 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 Hells 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 Hells Angels were. They could perform tricks and do all kinds of crazy stunts that I couldn't do. And riding in a pack of Hells Angels, it takes an enormous amount of focus. You have to trust the person riding 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. I was told when you meet a Hells 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 riding glove off when you shake hands with a Hells Angel. Never touch a Hells Angel's patch. Never slap them on the back. I made those mistakes and
was reprimanded for it. I 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 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 and a piece of the process of those reclamations of
Hells Angels property. Like basically, almost like the police doing a
search warrant, breaking into a guy's house, and
taking every single thing that said or looked like it
belonged to the Hells Angels. The Hells 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 payday or no salary to be drawn by being a
member of the Hells Angels. There's no big universal bank
account that issues paychecks. There was Hells Angels members that I ran across that
were selling street drugs 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
multimillion-dollar business. The Hells Angels hold toy runs and they conduct blood drives
and they do community service, and that shouldn't be
taken away from them. They make positive contributions to society with those things. 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
Hells Angel is a drug addict. There was Hells 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 decline those
things wasn't necessarily a false alarm, a red flag against you. I have a tattoo of St. Michael on my arm and St. 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 St. 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. As the infiltration
investigation that I was working on started winding down, we had two years under
our belts, lots of money, 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 very early statements
that was made to me: What happens if I cross
paths with a Mongol? I was told it's your
responsibility to kill them. 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 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. OK, 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 Hells Angel and that 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
Hells 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. So the operation concluded
for a couple reasons. We had 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 Hells Angels learned
that the person they thought to be Jay Davis,
the debt collector, the gun runner, the
contract killer, Jaybird, was actually Jay Dobyns, an ATF agent. And the threats against me and my family started stacking up. The Hells 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 Hells 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 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
riding, casually riding, not violently or threatening
riding, shooting pool, hanging out. Members slept at my house.
I slept at members' house. There's human relationships
that are built, and you can never undercover
out the human factor. There's people you like.
There's people you don't like. It's no different than any
other aspect of society. I wrote a book. It's titled, "No Angel: My Harrowing Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels." Then, after I did that, and after I followed ATF's
instructions to defend myself, they ultimately sued me for the book. I coached high school football at the end of my career
and into my retirement, which I've got a lot of satisfaction from. That service before self,
trying to influence the lives of young men and teach them
some football along the way.
Watched this just yesterday! Super interesting stuff. I don't know how people make a living doing what this guy did. He must have great tolerance for stress/anxiety.
When I was a kid in the 80’s, one of my parents was in Alcoholics Anonymous and sometimes I’d go to the functions where there were members of Hells Angels. Like, they met through AA. I remember tons of motorcycles, leather, beards and women and a general fun atmosphere. They’d have bonfires, cookouts and camping trips. Everyone was nice to me. I’d get paid to clean up cigarette butts or kill flies. I was so surprised when I got older and learned about the dark side of the group. Now, I’m in AA and still occasionally meet someone with past or current hells angels affiliation. Definitely a lot more uncommon to see someone being open about it now.
Big balls for that job. Hell of a case.
"I was trying to be a great undercover agent and in the process I betrayed my own family"
oof.
but how do you stop all the death threats to family and self??
I wonder how they took back a tattoo…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_bO6wE05aQ
3 hour podcast interview
At first I thought the guy on the left was John Malkovich, and I was wondering what his involvement with the Hell's Angels was.
Every member of the Hells Angels that I have known personally have been a waste of human skin.